It was rather unusual for anyone to call their room from the entrance—the external dorms were hardly made for entertaining and generally they expected to meet friends elsewhere. It was even more unusual if the person in question had access to the inside of the buildings anyway.
"Shirai, get down here."
… but if the Dorm Mistress had some reason to be calling her, there was no time to be questioning it. Particularly if she was aware enough of everyone's coming and going this morning to know that she hadn't left yet. As quickly as possible without using teleportation—Kuroko was already in more than enough trouble without flagrantly using her powers inside the building like that—she rushed to the entrance.
The entrance was unusually and conspicuously more crowded than… well, ever, Kuroko thought. Just before curfew, there might be a handful of stragglers coming in at once, or a larger than usual group coming in immediately after school had finished for the day. This was considerably more people than a small amount of middle school girls.
That there were enough delinquent-looking teens strewn about the floor to shoot a movie on gang warfare only made the situation distinctly more surreal.
"Your punishment for breaking curfew has been decided," the Dorm Mistress, presiding over the grisly scene, stated without preamble. "Given your repeated hospital visits over the past weeks and assistance with your roommate's family emergency, the school has interceded on your behalf."
Unstated was the implication that the Dorm Mistress strongly disagreed with any show of leniency over harm incurred in the process of rule-breaking.
"As such, they have taken on the responsibility for administering your punishment," the bespectacled woman continued, producing an impeccably uncreased letter and handing it over for Kuroko's inspection.
The teleporter scanned over the letter, finding the entire situation increasingly strange. A flimsy-sounding excuse had been seized upon to take punishment out of the Dorm Mistress's hands? The punishment itself didn't even seem… well, like much of a punishment, if Kuroko were to be honest. Scheduling ongoing 'remedial' lessons may have deterred most students, but whilst the loss of even more time was disappointing, Kuroko could hardly complain about more education from the most prestigious school possible. It was hard to see how a correlation could exist between being out after curfew and more lessons.
As Kuroko puzzled over Tokiwadai's strange choice, the Dorm Mistress started speaking once more. "I am, however, in need of assistance to solve a problem of your making."
"Y-Yes, Dorm Mistress?" Kuroko asked, wondering what problem she could have inadvertently caused, particularly one that might need her help to solve. Nothing recently came to mind.
"All of these people came knocking during the night in search of you," she explained, gesturing towards the groaning bodies. One even attempted to get up, only to be pressed back to the ground. "When they refused to leave without a fight, I was forced to deal with the commotion."
"I see…" although she didn't understand why so many unpleasantly thuggish types had come to her dorm looking for a fight. "I presume you require assistance with delivering them to Anti-Skill?"
It seemed that she was going to have to perform tedious manual labour as a punishment anyway.
"That's two more," Misaka noted, watching the curly-haired girl take a sigh and change their path to lead down another of Academy City's many back alleys. On cue, the steadily gathering mass turned after the pair of schoolgirls, boxing them in to what appeared to be a dead end.
What they were probably expecting (or hoping) for was a look of fear from the two. The more sensible out of the gathered group of ne'er-do-wells were anticipating defiance or perhaps resignation. Outside of the realm of expectation was that the pair would regard them with nothing more than boredom and a hint of irritation.
"Can one of you gentlemen explain why you're following us?" Kuroko asked, awkwardly fishing around in her pocket for her Judgment armband. Accursed casts, at least she wouldn't have to put up with them for much longer. Any extra attention from onee-sama really was not worth the irritation…
There was some shuffling before a boy with slicked-back hair and a tanktop put himself forward to be their spokesman. "You're that girl that beat the Accelerator, right?"
How do common street thugs know anything about that? Kuroko wondered. There had only been the five of them present in the Switchyard—she could hardly imagine that Accelerator would have been the type to start talking about his loss, Kamijou didn't seem like the type either… maybe one of the researchers had let it slip somewhere? Not that she could imagine why.
None of that changed how the answer to his question was a simple, "Yes, I am. Why do you want to know?"
"If you beat Academy City's strongest, that must mean you're now the strongest," he said, to many nods from the impromptu gang. Whatever logic he was employing was foreign to the teleporter; she was rather confident that Academy City's espers were not ranked using trial by combat. Anything requiring that level of exertion would never have let the Queen become a level 5. "Which means, if we beat you, then we're the strongest."
The lack of coherence in this worldview was breath-taking in its sheer stupidity. Knowing that someone had defeated the undefeatable monster at the top of the pile, they still thought that they—common street thugs—would be able to win, and all for the prize of parading around as the "strongest" and, following their own actions, getting jumped by every moron in the city?
Now, they had a chance, simply by weight of numbers and her own lack of hands—though the teleporter confidently assessed it as low odds even then, she didn't need more than a touch. With onee-sama standing there, already gearing up to blast them all, it was hopeless.
However, since she had already spent an unfortunate amount of time today handing criminals over to Anti-Skill, and they had friends waiting…
The mob was left stood in the alley on its own, the girls having disappeared apparently into thin air without a word.
"You should have just let me zap them," the electromaster said, sounding slightly disappointed. Maybe it was, to her, a return to normalcy. Overconfident shady groups in back alleys were at least a weekly occurrence.
"If I let you do that, onee-sama, I would have to deliver them to Anti-Skill. We can't keep Saten-san and Uiharu waiting that long."
Of course, even if she wanted to go back and fight them, it would have required attacking Kuroko first to have her let go. Certainly, teleporters had an advantage in escaping from unpleasant back-alley brawls.
"Your sister's being released tomorrow, right, Misaka-san?" Saten asked, having waited only long enough for them to be served drinks before launching into her question.
"Yeah, she is," she answered.
"Misaka-san has a sister!?"
"Why not throw her a party? To celebrate getting into Tokiwadai and getting out of hospital." That… was a good idea, wasn't it? For more reasons than Saten knew. It wasn't quite the same as giving all the Sisters something to attend to celebrate being alive and allowed to grow as individuals, but it was something for this one and might give the rest the idea to do the same wherever they ended up.
"That sounds like a good idea. Ah, can we use your place for it?"
Kuroko's attention was drawn by something outside the window. Really, these people were still gathering…? Fine, if they were going to be sitting comfortably inside the restaurant, it wouldn't be so bad to wait for Anti-Skill to come pick them up. "Excuse me, I have something to attend to."
Although the attempts to plan went on a little longer, once Uiharu was introduced to the notion that Misaka Mikoto was not an only child (regardless of how long this had been true), they eventually turned with horrified fascination to the show taking place outside. True to Kuroko's expectation, the common delinquents of Academy City didn't need use of her hands, specifically, to take down, but there was still something to be said for the sight of a small teenaged girl repeatedly throwing people to the ground or outright teleporting them the same.
The most unexpected development came when one of them, obviously a higher-levelled esper from the fire about his hands, found his threatening speech interrupted by… well, apparently nothing. One moment he was talking cockily, the next he was dropping on his back like the rest, without Kuroko having budged.
The second time Kuroko returned inside, having briefly come back in to collect disposable cutlery as a way of slowing down anybody trying to run away, she asked with a sigh, "Is there any planning left to do? I apologise for the distraction."
"We were just talking about what the other Misaka-san likes," Saten said, arms folded in thought, "She sounds like a difficult person to please."
Or maybe it was simply that she had very few known preferences to go on at all. It hadn't seemed relevant to question the girl about her thoughts on hospital food at any point, and the amount of food she was otherwise exposed to had been extremely limited. Although, given her eventual response to Kuroko's gift of chocolate had been to criticise it as cheap, waxy, and made with the minimum of chocolate, 'difficult to please' might be an accurate assessment in the end.
"She likes milk tea," onee-sama offered, "Apart from that, she's just been asking for things like cake." Not that a single afternoon and a few hospital visits made for the best sample of preferences… but a party was a similar sort of special occasion, so it was probably the most useful starting point.
"Maybe you could try baking a cake?"
"Absolutely not!" she objected, looking away. Crumbly, unevenly baked, poorly mixed, ingredients picked without thought about the quality. For someone that ate all of the cookies given to her without complaint, she had been extremely critical of the quality of the cooking itself. "I'll just buy some."
"I'll cook something!" At least Uiharu was willing to make sure they had more than cake.
The advantage of going shopping inside the School Garden was that, for the first time that day, there was a near-zero chance of being accosted by delinquents looking to prove their strength. While there may be the occasional student at one of the local schools who would have some desire to prove themselves, rich girls were far less likely to start picking fights in the streets in the same way. The usual exceptions being the pair seeking to avoid another fight made it even less likely.
As a choice of shopping location, it did cause an unfortunate degree of markup on top of the premium already charged for quality. Not that this was particularly obstructive to either the teleporter or the Railgun.
If the nuisances outside didn't die down after some sense had been beaten into their heads, it was good to know that petitioning to transfer dorms was an option. If she could persuade onee-sama to agree to such a thing.
"Hey, Kuroko, look at this! I think it would perfect," onee-sama said brightly, pointing out a nearby shop display. That was really what their shopping trip had largely boiled down to, looking—aside from the already-purchased tea, it would be easier for onee-sama to get any desired cakes while Kuroko went to the hospital.
"Absolutely not!" Why was such a thing even for sale here? What part of an area that existed only to serve five elite schools warranted that?
"Really? It seems like a good gift."
"Onee-sama, not everyone shares your tastes. Physical resemblance alone does not mean it would be any better received," Kuroko pointed out. Although there was a possible reason to suspect this might be appreciated by the intended recipient… eventually. That still made hardly any more appropriate a thing for one girl of their age to be buying another.
The chestnut-haired girl gave the idea some thought before shrugging and heading straight for the shop door, "If she doesn't want it, then I can just keep it and get something else."
This was really just an excuse to buy it for herself, wasn't it?
The knock at the door announced when Kuroko arrived with the guest of honour, with Saten being the first to jump up and welcome them in, Uiharu following a step behind in her eagerness to see another potential high-class lady in the flesh, as well as the same curiosity over how much resemblance this unknown sister had.
First in was Kuroko, hands free and hair once again tied up with its customary ribbons. Behind her…
On a very cursory glance, the girl looked no different from the one seated in the room behind them. There was no doubt to either Saten or Uiharu that this girl was Misaka Mikoto's identical twin, reinforced by the identical haircut and nearly identical uniform. The expressionless face, on someone they had come to view as a friend, was somewhat unusual, but hardly took away from the overall similarity.
It was in looking down that the differences became more apparent. A cheap gekota badge had been affixed to the bottom right of her sweater. The skirt was non-uniform in its extended length, of similar length to Saten's own uniform. These were minor details, if an easy first clue to telling the two apart.
Then there was the obvious difference: her left leg, from the skirt down, was clearly gleaming metal. She had been hospitalised, that was true, but the idea had never occurred that it was for something that serious. Even Saten hadn't considered that the "difficult position" Kuroko had mentioned when Misaka was baking might be something that dangerous… although, with the teleporter's hands temporarily in casts, maybe that should have been obvious.
"'I am Misaka Miyu,' says Misaka, inviting herself inside," the girl said, following Kuroko in past the surprised duo, who broke out of their surprise to follow what was already promising to be a rather unusual girl.
After introducing themselves, Saten looked between the two sisters a few times. "I guess calling you both Misaka-san would be confusing."
"'I have no preference for what you call me,' insists Misaka, making a good first impression."
"You should probably just call us by our given names," Mikoto conceded. That was going to take some getting used to, but it was an inevitable consideration if people wanted to tell them apart. It would only be more confusing if she resisted, since she wasn't the one that narrated every statement made.
"So, about that cake…" Uiharu said, looking over at the desserts. The expensive, hard-to-access desserts.
For a party that was as much about getting to know the person as it was about celebrating their getting out of hospital, there was strangely little to actually learn about the younger sister, the girl seemingly fine with watching unless prompted with a question. Except where the food was concerned. Even though she seemed to have few opinions on anything else, Miyu definitely didn't hold back on praising the pastries and the ingredients that went into them.
She also seemed rather disappointed in their collective tea-making efforts, with Kuroko scraping by with an acceptable at one end—at least in her opinion, Saten felt that it tasted no different from any other cup of tea someone made.
"'Onee-sama should refrain from offering guests tea unless she wishes them to leave early,' advises Misaka, refraining from directly criticising onee-sama's attempt."
"Th-There's one more thing!" the blushing older sister said, jumping to her feet and grabbing a large, heavily wrapped… something from the corner it had spent the afternoon in, thrusting it over to Miyu. "I got you a gift to celebrate!"
Kuroko's sigh only made the others more interested in what could possibly be under all the wrapping paper, which turned to exasperated amusement as it was slowly stripped off.
"'Another lame gift,' is what Misaka wants to say, but sighs instead, astounded by how childish onee-sama continues to be."
"You can just give it back if you dislike it that much!"
"'A gift is a gift, no matter how much I would want something else,' insists Misaka, protectively holding onto her lame present."
Nobody argued, even though she had been hugging the oversized plush Gekota as soon as the wrapping came off.