It was not long after the Judgement pair had vanished that Mikoto Misaka noticed a stranger encroaching on her patch.
Admittedly, she had been hoping for such a discovery, figuring that it would only be a matter of time before she laid her eyes upon one of the Academy City agents tailing and tracking Judgement's Angel.
This fresh revelation in regards to her old teleporting friend was an interesting one, an exciting change of pace over the dregs of the underworlds most detestable. Mikoto had loved the thrill and satisfaction of taking down the scum that fuelled the corrupt miasma of the city, adoring the acts of revenge against those who had done so much hurt yet had so little done against them.
Particularly those who would hunt them, hurt them, who would treat them as if they were not even human, not even worth an ounce of empathy.
What made it even sweeter was that these new targets were sourced directly from the same institutions that had created them. Yes, Mikoto anticipated this first catch, as well as all the little black suited fishes that would come next.
But, in this case, there was something more.
As she watched the man with shades write up something on his little notepad, scribbling in secret words with his short low-tech pencil, an anger began to boil inside of her. It was a different kind of anger than what she felt towards the criminals that she had played with, but it was no less familiar. It was a rage that was once retrospective during her days in Tokiwadai, but had now become sickningly ever-present.
Because these people were after Kuroko.
Her Kuroko.
For her powers, for what she was becoming.
That simply would not do.
Mikoto continued to eye the man as he wrote up his notes. He was an average size with short brown hair; glossy, straight and professionally styled. He had a little muscle to him, but it was nothing impressive, more average than anything above or below that arbitrary standard. He seemed completely oblivious to the presence of another, even as he looked around, his instincts telling him to check his corners. Perhaps Mikoto could thank the sunglasses for that, but she felt she had learned the art of hiding and stalking very well over the years.
After a few more moments the man slipped the notepad into one of his trouser pockets, and the short pencil into his shirt pocket, past his burgundy-red tie. Another glance or two from the man and he began to walk away, turning to walk deeper into the dark, reclusive alleyways.
The Railgun approached her unsuspecting target as he began to set off.
Her walk was steady, even as her mind roared. She followed the man dressed in his pretty suit, Mikoto finding his red tie humourful given the circumstances that were encroaching on his immediate future. She never kept him out of sight as he dipped and dived through the alleyways, seeking his own refuge point to relay and recharge.
Mikoto, matching the quickening tempo of her heart, picked up her pace. Slowly, but surely, the man in his prim and proper suit felt that something was wrong. The agent swore that he had heard something behind him, and he felt an odd vibe within his body. Even his knees felt weird, weirdly enough. He began to glance around and over his shoulder, twisting and turning his torso as well as his neck. His sunglasses hid the concern and the creeping sense of doom that he was feeling…
But Mikoto felt the tingle of joy and excitement.
Purposefully, her footsteps became louder. She scraped her battered soles on the concrete below, twisting on her toes, and she began to hum to a little tune. There was no rhyme or reason to the song in her throat. Sometimes she would stop, giving the man a false sense of reprieve when he saw nothing behind him, but she would then make her reappearance with a loud scratching of her heel onto the rough, hard surface of the pavement.
The agent would try his own little tricks in an attempt to rid himself of the person he suspected was tailing him. He would find an opening onto the streets, taking a few moments to weave himself through the pedestrians that minded their own business before diving back into the side-streets. He hoped that the publicity, be it the attention or the mass of people obscuring him, would shake off who he feared was chasing him.
Unfortunately, Mikoto was not going to lose the trail that easily. She knew the streets and the nooks and crannies of the city far too well that she did not even need to appear on the public pathways if she wanted to, and her ever-looming, threatening aura remained behind the increasingly frightened man in black.
She heard a moan escape the man, the tone ladened with despair.
Mikoto loved the menacing nature of her chase. She loved the fear she placed into these 'people'.
The Railgun loved to hunt these animals.
And when they knew that they, for certain, were being chased, that she was the one to be following them and that there would be no escape, she knew that the crescendo was about to be reached. When she saw their absolute terror, even if it was just from their gaping, panicking mouth, their breaths quick and heavy…
Judgement's Devil was ready to pounce, and she grinned as her thoughts darkened, unable to contain the itch of action, of her electrical charge, and her unceasing, unending reprisal.
The hands in her pockets began to twitch.
Now the man was running, his panic hardly contained having surely seen the manic Level 5 encroaching upon him. Mikoto began to wonder. There was no doubt in her mind that they knew of her past and the actions she had taken, before and after she had dropped off the grid. But perhaps these spies had been informed about her past affiliation with Kuroko too, or about her as of late more public displays against the worst of the city's underworld.
The former knowledge would have been terrifying enough, but if the latter information had been spread and detailed…
Mikoto's dark smile grew larger and larger.
It was easy for Mikoto to keep up with the man. She could just break out into a quick sprint when her simple, gentle jog was not enough. Her conditioning for these kinds of things was great, though she figured that Kuroko was still miles ahead of her in that regard.
Ah, Kuroko again…
Constantly on her mind, constantly in her thoughts, in her justifications.
Always there, always lurking within the images of her own bloodied bodies.
She would never leave, they would never leave, always a reminder, always-
Mikoto blinked.
The man had turned a corner, her ears picking him up as he travelled to the left of her. Mikoto turned the corner too, picking up her pace, her disheaved, unkempt hair partially covering her eyes and giving her a primal look. The man ahead looked over his shoulders once more and the Level 5 noticed how heavily he was beginning to breathe. Even from this distance, with his disgusting mouth wide open, she could hear the rapid, deep inhalations and the rush of waste air leaving him. To her it complemented the increasingly frantic slapping of shoes upon the ground.
"Fishy fishy~" Mikoto sing-songed from behind the doomed agent, prompting another noise of despair and fright from him.
"Guh-go away!" His voice broke as he fruitlessly begged for the Level 5 to leave him alone.
Then he tripped over his feet.
He desperately tried to regain his balance as he started to fall over himself, his head and torso now far ahead of his feet. But his stumbling was unsalvageable. His knees gave out and he clattered to the ground, sliding and skidding on his bare hands and trouser-covered knees. He rolled twice, eventually coming to a stop on his belly.
All he could hear was the blood rushing around his ears. He was in a kind of daze, dizziness clouding his head. He knew he was still breathing heavily, and how his trembling made it feel wavy and rumbly. As his mind began to clear, the object of his woes could be heard approaching him. The now slower patter of soles on concrete drawing closer and closer, the purposeful, lazy scrap of heels to cut into his ear drums.
"Oh no! You fell…" The crazed Esper behind him said tauntingly. He could imagine a fake smile or callous grin on her face, a smirk that bode only ill tidings.
The agent tried pointlessly to drag himself away with his hands and arms.
Barely a second later, Mikoto reached his side, still standing, still looking down at the pitiful man.
"Do ya need some help?" She asked with mock concern, making no attempt to bend down to speak to him more directly. She watched bemused as the man continued to try and crawl away.
It fueled her smile.
Suddenly, her right led curled back, before swinging like a pendulum into the lower side of the desperate agent. A thud echoed off and around the walls of the alleyway, and the man groaned, an 'oof' leaving his throat as some of the air in his lungs escaped. His body shifted closer to one of these walls thanks to the strong kick.
His torso hurt. The initial bite and sting of the kick morphed into a throbbing ache, tinged with a buzzing sensation. Had he seen the attack, he would have noticed a slight electrical charge emit from the contact, leaving behind a tonne of static. The pain was such that he could no longer pull himself on the ground, and his forehead rested on the cold, coarse ground.
"Oh, you really are beat up, aren't ya?" Mikoto commented with a false sympathy. Now she knelt down, bringing herself into a crouch, resting her left arm on her right knee. Her right hand remained within her pocket.
The man attempted to croak a reply, but nothing but a groan came out. Mikoto hummed, bringing her left hand to poke his ribs with her index finger. It was a soft touch, seemingly without malice. Behind the suit was the shirt of course, though she could still feel the bones and the dips between them. The auburn-haired girl could feel him vibrate as her finger traced his ribs, and she revelled in the electrical signals that coursed around his nerves. The trace pulses that entered the tip of her finger pleased her greatly.
"I don't get it." Mikoto said out of the blue. "All these resources at your fingertips, yet you all just keep doing this kind of shit." Shaking her head, Mikoto used her free hand to grab hold of the agent, roughly turning the man over so he lay on his back.
Ignoring the pained and worried moans of the agent, and how he cowered and closed his eyes, Mikoto reached for the trouser pockets which hosted the notepad he had been writing on a few minutes ago. She felt something plastic beside it. Grabbing the bundle of paper, despite a pathetic attempt by the man to shake-off the Level 5, she also took hold of what was indeed a phone. She placed it into one of her skirt pockets, then Mikoto began to read through what was written on the small strips of lined white paper.
Written upon it were some observations on Kuroko investigating some kind of missing persons case, and how she and Ruiko had come to some sort of 'camera blindspot' conclusion.
Something about this was… familiar.
Mikoto was not thinking about her own acts of violence against the worst of the worst in the underworld, but why she was committing them.
"Missing… persons…" She mumbled, her mind processing and buzzing and thinking.
Because not all of them had been abused, violated, murdered.
Some of them had just… disappeared.
Vanished.
Her abdomen felt slightly heavier, but she moved to read the rest of the notes. Frankly there was not too much left. There were passing comments about the ease in which Kuroko was carrying another person, and how she had seemingly quickly recovered from the fight between them.
Wait.
Mikoto was confused.
They learnt about that too?
How closely are they watching Kuroko?
Kuroko waKurokos hers to watch.
Kuroko Kuroko was noKurokot to b̴͖̟̉͗͝ḛ̴͍͓̝̭͐̄͌̀ ̴͖̐̉̈́̔w̸̡̫̞̠͊͒̓͒̆a̴̯͕̽͝͝ͅt̵̨̥̀̅̽̚c̸͓͎͌ͅh̵͚̮̲̻̽̀̚͠e̶̛̝̩̓̏̿͛͜d̵̢̾́͆ ̶͍̀͆b̸̳̅y̸͎͉͑ ̷̹̮͖̤̍̒̈́a̸͇̥͎̿͋n̷̫̫̬͚̖͝y̸̹͗͌̎͋̕͜o̸͖̣̥̅̒̇̊̈́ņ̸̗͈̑e̵̛͓͉̊͋̍̎ ̶̡̤͙̫̲̈̅ḇ̴̿ü̸͙̐̇͘͘t̵̢̖̙̯̿ ̷̼̓̒́̌͂h̶̡͎̘̖̽̅͌̃̕e̵͈̹͙̪̊̋̇̀͜͠r̸̨̝̞̱̆̀̃̇͠.
Mikoto blinked.
Concentrating, blinking and swallowing to temporarily swat away her confusion and anger, she read the final line written by the groaning man below.
'Teleportation speed confirmed decreased from 1.000 to 0.937 seconds'.
How could he determine that from pure sight, thought Mikoto… unless he was some kind of Esper that could read time, or was taking some kind of drug that allowed him to measure time precisely. Mikoto looked him over, trying to see if he had maybe carried a measurement device on-
Bah.
Who cares?
Who cares about how he measured it?
Mikoto's real issue, her real problem with this man and the people he served, was their observations of Kuroko. He could have found out the teleportation speed via magic and she would not give a damn. She was not here to find a motive; she knew the motive.
Mikoto was here to send a warning shot.
Electricity cackled harshly around the paper notepad, and it soon erupted into flames from the sheer heat. She tossed the burning pad onto the ground, flinging it far away, all the way down the alleyway to burn in solitude. Hearing the light tumble of the notepad ahead of him, the terrified agent chanced a glimpse at Mikoto, opening his watery eyes.
He saw a wide, unhinged grin staring back at him, right into his soul.
"I'm curious…" Mikoto mumbled to herself before her free hand wandered around his body, hovering only millimetres above him, her face turning flat with focus. Her chestnut-brown eyes followed her left hand as it roamed and sought for her curiosity. The hand seemed to be surveying for something, passing up and down and side to side over his torso, his arms, his legs…
Then she felt it.
That slight, distinctive pull.
She had sensed something during her chase, something that was being drawn to her power. With the discovery, Mikoto concluded that she must have been subconsciously pulling on it, aiding in the man's eventual stumble and tumble. The Level 5 was almost impressed with herself for passively affecting what she had found during the chase.
Mikoto turned her gaze back to the fearful, injured man, vibrating with fear like a phone receiving a call.
She simply smiled.
"Ah, metal knee joints, huh…" Mikoto said, assuming rather than asking. "I suppose you know that an element of my power involves magnetism, hm?" Mikoto then asked innocently, presumptive of the agent's knowledge of her.
His eyes immediately widened.
"I, I-I…" He stuttered over his words. "Lo-look I, uh, I just, I-" Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead, along and over his red, sweaty face. His throat tightened and his mouth felt dry, his teeth chattering. His breathing became impossibly quick as The Railgun slowly lowered a single finger upon one of his knees, landing atop the cap with a gentle poke, following the confirmation of her theory.
"Just doing ya job, huh?" Mikoto asked rhetorically, her voice unsettlingly light and covering for the bitterness that writhed within her at the notion. It was no excuse, never an excuse, and she would never have accepted it.
When the man then nodded frantically, perhaps feeling a spark of hope within his innards, Mikoto reacted appropriately.
Within a moment, the suited agent began to feel his joints twisting. Pain blazed from the centre of his right leg as the connections between his knee to the bones above and below it naturally resisted the contortions. As Mikoto channelled steady bursts of magnetism into the man's knee, the agent cried out in pain. His hands clawed at the concrete below, his nails scraping the rough, uncomfortable floor.
The pain intensified. Something was forcing his leg to remain straight while his knee began to pull away, and he could feel the grinding of metal against bone as the connections began to tear and pop out. He would have marvelled at the precision and intricacies of the Level 5's powers had it not been for the agony that she was inflicting on him, the terror she was bestowing.
As the metal within the knee joint began to rip and tear from the bone it was attached to, the two could also hear it. Creaking and cracking, it was a disturbing noise to listen to, though Mikoto did not seem to mind.
Judging by her widening grin, she seemed to enjoy it.
Beneath the slightly damaged trousers that obscured his knees, Mikoto began to see some movement. With the connecting metal joints slowly being ripped off, it meant that the natural knee cap was starting to dislocate. The metal had little else to go. With the bone covering at least half of the metal joints, it led to it being raised, threatening to rupture from beneath the skin along with the metal. These metal joints were starting to contort the skin as the final connections began to break, leaving the agent in a kind of pain that he had never experienced before in his life.
"Nearly there…" Mikoto said calmly, speaking to the babbling, screaming man as if she were trying to be encouraging. At that moment she decided to channel some extra grunt into her magnetism…
Then the trouser leg around the knee started to become darker, damp.
With an ungodly sounding rip, scream and tear, the metal joints tore completely from their sockets, through the man's skin, and nearly into Mikoto's waiting palm, the metal hovering just before her hand. The knee cap rested at an odd, unnatural angle. His other leg moved frantically, kicking down on the concrete as the sheer scale of the pain threatened to knock him out.
Mikoto marvelled at the piece of medical engineering, inspecting the metal closely. She looked over every element, every bolt, and every little piece of flesh that decorated it. Blood dripped from it onto the floor and onto her hands, with a few beads leaking down her arm.
A light splattering had adorned her face as well, as well as a few tiny specks upon her chestnut-coloured hair.
Using her magnetism as an amplifier, she flung the joints down the alleyway, just like she had done with the notepad earlier. Mikoto had no regard for whatever had come from the agent, and treated the two different object types with an equal lack of care. She watched as the metal flew through the air, drawing further and further away from the pair, until she heard the distinctive clangs and tingles of metal crashing and bouncing on a firm, hard ground.
Mikoto looked back towards the agent, shivering with pain, fear and blood loss, and sighed.
"Sorry for taking so long there, pal." She said her false apology as if it were true. Her left hand returned to hover over the agent, this time stopping above the other leg. Using her powers she manipulated the nerves and electrical signals within the man to force his other leg to be still, locking the leg completely straight.
Now she lined up her hand above the other knee, already sensing the presence of more metal connecting the man's bones together. This time, however, she did not line up a solitary index finger, opting to simply keep her hand outstretched and open.
Mikoto, once again, broke out into a joyful, crazed grin.
"I'll be quicker with this one."
Utilising the full extent of her powers, the force in which Mikoto drew the metal joints towards her was extraordinary - even for an Esper. The agent's eyes bulged as the intensity of this fresh agony eclipsed that of the prior one, making the first kneecapping seem like a careful, cautious surgery. This time he felt his leg bone contort upwards, slowly fracturing and ripping away from the muscles that clung to it.
Snapping, tearing, popping, scraping; these were all of the sounds emerging from his left leg as Mikoto violently tore the metal joints away from his knee.
In less than a few seconds the metal was ripped from him, cracking the bone in his upper leg, leaving it to protrude from the ugly wound of where his kneecap used to be. Said kneecap had also flown away, first pushed aside by the escaping metal before being cued off by the broken upper leg bone, skipping its way down his lower leg before setting beside his feet.
The screams that escaped him were broken, his throat tearing itself apart.
His gaze was almost blank, looking above into nothing in particular. The pain, the fear, the terror, it had completely overwhelmed him. As the blood began to pour out of his wounds, particularly the latest one, his vision began to get cloudy and distant.
"Oh, already gone are you..?" Mikoto commented, her enthusiasm dying down.
Akin to the man's life beside her.
"How dull." She said with a bored voice, pointing her hand holding the floating metal towards the agent's face. Allowing her electrical and magnetic charge to build up, she then released it, firing the bits of bloody metal towards his head at high speed.
With her hand mostly obscuring her sight, she could only really hear instead of see the metal crashing, crunching and blowing through the - now dead - man's head. It was not like she had not seen similar sights before with the use of her railgun technique, so she was not too gutted in not seeing a clear picture of the gory spectacle taking place.
Mikoto rotated her neck, giving it a little stretch, before then flexing her left hand, twisting it around her wrist to observe the blood that had landed upon it. She traced another little bead of the red liquid travelling from her palm down her wrist with her dilated eyes, morbidly curious and enjoying the sight. She then went to stand up from her crouched position, straightening herself with a stretch, her eyes closing on reflex. Her back bent a little backwards and she used her hand to hold her lower back for balance, leaving some marks of blood on her shirt.
Opening her eyes and staring down at the mess she made, Mikoto did not see the agent.
Instead she saw herself.
A copy of herself, to be exact, drenched in blood and torn apart like a piece of meat on a dish.
Mikoto felt a burning sensation in her stomach, a deep discomfort at the delusion. She blinked, trying to cast away the false sight, but all it did was create duplications. Now there were multiple dead, bloodied corpses of her copies, her clones…
Her Sisters.
A panic set in. Her heart beat at an obscene pace and her breathing became quick and heavy. Her stomach became impossibly hot and tight, as if it were squeezing and churning magma. Her vision blurred and she was beginning to see double. Her right hand finally left its pocket in a flash, awkwardly grasping her head while her left hand did the same, adorning her chestnut hair with flecks of red.
Every blink spawned fresh bodies until the alleyway was littered with her dead Sisters. Their mutilated bodies decorated the ground in a manner of ways, showcasing all the ways she had seen them be killed or left as garbage to rot away. It was a horrid sight, and her brain could not stop playing with her trauma.
She blinked again, but this time the body before her changed.
It was Kuroko.
Her nearly-red eyes staring blankly at her, her mouth hanging open, limbs missing…
A torn heart atop her chest.
Mikoto groaned and closed her eyes, hunching a little as she tried to force away the deceiving images. Her mind was playing tricks on her, tormenting her with the horrors and errors of the past, mocking her for her part in it, for her naivety as a child. She tried to control her breathing, doing what she could to calm herself down. Mikoto reassured herself; they were just hallucinations, it was not real, just the unfortunate past rearing its ugly head.
A minute passed with her eyes scrunched shut and her hands pulling at her dishevelled, spiky hair. Her heart had calmed down, as with her breathing, and she dared to open an eye.
It was just the dead man left.
She opened her other eye and quickly returned her right hand to her pocket, obscuring it once more. Mikoto looked around, checking to see if all the hallucinations had vanished. When she saw nothing she sighed, cleared her throat, and then rubbed her left hand on her skirt. What was left of the blood that had not begun to dry and dye her palm was deposited onto her dark grey skirt.
As she brushed her hand upon the cloth she felt a bump. Mikoto quickly remembered that she had taken the man's phone from him, placing it in her skirt pocket. She took it out, clicking the power button to wake it up from its standby mode. Using her powers, precisely channelling tiny electrical pulses, she unlocked the phone, and had a sudden thought.
Walking down the alleyway, to rid herself of the distraction of the mangled corpse next to her, she began to browse the contact list. She was unsurprised when she saw a 'Judgement Branch Select' contact on the list, and immediately began to dial it.
Mikoto grinned as she was prompted by the automated voice to type in the desired branch that she wished to ring.
Today would be a perfect day for a little chat.