Saten jerked her head up as the buzzer on the door rang finally, nearly spilling her hot mug of black liquid. She stood up from her seat on the stairway, walking over to the front door, checking the camera and spotting Frenda who was staring up at it, flipping it off. It made Saten smile a bit. She hit the button and let Frenda in, opening the front door for her, Frenda sighing as she walked in.
"You look like shit." Frenda said as she walked in. Indeed, Saten had bags under her eyes as she cradled her coffee mug.
"Gee. Thanks." Saten said flatly at her as she kicked the door closed after Frenda was through it. Frenda gave her a raised eyebrow as she watched her friend stalk into the sitting room and sit at the table across from Uiharu who had her head resting on the wood, her own steaming coffee cup resting on a coaster. Frenda couldn't tell if the flower-girl was sleeping or not.
"Geez, what did I miss?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips. Frenda took a look at her phone real quick. "Thanks for staying up while I checked things out, but I mean… It IS like 4 am. You guys can crash. Disaster is over. Everything is cool. Just an out of control Esper. That nutcase Guhna punched it in the face."
"Who?" Uiharu groaned without looking up, her voice muffled from behind her arms. She sounded beyond exhausted.
"Guhna, he's… Ugh… let's just say you haven't heard about him because Academy City finds him embarrassing to be around." Frenda sighed, rubbing her head. "Seriously though, why are you two still up?" She asked. "I was surprised when I got a response to my text."
"We… we had a bit of an emotional evening after you left." Saten said, sipping her coffee. "We kind of feel like we missed something really obvious in retrospect. Shirai and Misaka are upstairs sleeping. Something you said earlier really hit home, and I think… it's just been kind of rough." Saten sighed out. Frenda hummed a bit in response before shrugging a little, pulling her phone out again and looking at it.
"Well, I should get back home. Thanks for the dinner and entertainment, Ruiko." She grinned a bit. "Hope things don't get too unbearable. Shoot me a message later, lemme know how things go." Saten nodded and stood up, Uiharu standing as well to politely see their guest out, as tired as she was. Saten opened the door for Frenda who grinned with mischief rather suddenly, taking advantage of her tired condition to hop on one side of Saten and poke her in the forehead.
"Thanks for having me, Ruiko!" She grinned before dashing around behind her to the opposite side. Uiharu blinked as she had to rub her eyes and check her ears, checking her own memories as she was fairly certain she had not seen and heard what she had most certainly just seen and heard. Because what she'd just seen and heard was a loud slapping sound located somewhere around where Uiharu was pretty sure Saten's butt was, and Saten's face turning a shade of bright burning pink.
"F-FRENDA!" Saten yelled out after her as Frenda dashed out into the night cackling.
"W-what just-" Uiharu began to ask, before Saten dove at Uiharu, covering her mouth.
"Nothing. Nothing happened. Cover your sweet innocent memories with dreams of puppies. It is time for bed. Yes, time for bed. It has been a rough night." And with that Saten took her coffee and fled.
Uiharu stood there with a red face. And made a whining squeaking sound.
Mikoto groaned a little as she began to stir from her sleep, the late morning light shining through her bedroom windows. She felt beyond drained as she woke up, pushing herself off of the bed. The kimono she'd fallen asleep in was disheveled and askew, her face a mess from the excessive amounts of crying she'd done beforehand.
"Good morning, Mikoto." Mikoto turned to see Kuroko leaning up against some pillows that she'd managed to pile against the wall that the bed had been tucked against not far from her. Her cellphone was balanced in her lap, the holographic display open and voice-command on. Kuroko's ingenuity in doing things without arms was steadily growing. Kuroko was smiling at her softly.
"Good morning…" Mikoto mumbled, feeling more than a little uncertain under her gaze. She remember last night, and she didn't know what to do or say. She… she felt like she was broken. How do you bounce back from having a nervous breakdown because you were confronted unexpectedly?
"Mikoto." Kuroko broke her out of her self-pitying thoughts. Mikoto jerked her head up to look at her, seeing Kuroko's smiling face. "I'm sorry that I pressed you like that. That was unfair…" Kuroko said quietly, her smile wavering a bit. "I was just… I didn't know how else to press the issue. When that fever came up out of nowhere, I couldn't speak up when you were about to leave. I felt a terror that you might leave and get into a fight and never come back."
Mikoto felt a grip on her heart clench tightly as she pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged them, saying nothing. She didn't know what to say, really. Because… she was right. That is exactly what Mikoto was hoping was going to happen. To find some martyrs death in some worthy cause. It was stupid and childish, and she didn't care.
"Did this never come up in therapy, Mikoto?" Kuroko asked softly, carefully. She tugged her own legs up, trying to get inside of Mikoto's thoughts. Figure out what was going on.
"It did." Mikoto said quietly, pressing her feet together in a fidgeting gesture.
"And…?" Kuroko tilted her head a little.
"...I lied." She said simply, burying her face into her legs. "Because pretending to be someone I'm not is something I've always been good at. Pretending to be prim and proper for Tokiwadai was something I practiced and was very good at. Even on days when I wasn't in a good mood, or was angry, or just wanted to be my boyish self, I was good at being what people expected me to be. I'm just… just good at being fake." She sniffled quietly behind her legs.
Kuroko pushed herself off of the pillows, accidentally flopping onto her face into the comforter. Growling a little, she wiggled over toward Mikoto, who turned a little to look at her with slight surprise as Kuroko just kind of slithered her way between Mikoto's legs and chest to cuddle her. Mikoto couldn't help but giggle a bit between tears, which did help cheer her up a but as she hugged Kuroko to her chest.
"Thank you…" She choked out a laugh a bit as she kissed the top of Kuroko's head. Kuroko wiggled to get comfortable, kissing Mikoto's cheek.
"You're welcome. Mikoto… I'm here for you. And you deserve to be happy. You need to stop blaming yourself for everything. Stop shouldering the burden of the world. It's not realistic. And I know it's not realistic for me to think that I can be the only to help you." She said, smiling a little sadly as she cuddled up. "The fact of the matter is, is that I need your help too. I just got a message from the doctor this morning too. In a few weeks he wants to try fitting me with an arm." She said, smiling.
Mikoto nearly felt her heart stop in excitement, sitting up far straighter. "Seriously!? T-that's awesome!" She squeezed Kuroko tightly, Kuroko making a tiny cute gurgling sound at the tightness of the hug.
"Y-yes." she wheezed out. "B-but…" She exhaled as Mikoto loosened her grip. "Here's the deal… How are we going to deal with how you're feeling?" She asked, turning to sit in Mikoto's lap and face her, hugging her with her legs in a way that made Mikoto blush. "Just confessing you feel the way you are is just step one. How are you going to deal with it?" She asked softly, tilting her head at Mikoto.
Mikoto shifted under Kuroko's gaze, biting her lip. "I… I dunno, I just… Just process it I gue-" Mikoto paused in her thought as Kuroko began to INTENSELY glare at her.
"W-what? It's… I've vocalized it, so I think I ca- GRK!" Mikoto suddenly found herself struggling to breathe a little as Kuroko's legs, which had previously been hugging her, were now squeezing her a bit tighter than was strictly comfortable.
"U-uncle…" Mikoto rasped out before Kuroko loosened her grip. Mikoto gasped as she was freed, laying her forehead on Kuroko's shoulder, sighing loudly.
"...I should… talk to the doctor." She whispered quietly. "...will you go with me?" She asked softly to Kuroko. Kuroko smiled as she nuzzled the side of Mikoto's head.
"Always."
Four weeks later.
"Are you ready, Shirai-san?"
The doctor asked these words of Kuroko as she presented her metal-capped arm to the custom-piece of machinery that honestly intimidated her. It had an arm-sized hole that was shoulder-level with her. The instructions were simple. She was to carefully place her stump into the hole until she felt the metal plating of the cap touch the surface inside and then slowly and firmly push against it, and hold it there.
The entire machine was like a giant eyeball mounted onto a pedestal with enormous plastic tubes and wires connected to the back of it and into the walls and floors of the laboratory where this was all to take place. She was told to wear something comfortable and easy to move in that was short sleeved. So she'd worned a short-sleeved hoodie that Mikoto had bought for her, mercifully without any cartoon characters, with a pair heavier woolen winter pants- it was officially November after all, and snow was starting to become far more common. Kuroko hated now.
"Y-yes. Let's do this." Kuroko nodded, looking over her shoulder at Mikoto, who was directly behind her to support her, hands on her shoulders. With a nod to each other, they both stepped forward, Kuroko sliding her arm into the device, anxiety pounding in her beating chest. She felt her heart nearly skip a beat as the plate of her stump touched the surface inside of the machine, but Mikoto thankfully kept her going, and pushed forward.
It felt a bit like a jolt from when she'd been shocked in the past by Mikoto, and rather suddenly, as she and Mikoto pressed the two pieces of metal against each other, they stuck firmly as if fused. The machine whirred and hummed in a way that frightened Kuroko, all the doctors and scientists in the room monitoring and muttering to each other in an excitable fashion that did not give her a sense of calm.
After what felt like an eternity, the sound of the machine hit a crescendo, and in an instant, Kuroko suddenly found herself released, caught from falling over by Mikoto as the magnet-like fusion of metal that kept her stuck inside of the eyeball-like machine suddenly ceased.
After Kuroko spent a few moment panting and calming herself, she tried to get a look at the metal plating, but there was really no angle she could get at it herself, though based on Mikoto's expression, something was clearly different. Heaven Canceller was kind enough to bring a mirror over to show the change however.
The cap, which was formerly dark as night and featureless, now showed a crimson series of indents in a circular pattern along the outer rim of the cap.
"Huh…" Kuroko tilted her head as she looked at it. It didn't feel any different. The indents had to be at most half an inch or so in depth.
"This is just step one. If we're fortunate, this next step will be far easier, and will work. Are you ready?" He asked Kuroko, who gave him an excited nod. She was ready, she was beyond ready, she wanted this to be reality, she wanted this to work.
They stepped over to a table where Kuroko was guided to sit down next to it. On that table was an arm made of dark blue metallic material, with a dark black shard implanted right at the very end where the arm would meet the upper-arm. Encircling it was the same type of crimson indents that Kuroko now had on her dark metal cap. The arm was shockingly what could be called a masterpiece of engineering and artwork, with finely shaped angles, and smooth surfaces and shining materials. If covered in a glove or the like, it could easily be taken for a normal human arm.
"If we are correct, these two should connect and interact in such a way that you will be able to control it with your own neural synapses. Are you ready?" He asked once more, Kuroko giving him another nod, Mikoto putting her hands on Kuroko's shoulders. The pair glanced toward an observation window where Uiharu and Saten watched, both of them holding both their hands up, fingers crossed.
Bringing their attention back down, the technicians slowly slid the arm toward Kuroko's waiting forearm, shifting it to properly align, and with a sense of tense finality, it clicked into place.
"Try moving the fingers, Shirai-san." The doctor said softly.
Kuroko nodded, her attention focused entirely on the hand as she furrowed her brow, her breathing deep and controlled as she focused and focused, trying to will the hand to do anything at all, to move, to twitch, to do anything.
As the minutes crept by, the staff patiently waiting, and the frustration starting to leak on to Kuroko's expression, Mikoto squeezed her shoulders slightly.
"You got this, Kuroko." She whispered quietly. Kuroko looked up at her for a moment before back at the hand again, taking a focusing breath, closing her eyes and reflecting…
Reflecting back toward a memory that might help… teleporting seemed obvious… eating… running… balancing… punching… Feeling pain… Having pain relieved... by her beloved.
"KUROKO!" Mikoto called out to her, Kuroko's eyes snapped open, looking up at Mikoto who was excitedly pointing, her gaze following the pointing back to the table.
The hand. Her hand. Was… moving.
"I… I can feel it." She gasped out as she slowly closed the hand. "It's… it's my arm."
And without any control or shame, Kuroko found herself burst into tears of unrestrained joy.