All of the characters herein are from works written by our lord and savior, Kamachi Kazuma, which includes (but is not limited to): A Certain Magical Index: New Testament, A Certain Scientific Railgun, A Certain Scientific Railgun Spinoff: Astral Buddy, and A Certain Magical Index SS: Biohacker.
Chapter 1 – The Twenty-Ninth Day of November.
Part 3
There are only few things more pure than the innocence of a first love.
"Look...at me."
In a moment of courage, she had kissed Touma. It was the single moment which she wanted to last forever, and the single moment which she knew couldn't last forever.
And so her happiness had only been bittersweet, and she had cried, knowing what she had was only a happy dream, that when she woke up, everything would be back to how it was, with a weight too heavy to bear on her shoulders.
Who are you?
Who was she, that she dared do such a thing?
"Me?" Ayu laughed bitterly. "I'm just a nobody. Just some nameless esper. But you? Aren't you a god? Why are you doing this, if you can just do anything you want?"
With a single moment of courage, she had gotten what she wanted.
But with another moment of courage, she had thrown it all–
"Dolly?" A loud voice was coming from somewhere. "Why is Mitsuari Ayu wearing your clothing?"
"Eh, Mi-chan, it's nothing like that–"
"Mitsuari Ayu!" There was an indignant shout, and Ayu felt herself being pulled up, grabbed by the lapels and roughly shaken awake. "What have you done?"
Ayu's eyes slowly opened. She took in a sharp face with purple hair and purple eyes, with a somewhat flustered expression, a face that, with a different hairstyle and a pink nurse's cap (she grasped around in her mind, making clumsy connections), would resemble–
Her fingers tightened around her phone, which had not left her grip, and brought it up in a jab, grazing a straight line up the sofa's cover.
With a backhand swipe, Mitori batted the phone away, knocking it out of Ayu's fingers, and shoved Ayu back down onto the couch.
"Mi-chan." The third person in the room spoke, her tone serene but her body radiating a dangerous aura.
Mitori Kouzaku stopped moving. "What is it?"
"I couldn't let Ayu-chan walk around in the Reformatory uniform, so I let her borrow my outerwear. Now can you let her go?"
Mitori did as she was told.
Tension drained out of the room.
"Huff, huff…" Ayu took in deep breaths. "Thank you, Sakami-san."
"Ahaha...don't worry. Mi-chan gets a bit overprotective of me sometimes. And besides, I don't think Misaki-chan would have wanted you to get hurt, after she told us to take care of you."
"Hm, hm." Ayu shifted herself upright and stretched her aching arms and legs...before Sakami's words slammed into position, making her let out a croak, a stifled yelp of realization. "Who did you say you were working for again?"
"Shokuhou Misaki." The purple-haired girl said in a cheerful voice, returning from when she had temporarily left. Apparently, she had recovered quickly after her initial loss of composure. "Oh, come off it, Ayu-chan." She raised an eyebrow at Mitsuari, who looked like she was considering drastic action. "If we had wanted to hurt you, we would have done so while we were sleeping." She held up a durable paper bag, the type that boutiques gave you to put your purchases. "Now go get washed up before you stink up my apartment."
Ayu numbly took the bag and left for the shower, and Mitori eyed the now-empty sofa with a critical look, before throwing herself into it. "Breakfast is here," she announced. "Sandwiches, onigiri, canned soup."
"Thank you, Mi-chan." The brown-haired girl accepted the food happily, and began to eat. "I hope you brought enough for Ayu-chan as well." She continued through mouthfuls of bread and tuna.
"Yeah, the Queen was very generous with our expenses." Mitori swiped a rice ball from the coffee table and unwrapped it as well. "Did you run into any problems?"
"Nothing we couldn't handle." Dolly said airily. "A few thugs." She caught the look on Mitori's face. "Mi-chan, you know I can take care of myself."
"The dark side–"
"I know the dark side. And I have more experience fighting than both of you combined." Dolly tapped her forehead once. "Don't worry. Besides, if I wasn't there, who knew what would have happened with Ayu-chan."
"As usual, there is no arguing with you." Mitori smiled, a little rueful. That was Dolly indeed: a girl that dragged everyone around with her, that held a persistent stubbornness beneath her smile. "What do you think?" she jabbed a thumb in the direction of the bathroom.
"She didn't trust me. I don't think she trusts anyone." Dolly said sadly. "She reminds me of a...wounded cat. Or maybe a rabbit. Her hair is fluffy like that."
Mitori rolled her eyes. Trust Dolly to jump around in conversation. "Did you get close enough to watch the other me?"
"No." Dolly shook her head.
"Damn."
"What exactly happened, Mi-chan? You were going to pick her up, right? You even asked me to hack the cameras–"
"–while Shokuhou took care of the guards, yes." Next time she was going to demand better security measures, like a bloody password. "But somehow the intruder knew."
There was the clatter of an opening door, and Mitsuari Ayu emerged from the bathroom, freshly washed, dressed in a newly laundered Tokiwadai uniform that was her exact size. A hand was drying her with a towel. In contrast to the tired expression Dolly had seen during the breakout, Ayu's face now looked…
...only marginally less tired.
On noticing that both Dolly and Mitori were looking over at her, Ayu's face instantly snapped back to a guarded expression.
Exactly like a wounded animal. Mitori thought to herself. Been there, done that. Except that I probably went feral instead of all scared like her, heh. "Hiya, Ayu-chan. Come over and have breakfast." She patted the spot next to her on the couch. "I know Reformatory food sucks."
Casually, Ayu walked over the table, and picked up a rice ball as she retrieved her battered cellphone, before retreating to a distance again. "Now…" she said, "who are you, and what does Shokuhou Misaki want with me? Also, take my side."
Too late, Dolly noticed the phone in Ayu's hand, and she hesitated, wanting to stop Ayu, but not wanting to hurt her in the process.
However–
"Hey, Mitsuari Ayu." Ayu's most hated person entered her sight, a memory forcefully jammed into her perceptual channels. "I thought you might try something like that, so I'll just let you know: you can't control her. Also, all this is for your own good, you know? You made quite a mess coming after me, so just stay put while I clean everything up."
To an outside observer, both Mitori and Ayu would have suddenly went very still. A more astute observer would also have star markings suddenly appear in Mitori's eyes.
Then the both of them moved again, and Ayu let out a strangled scream of frustration.
"Damn it, Shokuhou. You just had to phrase things in the most condescending way possible, didn't you?" Mitori muttered to herself.
You're going to tell me there's nothing I can do again? Ayu beseeched herself, the heavens, someone. That my powers are useless again? That I can't do anything next to Shokuhou Misaki again? She searched her mind, falling into possibility after possibility, until–
No. There's one person here I can always control.
She turned her phone to face herself. Kill my pain.
There was only a slim chance of success, but if she could surpass the limits her body kept on itself to prevent self-destruction, she could possibly–
But in several wide steps Dolly had crossed the room and crushed the girl in a hug. "Calm down, Ayu-chan." She murmured softly into her ear. "It's fine."
Ayu made no attempt to struggle against the taller girl.
"We're already on your side." Dolly continued, still soft. "We're helping you get through this. Relax, okay?"
"Sakami-san…" Ayu seemed unsure of how to respond.
Slowly, while the hug still pinned Ayu's arms to her sides, Dolly reached around and pried the cellphone from her hand. Then, she let go. Grabbing her firmly by the shoulders, she steered Ayu over to an empty seat on the sofa and sat her down, placing a sandwich in her hand. "Eat," she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
Mitori shot Dolly a look. How did you just do that?
"A good hug makes everyone happy." Dolly said neutrally. She went back to eating. "You'd better explain to Ayu-chan what Misaki-chan told you."
"Only to break her out and keep her safe. She only mentioned that something happened and that people from the dark side would be after her. Oh, she also said she wanted to retrieve the Five Over Outsider that was 'an imitation with no elegance ability'." Mitori made air quotes with her fingers.
"You still haven't answered my damn question." Ayu rotated to face Mitori. "Who are you?"
"I'm Kouzaku Mitori." The girl said.
"Kouzaku Mitori was taking me away in an armored truck when we were attacked." Ayu said flatly. Her hand began to move towards the table.
"Wait, wait, wait." Mitori raised her hands. "That was a fake. I was the one that helped you and tossed you the phone."
On cue, one of the bedroom doors that was ajar began to open with a creak. An overlarge claw of liquid metal appeared, grabbing the door, before the liquid puppet's 'face' peeked over the edge, in a manner that was simultaneously both shy and creepy.
"Liquid Shadow, my ability, lets me make puppets out of liquid metal. Now will you believe me?" Mitori said.
"There, there, Mi-chan. Ayu-chan's just jumpy from today." Dolly, ever the peacemaker, spoke up. "Also, where did you just leave your puppet?"
"Dolly–"
"I told you it damages the floor! Mi-chan!"
"All right, all right!" Grumbling, Mitori stood up.
Tearing her eyes from the byplay, Ayu returned to eating the food.
Much as I hate Shokuhou Misaki, these two people seem reliable enough...for now. She looked around the flat again. It was tidy, but it looked lived-in, with random snacks on the kitchen counter and dirty laundry in the laundry basket. Besides, there's nowhere else to go.
She had failed in the single objective that she had been working steadily towards. Without that goal, and with much of her burning hatred diminished by that failure, she had become aimless.
"This whole thing still doesn't make any sense." Ayu spoke, more to herself than to anyone.
"An imposter snatched you up halfway." Mitori interrupted from inside the bedroom before Ayu could go on a tangent. "I was supposed to have been the one to come get you. Thankfully, we found out where you were and were able to intercept the truck."
"I get the doppelganger part. But why did that impostor also mention that she was there on the behalf of Shokuhou Misaki?"
Mitori emerged again and exchanged a look with Dolly.
"Someone's on to us," Mitori said after a pause. "Mitsuari-san, where is the equipment you stole?"
"In a bunker in District 21." Ayu said slowly. Under Ground Geo, where the end had begun, and where everything had ended. "Everything should still be there. I didn't get the chance to tidy up much after…well."
"Good, because we're headed there right now." Mitori said. "Naturally, you'll be coming with us."
"Can't we give her more time to rest?" Dolly questioned. Ayu glanced over, surprised.
Either she's a liar on the tier of complete psychopaths, or she really does care...somehow.
"No." Mitori said simply. "They've already tried to get their hands on her. If they're after the equipment as well, they would also be moving already. Come on."
~~[z]~~
"Really, of all the favours you could have asked, you want me to babysit?"
...
"And spirit her away? Before any mysterious incidents happen to her? I guess that's fine. I'm the only one who knows their way in and out of juvie, after all."
Kouzaku Mitori's recalled her conversation with Shokuhou Misaki as she drove towards District 21, which held the city's water storage facilities as well as its observatory.
The legal age to drive in Japan was 18, but that had never stopped her. Besides, Mitori figured that she had enough life experience of a normal person twice her age. After being roped in by an evil mad scientist and almost destroying the city, not to mention numerous criminal and illegal acts, driving a car seemed almost elementary.
Usually, Dolly rode with her in the front, but today, she had opted to keep an eye on their extra passenger. Right now, the girl with tea-colored hair was attempting to strike up a conversation with said extra passenger, and was actually making a modest amount of progress.
"...an aquarium." Dolly (or as Ayu known her, Sakami Hitsuji) was gesturing with her arms. "And then there were dolphins and loads of colorful fish. It was outside the city though, so Mi-chan and Misaki-chan had to–sorry."
"...it's fine, Sakami-san." Ayu said. "You can say her name. She's your friend, after all."
Tokiwadai's largest clique. That was what Shokuhou Misaki had proclaimed to have defeated her in the incident barely more than a day ago.
She gets to sit surrounded by loyal friends, and here I am alone. That was the thought that instantly came to her mind – a selfish, petty, thought.
(Dolly saw the pensive look on Ayu's face, and decided to remain silent. She looks so sad...what is she thinking?)
Ayu knew it, knew the pettiness of her own thoughts, and she hated herself for it a bit more. Trying to think about other things, she shifted her mind to...the strange dream she had.
Wandering around Academy City. Kissing Touma alone in a room at sunset–but it was somehow sad rather than happy. And facing down a strange blonde girl with an eyepatch–
"We're here." Mitori announced without preamble. It was a seemingly-abandoned parking lot, a flat plane carved out of one of the District's many rolling hills. "This is the closest we can get by car," she said, unloading a few things from the boot. "Mitsuari-chan, you'll have to lead us the rest of the way."
Ayu nodded, then stretched out a hand. "My phone. If I'm going to be leading, I want it."
That was a flimsy excuse, and all three people present knew it, but Dolly walked over and placed it in her palm anyway. "Don't run away." She said softly.
Ayu nodded assent once more.
Don't run away. To her, it seemed like Hitsuji's words were not telling her to "not escape from the situation", but rather–
Don't run away from your problems.
Fix the mess you've caused.
The three of them made their way up the mountain in silence. Mitori operated her smartphone as she walked along; if Ayu bothered to look into the sky, she would have seen the single mobile camera that was floating above them like a sentinel, watching to see if anyone was following them. (Her usual tablet was deemed too big to lug around, considering the additional cargo she was carrying.) Even the normally cheerful Dolly had a perpetual frown on her face, emitting the occasional spark as she strained her senses for signs of electrical surveillance.
A short walk later, they reached the mountaintop. The morning sun glittered off the surface of the circular artificial lake, while the power station stood solidly in the distance, a dark form rising up into the clear blue sky.
"Ah, it's beautiful!" Dolly dropped her guard for a bit, and twirled around like an excited child.
"Very scenic." Mitori could not resist the remark, which was snide yet completely sincere. "Quiet, too." It was much different from the bases of the other dark side organizations she had seen, which were situated mostly in urban settings, and close to lines of supply and communication.
"..." The third girl present said nothing in response, except to proceed to step through a clump of bushes, until she reached a single tree next to an electrical box, on which she rested her palm–
–or appeared to, her hand sinking through to land on some unknown surface. Beside her, the electrical box gave a single hiss, before Ayu pulled on the handle to reveal a hidden doorway, framing a flight of stairs that lead downwards.
"Holograms?" Mitori asked.
"Magnetically-controlled colored dust," Ayu answered dully. "Sakami-san, you'd better not touch that." The statement was directed to Dolly, who froze in the act of stretching out a finger. "Everything should be down here. Close the door behind you." She headed downwards without waiting.
Narrowing her eyes, Mitori followed. It had only now occurred to her that Ayu might be leading the two of them into a trap, and she whispered to Dolly.
"We can deal with it if it is. But I don't think Ayu would lie to us like that."
You're really too trusting sometimes, Dolly. "Better safe than sorry." From the luggage bag that she had painstakingly dragged all the way up, her Liquid Shadow emerged, a puppet out of its box. True to its name, it followed the former operant of the dark side faithfully as she descended the dimly-lit stairs.
What greeted them at the bottom was something they both did not expect.
"That's some obsession you got with the Number Five." The quip was torn from Mitori, even as Dolly smacked her arm for it. What prompted it was, of course, the suit of Designers' Gel, which was in its dormant state of a form resembling said Level 5.
That is to say, a morbidly obese Shokuhou Misaki.
With no occupant, the suit was shrunken, further distorting the blonde girl's features into something like a shrunken balloon.
"This is the Five Over Mental Out Outsider." Ayu's tone delivered the tongue-twisting name in a flat tone, gesturing at the fat suit while not responding to Mitori's comment. "It's something like a hologram, except it changes the appearance of the surroundings using the magnetic dust I mentioned earlier. Oh, and the dust can also vibrate to produce sound."
"This doesn't seem anything like Misaki-chan's ability." Dolly remarked.
"It influences the mental state of the target by sight and sound, in a roundabout manner influencing the target's thoughts." Ayu said, still in that flat tone. "At least, that's what I was told."
Clearly the makers didn't have much sense. How is some fake scenery supposed to be a replacement for an esper ability that brainwashes others? Mitori thought to herself. Or perhaps...yeah, it's definitely a matter of branding. And little Ayu-chan here just snapped up whatever was related to Misaki-san, I bet.
"The real Five Over is this one." Ayu walked past a table strewn with discarded food wrappers and a wall of blank monitors into another room, which stretched out long like a hallway.
The room was the size of a large garage or small hangar, but its ceiling was relatively low-only about one and half times the height of a 'normal' room. Lined up along its walls were what appeared to be several robots, all resembling insects of one type or another – two crickets, a praying mantis, and a rhinoceros beetle.
However, Ayu only looked at them with a raised eyebrow, and proceeded to the room's end, where something similar to a scorpion wasp stood. "This is it. But it's also a fake. You need the real thing to lie inside here." She slapped the abdomen of the wasp, which was, as Mitori and Dolly saw, a cylinder or tube large enough to contain an entire person. "Then, it draws out her power to acquire data, becoming complete while killing her in the process."
Mitori eyed the tube. "That doesn't fit the definition of–"
"Yeah, it doesn't. Also, since Shokuhou Misaki was never successfully scanned, it doesn't work,, either." Ayu gave a bitter laugh. "Five Over, as if. Imitations and spares can never surpass the original."
That was when the eyes of the rest of the robots flashed on.
~~[z]~~
One, two, three, four. What comes next?
If such a riddle was posted, say, as a hint to a password, you would scoff at its simplicity.
Any idiot could complete the pattern.
It was a riddle that one could not help but answer.
It was a simple way to get someone to say "five".
There was no such riddle written on the walls of the underground bunker, but there was no need to.
Five contraptions in the room.
Shokuhou Misaki, the Number Five, fifth of Academy City's seven Level 5s.
And the name of the project dedicated to reproducing the powers of these espers: FIVE_Over.
~~[z]~~
The crickets moved first, leaping forward.
"Dolly!" Mitori yelled a warning. The shadow puppet twirled its arms like a top, but instead of cutting the insects in half, it simply sent both of them flying towards the wall. "Use your ability!" From under her skirt she retrieved a collapsible baton–knives wouldn't do anything against metal robots.
Then again, neither would a baton. But it's still better than nothing!
But Dolly was having problems of her own. She ducked down to avoid a shell fired by the rhinoceros beetle, which landed with a heavy boom on the bunker walls, and dodged deftly around the claws of the mantis, looping behind it. Sparks of electric blue burst from her hands. "It's no good!" She dodged again, as the mantis swung round to face her. "These things aren't metal!"
"What!?" Of the three of them, Mitori's puppet was doing the most work, its sharpened tentacle-arms blocking, deflecting, knocking back. But Mitori never had to control both the puppet and fight with her own body at once, and the rapid toggling between the two was leading to a noticeable lag in reaction time.
It went without saying that thinking of strategy on top of that was nearly impossible.
"I mean, there's a bit, but not enough for me to control!" The weak jolts of pure lightning that Dolly could output only stunned them for a moment, and she allowed herself to be pushed back, back towards the door.
Think, Mitori, think! The girl mentally slapped herself. The crickets–they don't have any attacking power except to jump on you. The mantis only attacks at close range. The rhinoceros beetle–
–turned to face Mitori, firing off another round, sending the boom of an artillery gun reverberating in the enclosed space.
Shit! Seeing no choice, her Shadow dived in to intercept. The impact sent liquid metal flying, splattering onto the attacking machines the like the blood of a dissected alien. Mitori grit her teeth further.
Can't keep using her to block hits like that. The further my puppet deviates from my own proportions, the more concentration I need to control it. She dived out of the way of another cricket leap, backed off towards the corner and crouched down, minimizing her profile. I'll focus on using the Shadow. Also, where the hell is Ayu? Don't tell me this was really a trap!?
"Mi, your right!" Dolly's scream tore away Mitori's attention, and she bit back a curse as she narrowly dodged another cricket leap. It didn't matter that the things only had a single attack–it was a confined space, and the tactics that the both of them could resort to were limited.
At least they're taking damage. Mitori wheeled to her right and brought down her baton with all the force she could muster, leaving a crack in the shell. Plastic?
Seeing Mitori in distress, Dolly too was beginning to fray. During the Daihasei Festival, a certain Sister had mentioned that she had fought over a thousand battles where a single touch meant death, and part of this experience had also been imparted to Dolly. Dodging the claws of the mantis was simply yet another test in the same principles.
But she needed to protect Mitori.
And I can't control the robots! She could sense trace of metal within them, but they were nonmagnetic, and seemed almost to be rejecting her influence with some sort of sentience.
No time to drift off now. The long hair that trailed from her hat whipped up around her with her movement, before twisting and straightening, forming rails. From her coat pockets Dolly tossed out a handful of nuts and bolts, and–
"Railgun!"
What Dolly lacked in power, she tried to make up for in quantity. Electromagnetically accelerated metal shot out in all directions, blasting several holes in the insect-themed robots…
...except for the rhinoceros beetle, which seemed to remain stubbornly unscathed.
It turned to face her.
It charged.
Dolly's eyes widened, even as Mitori shouted in distress and warning.
A single eye-filled tentacle shot forth from the doorway behind Dolly and flicked at the beetle horn, altering its trajectory upwards and slightly to the side, where it crashed into the ceiling before buzzing back down erratically, as if dazed.
Then a figure blurred past the reincarnated clone, throwing itself against the lopsided beetle and bearing it to the wall with a satisfying crunch. Fists that were almost invisible with speed delivered a rapid pummelling to the beetle's underside.
What the hell? Mitori thought. What the hell? She thought the same thing again, louder, as she spied a sixth nonhuman entity that was floating in the doorway: a large orb resembling an octopus, with numerous eyes on its sides. One of the eyes made contact with Mitori's own, and she heard Mitsuari Ayu's voice in her head, clear as day.
Use crush attacks.
Swearing again at her own stupidity, Mitori coalesced her puppet's arms into something more suitable for bludgeoning, and went to work.
Not that there was much left to do. The tentacles that snaked out from below the octopus orb had reached out and held the mantis down as Ayu subjected it to a beatdown that one would be likely to see in a young man's manga, complete with her best berserker scream, and it too was soon reduced to a crackling, fizzling wreck.
Silence fell on the room, only punctuated by the heavy breathing of the three girls as they looked to one another hesitantly.
It was broken first by Mitori. "Explain."
"This isn't my own private bunker." Ayu said calmly, as if she hadn't pounded an attack robot to a wreck with her own two fists. "I know my benefactor was...he had multiple operations going on at once, and even when I was using this room, there were always a few technicians going in and out, doing odd jobs for the dark side. Other people could have came in here."
Ayu turned back into the previous room, and the strange mass that looked like an octopus floated after her, the soles of her powered suit making a clack, clack as she walked.
"Didn't think she was the type to dress in something daring like that." Mitori muttered under her breath. The form-hugging suit Ayu was currently dressed in covered as much skin as a person wearing a school swimsuit, thigh-high socks, and elbow-high gloves, in effect showing off her upper arms, armpits, and thighs. And those are some ridiculously nice legs.
"Be nice, Mi-chan." Dolly admonished.
"Fine, fine." The pair of childhood friends moved along into the control room, where Ayu was tapping a series of keys, trying to get the monitors to work.
"It's dead. No power supply, and it's likely that they've wiped everything off here as well."
Without even a word, Dolly stepped over and waved a hand, causing the screens to turn on (though they were still black). Mitori proceeded to hand over her smartphone and a cable, and the electric-based esper got to work.
"Digital forensics. There's a lot of specialized software on my phone, and Dolly can use her powers to interface with machines as well." Mitori explained. "Also," she added, "do you mind putting away that thing?" She gestured at the eyeball-studded orb which was looming behind her. "It's disgusting."
"Yeah, it is." Ayu gave a rueful smile. "Do you want to see something funny instead?"
"What?" Mitori said irritably.
Ayu walked over to the orb, whose tentacles immediately began wrapping around her.
Just how much pent-up frustration have you been suppressing? Mitori thought to herself incredulously.
The orb and everything attached to it undulated and melted around Ayu, covering her whole like a hungry slime from a fantasy game, until its form settled into something, or someone more recognizable.
"Bfttt." Mitori couldn't stop herself. It was the difference between seeing a funny costume draped over a chair as opposed to seeing someone actually putting it on and parading around in it. "Oh, this is great. Maybe I should take a picture." She further amused herself by imagining what Misaki's reaction would have been during the incident.
"The urban legend of Shokuhou Misaki's true form." Ayu said, waddling over to check on Dolly's progress. "Where she just uses her powers to erase your memory of her fatness."
"I'm sure Misaki-chan will be very happy to hear both of you thinking about her," Dolly deadpanned, a rare sight compared to her usual niceness. "Anyway. There's almost nothing left here, no camera data or anything. I only managed to scrounge up a few identifiers for those that accessed the hangar."
"What this?" Ayu asked.
"You were always alone when in the dark side? Then you probably would have missed these. These are organization codes...though I've heard they're not really used anymore since World War Three ended." Mitori interjected, and read off the screen.
"THEME. SCHOOL. Let me think...oh no."
Dark Side Report – Esper Profile
(compiled by Kouzaku Mitori, for Shokuhou Misaki)
Name: Sakami Hitsuji (坂美 羊)
Alias: Dolly (ドリー)
Height/Weight: ███ cm / ██ kg
Ability: Radio Noise (kekkan denki 欠陥電気, "flawed electricity")
Level: 3
A variant of the Electromaster ability, in particular that possessed by Misaka Mikoto.
Allows her to control electricity and magnetism.
Like the original Misaka, she can fire railguns, though they are weaker due to the differences in power. Dolly favours the use of her long hair to create the 'rails', and likes to use nuts and bolts as projectiles.
While not an 'official' member of the Misaka Network, having no serial number from 0 to 20001, she is still able to send and receive information if she so chooses. Gaining the memories of the clones that died in the Level 6 Shift project has effectively given her combat proficiency above her lived experience.
"What are you doing, Mi-chan? Oh, is that supposed to be me?"
The line between an Index fic and a Railgun fic gets more blurry every day. I don't even know if there's a point in differentiating them, though.
Dolly's name steals the "saka" from "Misaka" and the "mi" from "Mikoto". "Hitsuji", as Ayu mentioned the previous chapter, literally just means "sheep". This is a perfectly normal next to people like "Stephanie Gorgeouspalace", I assure you. Shout out to the Kamachiland discord.
Ayu's a bit erratic, which is understandable, since everything only just recently happened. When you look at the actual Index timeline, you start to question how Touma kept his sanity with the number of incidents he's being dragged into, one after another.
Review please!