Rym stared out across the devastated battlefield of the abandoned school from his high perch on a distant building. It had been an interesting show, to say the least, and even had some relationship drama thrown in as a bonus.

He'd learned so much today from watching those girls squabble with the so-called Number Six. Not the least of which was the magnitude of growing power that Mikoto struggled so valiantly to restrain… a troublesome prospect.

And that Kuroko girl… that kind of teleportation… of spatial manipulation…

"Oh, things are about to get LOUD here… I can just about feel it!" The blonde grinned widely, cracking his neck as if preparing himself for the inevitable battle that he might get dragged into. He turned to look up at the Windowless Building in the distance, his smirk widening with teeth bared.

"Awww, poor dumb Crowley…" The mournful shake of his head was belied by the vicious humour in his tone. "Do you really think they'll just sit idly under your thumb?"

End Act II

The clack of footsteps echoed down the hall as Kakine Teitoku made his way to the meeting point. Kicking open a metal door and strolling inside with supreme confidence, he looked around. A mostly empty room- just a single table with a tablet on it. And on the opposite side... a has-been mongrel.

"Well hello there, Indigo-san." He probably could have helped the smirk that revealed his contempt for this individual but, honestly, why bother? The man in front of him was clearly injured and beaten. He hadn't earned that. "Had a rough day?"

"About as rough as you," Indigo said, tapping the side of his face where Teitoku's burns were still healing. The ones inflicted on him by Meltdowner and Railgun.

His mirth dried up rather quickly.

"What do you want?" he demanded of his counterpart, already wanting to leave.

"Come, now, is that really how you talk to someone who's helped you so much? Why, if not for me, you wouldn't have had any warning at all for all those nasty ITEM raids… I even took care of that little freak for you. What was her name? Yamiyo? Yomiya?" Teitoku was quickly becoming fed up with his unctuous bullshit but he still noticed when an odd look appeared in the squinted eye of Indigo. Was it… doubt?

"Stuff it. I didn't ask for that, and yes, we are SO appreciative of your generous drip-feed of information which I'm sure was given out of the kindness of your ink-black heart and not because you have something you hope to gain from it." He couldn't even pretend to say that with a straight face so he didn't bother. To his left, invisible to Indigo under a cloak of Dark Matter, he could see his minion, a psychokinetic that he had brought along just in case, getting uncomfortable.

Smart minion; he knew things never ended well when his boss got angry.

"What. Do. You. Want?" he ground out again, earning another smirk from Indigo.

"To give you this…" Indigo leaned forward and tapped the tablet, bringing to life an image. Teitoku's eyes widened as he saw the gauntlet-like device with two long appendages made of metal that extended from the index and middle finger displayed.

"The Tweezers…" he breathed.

"Yes, the nanoparticle manipulator you've been so desperate to get your hands on. I have it. I have it and I might be inclined to give it to you… a good in exchange for a little service..." Indigo grinned with all the innocence of a loan shark grifting small children.

Teitoku gave him an appraising look. Indigo didn't waver. He was confident, which meant that Teitoku would likely lose the Tweezers to some insurance plan to destroy them if he tried to torture the information out of the smug asshole.

"And what might that be?" He asked cooly, doing his best to keep his posture calm.

"I need you to get me these two… and do a bit of theater with the older one. I need you to make it hurt." Indigo offered him a pair of photographs, causing Teitoku to raise an eyebrow as he took them.

A smirk grew across Dark Matter's face.

"I think I can do that."

As Dark Matter left, Indigo stood alone in the room, his satisfaction cracking as he furrowed his brow and looked down.

"I did kill that Yamiyo girl…" He muttered to himself, putting a hand to his mouth as he tried to sort through his memories.

"...didn't I?"

They'd stumbled their way back to the house... and Misaki finally saw, from the safe distance of a fire cordon, the damage it had incurred when she and Kazari were attempting to flee. Her body hurt. Her head ached. Her hair probably looked terrible, too. And their bed was almost certainly a write-off. Far too tired to deal with everything, she pulled her phone out, glared at it for failing to survive the shocking experiences she'd endured, and pocketed it with a sigh. Of course. And she didn't have any remotes on hand, so getting another would be a… her eyes alighted on the KuroMiko pair as they leaned on each other and inspiration struck. Linking arms with Kazari, she sauntered up behind her target and casually jammed her hand into Mikoto's pocket.

"What the-"

"I'm borrowing this." Yes, trust the living dynamo to be the only one with a phone still intact. She waved the device in Mikoto's peripheral vision

"-hey? Okay? You could have asked, you know!" she growled, but Misaki could tell her heart wasn't really in it.

So that didn't piss her off for real.

Huh.

She flipped the device open, admired the wallpaper of Kuroko drooling in her sleep, and… right. It was locked. She fumbled fruitlessly with it for a minute then pouted and dropped it in Kazari's patiently waiting hand. There was only time for one or two throbs of her worsening headache before it was given back? How?

"She made the password Kuroko's birthday," a tiny flower whispered in her ear. "Pretty cute of her, huh?"

It was.

It really, really was.

Any other day, she would have played with the information, or at least giggled a bit.

Today, though?

"Nokleben. ... Yes. I presume you're aware of the state of my home? ... Indeed. … ... Excellent, I knew there was a reason I kept you around. Please hurry. … And Nokleben? … Thank you." She locked the phone again and earned an annoyed grunt when she put it back in Mikoto's pocket with a short thanks. "I have a car on the way in eight minutes," she announced. "Just a little longer and we can start to recover from this day."

After several hours of picking through wreckage, the most striking thing, Ruiko decided, was how quickly she came to think of Misaki's Recovery House for Wayward Superpowered Lesbian Disasters as simply "home". In hindsight, yeah, it's where all her stuff was, but she'd spent so long distracted by…

Looking around like she would be caught and feeling like a bit of a creep despite herself, she stuffed a drawer full of Frenda's more eye-catching underwear into one of several duffel bags of non-ruined possessions. She zipped it up quickly only for the blood stain to remind her of the time they escaped the murderbot factory from right under Indigo's nose.

... distracted by other things.

A day really wasn't enough time to recover, especially since Misaki could only stall the barrage of questions from Anti-Skill, who were investigating the attack, for so long. I'll have to do something nice for her later. She definitely wouldn't have been able to keep her composure and stick to the story without a bit of help from Mental Out.

"I'm heading to the hospital," Misaki announced once they'd reconvened in the less-damaged parlor for lunch.. "I want to check in on Gunha and Maika." Suddenly, the mediocre convenience store lunch wasn't tasting so good. "It sounds like Maika was only kept for observation. She was a little banged up after she was thrown into a wall by Etsu. But Gunha... is still in critical condition," Misaki continued sombrely. "I… I need to apologise to him. In case he…" She trailed off and Uiharu gathered her tense form into a hug.

Ruiko gave up on pretending to eat and stewed in the awkward quiet. Eventually, Misaki regained herself enough to leave.

"Th-thanks…" Mikoto called softly at her back, causing Misaki to straighten in shock of some sort? She couldn't place the expression and the angle was bad anyway. She wasn't good at reading faces, but she appreciated that they were apparently finally working out their issues.

"...Sure. My pleasure." Misaki said stiffly, off balance before she continued her path out, sparing just a moment to kiss Uiharu at the door and gently disengage from the smaller girl.

"Uiharu?" She called out once they were alone.

Uiharu looked like hell too.

"Yes?" Somehow, she still mustered a bright smile after all that. It was nice to see Uiharu doing OK after… everything.

"I... have a favor to ask." Uiharu's expression flattened at the intensity in her voice and nodded for her to continue. "I need information. Protected information, but..." That earned her a raised eyebrow.

"I'm listening."

"...I need you to look up someone in the Bank for me."

Begin Act III