Toaru Yowa-sa no Shōchō

A Certain Symbol of Weakness

Misaka was soon fast asleep, if a bit restless, the exhaustion from their tiresome day made even the cold metal floor seem comfortable to sleep upon. Despite that Kuroko found herself resisting sleep. She could still hear the voice echoing inside her head, The voice that shook her resolve and summoned in her an anger for the person whom she loved so deeply. The one that had haunted her all day, the one that even at the end took all her strength and love to resist and throw off.

She knew she could not remain awake forever, the past two days had taken a toll on her body already, she wouldn't be able to resist sleep's grasp for much longer, but she was afraid. afraid of that dark place and the voice of temptation that so easily influenced her.

It was around this time that she felt something moving behind her. As she turned for a look she felt an arm drape around her and pull her close as her Onee-sama unconsciously clung once again to her troubled bedfellow. Kuroko turned towards her but did not resist, not wanting to wake up her Onee-sama.

They soon found themselves entangled in each other in the same way as they were yesterday and Misaka stopped her restless tossing and turning, having once again found something comfortable and warm to hold on to for the night. Kuroko smiled. It was almost as if her Onee-sama had sensed, through their deep bond of love, that she was troubled, reaching out even in her sleep and holding her now to reassure her.

Yesterday too... she was the one that had gotten her out of that cursed place. She's always watching out for everyone. So many times she had saved Kuroko, even if it was just a kind word or a gentle hand.

Before Misaka she had always been alone. Outside of work and Konori-senpai she had no one to talk to or rely on but herself. But now it was different. She would always have Onee-sama and Onee-sama would always have her. They would be together forever.

Kuroko leaned down and kissed her lightly, "thank you," she whispered to her as she closed her eyes, confident that her Onee-sama would protect her, no matter what.

She soon opened her eyes to find herself back in the same endless void as last night, all was silent but she knew that the voice of honey and thorns was lurking in the ether. But tonight she was ready for it. She had the power of love behind her and the confidence that this love was eternal. She gathered her strength and shouted out in defiance to the darkness. "You were wrong. She might not love me, she might never love me, but she cares for me. That's all that matters. She'll always protect me and help me."

Her further retorts were cut off, however, as she felt a great pressure descend over her. It was suffocating and heavy, as if she were being held underwater, she could barely breathe, let alone shout. Then the voice spoke again, louder than before, each word driving deep within her, each syllable felt like it were pulling her further underwater. It instantly shattered every vestige of confidence and strength she had in herself. "Help? Protect? You speak as if you were some helpless princess, always needing the strength of another."

Helpless? That isn't true. She tried to speak up, to refute the voice but her words were swallowed up as the voice spoke again.

"Are you nothing but a weakling? In constant need of the protection of another? Are you so worthless as to rely on her for everything?"

Not weak. Don't listen to it, trust in yourself. She tried hard to do it, but resisting was useless, the voice had her in its web and had no intention of letting her escape.

"If you aren't weak than fight. Prove to those who think you are beneath them that you are strong. Prove that you don't need her, that you don't need anyone. Fight and show your strength."

Fight... I can do that. Her resistance had now totally crumbled and she lapped up the honey that the voice poured forth. "I'm not weak, I'll prove it."

Misaka woke up to an odd sense of deja vu. She opened her eyes to the same sight that had caused her so much trouble yesterday, the see-through fabric of Kuroko's provocative negligee. She blushed deeply realizing she was in the same position as yesterday, her head nestled snuggly on Kuroko's flat but soft chest... She froze, hesitant to make any action, lest she repeat the mistake of yesterday.

As she paused to calm down and return to her senses she realized something. She felt Kuroko squirming in her grasp, her breathing fast and shallow. Misaka looked up at her face. Her eyes were closed tightly and her face was contorted in a mixture of pain and fear, like she was having a nightmare.

Concerned now, Misaka quickly disentangled her arms and began shaking Kuroko. "Hey, wake up. Are you ok?"

Suddenly her eyes shot, they looked around searching for something as her breath quickened and deepened, as if she had just resurfaced from the pool. Their eyes met. "Kuroko? are you ok, it looked like you were having a bad dream."

Kuroko spun around quickly, turning away from her. "I'm fine," she said defensively

Misaka sat up. "You sure? You don't look fine. What's up? you can tell me. it's ok." She put her hand on her shoulder reassuringly, "you looked terrified."

She shrugged the hand off. She couldn't let her Onee-sama see her like this, see her in a moment of weakness. 'I need to be strong; I can't rely on Misaka to protect me. I am plenty capable of protecting myself'. "I'm not scared, I'm fine," she said again, a bit of anger rising as she mistook the gentle concern in Misaka's voice for condescending pity.

"Something is seriously wrong with her," Misaka thought. "Yesterday too. Maybe it's my fault, maybe it's this whole stupid place. She's plunged herself into such a high stress situation, all for me..."

"Listen Kuroko," she began her voice full of concern, "thank you very much for coming. It means a lot to me that you would put yourself in danger to try and help me. But you don't have to. If you're not feeling well then you should go, I'll be fine on my own."

It was possibly the worst thing she could have said however. "You think I can't handle it?" all of Misaka's care and concern was lost on her; instead she became angry at Misaka's underestimation of her. She was strong, she wasn't about to give up just because Misaka thought she couldn't handle it. "I'll be just fine. I'm not some weakling that you need to look out for and I'm not going to run away just because you think you can handle this by yourself. We all saw how that worked out for you before."

Misaka was taken aback, by the words themselves and the sheer resentment and anger behind them. Why was Kuroko saying this? What was wrong with her?

Kuroko stood up. "Now if you're done trying to convince me to run, it's already morning and the sooner we leave the sooner we can get this job done."

"I wasn't trying to convince you to run, I was simply telling you that you don't need to force yourself to stay." Misaka said again, Kuroko's behavior and disdain for her concern moving her to annoyance. Her annoyance was further enflamed when Kuroko ignored this and simply began changing. Angrily she got up and did the same. No point in talking to someone who doesn't listen.

Silently they packed everything up, and ate a small breakfast, each fuming, angry at the other. Then they left, heading towards the hospital that they had decided was the hiding place of The Queen. Surprisingly they weren't attacked as they had been the other day. Everything was quiet and soon they reached the hospital, more specifically, around 50 meters from it, scoping it out from a distance.

The building was big, though not nearly as big as the hospitals in the main parts of the city. It was 7 stories tall but not very spacious going along with the general theme of academy cities, up-not-out, build policy. It seemed to still be in good repair, very few of the windows were broken and the white paint covering the outside was not worn completely away like it had been on most every other building. The hospital itself wasn't major enough to have anything but a small parking garage next to it that didn't even link to the hospital and was completely empty. The only visible entrance was the large front door.

There was also another interesting feature, the door had a guard. A middle-school girl in a Tokiwadai outfit. While obviously not The Queen herself she was likely in her faction at school. It was a hopeful sign; this building was likely the right place if she was placing more than delinquents on guard.

They would need to be careful however, one wrong move and things could turn out very badly. Low level thugs were one thing but who knows how many people she had with her, and they were all at least level 3.

"We should try and sneak..." Misaka stopped when she turned to her companion only to see nothing but air.

Kuroko teleported behind the lookout, immediately putting her in a restraining hold and covering her mouth with her hand. "I need you to answer my questions. Where is the Queen?" She asked before uncovering her mouth.

The girl scoffed in return struggling in the hold, "Do you think I'd tell you? and even if you knew what would you do about it? You're nothing but a weak little insect unfit to be in the presence of..."

Weak... weak? Weak! Something inside Kuroko snapped as she heard that word. Before the girl could finish her sentence she teleported her several meters into the air. then entered the hospital.

There were more guards waiting inside, all of them from their school. All restraint forgotten, Kuroko moved in a flurry throughout the hospital, taking out ESPer after ESPer in seconds flat with a series of teleportations, kicks, and throws, all executed in such a manner to defeat her opponents as quickly as possible, with little regard to their safety. After all, she wasn't here to apprehend these people, she was here to get rid of them. That she did quite efficiently as well, they were being taken out faster than they could react, those few that managed to launch some sort of attack found it missing as their target appeared in a completely different location.[1]

It was hard and tiring but Kuroko was too consumed by anger to notice how much energy she was burning. She was in an almost berserk rage as she dealt one by one with all those who dared to call her weak. The words of the voice echoed in her head like a battle drum, urging her on

She made her way upwards, floor by floor, quickly weaving her way through the various rooms and floors until she reached the top. This floor seemed to be the managerial department. Groups of cubicle and several offices lay around the room for the abandoned number crunching staff of this hospital. It was a smaller floor than the rest but the cubicles would make it hard to search, so Kuroko decided not to do so and simply go to what looked to be the biggest, nicest office there was, helpfully labeled "Dean of Medicine: Iyasu Karada."

She threw the door open, ready to take out the queen and be done with this whole mess. However, when she entered the room she saw that The Queen was not there, only another girl in a Tokiwadai uniform sitting in a comfortable chair behind the desk looking startled by the noise of the door.

When the girl saw Kuroko she quickly activated her power, erecting a large barrier of force between them. It could weather even large explosions, so she should be safe. Then she began moving it forward, trying to force the intruder back.

Unfortunately for her, Kuroko didn't need to knock it down, she simply teleported in front of her and quickly restrained her like she had down before. "I'm going to ask this one more time so you had better answer me... where is The Queen."

"I...I can't tell you," she said, terrified of this very angry sounding girl who had forced her way up her but resolute in her desire to serve and protect her idol.

On another day Kuroko might have admired this resolve and loyalty, but right now she was not in the mood. She teleported them up to the roof, close enough to the edge that a simple push would send her over. "You sure you can't tell me?" She asked threateningly. Not a trace of mercy, compassion, or restraint was present in her voice or intentions.

Looking down for a brief moment to see the 70 foot fall awaiting her, the girl almost wet herself from the sheer terror. "Sh...She's at the old military complex, near the switchyard on the other end of the district. We're just here as a decoy, so please don't hurt me." she begged, crying.

"That's better." Kuroko said letting her go. The girl ran over to the other end of the roof, covering herself in a force field as she sobbed and cowered.

After seeing that Kuroko had gone Misaka's eyes shot towards the hospital. Kuroko was indeed there, apparently interrogating the lookout. That's when things started going wrong. Suddenly Kuroko had teleported the lookout up in the air, far higher than usual, then she had rushed into the building. Misaka ran towards the hospital herself. The lookout was unconscious, the fall had been quite hard but it probably didn't cause any broken bones. She didn't have time to check on all the people though. She had to stop Kuroko before she did anything stupid.

"And she lectures me about rushing in," Misaka thought angrily as she rushed in. It seemed as though she was too late to stop her though. Everywhere she went she saw the carnage left behind. Kuroko had been utterly vicious; people were laying all about, either unconscious or hurt. Some people had Kuroko's little needles sticking out of their skin and they were desperately trying to pull them out.

The sight of it made Misaka sick to her stomach. There was no way Kuroko could have done this... right? Not the annoying little roommate that was always laughing and smiling and badgering her Onee-sama. It wasn't conceivable that her best friend had wrecked all this chaos but she knew it was true. "Why Kuroko, what happened to you..." she said quietly to herself.

She finally met up with the culprit on the top floor, stumbling down the stairs from the roof like a drunkard, holding her head. Her disbelief and annoyance all at once turned to anger and she was about to launch a tirade at Kuroko, demanding to know her reason for all of this when she spouted out.

"The Queen... old military complex... near switchyard... other side of the district." With that last word Kuroko fainted, the energy she had consumed from all those teleportations too much for her when coupled with her already sleep deprived body.

Misaka caught her before she fell. She was pissed off but she could wait to tell Kuroko off for a later time. In fact this was probably for the best. Now she could simply drop her off somewhere safe and finish this whole mess soon. That way no more people would get hurt... other than The Queen for launching her on this wild goose chase in the first place.

So she hoisted the unconscious Kuroko onto her back and made her way back down, using the elevator this time as she no longer needed to search for anyone on the way up. She reached the ground floor and left the building. Walking towards the other side of the district, keeping an eye out for any safe places to leave Kuroko, she quickly found one in a relatively innocuous building that had an electronic lock on the door, still functional. She went inside and settled Kuroko into a corner. "I'll be back and then we'll have a talk ok." she said to her unconscious friend before leaving and locking the door behind her.

[1]Imagine the Nightcrawler scene at the beginning of X-Men 2 only a cute middle school girl instead of a blue skinned mutant with a tail.

Author's Note: I'm happy I could get this chapter out quite a bit faster than the other one but I feel, once again, unsatisfied by it. I'm sorry for using my loyal readers as beta testers but once again I ask for any feedback, advice, etc… that you can lend to make this better.

With that out of the way I'd like to address an issue that some of you reading may disagree with. That is Kuroko's single handed devastation of several level 3's and a couple level 4's. This may seem unrealistic given that Kuroko herself is only level 4 but I disagree with that assessment. To me Kuroko is completely underestimated. She is one of the deadliest characters in that universe simply because of one thing, efficiency.

To put it into numbers let us look at Misaka's. Her Railgun has a maximum range of 50 meters and capable of going 1080 meters per second. That means that, disregarding the windup where she flips the coin in the air, it would take .04 seconds to reach its target. Her lightning is much faster, reaching a target the same distance away in just over 8 microseconds. However, against the same target , Kuroko's attack would reach it instantaneously. Not only that but, because it ignores any other material, it is impossible to block and with the displacement effect she could kill a person using just about anything, decapitating a person using a piece of paper, severing the medulla using a playing card, utterly destroying someone's brain with a simple tin can. Even Accelerator would be dead in an instant. However her restraint keeps her from seriously injuring anyone to the level that she could. However if her restraint slipped a little bit I don't think that the curb-stomp I talked about in this chapter would be unrealistic. I plan to play with this idea a little more as the story progresses so I'll tell you right now that I am a person who plans to use Kuroko's abilities to the fullest, not simply underestimate her like everyone else does.