Mikoto Misaka looked through the small aircraft window to see Academy City spread out below her. She smiled as she looked down at the city that she had called home since she was a child. It may have caused her a lot of pain in the past, and it will almost certainly cause her more pain in the future, but it was also a source of joy for her and her friends, from meeting up with Uiharu, Saten and Shirai at a café to going to see a movie with Touma and going to festivals with her friends. It was moments like these that Mikoto decided to bring to the forefront of her mind as she looked down.
She was currently on her way back from Paris after spending a week there on holiday with Touma, Saten and Uiharu. The latter two were sitting next to her, whilst Touma was a few rows in front, stuck next to a girl with flowing bright red hair named Luna that they had met on their trip. The girl had been snoring loudly on the flight to Paris and, judging by the noise coming from that direction throughout the flight, was doing so again. Misaka couldn't see the pair, but she could picture Touma's face at that moment, with the large bags under his eyes being the result of Luna keeping him awake the entire flight, again. Perhaps she should have swapped with him.
The flight landed in Academy City's International airport in District 23 and the group made their way through to arrivals with Touma constantly complaining about Luna's snoring and the guilty party trying to plead her innocence. However, her arguments died when Touma took out his phone and showed her a video he had taken of her mid-flight, snoring so loud, someone in the row behind them had thrown a shoe at her, or at least tried to. With Touma there, his luck acted as a magnet for the shoe, and it hit him in the face, which was where the video ended.
After making their way to arrivals, Mikoto spotted a familiar face in the crowd. It was a face that she saw in the mirror every day except with a pair of square goggles on her head and a silver hairclip that was the girl's serial number. Mikoto admitted that maybe she spent too much money getting those made, but she liked them and so did the sisters, so in her opinion it was money well spent.
Mikoto walked over, greeting her little sister as she reached her.
"Hey, good to see you. I didn't think I was meeting anyone here." she said.
"Hello Big Sister. Misaka decided to meet you here to ask if we could talk in private. There is something urgent that you need to know says Misaka revealing why she is here."
"Great, just off the plane and I've already got work to do." Mikoto complained.
"Oh? Who's this?" came an approaching female voice.
Mikoto turned around to see Luna walking towards the two sisters with Touma, Saten and Uiharu behind her. Luna stuck her hand out and introduced herself to the girl with the square goggles.
"Hi, name's Luna. Pleased to meet you."
"Hello. Misaka's serial number is 10032. It is nice to meet you too, Luna says Misaka introducing herself."
"Serial number?" Luna asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah. Don't you know? I was cloned when I was younger. There's nearly ten thousand of them left. It got revealed to the public a few years ago and it caused a hell of a lot of problems for Academy City at the time, me as well." Mikoto explained.
"The incident also caused that boy a lot of problems as well, Big Sister says Misaka as she points out the difficulties that boy had to go through."
"Hmph, 'that boy' deserved all the problems he got in my books." Mikoto said, angrily, crossing her arms. It was clear she was still upset with him.
"Wait, hang on. Did she just call you 'Big Sister'?" asked Luna, picking up on how Misaka 10032 addressed Mikoto.
"Yeah, why wouldn't she? She's my little sister." explained Mikoto as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"But, if she's your clone, then she came from you, right?"
"My DNA map, yes."
"Then, would it not be more accurate for them to call you 'Mother'?"
"No." Mikoto tried to shoot down the idea as quickly as possible, but Luna didn't seem to want to drop the issue.
"You sure? In all the movies I've watched, the clones look to the original person as their parent figure."
"I don't have nearly ten thousand daughters, Luna! I'm only sixteen!" Mikoto shouted drawing the attention of everyone nearby. This was going to start some rumours that Mikoto didn't want to have to deal with.
"Ooooohh, would that make Touma the father?" Saten chimed in.
"No, Ruiko. Touma had nothing to do with the cloning, he'd be a step-father, if anything." corrected Uiharu.
"Don't you two start!" shouted Mikoto.
"Wouldn't we have to be married for me to be the step-father?"
Mikoto looked at Touma, shocked that he was even entertaining this ridiculous idea.
"Hmm, perhaps 'that boy' would be more of the Misakas' father, as he was the reason the Misakas were created suggests Misaka, offering a new answer."
Mikoto's face went pale after hearing that. She looked sick at the idea that her and Accelerator had children. However, Luna didn't seem to notice that, or the sparks that were now starting to appear around the level 5.
"Okay, now that we've established Misaka here has nearly ten thousand kids, I'm sure Academy City has some sort of family benefits system, right? We can get you guys hooked up. They do that here, right?" Luna teased.
"Luna? I suggest you start running." warned Mikoto, the bluish-white sparks coming off her bangs looking even more dangerous.
"Huh? Wha-"
Before Luna could finish her question, she was hit by a high voltage lightning spear at point blank range. She was left twitching on the floor in a sight that was very reminiscent of the results of a certain teleporter's perverted actions.
Most of the group saw this as a reason that they may have taken the teasing too far. However, one member saw it as an ideal time to bring something else up.
"Besides, Big Sister would be a terrible mother says Misaka."
"Huh? You don't know that! I could be a great mother! We won't know until I actually have children!" Mikoto defended, emphasizing the 'I actually have children' part towards the twitching lump on the ground.
"No. A good mother wouldn't get involved in a fight in the middle of her holiday and fail to inform her children says Misaka angrily, revealing the second reason she came here."
Misaka 10032 had started taking heavy steps towards Mikoto and was now centimetres from her face.
Mikoto wasn't entirely sure how to feel about the anger her sister was displaying. On the one hand, it was good that they were able to express their emotions a little better, but on the other hand, she didn't like having the negative emotions directed towards her.
Mikoto started sweating profusely at the anger on the girl's face.
"Ah ha. So, you found out about that, huh?"
"Yes, Misaka found out about that says Misaka making her displeasure about Big Sister not calling for help known."
"In our defence, it was mostly Luna and her siblings doing the fighting. We just kinda helped out a little." Touma offered as a defence.
"That is not an excuse argues Misaka, not happy with the boy's actions either."
"Okay, okay. We're sorry. Didn't you say we have to talk somewhere in private? How about we talk on the way to our apartment?" suggested Mikoto.
"Very well, however, this conversation is not over warns Misaka. For now, Misaka suggests dealing with Miss Luna says Misaka looking at the girl twitching on the ground."
Mikoto and Touma both drew a sigh of relief when they managed to steer the conversation before following the sister's gaze towards the girl on the ground.
"Don't you think you went a bit too far?" asked Touma.
"Absolutely not." Mikoto replied bluntly. She then lightly kicked her side. "Hey, Luna, get up, will you?"
"First you electrocute me, then you kick me? A mother's wrath is something else, huh?" she said, once again drawing the ire of Mikoto.
"I don't know about a mother's wrath, but you're about to feel my wrath if you don't shut the hell up, Luna!"
Luna shot to her feet and bowed to Misaka.
"Eek! Yes ma'am, I'm sorry."
Misaka sighed.
"Right. Now for this private matter. Since Touma's here, I'm going to assume it's a meteor that a rogue magic cabal is trying to throw on Academy City." She muttered under her breath. She then turned to Uiharu.
"Kazari, when can you get those defences for my systems up?"
"They should be done by tomorrow." she replied.
"Thank you so much for this. I'll make sure to pay you extra as well for how quick you managed it."
"Oh no. Don't be ridiculous. We're friends. You shouldn't even be paying me at all for this, Mikoto."
"That's not an option. Anyway, we need to head home for now. Do you guys need a taxi? I can pay if you need it?"
"Nah, we can make our own way back to our dorms. Thanks for the offer though." Saten said.
"Okay, well I'll talk to you guys soon."
Touma, Mikoto and Misaka 10032 said their goodbyes and left the group, heading to one of the self-driving taxis outside of the airport. They put their suitcases in the boot, got into the back and inputted the address of Mikoto and Touma's apartment in District 3 before sitting back and allowing the taxi to take them to their destination.
"So, what was so urgent you had to ambush us at the airport?" Mikoto asked.
"Over the past week, since you have been away Big Sister, a number of suspicious individuals have been spotted around the outside of Academy City reports Misaka, taking out her PDA. These individuals appear to have a keen interest in the walls that guard Academy City from outsiders and it is believed they may be trying to break in. It is unknown if these individuals are connected to each other, however, as each individual has been spotted at a different area of the wall, it is suspected they are taking turns checking the entirety of the wall, which would suggest they are working together explains Misaka."
"Okay, so why have you come to us with this? We're not full members of the board yet, we're waiting to finish High School first. And I have the Formula AC race coming up in Suzuka, I've got to make sure everything is in order for that. Wouldn't Accelerator or Mugino be better for this?" Misaka asked.
"Normally, yes. However, the chairperson and the number four are currently pre-occupied with an investigation of a research post in the Arctic that was recently attacked. And you, Big Sister, have had a previous altercation with the suspicious individual that was spotted this morning reveals Misaka as she hands over an image of said individual."
As she said that, she handed over her PDA with an image of a woman with wavy, orange hair tied back in a ponytail and a pair of rounded glasses over her eyes.
"Damn it."
"Who is it?" asked Touma looking at the screen. He had never seen the woman, but Mikoto recognised her immediately. She had taken her down a few years ago with the help of her friends; Saten, Uiharu and Shirai and she had been imprisoned up until recently.
"Therestina Kihara Lifeline." Mikoto revealed.
"The Kihara who escaped a few months ago?"
"Yeah, that's her. She managed to escape that special Kihara prison we set up and got out of Academy City. We haven't been able to find her since, but it looks like she's come to us and with a few friends."
"Do you think she's going to try to release the other Kiharas?"
"It's possible. 10032, can you contact Accelerator? Tell him to up security for the Kiharas. In fact, tell him to make sure they're still there. We can't throw out the possibility she's already made a move,"
"Last Order is informing him now says Misaka."
"Good. Tell me when he's confirmed the other Kiharas' status. I'll contact Kuroko and Kazari, we'll need to work with Judgement and Anti-skill, so that no one makes a move that could result in casualties. I don't like the fact that we noticed her, she wouldn't be that careless. She might be trying to draw us out to create a hole in our security, we can't afford to give her that chance."
Mikoto took out her phone and immediately started calling Shirai. She was glad she had a nice, mostly relaxing holiday to charge her batteries, because now, all that energy was about to be depleted.
A/N And my in ability to name stories or arcs continues. 'A Dark Return'? Really, me? Anyway, sorry for the longer than expected wait, I was told I had resits to do and so I had to change some of my writing time to study time, so this took longer to finish the arc than I wanted, apologies. This also means I'm not going to be able to start writing the next arc until those resits are finished which will be early August.
Secondly, this arc has a few contradictions to the first arc. I plan on rewriting that arc because it's a bit of a mess. (Read 'bit of a' as massive.) But, I'll most likely do that after the next arc, I'll explain why at the end of this arc.
Also, I know Therestina isn't exactly people's favourite antagonist in the series, but I wanted a known Kihara to start of this arc and she was the only one I felt could fill the role I wanted.
And finally, I introduced the Formula AC in this chapter, I'll talk more about that next chapter, but I'll be leaving the full explanation for it and why it's being organised in a later arc.
Now for the comments.
Blanklow: Oh, it absolutely was. I feel like Touma had to have walked in on Mikoto at least once, so she would had to teach him the importance of knocking somehow.
GG Vegito: Ah, my bad. Sorry about that.
And that's everything. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I hope you all have a good week. The next chapter will be out next week. Bye.