"Why are you so obsessed with him?"
That question could have come from either of the girls in their warm and cosy dormitory, and in fact, it did.
Mikoto Misaka and Kuroko Shirai's bickering over a certain boy had escalated slowly over the past few months, intensifying after the events of the Level 6 Shift Attempt on Mikoto (not that Kuroko could remember it) and the intense but brief World War 3. More and more Mikoto talked about him, and more and more did Kuroko feel the frustration of a rival in love subverting even their friendship. With their time together soon to decrease as the Level 5 Electromaster moved to high school, to Kuroko, it was as if she had already departed.
It was petty to a degree, Kuroko could admit that but Mikoto had been as absent as ever, and not just to Kuroko. Kazari and Ruiko had felt it too. Even in conversation she felt distant and cold, and it perturbed all three of them. Her brown eyes had become darkened, with a shading of black beneath them. She was sleeping less and less, and her auburn hair became ever so slightly longer and noticeably frayed.
"I understand your interest in him, I do." Kuroko began, a frown on her face and her voice tinged with annoyance. "But what about us?"
"Us?"
Kuroko was taken aback.
"Wha… Me, Kazari, Ruiko!" Kuroko shook her head, not that Mikoto would have seen it. She sat at her desk staring out of the window, admiring the thunder and lightning outside. The beams of light warped and flexed in the rain droplets that collected and ran down the window panel.
"Just stop right there. You're only using them to cushion what you actually mean." Mikoto complained with a monotone, even bored voice. She picked up her hairbrush despite having already spent half an hour brushing her increasingly worn hair endlessly, while Kuroko watched on, the accusation hitting her like a truck.
"Onee-sama." She took a step closer. "As much as it hurts me to say, if you find happiness with him then I'll be happy for you."
"Liar."
"I'm not lying!" Her determined stare into Mikoto's back became angry and shocked. "I love you, but I want you to be happy first and foremost." She could not be more truthful to her beloved best friend, even if it hurt her to surrender to Mikoto's preference in love. But it did nothing to quell the hostile attitude emitted from the Electromaster.
"Then why do you constantly berate me about him?" Mikoto looked over her shoulder for a moment, her eyes narrow and lips leering.
"Because it's not just about him, he feels like an excuse." Kuroko did not back down, staring into the one eye that made itself present in her vision. She folded her arms and looked expectantly for a satisfactory reply.
"Oh really…"
But that is not what Kuroko received. Instead the Level 5 trailed off, turning back around and resuming her incessant brushing. There was no resistance in her hair, nothing to stop the brush from going up and down, up and down. Kuroko could do nothing and stood there, confused and angry.
However, she found it in herself to continue. Enough was enough.
"You do this all the time. You essentially go missing, off on some dangerous errand while we worry, wishing we were allowed to help you." Kuroko finally allowed herself to vent the frustrations that she had been feeling, as well as that of her friends. She allowed herself to be a conduit for it all, and she could no longer stop the balloon from bursting.
"Ha, what even gives you that impression?" An unimpressed Mikoto asked, laughing a single syllable and shaking her head in a mocking disapproval.
"Kamijou-san himself!" Kuroko exclaimed, taking a small victory when she saw Mikoto stop her head shaking. "I've talked to him, have him as a contact even! I seriously wanted to get to know him, for you, Onee-sama..." The volume of the teleporter's voice became quieter and quieter as she went on. It was incredible in a way; one moment she was loud and angry, then the next moment she was timid and nigh-distraught.
Throughout it all, she was genuine.
"..."
With Mikoto remaining silent and still, Kuroko kept up the pressure.
"Nearly every time I ask him to keep you safe and the like, you are not actually with him! Even heis concerned." Kuroko could not help but stress her rival in romance, hoping against everything that it would do something, begging that it would elicit some kind of reaction which would bring back the old Mikoto.
"Hah…"
Yet it did not, and after a lengthy sigh, Kuroko pushed forward. It was all coming out now anyway, nothing could stop that.
"I thought we went over this, I thought you would accept us being there for you." She took another step forward towards Mikoto, now between the headrests of the two separate single beds. "You strut around interrupting and complicating myJudgement work, but you can't even talkto us about the problems you get involved in! After everything!"
As quickly as she would fall quiet and then silent, Kuroko became loud and frantic. She knew something more had happened during the Daihasei Festival, but she could not decipher the weird blur of images and information that refused to be clear and give clarity. She had to get the real story from Mikoto, even if it was in fragments, to try and figure out what was going on now.
"So what?"
But, of course, Mikoto would never, ever budge.
"...wha-"
What was she thinking?
"I don't need you, Kuroko."
Why would Mikoto Misaka ever be honest to her best friend?
"Onee-"
Why would she ever trust her?
"I. Don't. Need you."
Or love her?
"Kuroko!"
"I- what-" Kuroko, dazed and confused with a ring reverberating round her skull, gripped at her pounding, painful chest subconsciously. Her heart was threatening to rupture from her body again. The ringing in her head turned out to be a phone buzzing.
"Kazari, I need to take this phone call…" Ruiko said from the side in a serious tone. Kuroko looked back over to Kazari, only then noticing that Yoshika was no longer present. The teleporter assumed she wanted to get away from the increasingly tense atmosphere.
"Mhm, go for it." Kazari nodded. She turned back to Kuroko with the same mixture of sorrow and seriousness as before, but the Level 4 started to find it grating. Still, she tried to retain her composure, even if her heart and head continued to ache.
"Sorry, what did you say, Kazari?"
"We need to find her." The dark-haired girl said with conviction, though it did not stop Kuroko from laughing incredulously. A nihilistic streak began to show.
"Ha… good luck with that." She shook her head with a forced smile, her eyes briefly closing. However, Kazari's intent never wavered and she pressed ahead.
"We still need to know what the hell she is doing." She continued in a tone that rarely raised its head above the water. "This is beyond simply needing therapy or just returning from the shadows, she is murdering people."
Kuroko nearly sneered at the words.
"Allegedly." Her denial was still there, thicker than the sludge of freezing water transforming into ice.
"Kuroko-" Kazari tried to continue, but was cut off almost instantly.
"No, we do not just presume guilt here!" She raised her voice, cracking ever so slightly as her emotions boiled over. She calmed herself for a few seconds before continuing. "We find her first, Lord knows how, then make the final judgement."
Despite the rapid swings in temperament from the teleporter, Kazari's attitude remained the same. She looked upon Kuroko with a straight face, it never changing despite the intimidating anger of one of her best friends. She would not let their past get in the way with their professional duty.
"Kuroko, I understand that this might be personal to you-"
Kuroko stormed to her feet, her chair falling back.
"Personal?!" Her heart twitched and she struggled to stifle a gasp at the sudden eruption of pain from her chest. Kazari failed to notice, too embroiled in the war of words and seemingly impassive to Kuroko's display, while Misaki's eyes widened at the strike of physical and emotional agony that hit her girlfriend.
It was becoming difficult for her to stay quiet.
"It is for me too!" Kazari almost screamed, standing up now herself, but slower and more controlled. "We were all her closest friends! Best friends in fact!"
"But we still don't know-"
"Shirai-san, Uiharu-san…" Yoshika said sheepishly, suddenly re-emerging from around the corner. Apparently having taken a trip to the vending machine in the relaxation quarter, she had a fresh soda can in one hand and her phone clutched in the other. "Lets just take a moment-"
"Tch, what makes you-" Kuroko was set to explode as she reached her breaking point, her tone low and threatening, were it not for the loud and urgent voice of Ruiko piercing through the verbal spat.
"Girls, stop." She started, immediately grabbing their attention. That kind of voice from Ruiko was reserved for only the most serious of moments. "Something happened, you're needed Kuroko."
"Huh?" Kuroko was more than surprised, but was naturally curious. "Go on?"
"A research lab across the city sent out a distress call, some kind of raid, you're being directed to intervene." Ruiko said rapidly, making every word count. Kuroko frowned.
"What? Why me specifically?"
"It's you, ain't it? Everyone knows your capabilities and discretion." Ruiko said honestly while shrugging. "This place seems like a big deal, a few others have been called up." She tried to be reassuring in telling her that extra support was coming, and although Kuroko was still unsure, she found it enough to heed the call.
"I-"
"Wait." Everyone but Kuroko jumped as Misaki suddenly piped into the frantic conversation, her expression hardened and serious. "I do not like the feeling of this, Kuroko."
"Shokuhuo-san?!"
"Mental Out…" The schoolgirl eyed the new woman in the room cautiously, stunned but intrigued at the emergence of her work colleague's Level 5 friend. She had only heard her mentioned in passing, so it was still a surprise to see her in the flesh.
"Since when did you arrive, Shokuhou-san? You should have called-" Ruiko started, still in shock and a little breathless, before Kuroko walked past her eyesight and started to speak over her.
"Sorry, there's no time for that. I need to get going." Kuroko grabbed a spare Judgement armband and pin hanging from one of the document compartments, as well as a wristband to attach her mobile onto. She saw the worry and concern on Misaki's face, but tried to push down the wavering conviction, attempting to walk around her.
"Kuroko." Misaki said, grabbing her partner's arm as she tried to rush past. "Something is off here." Kuroko allowed herself to be stopped and turned her head to the Level 5.
"Maybe, but I can't just ignore this." She said in a lower voice, her own uncertainty evident in her voice. Misaki shook her head, her sparkling eyes desperate to get across the danger Kuroko could be getting herself into.
"But you can tell them you are ill." She paused, glancing towards the three onlookers. They had different reasons for their curiosity at the couple's conversation. It made Misaki lower her volume even more, bringing her lips to her girlfriends ear. "Your headaches, what happened just now..." She whispered into her ear.
Kuroko considered it for a moment while Misaki pulled back a little. Their noses were nearly touching, and their breaths, both quick and warm, grazed each other. It was a battle of willpower as they lost each other in their eyes, one nearly the colour of a red wine, and the other akin to a solar constellation dominating a bright sun.
But Kuroko always had the strongest head of the two. Perhaps the strongest in the city.
"...I'll be careful." Kuroko conceded only a little ground, a tiny little promise in the place of a full surrender.
"..."
Misaki was not convinced however, and her teeth became ever so slightly bare as she began to ground them in frustration and fear. She trusted her partner, she truly did, but in her condition she could not help but worry herself sick.
Kuroko, reading and knowing how Misaki felt, closed the gap between them, placing a sweet kiss on her lips. They closed their eyes for those ever so quick few seconds that they were connected, before Kuroko slowly pulled away, a blazing smile and loving smirk beaming onto Misaki.
"There, a kiss to seal the promise." She stated with a confidence that would fight away any doubt. Misaki shook her head and sighed. She was not completely satiated, but she could never not believe Kuroko's conviction.
"My silly teleporter…" She whispered, letting go of Kuroko's arm. With a nod and a confident smile, she strode off towards the elevator, but not before a shout from Kazari paused her for a final time.
"Kuroko!"
She threw a communicator to her colleague, and Kuroko successfully caught it. As she maneuvered the object over her ear, she noted Kazari's still present determination from the argument earlier, but did not miss the small upward tug on her lips that silently bid her good luck. She gave her thanks, checked her phone was still working so Kazari could track her and send the coordinates, and entered the elevator. Kuroko was keen to do some stretches and mic checks before beginning her teleportation-fuelled dash to the facility.
A minute or so passed as Kazari and Kuroko communicated the basics, setting everything up to make sure every avenue was covered. Screens switched from the hooded figure of an older Mikoto and the documents on her to that of a detailed, ever moving map, as well as area schematics and body sensors. Ruiko returned to her desk, flipping her laptop open for her own tasks during the impromptu operation, while Yoshika took her own seat at the computer setup. Her role was to initiate communications with Anti-Skill and the supposed other Judgement operatives heading towards the scene, and she placed her own communicator over her ear.
Misaki watched on, having already been greeted properly and offered a drink. She declined, stating she could always grab one herself - despite her upper class nature, she was not useless - and opted to watch on from a distance. She leaned on a compartment and slipped her hand into her bag.
Her own curiosity from earlier had caught up to her, and her morality never encroached on the idea of reading a person's mind.
Finding one of her remotes, feeling for the braille on its back that denoted type, she grabbed and first pointed it at Ruiko.
Ruiko Saten was an interesting person. Vibrant, headstrong, and never letting her Level 0 status put her down, she was the first to suggest replacing the old boss of the branch. While an out of the box suggestion, her people skills and newfound dedication was greeted warmly. Peering into her mind, Misaki soaked in the thoughts going through the raven-haired girl's mind. Ruiko wondered when Misaki had arrived and hoped Kuroko would be okay, cheering her on with a kind of excitement reserved for watching one's favourite sports team. Under the surface was the sadness of Mikoto's apparent new path in life, as well as the bitterness of her leaving the trio in the first place.
Misaki then switched her focus to Kazari Uiharu.
Mental Out had always viewed Kazari with some caution, and even briefly worried about her being a relationship rival to Kuroko given that the two of them knew each other from childhood. Her mind was purely focused on the operation at hand, though the odd bubble of discontent rose from beneath, seemingly in the form of a humming beat. Kazari was disconcerted by the teleporter's reaction to Mikoto Misaka being the prime suspect in these cases, and Misaki could completely understand why.
Railgun was always a wildcard.
Deciding that she would get very little out of Kazari, she set to begin her mental probing of the cherry on top of the cake. This Yoshika Kohaku was a wildcard too, being a new and unknown element for Misaki to decipher and judge. She would not be picking, prying and dissecting her brain or anything like that, but she still wanted to know the baseline abilities of the young girl's mind.
She clicked on her remote again and-
'Huh?'
Misaki clicked it again, pushing down harder on the button this time.
'What?!'
Nothing.
Nothing was happening.
The flow of information that she expected to receive, and then braced for as she brashly overloaded her powers into the focusing remote, never came.
Her eyes widened.
This was not supposed to happen at all.
Her shock morphed into a strong desire and intrigue, though the audacity of this tiny little sprout being seemingly immune angered Misaki greatly. She saw nothing to suggest that Yoshika was wearing a telepathy blocker on her head other than her glasses, but she had never heard of such a thing being so compacted. Her own little band of agents reported nothing like this to her, nothing for her to attune and adapt to in order to brute force entry into someone's mind.
To add to that, this sudden turn of events begged another question.
Who exactly was this schoolgirl then, who could seemingly be unaffected by the telepathic prowess of the Mental Out?
Meanwhile the girl blinked and tapped at her keyboard as if nothing had ever happened. She continued to talk down her communicator as if she had not had a telepath attempt entry into the sanctity of her mind. A tiny smile was on her face, but Misaki could not tell from this angle whether it was because she was enjoying being so useful, or if she had caught on.
Misaki despised feeling defeated and unsure of a person's emotions and mental happenings.
"Woah."
Kazari suddenly uttered, another shock of the day occurring before her golden-brown eyes.
"What's wrong, Uiharu?" Ruiko asked in a professional manner, still half concentrating on the details she was sifting through. The facility was researching some kind of nuclear fusion technology, thus a critical target for those wanting to commit serious disruption to the city and Tokyo surrounding them.
"Um, there's no internet connectivity issues here, right?" Kazari asked curiously, sounding slightly confused. Both Ruiko and Misaki raised an eyebrow at this, but for separate reasons.
"It's Academy City, not Sao Paulo." Ruiko deadpanned.
"Bruh…" Yoshika muttered to herself. "Ah no, not you!" She clarified herself to the confused operator on the other end of the line.
"Well, Kuroko is moving real quick." Kazari stated, porting her view of the blue and transparent map to Ruiko's screen. A red dot blinked forward every second, moving ever closer to the operation zone.
"That's what teleporters do." Ruiko said bluntly, but Kazari shook her head.
"No no, I mean. She's teleporting quicker."
"I'm sorry?" Misaki could not help but interject at that statement, rushing forward to Kazari and the computer screens she sat behind. Kazari looked over her shoulder, nearly jumping again as she briefly forgot that Misaki was still here.
"Look." She pointed at the screen. Misaki raised an eyebrow.
"That does not help, dear."
"Sorry, sorry, ahaha." Kazari giggled awkwardly before clearing her throat. "I've been watching Shirai-san darting across my screens as a red dot for years, so I've kinda developed a little tick." Misaki listened closely, her heartbeat picking up in pace.
"I hum a little in my head." She continued, and Misaki remembered that little tune from a minute or so ago. "It's in time to Kuroko's teleportation jumps when she is heading to a location at max speed."
"And what's the significance of that?" Asked Yoshika from half a metre away, her hand on her communicator to mute her voice input.
"There's a one second delay before each jump. It's a deadset rule of her powers." Kazari paused, her black eyebrow arching as she double checked the rhythm of Kuroko's jumps to the beat of the hum in her mind. "It's small, tiny, but she's like, roughly five hundredths of a second faster."
Misaki swore her heart stopped for a moment.
"Aye! That training in high-school is finally paying off!" Ruiko cheered in delight from her desk, a bright smile on her desk as her fist pumped the air. Kazari smiled at her cute display, while Yoshika glanced at the two and Misaki, her face unreadable and stoic.
Misaki felt a bead of sweat run down her back.
'Oh no…'
As that dot on the screen raced across the city, the tracked Esper in question looked down on the streets below. There was no sign of any disruption so far, but she presumed that it would start to show as she got ever closer.
Kuroko looked down at her wrist and the phone that was attached to the wrist brace, finding herself to be only a minute or so away from the operational theatre.
"Uiharu, do we have any ID on the raiders?" She spoke into her communicator, her voice slightly muffled on the other end owing to the air she was pushing through.
"Nothing. We have reports of a gunshot, but it appears they are Espers themselves." Kazari relayed. Kuroko could hear the tapping of keyboards in the background. "Estimating a mixture of Level 2's and 3's, potentially a Level 4 ringleader."
"That would make sense, tends to be the case." Kuroko commented before asking another question. "My support?"
"They will be behind you, so I advise maximum caution for the first three minutes upon arrival." Kazari warned, hoping the teleporter would heed it.
"I'll be done in two."
Kazari shook her head and sighed in exasperation and slight humour, while Misaki gripped the back of her chair. It was just so Kuroko to be like that, even if she was almost always correct in her timescales. Ruiko rolled her eyes with a smile, typing out a text to Kazari to connect to the local camera network so she could watch.
Kazari sighed again, this time sounding more exaggerated, but acquiesced to the request.
Finally, Kuroko caught sight of the facility. She noted the turbine on the side of the building, seemingly etched into the walls of the building, with a short cylindrical chimney where steam or smoke could be ejected out of whatever the source of it was. The teleporter could just about see the commotion below.
What was definitely smoke smouldered from a small blast zone on the concrete, and a traffic or warning pool was broken and laying defeated on the road. There were around four figures at the entrance, while two more were entering the building.
The immediate threat would need to be dealt with first before the two intruders could be reached and more easily and safely taken down.
"I'm about to make contact." Kuroko said, using her momentum and teleportation to arch her way down towards her pre-determined landing point. "Try and maintain radio silence unless absolutely necessary please." Kuroko then asked, finding some time to be a little polite too. Kazari hummed in agreement.
The first images of the scene appeared on the screens of the computers and laptops of Branch 177. A mixture of intrigue, excitement and dread filled the bellies of the girls watching on.
There was an even gender distribution of two men and two women standing at various points around the entrance, likely keeping guard for the inevitable counter-attack from law enforcement. They were expecting something big given their target, and one had begun throwing about and setting up barricades ready for a division of Anti-Skill troops.
So imagine their shock when a single, seventeen year-old Judgement officer phased into their vision, her one off-centre pigtail fluttering while brandishing the famous green and white insignia of the volunteer organisation.
"This is Judgement!" Kuroko shouted proudly in her most professional and standard manner, her stance steady and ready for the battle to come.