Chapter 11

Pain began throbbing dully as Takeki left the world of his dreams. He let out a little moan and rolled to his side. He immediately regretted it as the pain flared and he returned to his back. He put a hand up to block out the sun that was sneaking through a part in the blinds and squinted his eyes open. The light was warm and comforting. It brought a peace to him that he couldn't have in his dreams.

His dream…

A part of it flashed back into his memory. Accelerator standing over him, laughing.

He sat up and clenched his fists. His morning dullness was gone. His heartbeat picked up. He couldn't fight against the fear that saturated his being while he dreamt. Now he retaliated in anger.

That bastard. I'll kill him. I don't care if he's the strongest, I'll find a way around his ability and kill him.

A mumbling noise came from outside Takeki's field of vision. He jerked his head to the side and saw Touma sitting up on the floor.

"Looks like you're finally up," Touma greeted him as he rubbed sleep from his eyes and yawned. "How are you feeling?"

The second Touma began speaking Takeki relaxed his body and buried all his anger deep beneath his adopted personality.

He smiled meekly and replied, "I'm feeling better, thank you." He turned and formally lowered his head to the bed he was sitting on. "I truly appreciate you giving me your bed to sleep on."

Touma smiled in return, "Don't mention it." His smile faltered a bit as his mind shifted focus to the questions that were burning in his chest. "What happened to you last night?"

Musujime could feel his eyes widen involuntarily at the mention of the previous night. "I accidentally wandered into a gang while I was walking around town." He softened his eyes and looked at the bed. Touma was about to say something when Takeki spoke up again. "But it's okay! I'm used to getting beat up for being an Esper!" The boy on the bed gave a strained smile.

The smile tore pity from Touma's heart. That may explain why Takeki was in such good shape. If he was constantly getting into fights he would have hardened his body while naïvely clinging to his childish spirit. That was good enough for Touma, who wanted to believe in Takeki.

"You were picked on for your powers? Aren't power users respected outside of Academy City?" His questions were perfunctory.

"Well, yes and no," Takeki answered, eyes fading into deep thought. "When I was in Japan I was a little popular. My power isn't anything amazing, but the fact that I had one gave me a little boost. But my parents moved to Europe as part of their job." He stopped and gathered his thoughts. "We lived in a little, rural village outside of London, in England. The town was deeply rooted in their customs- in religion."

The church. Touma already knew that they weren't particularly fond of Espers. Magic was created by those without power, Magicians, so that they could contend with those who had power, Espers.

"I don't really blame them for anything," Takeki continued. "I think they were just scared. There are a lot of psychics out there who can do things that humans probably shouldn't be able to do." His mind flashed involuntarily to Gunha and Accelerator, but he kept his composure. "I was one of the Espers who couldn't hurt them." Takeki's voice died to a whisper. "So they took all their fear out on me."

Touma felt bad. He felt really bad for questioning such an honest and gentle person. He had judged Takeki simply on how he looked. Takeki had given him no other reason to question his intentions. Quite the contrary, Takeki had even gone out of his way to stock Touma's fridge and had prepared him breakfast the day before.

As he kicked himself, Touma's eyes had wandered around the room. Eventually, they ended on the alarm clock by his bed. It was ten o'clock.

"Crap, I guess I should have called Saten-san and canceled for you. I'll make sure to explain it properly and apologize." Touma reached for the phone.

At the mention of Ruiko's name, Takeki's heart leapt and didn't come back down. It wasn't a feeling he was used to and it scared him a bit. But in his stomach, which filled quickly with butterfly wings, he knew it wasn't a bad feeling.

"No, wait!" he shouted before he even knew what he was saying. His body jerked around to get to his knees. He grunted and gripped his ribs, slumping his forehead to the bed in agony. Yeah, those are definitely broken, he confirmed.

Touma got quickly to his feet to assist him.

"You don't have to cancel," Takeki managed to get out despite the pain. "You went through… all the trouble of…"

Touma ducked under Takeki's right side and carefully helped him get his legs over the side of the bed.

"I'll be alright. I can't just… She's waiting…"

Touma grinned. He understood how important this must be to Takeki. And even if Takeki didn't know that Touma had unjustly suspected him of being a magician, Touma still felt he owed him something in return.

"You better hurry, then. You're already late!"

Takeki blinked at Touma. Then gave him one of his prize-winning smiles. "Yeah!"

(***)

Takeki was at the meet up location as soon as he had gotten around the block from Touma's apartment. That made him about fifteen minutes less tardy than Touma thought the boy would be; just ten minutes late all said and done.

As he rounded the corner of the ally he saw Ruiko jogging up to the fountain. He stepped back into the shadows and watched her. She was out of breath and spun around quickly, evidently looking for him. When she didn't see him in the vicinity she sighed and plopped down onto a bench. Takeki stared at her for a few more moments. When he snapped out of his stupor he realized that he was smiling. He quickly neutralized the expression and walked purposefully towards the girl. He would have run to make it look better, but he would end up wincing and limping and that would have given away his injury. Which was something he absolutely didn't want her to find out about.

"Sorry, I'm late!" he called as he neared her. "Did you wait long?"

"Not at all. I was late, too!" she replied, smiling.

After a moment Takeki caught himself staring again. "Oh, um, so…" he stuttered, quickly looking around.

"Well, then," Saten stretched, a movement that distracted Takeki again. "Guess we should get going, huh?"

"S-sure!" Takeki began surveying the area instead of Saten. "Where are we going?"

"I figured we would hit the Game Center first."

Takeki blinked. "The… Game Center?"

"Sure, it's lots of fun. They have a whole bunch of different games and everything is just one coin!"

Takeki wasn't quite expecting that one. "Okay…"

They walked a few blocks and entered the squat building. The colors from the various lights and video screens distorted Takeki's vision as it attempted to adjust to the indoor lights. He squinted a couple times as he followed Saten, who didn't seem to be affected by the change in lighting, to the first arcade machine.

"I've always wanted to try this one, but I don't think Uiharu would want to. Here's a coin. It's a head-to-head game so go to the machine on the other side of this one."

Takeki looked down at the coin, then back up at Ruiko, and then walked to the machine she indicated. As soon as he was out of sight from where she sat he let out a pent up sigh. He didn't have any real interest in video games and had rarely ever played them. He at least understood how they worked- that you used the lever to move the virtual character around and then used the other buttons to make it interact- but he had a bad feeling that his performance was going to be a rather disappointing.

He looked up at the title of the machine. Gekisho 9, huh? he wondered to himself. What is that supposed to mean?

He slipped his coin into the machine and picked the character he felt looked most powerful. As the game started he noticed that the title above the enemy's name was "computer."

Crap, looks like I messed something up. He started feeling embarrassed for some reason. Logically, it wasn't like he should know any better. But emotionally he felt that he should have at least appeared more competent.

"Ok, are you ready?" called a voice form above him. He looked up in surprise and saw Ruiko peaking over the top of the machine. She pulled herself up onto his machine so she could see his screen. "Ah! You already started! You should have told me!"

Takeki tried to smile. "Um… Saten-san, should you really be-"

She had already disappeared back over to her side.

Suddenly there was a clashing of metal and Takeki looked down to see the words "New Challenger" spread across the screen.

The screen went black and then his character was back. He noted that the red bar at the top had been refilled and the opposing character was different.

"Alright," came Ruiko's voice, "I'm not going to hold back, 'kay?"

Takeki began jerking the joystick around and noticed, to his frustration, that no matter how quickly he moved it or how hard he slammed it to one side his fighter's speed would not change. The character moved the same speed regardless of what direction he was moving or what Takeki did with the controls. He also noticed that when he made it jump, it always jumped in the same motion and for the same duration.

"Isn't that a bit… boring? Shouldn't this be a little more realistic?" he murmured to himself.

And then, at the last moment, he realized that his champion's red bar was falling every time the enemy struck him. With this revelation his fighter fell to the ground and the opponent gave a victory pose. A red circle at the end of the Saten's life bar filled in, the screen went blank, and then both combatants returned to their original positions and the match began anew. His character showed no signs of fatigue or injury, which Musujime readily attributed to magic. This time he wasted no time on experimenting with the controls and began jamming the attack buttons as soon as he was within striking range. Ruiko's character blocked the first two. The action surprised Takeki at first, but when he saw that she was still taking a small amount of damage it motivated him to press the attack. He began mumbling orders to the character which the virtual combatant carried out to the best of its programming.

"There! Keep your hook sharp. " Takeki coached the fighter. "You don't need to bring it out so far. Now kick her lead leg as she steps up! You need to kick faster and return to a neutral position! If you take that long to get set you're leaving yourself open to a counter attack!"

It was loud in the game center, but Saten's character reacted as if she heard him. As his character lazily missed with a second kick hers stepped quickly up to him and uppercutted him.

"See! That's what I'm trying to tell you!"

The character took a kick while he was on the ground and then returned to his feet. Despite the viscous strikes he had taken, Takeki's sprite chose to ignore his advice and continued with his clumsy attacks.

This is what happens when people become too reliant on magic to fix them up, Musujime ground his teeth.

His character was dispatched soon after and the words "You Lose" came up on the screen.

"Serves you right, weakling," Takeki muttered under his breath.

"Did you let me win?"
Takeki looked up to the top of the machine again. This time she wasn't there. Catching movement from the corner of his eye he snapped his head to his right and was staring right at Saten's chest. He gave a cry of surprise and jerked away from her, shifting his focus to her eyes. She didn't appear especially pleased.

"Even if this was my first time playing you should have given it your best shot," she scowled.

Takeki blushed. "Oh, no, I didn't. Um." A small corner of his mind wanted very, very badly to explain to her that his fighter was unmotivated and that he had tried his best to coach the slouch through the match, but his higher mental functions decided to take the blame. "I'm not very good at fighting games." He looked down at the floor, dejected.

"Oh, you should have said so!" Saten said, suddenly in higher spirits. "Come on, then. I know a really fun game that you might be good at." She grabbed his hand and pulled him up from the seat. He was thankful that she didn't see him wince.

Within moments Saten had a boxing glove on and was facing Takeki. His eyes widened. He really didn't want to fight Saten but at the same time she had seemed really upset when she thought that he had gone light on her. So long as she wasn't very experienced, he could probably make it seem like he was doing his best and just wear her down until she quit herself.

"Okay," she chimed, "don't get intimidated or anything. I happen to hold the high score for this machine," she gave a haughty grin.

"Understood," Takeki accepted. He wasn't sure how a machine could grade one's fighting abilities, but-

In a flash Saten pulled her fist back and swung with all her might.

Takeki brought his arms up and tucked his chin defensively. He made sure to carefully regulate his adrenaline so he didn't accidentally hurt her when he began his attack.

There was a thud and then a barrage of bells and buzzers. Takeki retained his orthodox stance for a moment before letting it fall. Saten had spun in mid strike and struck a red pad attached to a metal arm. The punch had knocked it back a foot and the lights on the machine had begun flashing as the sirens wailed.

Oh…

"Haha, that's what I get for being fancy," Ruiko laughed off the low score. "Oh well, you still won't beat my high score." She slipped the glove off and handed it to him. "Go ahead, give it your best shot!"

Takeki equipped the glove and squared off to the machine. He didn't intend to give it his all. Well, he hadn't intended to give it his all. But as he cocked his hand back he glanced at Saten and felt a pressure on his chest. Something in him took over and channeled all his strength into the punch. The pad shot backwards in a blink and the machine rattled. The alarms on the machine went crazy and every light on the machine strobed. A small display on the back wall of the box displayed "New High Score" and listed a number nearly 300 points higher than the previous.

Saten stood there, face completely blank. Takeki's heart raced. That had been a mistake. She had been very proud of her high score and he had just taken it from her. What could he possibly say in this situation?

"Um..." Saten began to recover from the shock. "Well, I suppose that would happen! You're a guy after all. I don't know what I was thinking." She gave an awkward laugh.

And then Takeki realized that his ribs were burning. He hadn't noticed it with his mind in such a tumult, but now that the silence was broken he felt the pain surging through his side. He gritted his teeth and grabbed his side, his legs growing weak as he did so.

"Hey, are you alright?" Saten's eyes were wide and she reached for him.

"I-it's nothing," Takeki said quickly and tried to suppress the pain. "I hurt myself the other day and it's still a little sore."

Takeki couldn't say for sure how he expected her to respond, but upon seeing her reaction he immediately regretted telling her.

"I see, so you're injured and you still blew my score out of the water." Her eyes were draped with depression, her shoulders were lax, and she didn't look at him as she spoke.

"Oh, uh, no!" Takeki cried immediately, trying to remedy the situation. "That was my best! I don't think I could do any better than that! This isn't really a hinderance, so…!"

"Oh well," Ruiko sighed, probably not even hearing him, she put on a smile and returned her gaze to him, "Let's go get some tea."

"Sure!" Takeki agreed right away.

Tea is good, he thought to himself. There's no way I could possibly mess tea up.

They left the artificial lights of the game center and walked a few blocks to the tea shop Saten had chosen beforehand. The two got a small table under an umbrella on the red brick patio in front of the store. Saten ordered a cup of tea and Takeki ordered coffee. They made small talk for a few minutes while they waited for their drinks. The weather- the most comfortable topic for both of them- had been the topic at first. Just before their beverages arrived Takeki had shifted the focus to Academy City. He asked trivial questions to which Saten repeated facts that had been ingrained in her mind by the city's education system. Simple inquiries such as how many students lived in the city, how many districts there were, how young a student could be to enroll, what the average tuition was; questions that held no significance for either of them but let them enjoy chatting.

Eventually they both asked for refills to their drinks, causing a brief silence to ensue. In that silence the focus of their conversation shifted. Takeki could tell from the way that Saten glanced at him that she was going to start prying. Her hesitation suggested that she wasn't comfortable with asking, but she was curious nonetheless.

"I didn't notice until we started talking, but you have a small cut under your eye and you're face is a little bruised. You got beat up, right?"

Takeki searched her eyes over his coffee. He lowered his cup and his eyes followed. "Yeah." He left it at that for a time before deciding to expand upon it. "Pretty lame of me, huh?"

"No. It's not like it's your fault. It was because you don't have a strong power, right? I know there are gangs out there that prey on the low Levels." A deep-seated sadness covered her face. "I've seen it before."

Takeki understood that his enjoyable, meaningless banter was slowly being replaced with a more personal conversation. The part of his brain that thought like the Mage Slayer mourned the loss, but his deeper being wanted to talk about these things he feared. He thought about moving his chair next to hers, but he knew that would make her uncomfortable and kill the conversation. Instead he simply leaned forward, letting her see that she had his undivided attention.

"I love this city. It's always so lively and I've made lots of friends. I've even helped out Misaka-san and Judgment in the past. Sometimes, though, I'm scared. Just as there are good people in this city, there are also bad people. I'm invincible when I'm with my friends, but being a Level 0 there's not much I can do to protect myself. What if my friends don't show up one of these times?

"I… I have a pretty strong sense of justice and that has gotten me into trouble before," the time she had stood up to those Level Upper thugs came to mind. "My friends have always shown up in time, but that can't continue on forever. One of these times I'm going to stand up to a gang or a rogue Esper and no one is going to come to save me. I'll be there alone and-"

"I'll be there."

Takeki wasn't surprised this time. He felt those words resonating with his heart. It was the truth and he could say them without any unwanted assistance.

Saten didn't blink. She was shocked by the boy's straightforwardness. As she recovered the blush rose in her cheeks and her mind began reeling.

"I, uh, think it's time we moved on to the next place," she got to her feet, as if the physical distance would leave the conversation behind her. "I know this really good-"

Takeki grabbed her hand. He understood why he was compelled to do so. The logic in him sensed that he was moving the relationship along too quickly for Saten's comfort. But at that moment it didn't matter. He was being impulsive and felt it was the right thing to do.

"Give me your cellphone," he requested, speaking familiarly. Despite the emotional roil in his chest he kept his tone gentle and level. He looked deeply into her eyes and he could tell that there was probably a look of concern on his face.

"Why-"

"Please," he emphasized.

Saten reached her free hand into her pocket and retrieved the cellphone. Takeki took his eyes from hers just long enough to push a few buttons. He closed the phone and pressed it into the hand he was holding.

"That's my cellphone number," he told her, returning his eyes to hers. "If you're ever in trouble, call me. I'll be there right away. I promise."

Saten broke his gaze to look at his hands. The entire situation was confusing. There was a lot of it that she couldn't really understand. She pulled one of the questions from the whirlwind in her head and spat it out, gritting her teeth. "Who do you think you are?"

The question caught Takeki worse than any of Gunha's punches had. His jaw dropped open and his grip loosened on Saten's hand. She slipped her hand quickly away and continued her verbal assault.

"I just met you yesterday and you're already acting like you're… you're my," she couldn't get the word to come out and gave up on it. "What makes you think you'll be there in time? What are you, some stalker?"

She spun and walked away. Takeki couldn't make his legs move. It wasn't that he didn't know what had gone wrong. He knew. He had simply wanted to know that she had felt the same as him. It meant so much to him to hear her voicing the same doubts as him. He had been that weak when he was younger.

He had felt so much despair after his sister had gone into the hospital. He was her emotional support and he couldn't comfort her. She had been his physical support and she couldn't protect him. Without her there to save him he had been bullied at school. He had gotten into trouble on the streets. He had only faced those problems for a few weeks, but he didn't want Saten to have to deal with them at all.

He had been hoping that she could sense that he understood her fears. That she understood he was of a kindred spirit. That maybe… maybe their similarities meant something more.