A/N: Sorry for the long delay. Health issues and technology issues slowed the finalizing process a bit. But not to worry- I've got like, 5 more chapters in their editing phase right now. We'll be uploading chapters as fast as possible!

After her chat with Misaki, Ruiko had stumbled her way upstairs and into her room, asleep before her head even hit the pillow. She was utterly exhausted. Beyond spent. Emotionally, mentally, physically… just done.

Her eyes snapped open only a moment later to find... what, a measly four hours had passed? That's what the clock said after she took a few seconds to focus on it. It sure FELT like it was only four hours. In some distant part of her hazy, half-awake musing, she thought this must be what ER staff feels like all the time. Sucks to be them.

But still. Four hours. She'd only managed to crash out for four hours. That was like… a tenth of what she felt was her due. But going back to sleep... right, sleeping more wasn't quite in the cards just yet. It couldn't be helped.

...The screaming coming from downstairs was just way too much.

Ruiko levered herself upright and off the bed, almost walking out until she realized she was completely naked- Misaki had forced her to take her clothes off for washing (or maybe trashing since they were dyed in her own blood). Grumbling, she stumbled around the room and grabbed a large t-shirt and threw it on. She paused. Would it be… no, not quite long enough. She fought to keep her eyes partially open as she bumbled aimlessly in a half-asleep stupor. Some pajama pants made their way to her hand at some point. Polite. She rewarded them by attempting to put them on. It was a challenge, but not as much as hell robots or cooking good eggs. She definitely didn't fall over or smack her head against the wall. Briefly, she considered grabbing her boots so she could plant them up someone's ass. But the pants reminded her she was already running late.

The helpful pants were right, the hollering and carrying-on had continued unabated in the meantime. What the hell. It was two-something in the morning, seriously, couldn't it wait?

Ambling out of her bedroom and down the stairs, the shouting started to sound more like words instead of adults from that one old American cartoon.

"You manipulative, lying bitch!" Yep. Words. That one was distinctly Mikoto's voice thundering out from the Western sitting room. Ruiko paused at the last step of the stairs, listening. Probably the angriest she'd ever heard Her Zappiness.

"Oh, spare me, Railgun! Your sanctimonious coddling is unbearably naive!" Was the surprisingly furious and raised voice of Misaki.

"You're certainly one to talk! Do you even hear yourself, or is it too difficult over the mire of your ego?!" Came the loud and equally enraged voice of Kuroko, much to Ruiko's alarm.

"P-Please, enough! C-come on!" followed the muffled voice of Uiharu, almost entirely drowned out by the continuous racket of the other three. Ruiko gave up trying to figure out what they were saying, they were way too focused on shouting over each other.

She crept from the stairs on shaking legs, more terrified to wade into this than invading a secret murderbot hive. Rounding the corner she stopped to soak in the horrorshow of what had clearly been an escalating argument. Some burn marks around the room told the story of Mikoto's temper causing electrical jolts to scorch things, and a couple items had clearly been knocked over and broken in a rage, though by who wasn't clear. All four girls were in the midst of this chaos. Misaki had taken cover behind a tall chair, judging by the burn marks on it, but looked legitimately angry all the same. No sign of the unruffled Queen was present.. Mikoto was heavily leaning into… was that her crutch? It looked different from- no, belay that,her other hand brandished an arcade token in a clear display of threat.

Uiharu was in front of Kuroko, hands on her shoulders, seemingly trying to hold her back from doing something rash based on the fire in Shirai's eyes.

And at the center of this argument, Ruiko saw it. The spark that touched off the whole brouhaha. There, on the coffee table, was a pile of clothes that she had, in her exhausted stupor, tossed into a laundry basket.

Her torn, ruined, blood-soaked clothes.

"You are a scheming snake, I cannot believe I ever considered trusting you!" Mikoto declared over the commotion, pointing a finger at Misaki, arcade coin still tucked between her middle and ring finger.

"And you're a short-sighted brat! This is why I told you to mind your own affairs like the dumb little girl that you are!" Misaki shouted back.

"Fuck you and fuck your patronizing bullshit!" Mikoto bellowed, her eyes burning with rage.

"Oh please, patronizin-" Misaki began, only to get drowned out by Kuroko.

"Yes, patronizing, you insufferable witch! How dare you! How DARE you!" Kuroko pointed at Misaki with her metal arm, which was palpably threatening even though she was still restrained by the teary-eyed Uiharu begging them to stop.

Ruiko wasn't sure what did it, honestly. The pure exhaustion, the frustration, the embers of anger that burned in her with every single scream from her friends, all made worse by the suppressed thoughts and emotions of having nearly died and having killed someone. Again. And now her friends were fighting. AGAIN. Whatever it was, she felt a snap in her head that compelled her into action.

There was a loud thumping and popping sound as Ruiko lashed out, driving her fist through the drywall. The argument stopped instantly, the room going silent. She stayed there for a second before she moved, yanking her arm back and prowling forth.

She didn't meet anyone's eyes, her perception narrowed to a laserlike focus on her objective. Her hand lashed out again, snatching up the offending garments. She then turned her attention across the room, still ignoring the other girls as she stalked her way to the trash can. The force the clothing wad's entry nearly knocked the bin over.

"Saten-san, are… are you OK, I was really worri-" Mikoto began to say, freezing in place and going silent as Ruiko turned around. Ruiko wasn't sure what the expression on her face was right now, but it was evidently pissed enough that even Mikoto flinched, taking a few steps back.

"Are all of you done?" Ruiko asked, the exhaustion and desperate need for sleep heavy in her voice. "Well?"

Everyone shifted uncomfortably. Kuroko was the first to speak.

"We saw the bloody clothes and… you know…" Her voice was firm, with just some cracks of self-doubt.

"Assumed the worst," Ruiko stated, sighing loudly as she rubbed her face and tired eyes. There was another awkward, horribly uncomfortable pause before Ruiko looked up at them again, eyes heavy with exhaustion.

"Misaki-sama didn't do anything wrong. I…" She let out another deep, tired sigh. "I pushed her to help me and Frenda. We chose to get involved, we would have gone it alone if she hadn't." Ruiko glanced to the side. Mikoto looked away. It didn't take much to figure out what had set her off.

Concern and protectiveness.

"Hmph…" Misaki scoffed. "That is what I told them, but they did not-" Kuroko turned her gaze back to Misaki, and looked about ready to explode again before Ruiko cut in.

"Enough!" Ruiko growled, cutting off Misaki with a glare as if to say 'NOT HELPING', her fatigue weighing down even heavier on her. "This has to stop! We can't keep- we just-!" Ruiko choked on her words, wiping tears of pure frustration from her eyes, the rush of fiery rage dying out into embers. It was all so unbelievably overwhelming. She was still barely awake, her exhaustion and fatigue like rocks on her mind and water on her fiery rage.

It took her a minute to realize that the room had gone dead silent again except for her sobs as she tried to collect herself. Managing to clear her face off with her shirt and calm her breathing, she looked up at the rest, all of them looking uncomfortable and a bit guilty.

"We can't keep doing this. Not talking to each other, secrets, the passive aggressiveness… it needs to stop." Ruiko choked out with choppy breath. "We're friends. We're friends, damn it! Why are we not fighting against all of this together?" Ruiko asked, stumbling a little as her legs threatened to give out from sheer exhaustion.

Mikoto grabbed at Ruiko with one arm, helping her get over to the couch. There was a pause before someone spoke, the quiet voice of Uiharu.

"Ruiko is right. This… This is getting worse. Everything we found not even twenty-four hours ago, we… we still haven't gone through most of it, and it's-"

"Haru-chan, stop!" Misaki interrupted with an exasperated tone, pressing her hands on the backrest of the chair she'd been using as a shield. Mikoto and Kuroko moved to snap at Misaki for it, Ruiko could tell the secretiveness had finally hit its breaking point, but Uiharu beat them to it.

"No! We can't keep at this by ourselves! You said it yourself, Gunha isn't going to be able to handle this forever! Who knows what the response is going to be after that fiasco? Indigo was THERE!" Uiharu yelled, her voice holding poorly concealed fear.

Both Mikoto's and Kuroko's anger fiizzled out as they turned to look at each other, their own fear glinting in their eyes. An awkward silence stretched on in the room for an uncomfortable length of time. The truth was…

"He terrifies us." Ruiko intoned quietly, finally daring to give voice to what they all knew. "And that terror has been eating at us. Hiding in this house, Anti-Skill everywhere, his attempts on our lives, his remorseless cold heart. No one has really said it, but this pressure is eating us alive." Ruiko felt the room tensing up as she spoke. Everyone agreed, she knew they did.

"Frenda has taught me a lot. Most importantly… she taught me that if I want things to be different, I need to get off my ass and do something about it." Ruiko looked up, her eyes drifting over each of her friends. Finally, she looked at Misaki.

"Misaki-sama… I know you're trying to protect everyone from the shadows or whatever, and I appreciate it. I think we all do, really, even if some of us don't want to admit it." She shot a Significant Look at Mikoto, who blushed and sheepishly looked away. "But the secrets and lies are setting us up against each other and not against the real threat." Her hands tensed, squeezing at the couch cushions, threatening to tear at the cloth.

Ultimately, Misaki was the one who had been pulling the strings on everything. Keeping everyone inactive, pushing at them to stay safe. It was benign… but it was also patronizing.

Misaki stared back at Ruiko for a long while as silence filled the air, before letting out a loud sigh.

"I'm simply trying to keep you all safe." She said at last, her words lined with a hint of defensiveness. Ruiko could swear she even saw some misting in her eyes. Kuroko was the first to respond.

"That's not your decision to make, Shokuhou Misaki." Her words were soft, as if she was making an active effort to be composed.

A heavy silence fell over the room again, broken as Ruiko let out another sigh.

"Look… I don't think any of us are good to talk this out right now. And I…" Ruiko shook her head slowly as it lolled forward. "I can barely stay awake."

With a series of tense, silent nods, everyone began to disperse, Kuroko and Mikoto heading upstairs, quietly speaking to each other as they got to the stairs, Ruiko stumbling off the couch to drift over to her own room. She paused to glance over her shoulder at Uiharu and Misaki, blinking in surprise.

Misaki had turned away from her, but even still, she could see the glistening of tears drifting down her face as Uiharu hugged her tightly. It only took a second for Ruiko to feel like she was intruding. Without another word, she left the room, climbing up the stairs, into her room, and collapsed onto her bed.

She was asleep in an instant.

Burnt meat.

She was growing bothered by that smell a lot more these days. Frenda glanced back over her shoulder up at the smoking SCHOOL building they'd attacked, billowing smoke from the windows evidence of the fires within. Another broken facility. Another dead mercenary. Another mission where they found absolutely nothing of value. SCHOOL was somehow always one step ahead of them. What a waste of time. SCHOOL was just fucking with them at this point.

Not that Mugino listened to any dissenting opinions anymore.

"Hey, Frenda, we're leaving. Are you extracting yourself today?" Came the voice of Saiai, prompting Frenda to turn to look at her. She was dressed in her orange hoodie and some shorts, mission-ready.

Frenda's gaze turned back toward her front, where her attention had been for awhile now. A small shop, across the street from the building they'd just raided. It was blown out and destroyed, and based on the slagged hole in the SCHOOL base, it was done via a stray Meltdowner shot that had been a bit too powerful and punched through everything.

"Tell me, Saiai. Do you think they were enemies in disguise too?" She asked, pointing at the charred corpses within the destroyed shop. A silence echoed between them, not a single word spoken as Frenda continued to stare at the innocent people dead because of ITEM and SCHOOL's feud.

"What the fuck are you two doing? Move your asses!" Frenda jumped, hearing Saiai jump behind her as Mugino rounded the corner of the SCHOOL base, glaring at them. "We're leaving, get your ass in gear." Mugino shouted at them angrily.

Neither responded immediately, watching as Mugino turned, pausing as her gaze fell on the shop destroyed by her own Meltdowner beam. She looked at the corpses, and stared for a second, her eyes cold and empty.

Before a brief flash of sadistic glee crossed her expression.

Frenda's blood ran cold, her heart pounding in terror as she stared at Mugino, unable to will herself to move her legs. She glanced over her shoulder at Saiai, who met her gaze carefully. The normally stoic Saiai's mask had cracked, and Frenda could see the sprouting seed of fear in her eyes. Saiai finally understood what had been bothering Frenda for so long. What had been lurking beneath the surface of their leader.

They both watched the head of ITEM warily as she walked away whistling a jaunty tune. Whistling! What the fuck. But maybe it was for the best that she didn't even spare them a second glance. As the pair were left alone, their eyes met again. Saiai broke the unsettling silence.

"Go. I'm going to go make sure Rikou's alright, she collapsed from overuse of her powers again. Go before Mugino remembers to ask you for an update on your mission." She said quietly, walking past Frenda. "You owe me one." She said softly before she vanished around the corner.

Frenda didn't need to be told twice before she turned and fled from this scene of horror as fast as she could, wanting to escape the memories it had given her.

"What the fuck has my life become?" Frenda could only say to herself as she fled toward the only place she felt even remotely at peace.

"Hey, Satennnnah shit, sorry!"

Ruiko woke with an alarmed start as she heard Mikoto cursing about something, sitting up quickly and trying to get her bearings, blinking rapidly to clear her vision and get ready for... huh? Why was… Why was Mikoto blushing so fiercely? Wait, she was dressed right-?!

Looking down at herself, she saw that she was indeed dressed in the same oversized shirt and pajama pants as last night.

However, Frenda was not, the much smaller girl curled up against her asleep, the blanket barely covering her. Well, nothing for it then. She drew a lazy, wolfish grin.

"Good morning! Like what you see, Mi. Ko. To~?'

"N-No! Sorry, I didn't- I mean, the others are just… we were gonna have that talk..." Mikoto said, looking away from them with a searing red face before closing the door behind her. OK, sobering as fuck subject, but that was kind of cute, Ruiko couldn't lie. Horribly embarrassing, but it was a 10/10 reaction. The more pressing question, though, was when Frenda had joined her in bed.

"Hey… Frenda." Ruiko shook the girl until she stirred, blinking as she unburied her face from Ruiko's side. As she looked up at her with tired eyes, Ruiko noticed they were slightly puffy- had she been crying?

"You OK?" She asked softly, reaching out to caress her cheek. Frenda withdrew, pushing herself up, and shook her head.

"Fine… I don't wanna talk about it." Frenda said, swinging her legs off the bed and getting up. "Sorry."

Ruiko didn't get another word out before Frenda had made her way to the bathroom, the shower turning on. Ruiko sighed herself as she got out of the bed, following after her. Hopefully, parboiling under Frenda's preferred temperature would help get her head in the game for the coming conversation.

It wasn't going to be an easy one.

After a very subdued wake-up routine with Frenda, both of them padded their way downward, following the sounds of quiet conversation in the Eastern Sitting Room. Ruiko had taken the time to explain what had happened last night, Frenda absorbing it with uncharacteristic silence. As the pair entered, the other four girls were all around the kotatsu. Might as well be comfortable if they were going to have a heavy talk, I guess.

Ruiko grabbed Frenda's hand and pulled her toward the kotatsu, sitting down at one edge of the table, Frenda joining her with no small amount of hesitation.

"So…" Ruiko spoke up, looking at the others, feeling the palpable awkwardness as the girls exchanged uneasy glances, no one knowing how to start. As the unintentional catalyst for it happening at all,Ruiko felt compelled to try to guide the conversation. And yes,

she was moderately terrified that at any moment they might break out into a loud argument again, too. She opened her mouth, then shut it. Opened it again, and then shut it again. This was so much harder than she was expecting. Their attention was fully focused on her fumbling failures by that point. Feeling pressured, she opened her mouth again, but the words that were spoken came not from her.

"How far are you willing to go for each other?"

Ruiko glanced with some surprise over at Frenda, her words having fallen out in a kind of subdued way. The rest were also looking at her, equally surprised.

"How far are you willing to go for each other?" Frenda asked again, seemingly unaware of the eyes on her as she attempted to stare a hole in the distant table. "Really, that's what it comes down to. 'What are we going to do?' That's the question you keep asking yourselves. But what you really need to know is what your limits are. What would you do?" She continued talking, Ruiko catching on to the small amount of sadness in Frenda's voice.

"What would any of you be willing to do to make sure your lover is alive and safe? What laws would you break? What lines would you cross? Would you be willing to fight? To injure? To maim? To destroy? To burn society to the ground and trample its ashes? Would you be willing to become someone else's villains to be the hero of your friends' stories?" She asked, responding quickly as Mikoto opened her mouth to say something, likely unpleasant based on her expression. Mikoto's mouth snapped shut.

"Would you be willing to kill?" Frenda asked softly, quietly, as she looked at Mikoto, causing yet another deafening silence to fill the room.

A minute crawled on before Frenda stood up from the table. "That's all I really have to contribute. I'm going to go… go say hello to Maika." She said, timidly darting away with that weak excuse before Ruiko could grab her. The kitchen door swung shut as she departed through it, Ruiko glared at it with a forlorn feeling of helplessness. She glanced to Misaki who had likewise been watching Frenda walk away. The look in Misaki's eyes… Ruiko needed to remember to ask her about it. It was like… concern. And pity.

Turning her gaze back to the others at the table, they all wore thoughtful expressions. Frenda had surprised her with that nugget of insight, but now she felt at a loss again.

"So… I mean, that was a little… do you guys have any thoughts?" She asked, feeling like a lame mediator. After a moment of quiet, Misaki spoke up.

"Would you all like to know the answer to her question?" Mental-Out asked, her starry eyes looking at them. "To know what each of you is thinking, but not saying?"

"Stay out of our heads, Misaki!" Mikoto hissed, even if she was the only one with nothing to fear. Kuroko, Ruiko, and Uiharu looked at them anxiously, though only Ruiko and Kuroko showed signs of distress that Misaki might be sifting through their heads.

"I am. I don't need my powers to read the room, though they'd certainly help." Misaki said, glancing away from Mikoto in a rare show of self-perceived weakness. "Would they look at me differently if I answered honestly? That worry is written all over your faces." Misaki glanced up at each of them, watching the discomfort grow on their faces, even Mikoto's, whose rage subsided as she sank back into her seat.

"That's…" Ruiko began, but trailed off with nothing else to say.

"It's probably on mine, too. When she asked, I thought about whether I'd ever kill for Haru-chan. I began to think up every reason I would never have to- my powers allow me defuse most situations without violence. It'd never come up, it's an irrelevant question, and… then I realized." Misaki sighed, dragging a gloved finger around the surface of the table.

"That I was ultimately making excuses to not answer the question. Even in my own head, in the privacy of my own thoughts, I was making excuses so I didn't have to face the honest answer." Misaki glanced up at them, though turning her head slightly to not look at Uiharu, a hint of distress on the Level 5's face.

"...Is that, given no other choice but to actually… to actually take someone's life to protect my Haru-chan…" She sighed quietly, tensing.

"I would."

Her answer was so soft and quiet, refusing to meet anyone else's eyes as she said it. It wasn't long before she felt another body press against hers, Uiharu hugging her snugly from behind, saying nothing. The minutes crawled on before Kuroko spoke up.

Kuroko began by tapping her metal knuckles against the tabletop, attracting the rapt attention of the others. "I should think my own resolve is quite apparent already. And more than that…" Kuroko's voice lowered into a dangerous growl. "That BASTARD poisoned my dearest and tried to kill us."

Ruiko nodded slowly in agreement, jaw tense. She looked up at the others, her eyes meeting Mikoto's. The girl just nodded softly in response, leaning over and pressing herself against Kuroko.

Ruiko stood up from the seat, striding over to the kitchen door and tossing it open, the other girls watching curiously at her sudden movement before she returned, pulling a shaken looking Frenda out by the hand, forcibly sitting back down with her. Not a word was spoken.

"No more waiting around. We're in this together." Ruiko sat up straight, her expression shifting into one of stubbornnesses that was becoming quite commonplace. "We all know what we need to do, and we're in this together. We found a ton at that facility, got past that weird golem-thing, got a load of information. We have stuff to go on!" Ruiko looked to Misaki and Uiharu, letting her excitement get more and more amped up. "Right!?"

Misaki showed actual surprise at her sudden burst of energy before smiling and nodding. "That we do."

"Alright, what do we have?" Mikoto leaned forward, addressing Misaki amiably for once. The look in her eyes, the all-business laser-focus gaze with a subtle touch of madness, bore into them all. There was the girl who could rampage through the city and methodically disassemble a psychotic conspiracy on her own.

"W-well, here." Uiharu plugged her mobile into a hidden cradle built into the table that everyone save Misaki seemed surprised was even there, a holographic screen popping up from the center of the table, a tiny block at the center suddenly becoming transparent to reveal the projector.

"When did you… Was this always?" Kuroko blinked at the table, then at Misaki, who gave her a kind of nonchalant expression.

"Don't you have a holographic projector built into your kotatsu?" Misaki asked this with such casual deadpan, it was clear no one in the room was certain if she was joking or not.

"Of course, how silly of me to forget. Anyway." Kuroko broke the silence and decided to instead focus on the task at hand, eyes moving to the screen in front of her and Mikoto. "Uiharu, what am I looking at here?" Kuroko's tone was all Judgement. Back straight, eyes focused. Ruiko watched Misaki look at the pair, the blonde clearing her throat to gain the attention of all present, with perhaps just a hint of uncomfortable awkwardness on her part.

"If you all wouldn't object, I may have a suggestion or two..."