AN: Hello readers! I have returned with a double update today!

To be honest, I was going to have it as one chapter, but I noticed that it was most likely better to split them due to a...

Pretty great shift in tone at some point, so I thought they would be better separate than together:`)

That's why they're both a little shorter than usual just in case you were wondering.

These two chapters will serve as a small bridge and set up btw the end of the Project WaveInflux Arc and the start of the Level Upper Arc, so I hope you enjoy!

Please leave a review on anything you liked, think I should work on, or just any questions in general! I enjoy reading them and I will answer them at the end of the next chapter:)


Disclaimer: I do not own A Certain Scientific Railgun/Magical Index or any of its characters...the only things I own are:

1. My characters and

2. my ideas


Chapter 15: Odd but Bittersweet Awakening

Darkness…

Pain…

Numbness…

And emptiness…

That was all she could see and feel at that moment upon what she thought was rising back into some semblance of consciousness, only to see that she couldn't or didn't have any energy to open her eyes fully, blearily staring in the distance with the corners of her vision filled in darkness and something else that she could conclude to be the ground or floor beneath her.

All she could feel at that moment was an intense pain ringing through her head that mirrored the even more intense pain that she felt in her chest as it felt like her heart was racing out of control and inconsistently.

Like it was unable to actually function properly for some reason that she couldn't bring herself to understand why, but…

All she knew is that it hurt…

And it was getting worse and worse as time progressed.

It felt like her chest was gradually constricting in on itself so much that it was getting harder and harder to breath as time went on, with the only thing she could actually feel other than that awful feeling was her hand resting in that spot and clenching it as if she could soothe it somehow.

Or to feel comfortable knowing it was there, since it seemed to be the only thing that she could feel or focus on other than that.

'What's….happening to me?...I-It….hurts….' she thought to herself in confusion as she felt her entire form trembling, feeling her grip on her chest growing even more tense.

'I don't…feel alright…I don't feel alright at all…..'

What was making this entire part of this even more stressful was that….

She could not remember what had triggered this or why she was in this agonizing amount of pain in the first place.

To be honest, she was coming to a blank on almost anything she tried to think for herself, as if all that knowledge was lost to her…

Including who she even was.

It was like her mind was completely scrambled, unable to grasp on any of the memories that were supposed to be in her head as if they had left or were taken from her for one reason or another.

The only thing she could tell right now was that whatever had happened before, it must have caused her body to be near or at its limit, with her now feeling the repercussions of that fact alone.

Over time as it continued to get worse, she felt something tugging her to go back into unconsciousness as she started to feel very weak and fatigued all of the sudden and feeling her grip on her chest gradually starting to go slack without her control.

Even with that being the case, somewhere inside of herself knew that she needed to stay awake longer….

Knowing that if she closed her eyes then and there, that there was a high chance that she wouldn't be able to find the energy to reopen them again any time soon.

As she laid there fighting to stay awake and huddling more in on herself as the pain progressed, she began to hear hurried footsteps from somewhere around her, hearing voices filled with what she thought to be both relief and slight panic as someone gently turned her to be on her back.

When she saw whoever it was in her vision, she felt her body relax slightly as if her mind had some recognition of who was in front of her but couldn't find the brain power to inform her of who it was.

"Asher are you okay?" The woman above her asked as she tried to keep her focus enough to actually see her features, seeing her shoulder-length black hair and concern filling her onyx eyes.

She felt confusion grow inside of herself after hearing that name, unable to tell if that name was her own even though the woman was talking directly at her.

Before she could say anything, her breath hitched as she broke off in a wince, feeling the pain in her chest increase even more as it nearly forced her to pass out from its intensity alone.

"Hey, what's wrong? Asher, talk to me when you can, so I'm able to figure out how to help you." The woman stated with panic in her voice.

She tried to vocalize what she was feeling at that moment, but her first attempt sounded more like a gasp than coherent words due to how much she was panting from not being able to catch her breath all that well.

"Ch-Chest….h-hu…hurts….E-Everything…h-hurts…tch…" She mumbled low enough for her to hear, seeing the woman's eyes widen in shock before she seemed to looked down and notice how her hand was holding onto her chest as it was placed over her heart.

She immediately moved her hand out of the way and laid her head onto her chest and listened out for something.

It didn't last that long to where she felt the woman's body immediately stiffen as she rose back up, seeing her features paler than it had just been a second ago.

"Damn it, that isn't good. Aiho! You need to try and get that friend of hers awake like right now!" The woman yelled as she turned to look somewhere off to the side, before looking back at her as her head lolled without her control and brought her hand to steady it. "No No No, kid! Focus on me and keep yourself awake!"

"What's wrong over there with Asher, Kikyou!?" Another woman's voice rang out, though slightly muffled to her ears as her hearing seemed to start going in and out.

"It's her heart! It's going completely out of control and is beating way too fast to even be considered normal! I think it's on the verge or is already going into cardiac arrest from how irregular it is, and she's starting to lose consciousness!" Kikyou responded as she maintained eye contact with her, seeing the concern growing more and more on her face from looking at her as the corners of vision darkened. "Come on, Asher! Stay with me and do not close your eyes!"

Asher, even though she still wasn't sure if that was her name, could tell that her situation was starting to grow dire from that whole statement alone.

Anything with 'heart' and 'cardiac arrest' nearly said in the same sentence alone would send alarm bells ringing through anyone's head.

But even with that, she was having a hard time doing what the woman above her, Kikyou she presumed to be her name, asked her to do as she constantly had to will her eyes back open whenever they had slipped close and felt them getting closer and closer to winning the fight to keep them shut.

Her breathing was starting to become a bigger issue when she wasn't able to take in enough air anymore, causing her to grow dizzier and weaker the longer she willed herself to keep doing it…

Basically, starting to lose the will to keep herself awake anymore…

Feeling herself starting to slip under the waves of darkness filling her vision.

'I c-can't….I'm tired…..I'm so…so tired…I don't think I can keep myself…awake anymore….everything….i-is running together….' she thought as the light started to dull in her eyes, taking in shallower and shallower breaths as she started to lean further into Kikyou's hand from not being able to keep her head up by herself anymore…

Feeling her hand increasing in heat as it felt like her entire body was starting to go into a cold sweat.

"Aiho, we're losing her! If you don't get her up in the next few moments, we may need to rush Asher to the nearest hospital, or she isn't going to last much longer! Her pulse is still increasing and is going to end up stalling out at the rate she's deteriorating, and that will mean it will be too late for us to administer an electrical charge high enough to force her heartbeat to go back to normal!" She heard her say as if her voice was starting to go farther and farther away, even though she could still feel her right in front of her.

"Wait what's…" she heard another voice say before they paused in what seemed like shock or disbelief and started to run towards her direction. "No, Zierdan! What's wrong with her!?"

And after hearing that voice that for some reason felt so familiar to her more so than the one above her had, she immediately succumbed to the darkness as her breathing came to a complete stop just moments after….


July 17th, 10:30PM

Tokiwadai Dormitory

Asher took a sharp intake of breath as her eyes opened, panting as she felt herself sweating through her sheets in her bed and clutching onto her chest.

She felt her heart pounding hard as she took a few minutes to get her breathing under control, closing her eyes to focus out everything around her in an attempt to get herself calmed down enough for that to happen.

When it did, she let out a deep sigh under her breath as she raised her hand and gripped the front of her face, feeling it pounding incessantly as she let out a wince under her breath.

"Dang it…why is it that each time I wake up, I feel worse than I was before? It's not a logical thing to happen whatsoever." She said under her breath as she tiredly looked down at her other hand, seeing it trembling slightly.

What was that? It was too real to be a dream but at the same time I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that before. I don't think it was one of the memories that Shokuhou pieced together either…. she thought to herself as her blue eyes narrowed, unable to wrap her head around what had just happened.

It wasn't unusual that when Shokuhou did a headscan with her that other memories were jostled to come to the surface along with the other memories that the esper in question pieced together.

But unlike those times, this one had felt real enough that it felt like she was experiencing it for herself again, not just feeling the emotions connected to it or just seeing the memory from the outside.

Her heart had been pounding so fast when she had woke up, she honestly thought she was having some sort of anxiety, panic, or even a heart attack out of nowhere, but noticed real quickly that it wasn't any of those or at least hadn't gotten up to that point.

As she was contemplating on that, her eyes widened slightly in confusion for the fact that she had just noticed that she was in her own bed and took the time to look back and forth within her room.

They're way too many things on my mind to process anymore craziness, but when did I even get in here? she thought as she swung her legs out to place her feet on the floor and walked over to look out her window.

She could already tell that it was still nighttime before getting over there, having to block some of the vibrance of the moon as it peered into her room.

That's one thing that was sort of familiar as she tried to think back to the last thing she did before she found herself here. She knew that she had been walking with Misaka around this time, but even that was fairly hazy until she came to a complete blank for anything else that had happened after that.

After standing there for a couple moments thinking on it, she let out a small sigh under her breath. Her brain and her tired body for that matter lacked any energy to think on the subject anymore, realizing it may be better to just go and ask Misaka herself.

She reached down to pick up her phone that was on her desk to look at the time before she stopped when she saw a message from the esper in question that read:

Zierdan, please call or text me when you wake up. Whether it's late or very early in the morning, it doesn't matter to me. I have something important to discuss with you.

-MK

Her face fell from reading that, feeling sweat fall down the side of her face as she grew nervous from how it was worded, noticing that whatever it was seemed pretty important.

She had one idea in back of her mind for what it might be, but she was hoping it wouldn't be the case.

I wonder if she's going to ask about the way I had been acting when we were walking together, which would lead to a conversation on….that experiment if I'm not careful, she thought to herself as she hesitated, conflicted on what she should do.

I can't…I can't talk about that.

It would make this hollow and numb feeling turn into something else even more undesirable.

She knew that if she started talking about any of what she saw and remembered…

Any of what she truly felt…

She wouldn't be able to keep the already damaged pieces of herself together anymore and would probably get overwhelmed from all those emotions that she knew were there but at the same time had no clue how to fully define what they were specifically.

She didn't want to do that and basically cause herself to break or indirectly cause Misaka to see her like that.

It would just turn another thing that she's going to worry over, when she has been burdened with my problems enough as it is these last couple of years.

A kind-hearted person like her shouldn't be constantly dragged down by this…

When I should be able to handle it all by myself.

She sat there for a while contemplating that as a small shadow fell on her face, deflating as time went along as she leaned further onto her desk.

A small part of her just wanted to leave it alone and not say anything to her and just sit in the darkness of her room for the night to find some way to stop the constant influx of emotions and thoughts going off in her head.

But…

The larger half of her knew that wasn't a great idea, since she would end up finding out that she did that some way or another, which would probably upset her more in the long run in comparison to the slight chance she tries to dive into the sensitive topic involving the darkest part of her life thus far.

So she decided to text her, even though she knew she was against doing so at the same time.

It wasn't particularly long as it was straight to the point to say that she was awake.

Even though it hadn't been enough time for her to see it or leave a reply, she already felt the tug of war and storm brewing inside of herself on whether or not she should confide to the Electromaster what had actually happened at the hospital today or just keep it to herself and save that discussion for later.

All she knew though, whatever she was going to do needed to be decided in the next few moments since she knew that Misaka would waste little time in getting here when she looked down at her phone…


A little while earlier…

Misaka was laying on her bed as she stared up at the ceiling, finding herself unable to go to sleep.

This marked the 2nd night that Asher hadn't awakened from the deep sleep she had been put in by Shokuhou on the day she came back from her appointment at the hospital.

It had been weird not having her around or knowing that she was out doing something other than what was doing now, since they had been close knit from the time they had gotten to know each other these past 6 years.

Saten, Uiharu, and Shirai had noticed how off she was for the last couple of days and how Asher was notably not there along with them when they were out, which led to them asking questions about her.

The last time they even had a glimpse of her was on the day they had noticed how down she was, only adding on to their concern from not seeing or hearing from her after that.

After trying to avoid answering the questions and waving them off, she relented and partially told them some of what happened to hopefully settle down their nerves on the situation.

The only thing that she had let them know that led to her exhausted state was that she had a severe anxiety attack at some point during the day when she was at the hospital for a check-up.

This was somewhat true since it had drained most of her energy when paired with whatever they had given her and the headscan, so it wasn't like it was a complete lie….

And she wanted to keep some of Asher's privacy intact, knowing that she probably wasn't ready for the others to know about the details of her past surrounding the end of the experiment a few years ago.

She had hoped Asher would have finally woken up at some point today, instinctively checking her phone whenever she could but always deflating when she didn't see anything from her.

After laying there for a while, she let out a sigh in which Shirai was able to hear from her desk, turning away from her computer to look over at her.

"Still awake, Sissy?" Shirai asked as she saw Misaka sit up in her bed.

"Unfortunately, I can't seem to bring myself to go to sleep." Misaka said tiredly as she let out a yawn.

"I can tell. I'm guessing you're still worried about Zierdan, aren't you?" Shirai asked, hearing Misaka let out a groan as her response as she fell back in her bed.

"Yeah," She responded as she muffled her voice in the stuffed bear next to her. "I don't think she has ever slept this long before, and it's making me antsy. She has barely moved an inch from where she's laying in her bed and doesn't even respond or react whenever I get her to take her medicine. It's almost as if she's… "

She's…

Misaka paused at that, trailing off as her face became more downcast.

It's almost as if she's in a coma…again, she thought to herself, remembering the many visits she did for the esper in question when she was recovering slowly in the hospital.

At least this time…I know that she'll wake up sooner rather than later, but it still doesn't change the fact that it has been reminding me of it these past few days she has been like this.

"She's what?" Shirai asked aloud, breaking her out of her thoughts as she turned over on her side.

"Nothing…forget I said anything," she remarked as she tried to hide the sadness within her voice, though Shirai was still able to hear it to some degree.

Misaka fell silent at that for a while as Shirai looked over at her in concern before letting out a sigh.

Even from what she had told them about Asher's current condition, she knew that there was something that Misaka was hiding from them but decided it was best not to press her for answers…yet.

She turned back towards her computer to resume her current investigation that Judgement had been tasked with to solve.

For the last week, there had been multiple bombing incidents within the city in which escalated one after the other and lead to hazardous and dangerous conditions to those involved.

During the debrief that was led by the chief of her Judgement office, Konori Mii, they were informed that it was a series of Graviton attacks, in which the force and scale increased after each successful hit.

They haven't been able to get any leads or narrow down any suspects, leaving the teleporter somewhat drained from working on it as long and extensively as she had.

The one time that she actually has to sleep for once is the one time I actually needed her help with something, she thought to herself with a sigh.

Even though she still considered her to be a civilian, she knew that Asher's expertise in gravity would have been very valuable in assisting in the effort of stopping these bombings.

But with her being down for who knows how long, she was continuing on with her work in hopes of being able to do something before any more people were hurt due to these attacks.

"I can't believe you're still working over there, Kuroko. But I'm not surprised, I guess." Misaka stated, breaking her silence. "Oh by the way, do you want to go shopping some time tomorrow?"

That question sparked a bit of excitement within Shirai as she looked over at the Electromaster with a blush on her cheeks and a smile on her face.

"You want me to go shopping with you, Sissy!? Really!?" She asked, hearing Misaka laugh a little under her breath as she sat back up in her bed.

"Well since you and Uiharu are both off tomorrow, I told Saten that I thought it would be a fun idea for all of us to make a day of it." Misaka stated as she twiddled with her fingers nervously. "And I thought it would ease all of our stress a bit, due to all that judgement work the both of you have been doing and with everyone being concerned about Zierdan being out cold these past few days."

Shirai's face fell slightly at that last part before keeping the smile on her face.

"Oh, you did, did you?" she replied as she looked over at her warmly. "I appreciate the offer, but I don't think I'll be able to go, because I still need to do a little bit more investigating."

Misaka let that soak in for a second before letting out a sigh, smiling over at her as she laid back down in her bed.

"Okay, I wish you good luck on that." She said as she got comfortable within her covers. "Well, I'm going to actually try to go to sleep this time, so goodnight."

As Shirai hummed in reply and Misaka closed her eyes, they both heard a phone go off in the room.

When Misaka looked over at her desk and grabbed her phone, her eyes widened slightly at who's named popped up, feeling her phone shaking in her hold as she rose up off of her bed.

The text read:

I'm awake.

-Z

Even though it was just two words…

Those two words were enough to actually put a relieved smile on her face as she held her phone close to her chest.

Shirai could see Misaka's body sag in relief from whatever she saw on her phone, almost as if the weight that had been pressing down on her had just been lifted as she proceeded to walk out into the hallway and close the door behind her.

I think that's the first real smile I've seen these last few days from her, Shirai thought to herself as she laid her head into her hand, contemplating on doing something that some might see as invasive even if it was for the right reasons.

Meaning that Zierdan is probably awake…and

There's a chance to find out what really happened to her in the first place.


Misaka sat in front of Asher's door for what seemed like forever, raising her hand every 5-8 seconds or so to knock, only to stop right before her hand made contact with the door.

All she wanted to do was rush in there to see her coherent, conscious, and honestly just herself after experiencing how she was like when she was under Shokuhou's control.

But that very thing was holding her back at the same time, because it was one of those rare moments that she didn't know what she was going to say when she got in there from knowing about everything she had gone through during her hospital stay.

With one scene still playing in her mind that had let her know something being wrong with her in concern for that in general from the beginning…

["I thought you were against 'sneak attack hugs' like this one?" Misaka said jokingly. "Have you taken after Saten on such a habit?"

"No…I wouldn't say that…." Asher said as she laughed slightly before sniffling softly though enough so that Misaka was able to hear it. "I…j-just really needed….one…and…since…I rarely ever do this….I thought…it…would...benefit…the both of us…to….some extent…I'm not usually…the one giving them to …anyone…but I never…said I don't see the value in giving or receiving one...either."]

She's not one to admit to things like that so easily, she thought to herself as the expression on her face fell.

She knew she needed to get her to talk one way or another before she ended up cracking under the pressure of keeping all of her demons to herself, since she didn't have a lot of outlets to vent when she needed to.

With Misaka herself the prime person to hopefully be able to get that to happen…

So, she nervously brought her hand for the last time and scrunched her eyes closed in anticipation, proceeding to knock on the door in front of her.

Confusion, however, settled on her face when her hand just hit empty air, opening her eyes and seeing the floor of Asher's room.

Asher had sensed that Misaka had been sitting there for a while, finally able to get her nerves in control enough to walk over and open the door for her.

Even with everything that was going on with her, she couldn't help but smile at the amusing sight in front of her, seeing the Electromaster in her frog pajamas and standing there with a massive blush on her cheeks from her nervousness.

Her hand was held up in the air as if it was positioned to knock on the door but instead hit air right at her forehead, seeing her stiffen when she noticed it as well.

"Hey, Mikoto. Nice froggy pj's you have there." Asher stated with slight amusement in her voice as she saw Misaka look up at her in surprise before looking back down towards the floor with her hands shaking at her sides.

"That would be the first thing you say to me after being asleep all of this time…." Misaka said with a notable amount of shakiness in her voice as Asher's face fell in confusion.

"What do you mean by-"

Before she could get that out, she was blindsided when Misaka hugged her out of nowhere, causing her to fall onto her back and wince under her breath when the pain in her body escalated from the hard contact on the ground.

"Tch, owwwww. I wasn't expecting that." Asher said under her breath with her eyes closed as she felt Misaka raise up off of her. "Mind telling me why you-"

She stiffened when she felt something wet hit her face, opening her eyes and seeing a complete contrast to what she had just seen seconds ago as tears were running down Misaka's face.

Why is she… she thought to herself as she saw a large smile as she wiped her tears away.

"S-Sorry about that." Misaka replied, looking down and seeing the look of surprise on Asher's face. "I'm just happy that you finally woke up."

"But why to that extent? I don't think I've slept that long, since we were just walking back here…" Asher responded stoically, causing Misaka to pause for a couple moments due to what she had said.

"Just walking back here?" Misaka asked aloud as she got off Asher and sat on the floor next to her.

"Yeah, even if I'm still hazy on some of the details, you picked me up from the hospital a couple of hours ago." Asher remarked. "So it doesn't really make any logical sense to me how you reacted from seeing me awake just now, since you just saw me awake a little while ago."

Realization came on Misaka's face after a while, sweatdropping at the fact that she hadn't thought of that sooner.

"Hey, umm Z, what is today's date and the last thing you remember doing?" She asked, seeing Asher sit up as she sent her a sideways glance.

"If I remember correctly, it's the night of July 15th. And as I said, the last thing we were doing was walking back here after my appointment at the hospital today. I was pretty drained from it overall, so I texted you to walk me back to the dorms." Asher explained before she deadpanned. "But that was kind of random to ask me that, since you already knew that. And it's not logical to answer my question with 2 other questions, Mikoto."

"Well, it'll make sense as to why I asked in a second." Misaka said with a strained smile as she placed her hands on Asher's shoulders. "Now please don't freak out when I say this, but…"

"It's actually the night of the 17th…meaning you've actually been asleep for technically 2 days, not just a couple of hours."

Silence fell within the room as it took for what seemed like a whole minute for Asher to process that as Misaka saw her stoic face fall in disbelief, with her skin immediately paling when it seemed to click.

When she didn't say anything to break the silence, Misaka grew slightly concerned that she had actually came way too forward with that information.

"Umm Z I-" Misaka began to say hesitantly, before she yelped in surprise when she saw Asher fall back onto the floor as steam rose up from her head. "AAAH! Hey! Are you alright!?"

When she crawled over to her to what was wrong, she was taken aback slightly from seeing the dazed look in her eyes, realizing she may have just short-circuited from trying to think what she had just said too much…

"Ummm Zierdan, doing okay right there?" Misaka asked with a nervous smile as she heard the girl groan below her.

"No I'm not, Mikoto. I'm so confused on what's going on here. What do you mean I've been sleeping for 2 days straight? It doesn't make logical make sense…It doesn't make sense to me at all…." Asher asked in dazedly as swirls were located in her eyes. "I don't think my brain can process anything else tonight and they're too many swirls to even try in the first place."

Yeah, well that's just perfect. She just woke up only for me to practically send her back into unconsciousness, Misaka thought to herself as she sweatdropped.

I may have been just a tiny bit too forward with saying that, but I didn't think she was going to completely short-out like this. I guess her brain power is still too low, making it easier for her to overthink something into oblivion.

After looking down at her for a couple moments, Misaka honestly started to laugh, mostly due to the hilarity of what had just happened and out of relief to see Asher just being Asher for once after these last few days of not seeing her at all.

"Nnnngngh… Stop laughing and…help me….It's not funny at all….Please make the….swirls go away." Asher groaned, only for her to laugh even more.

"Ahahahaha, never thought I'd miss seeing this from you." Misaka said aloud as she sent her a smile. "For someone who tries to act like the serious and logical one in our group, you sure do fail at doing it at times in the funniest ways possible, Z."


Word Count of Chapter: 5347 |Page Count: 11 pages |Reviews: 44 | Followers: 40 |Favorites: 33


Review Replies

Blankow: Thanks!

You'll learn more about Asher's mom, Himari, at some point. I'm not trying to hold back on her background on purpose, so sorry about the mysteriousness surrounding her character, lol.

So yes, the chapter before this one does take place on July 15th. She was out for basically 2 days (July 17th), so she did miss most but not all of the Graviton Incident since that ends on the 18th (according to the timeline at least). She'll most likely not miss anymore of this arc though, so don't worry.

We will fully dive back into the Level Upper Arc in chapter 17 and bring back the last half of the group, Uiharu and Saten, after their small break from the story. I've missed them as well, so I can't wait to go back into writing all of their interactions again:`)

Thanks for your review!

-PurpleClover99