The more details she heard about these projects, the more it sounded like a bad joke that someone had taken too seriously. The outline that Kuroko had already picked up sounded bad enough. But this? First a plot to obtain onee-sama's DNA map for the sake of an abandoned cloning project, then repurposing that entirely for the purpose of strengthening someone that had no need to be any stronger?

It was a project that the teleporter couldn't square with the Academy City she knew. What legitimate scientific interest could this possibly serve? No ethics board in existence would sign off on this level of human experimentation. No rational funding source would want to invest in a project that offered no theoretical or practical returns beyond a vaguely defined implication that Accelerator would be orders of magnitude stronger.

Why did it matter if Tree Diagram predicted that it was possible? The entire point of having the world's most powerful supercomputer was to avoid wasting time on experiments that returned nothing to humanity.

But Miyu kept listing facility after facility that was involved in the project. The Shinasame University DNA Map Analysis Laboratory. Ryden Sports Human Engineering Development Centre. Kanasaki University Muscular Dystrophy Research Institution. The S-Processor Pathology Analysis Research Laboratory. So many institutions, large and small; independent or affiliated with one of the city's many universities.

Kuroko had expected one or two fringe groups, even with the facility count, just spread out. Commercial research institutes only, those with low market value and possible cashflow difficulties. Places where unethical, pointless research might slip in just to keep the money flowing. Instead, it seemed like almost every organisation in the city with any connection to muscular dystrophy was tied up in this barbaric plan. Even the universities, which should have been unable to hide or permit this. How could this project operate so brazenly?

How many more projects like this might be going on right now? How many of the investments that Kuroko had made as part of her education were being diverted into illegal ends? Yet another factor to feed the growing sick feeling.

It even completely ruled out her first idea to put a stop to this. If it had been only a small company, providing evidence and a tip to Anti-Skill would have done it. Kuroko was sure of that much. But with how widespread this was, how secure the reputations of these institutes happened to be… legally, anything less than the Board of Directors getting involved wouldn't have the immediate authority to investigate deeply and stop it.

All she could provide as evidence was the word of a single hospitalised girl. Even if she was to throw the protection of Miyu's new identity away, what good would that do? This entire project was based around murder. Drawing attention to her would only make sure she got killed.

The seeming impossibility of stopping this through legal channels made onee-sama's words ever so slightly more appealing. But vengeance wasn't justice. Two wrongs wouldn't make a right.

If Kuroko didn't have enough evidence to bring the law down on so many groups at once, then she would just have to get more.

"'That is everything that Misaka know about the project,' says Misaka, hoping that her information is helpful."

"Can you tell me more about the experiments?" If she was going to gather evidence, or save anyone more, then Kuroko needed to know more fine details. No matter how much it would help her sleep to not. "If none of you are above Level 3, how are you meant to fight Accelerator 20,000 times?"

"'All Misaka share brainwave patterns. With our shared ability, this forms the Misaka Network, allowing Misaka to pass on memories and knowledge. We were programmed to encode emotions as semantic information and record them as data,' explains Misaka. 'Every experiment gives us more experience and by fighting on prepared battlefields, Misaka can provide a suitable challenge until the end of the experiment. At the cost of 180,000 yen, we are nothing more than laboratory animals.' adds Misaka."

The idea that shared brainwaves would allow for a mental network was old information, Kiyama Harumi had used the same principle to create the Level Upper. To use a network like that for something like this, that… it was horrifying. Every one of the Sisters would have the memory of every death in the experiment and all the pain that went with it.

"Don't say that! Even if you were born that way, you're as much of a person as anyone! You think onee-sama's fascination with that frog is lame but you kept the badge she gave you," and treasured it enough to crawl back to it even when you thought you were about to die, "Even if you don't have much experience, you have the same preferences as anyone else."

The eerily blank stare from onee-sama's lookalike was not, however, a comfortable experience. It was simply impossible for even someone as familiar with that face as Kuroko to tell what she was thinking.

"A-Anyway. That means you know when and where the experiments area to take place even if they get delayed?"

Working with Miyu, Kuroko was able to get a list of the experiments for the next several days, the locations marked on her phone's map. Sure enough, they all took place in various blind spots around the city—some encroached close to populated areas, but by and large they were all scheduled for various alleyways, up until experiment 10032.

If too many people were passing through the area for secrecy to be maintained, then the experiments would just rotate to the next site on the list. Keeping up the constant presence to halt the current phase was all but impossible, however: Kuroko herself was specifically not a reason to stop now that she was aware of the project and the time each was expected to take never stretched beyond a few minutes. Every fight against Accelerator, regardless of how much experience the Sisters had, was expected to be a brutal and one-sided affair.

If there could be considered one saving grace to the scheduling, it was how rarely anything was expected to run entirely through the night. There might be twenty possible experiments planned on any given day, yet the clean-up or other interference might lead to only a single battle taking place, such as her and onee-sama's interference with experiment 9982. Everything took place after curfew, yet only with extreme disruption did it run until the early hours of the morning.

Even Accelerator needed food and sleep, and the researchers and their progress reports wanted to do their work during the day.

At this rate, the outdoor portion of the Level 6 Shift would take years, but that was the price of trying to run an experiment in public with any level of secrecy. It was the sort of luck that putting a stop to the Level 6 Shift was going to need more of.

After double-checking the list, Kuroko rose to leave. If the schedule was deliberately fluid to account for interference, maybe she should bring a new phone the next time she visited the hospital? It seemed like Miyu would know as much as any of the other Sisters when something was changed, and it would be faster than visiting only to check…

"I need to leave now if I don't want to be late… make sure to rest, and Kuroko will visit you tomorrow." With that, the teleporter was gone, already heading across the district, and leaving the Sister talking to herself.

"'Good luck,' wishes Misaka as she feigns confidence…"

If her biggest obstacle to halting the experiments was a lack of evidence, then the best way to obtain that would be to rescue more of the Sisters. A single clone might just be passed off as a little-known sibling, one that had avoided the limelight of the more famous Railgun. It even helped to cover for the existence of the project in general; the Sisters apparently had trouble staying entirely out of view.

Kuroko wondered briefly how onee-sama would react when it came up that she was, as far as Academy City's paperwork was concerned, now a twin. That thought would need to be revisited later.

An entire assortment of Sisters, however, would be undeniable evidence of some malfeasance—whilst the act of cloning might not be illegal in and of itself (like many things in Academy City, the science had advanced faster than the laws surrounding it), the lack of co-operation from onee-sama would put it on the wrong side of the law.

But the hard part was how to rescue them from each experiment without simply interrupting them. Kuroko had no chance of taking out a Level 5 whose ability automatically nullified her teleportation, otherwise she would be thinking how to end the experiment instead. If she were to abduct the Sisters before the experiment began, at best it would be a delay before another moved in to be a substitute—at worst, her active interference would make her a target for both the Sisters and Accelerator.

It was a close-run thing, but the idea of a swarm of onee-sama lookalikes pursuing her with murderous intent was even worse than the horrible death by the alternative.

Maybe… she would just have to repeat her previous rescue. If being lethally injured was considered close enough to dead that the experiment could continue, then there was a window between Accelerator's victory and the Sister's death where Kuroko could move in for an extraction. It might be only a window of a few seconds, but she was a teleporter.

It wasn't the protection that she wanted to offer, but…

Nunotaba's scheme with the money cards didn't appear to have covered the alley she arrived at, perching atop one of the rooftops and looking in. A light on one wall provided some dim illumination but there was no sight of anyone coming from either direction apart from the obvious—a lean youth, hands shoved into his pockets despite the impending violence, and a chestnut-haired girl in a Tokiwadai uniform. She was much more obviously prepared for a fight, assembling some sort of firearm from a guitar case, and wearing some sort of militaristic goggles.

"The time is now 21:00. The 9983rd experiment will now commence."

Accelerator showed a little more readiness, hands now held loosely at his sides. Kuroko tensed, not wanting to miss her opportunity.

It was the level 5 that made the first move, kicking something metal—probably part of an air conditioning unit, it was hard to see from this angle—at a frankly absurd speed towards the Sister. But reflexes honed by over nine thousand battles wouldn't be caught by such an obvious trick, and the clone was already rolling out of the way, scooping something else out of the discarded case and—

With a sudden spark of electricity, the lights in the alley shut off, dropping the area in darkness. With her eyes adjusted to the comparative brightness as they were, Kuroko realised she could barely even see what was going on—

And then with a bang, she couldn't see anything. The Sister had obviously brought some sort of stun grenade along and, with that, Kuroko couldn't see anything going on, nor hear through the ringing in her ears anything other than the sharp rapport of gunfire.

It may have only been a few seconds until the blinding was replaced by afterimages, until the ringing subsided so that she could hear again. But those few seconds felt like an eternity, and the sounds weren't of combat, or running. Only a single, sickening squelch.

Kuroko teleported straight down.

Without vision, though, her aim was off, foot sliding on something round and metal—the casing of the stun grenade?—and falling on her rear. It was damp. Damp, and sticky, even though the weather was nothing but hot and dry.

"You again? Ya some sort of sick freak?" If there was anyone that Kuroko wanted to hear those words from less, it was a serial killer. But whatever his thought was on the teleporter that had dropped in, the older teen was already walking off.

It wasn't even fifteen minutes until the next one.

Kuroko didn't want her vision to adjust to the scene. It would have been preferable to never see what she had landed in, to confirm the nature of the tacky puddle her hands were in. She could have teleported away, but her mind wouldn't co-operate with the calculations any more than her head would tear itself away.

If there was anything good to say about the scene, it was that at least she was recognisable from the shoulders up. Accelerator must have simply hit her in the stomach, then. Or what had once been a stomach. Now, it just looked like a giant had been the one to hit her instead.

The sound of footsteps, dozens of footsteps, drew Kuroko's eyes away. Shapely legs in baggy socks. Something that she would have loved to be seeing at any other time, in any other situation. But sat here in the proof that even teleporters could, and would, be too late, she would rather it was anyone else.

The Sisters were as expressionless as ever, what little shone through their eyes hidden behind the omnipresent goggles. Kuroko still thought she could see judgement, there. All of them, knowing her earlier conversation with Miyu. Knowing that she had set out to help and done nothing for their 9983rd sibling.

Numbers running through her mind, Kuroko disappeared. There were still more experiments tonight, there were more chances. She couldn't make up for failure, but she could do better the next time.

Decapitation, the lid of a dumpster turned into a flying guillotine. Standing slightly further back, trying to get a closer view, Kuroko had the time to duck. The blood on her upper half proved the Sister didn't.

"Got a death wish? Is that it?"

The lethality of bullets really sank in after the first time. It didn't seem to matter what the angle was, how the clutter and cover of the back alleys were employed. The rank one Level 5's automatic reflection would end fights without his ever taking a step.

"Makes ya wonder why they use them, doesn't it?"

When the explosion of some sort of grenade was focused back on the Sister's position, Kuroko was able to teleport to the safety of a rooftop. The stench of burning hair reached even up there.

Accelerator just looked at her.

Every time that night, it was the same story. Kuroko would arrive just before the 'experiment' began, then it would be over within a few minutes. Had 9982 been some unique fluke? Was Accelerator against playing with his food, or was the immediate lethality a direct response to her presence?

Kuroko would arrive, the Sister would be killed, and she would only leave when the clean-up crew arrived. Not once did the Sisters say anything to her, nor did they seem to spare a glance before getting to work, but she could only imagine the building resentment.

She had set out to rescue them from this fate but all she was doing was serving as a witness. Maybe it provided some small comfort, knowing that someone was remembering every end. Recording their individuality in the worst way possible.

When Kuroko returned home, silently teleporting in to bypass the dorm mistress's gaze in her ruined clothing, she was still alone. It was probably better this way; she couldn't bear the idea that onee-sama would see her failure like this.

Kuroko had planned to spend this day shopping. There was limited-edition manjuu for sale today, and she had wanted to make sure she could get it for onee-sama. After the little, restless sleep she had managed, even the promise of maybe seeing her beloved's face light up due to delicious sweets was insufficient motivation.

It seemed unlikely that onee-sama would be in the mood for sweets any more than Kuroko was.

She spent the day doing… if not nothing, nothing practical. Endlessly teleporting her pillow into the air, trying to 'catch' it with her reverse-teleportation… focusing only on the numbers allowed her to block out the thoughts of dark alleys and murderous experiments, if only for a time.

By now, the feeling of reaching out was almost reflexive, the difference texture between a solid object at the end of an 11-dimensional translation and empty air clearly distinguished in her mind. That didn't mean much in the way of success with teleporting an object in motion. In all the hours she spent throwing the pillow up, only twice was it brought down by anything other than gravity. Both of those times, she was grateful that it was a pillow, as anything else dropping into her face at speed would have been painful.

Ultimately, Kuroko left the dorm for other appointment before anyone else returned.

Her visit was little more than a perfunctory trip to drop off the phone she had planned, with a request to call if any changes were made to the schedule or, worse, if Miyu were to herself be in some danger. Aside from an update to some co-ordinates, it seemed that whatever onee-sama might be doing had yet to so much as delay the proceedings.

Kuroko needed to do better tonight. Simply standing around and watching while Accelerator did his butchery was worse than useless. But what? Rack her brains as she might, her options were no more expansive, her skills no more suitable. She could raid the Judgement office for handcuffs or basic first aid, but there was no cuffing a man you couldn't touch, and first aid did nothing for bisection or having your internal organs crushed.

If Kuroko's way of doing things wasn't working, would someone else's? Onee-sama would just charge in for a fight, and she could already rule that out. That strange girl, Nunotaba? If Kuroko was too obvious about it, she would only get herself targeted and things would continue anyway. But if… if she could lure law enforcement as the cleanup was happening, then that would blow the entire conspiracy open, wouldn't it?

Determination renewed; Kuroko opened her phone.

Maybe she should have expected that this would end as poorly. If there was any Anti-Skill presence in the area to start with, which was far from certain, by the time she was able to persuade them that there was something that needed investigating, the scene of the crime would be evacuated. Even when she persuaded an officer to let her teleport them both, there was nothing left except some cratering and damaged electronics. Reportable, yes, but hardly something that needed Anti-Skill's immediate attention.

After the third lecture of the night, along with an unpleasant amount of questioning for why a middle school student was wandering around the back alleys in the dead of the night, Kuroko found herself wandering aimlessly. All around, Academy City seemed to continue too peacefully for what was going on—there was one fire, glowing somewhere over in the distance, but in a city of this size, no matter how advanced, that was normal.

There was one more experiment arranged for today, but what was the point? She had no ideas to follow up on and no desire for another of Accelerator's comments.

Maybe her normal Judgement work in the morning would give her an idea.

It didn't. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but the day felt as if it was altogether too normal. The mysterious laboratory fires Konori mentioned were slightly confusing at first, especially their lack of desire for assistance, but as soon as she looked at the locations, the reasons were clear. Down to the last, every institute was involved in the Level 6 Shift.

Kuroko was starting to think that onee-sama's approach was going to work far better than her own. Things hadn't been delayed much yet, but with only a few facilities still in operation, it had to be a matter of time.

Everything felt oddly remote as she patrolled. Young children shouldn't have been exploring alleys looking for lucky cash cards, but at the same time… wasn't it better if they were? The more reasons there were for people to remain interested and keep looking, the more chance of an experiment being delayed. Every delay was more chance for onee-sama to finish her work.

If it was a matter of buying time, then all she needed to do was be disruptive. This time, when Kuroko crept out before curfew, she took her armband with her.

"The time is now—"

"This is Judgement!" Kuroko's appearance was, this time, between the two adversaries, armband proudly displayed, "If you do not submit peacefully, Kuroko will have no choice but to arrest you by force."

Accelerator's expression was, at least, nonplussed rather than his usual manic glee. "What the fuck is this? Had enough with watching and decided you want to die?"

That was it for warnings, on either side. Kuroko disappeared even as Accelerator struck out at the nearby wall, forcing the Sister to avoid the spreading shockwaves as well. Her reappearance behind him was predictable but she wouldn't—couldn't—stay in one place for long enough to present an easy target.

Kuroko had learned some things from her previous bout, from watching the experiments. Accelerator's reflection was powerful, but so long as he wasn't consciously aware of an attack it was predictable. It would simply be reversed, with greater or lesser accuracy from however precise the original attack was.

As long as she moved fast enough, it didn't matter that the needles she teleported would be reversed, since she would no longer be there. Even that simple expectation nearly got her killed—although the needles reappeared as expected, even with their momentum shifted, now she could see them the structure seemed distorted somehow, twisted. Distracted by this observation, she was forced to drop below his swinging arm, abandoning the planned teleportation to engage in a desperate, deadly game of tag.

A hasty, almost miscalculated teleportation bought some space, even if Kuroko stumbled at the sudden drop. It was still better than ending up in the floor, at least.

"Is that all? Those things are better at tag than this."

Not at all. From the look of the needles, Accelerator's 11-dimensional reflection was imperfect. So, what would happen if he tried to reverse a teleportation of himself? If she could do that, Kuroko might be able to actually hurt him.

First, she would need to get in a position where her mere touch wouldn't be immediately amplified into some wrist-shattering punch. More needles, the last that Kuroko had brought. Teleport predictably behind, drawing Accelerator's attention that way. Above, for an unexpected and impossible drop kick that got her automatically thrown away even though it felt like she'd just slammed feet-first into a steel wall, then finally… on the floor, arm outstretched to just touch Accelerator's ankle.

It almost worked. The redirection, constantly forcing Accelerator to turn to find where the teleporter had reappeared, gave barely enough time to get the contact in.

The teleportation didn't. It felt like nothing Kuroko had ever experienced. And it hurt.

In her plan, she had overlooked the simple idea that the reversed, scrambled teleportation would be reflected on her. Orientation, momentum, location—everything felt like it was pulling in a different direction at once, her body simultaneously trying to contort and fly apart. It almost did, her joints protesting, but some sort of pressure kept her together and in one piece, only to fall heavily to the ground from some height and add more bruises.

At least, Kuroko thought deliriously, I know that the AIM Diffusion Field of a teleporter reinforces bodily integrity.

Accelerator was saying something. It was a taunt, no doubt, mocking her for thinking that some jumped-up level 4 could possibly hurt Academy City's strongest. At least this had bought some time, right? It wouldn't stop the experiments but needing to account for an unscheduled interruption like this might force some recalculation. It was just unfortunate that Kuroko's last move had left her unable to follow up on the plan and get away.

If there was one thing that could be called comforting, it would be that her uncontrolled teleportation had left her at the other end of the alley. Being crushed by an AC unit or the like wasn't a pleasant way to go, but at least it would be better than being torn apart. There was the sound of metal wrenching from the wall, a sickening crunch and—

Why didn't it hurt more?

Why was Accelerator laughing? That horrible, choking laughter...

"You've been trying to save these things, right?"

Kuroko struggled to sit up, even though everything was aching. What was he talking about? Did that mean…

"Probably thought that it would use this opportunity for a surprise attack. Or run away and get ready for the next one."

Red. It was red everywhere, the same as all the other times. It was even flecked with white fragments, broken away from the blunt trauma.

"It looks like these things are just as eager to die as you are." And even more of that horrible laughter. How did he not choke? "That's more interesting than the planned experiment, ya know? You got this one killed."

He really was a sadist, letting her live after that.

It was a tragic result. Kuroko's attempts to delay the experiments and save at least one more Sister had done the opposite, pulling the clone in to die in her stead.

She didn't know why.

The entire situation felt wrong, the idea that a clone she didn't know had chosen to die in Kuroko's place making as much sense as being told to thoroughly chew her plastic before swallowing. Her mind refused to accept the idea, refused to comprehend it.

The bruising and aching went down by the morning, but Kuroko took nothing in. Was that the way the city's dark side worked, that even if you did your best, it would still end in such a bleak fashion?

She saved a little girl from a car accident. She seemed familiar, but Kuroko couldn't remember where from. Somehow, Konori had her and Uiharu picking clovers down by the riverside. Maybe her lack of attention was showing? Uiharu seemed concerned, she even gave Kuroko a four-leafed clover.

There were still experiments going on, but what could Kuroko do? She had tried to be a last-second rescue. She had tried to bring others in. She had even tried to play the role of a protector, and that had been the worst of all.

Kuroko was late getting home, but even so onee-sama had yet to leave. Now that she had thought about it, there had been more fires last night as well. But if she was preparing to go out now, that meant there was still one way Kuroko could help to end the project…

"Onee-sama, I'm coming with you."