Toaru Kako no Toraburu

A Certain Trial of the Past

That night Kuroko dreamt of the past and her oldest friend.

It all started a long time ago, when she was a small child. She had just turned six when her parents sent her off to Academy city to start a new life and make something of herself. She wasn't sad to leave her home behind. Her parents weren't ever there for her anyway so she wouldn't really miss them and she had never had any real chances to make friends with other boys and girls. So when the car came to take her on her one way trip, she never even looked back.

This new city held opportunity. She had heard tales of this great place with its super advanced technology and people with special powers. It was like she was going inside a science fiction book. 'Soon I'll be one of them,' she thought, 'I'll work my very hardest and become the most powerful one of them all.' That was the day she promised herself she would stand at the top.

The key to making ESPers was Academy City's Power Curriculum Program: a demanding regimen that sought to unlock a person's personal reality and thus awaken their abilities. There were many different ways to do this, mental exercises, hypnosis, drugs. It was different for each person as the program adjusted to them and encouraged their progress individually. However there was one thing that was relatively consistent, it was unpleasant, uncomfortable at best and painful at worst.

Kuroko had it at its worst. She was frequently ill from the drugs and training. Every night her body ached from the rigors of the day and her head felt like her brain was trying to escape from its confines in her skull. Each day marched on with little progress and lots of pain. But still, Kuroko was strong, she was the strongest. She wouldn't cry until she was in bed and all the lights were turned off. These were the days Kuroko sat at the bottom.

On one of these days, as she quietly sobbed her pained tears she heard someone speaking to her, a voice from nowhere. There's no need to cry, It sounded like her own voice, the same playful sound that issued from her own lips, yet it was not like her voice at all, it was confident and brave and calm, unracked by tears and sobs. It was the voice she once had, and the voice she still put on when others were near. Crying is for those who have given up. Stand strong, the strongest of all. and when the time finally comes to cry I'll be there to dry your tears.

She stopped sobbing and looked around for the source of the voice. No one was in the room besides her. "Who are you?" she asked. I don't really know… who are you?

"Shirai Kuroko," she said wiping her runny nose and wet red eyes. Then I will be Kuro.

That was the day someone pulled her up.

And so the voice had taken a fragment of the child's name as her own, but she was not a fragment. Kuro was not what Kuroko was not, nor was she what Kuroko could never be. She was not some piece of Kuroko that had broken off. She was more like a spare part than a fragment. An extra voice, another viewpoint, another person to bear the load.

But she was not another heart. Kuro had no emotions. She felt no sorrow or happiness or anger. Even when Kuroko was leaping with joy or roaring with rage Kuro stayed calm, level headed. To Kuro these displays were curiosities, eccentricities of others. Not her, she felt nothing.

She was not a conscience. To her Kuroko was the only thing that mattered. She divided the world into two categories, people who hurt Kuroko and people who Kuroko liked. Everyone in the first would be treated ruthlessly, without mercy until they were unable to hurt her any more.

To others, Kuro was simply little Shirai's imaginary friend. The entity that the lonely little child would tell about her day and talk to about everything and anything under the sun. It was a being that stuck around and then disappeared as the children became older and outgrew such childish necessities. And as the child began school and made friends with the children around her Kuro's presence diminished until she, along with all the others, were left behind as childhood memories.

Not to Kuroko though. To Kuroko nothing was imaginary about her. She was Kuro's one true friend, and always would be. It didn't matter if Kuro could play with her on the see-saw or push her on the swing; when Kuroko needed her she was right there. As the other children abandoned their own imaginary friends, outgrew them like old clothes, she simply kept quiet about hers. It would be there in her head anytime she cared to call, but it did outgrow the childish moniker.

As she got older she fancied Kuro as the voice of reason, her common sense that told her what she was otherwise too blind to see. She was an adviser on anything, always presenting her with a viewpoint unskewed by the emotion that Kuroko had always felt so strongly. Kuro was the brain, she was the heart, and together they were the courage.

It was a delightful little fairy tale when she was younger. But as she got older and disillusioned she saw that it was not a delightful little story. As she learned more and grew more grounded in reason rather than fancy she recognized that it was probably chronic schizophrenia. She wasn't sure but she guessed that it had arisen as a side effect of one of the various drugs they injected her with when she was going through the Power Curriculum Program.

She had considered, once, going to a psychologist about it. But then she realized that he would probably try and cure her, and that meant getting rid of Kuro. Even knowing that she was probably a sign of mental illness, Kuroko could not bear the thought of getting rid of her. The idea that Kuro wouldn't be there for her filled her with dread and almost made her sick.

She would never drive Kuro off, no matter what. She was her oldest and most trusted friend, the only one she could rely on to protect and care for her.

However, even with so deep a bond between them, they were still subject to the capricious nature of relationships. They had their ups and downs. They frequently fought and rarely, but sometimes, got mad at each other. But mostly their relationship would go through periods of presence and absence. When Shiro was untroubled, content and safe, Kuro was silent. She was unneeded when Shiro had a smile on her face. When her life was going well and she had many people to call friends then Kuro sank into the background until called back by Shiro for advice or comfort.

For that reason it had been a while since she had needed her. Even with the various conflicts in her life, Shiro was happy, possibly the happiest Kuro had ever seen her. Kuro was content to simply lay back and hope that Shiro would never need her again, forgetting her completely in lieu of new friends that could make Shiro happier than she ever could. Kuro was meant to hoist her up to the top and dry her tears when she couldn't climb any more. She was never meant to make Shiro smile.

That was when it had happened. That new voice came, the voice of honey and thorns. It taunted and prodded and tugged Shiro's emotion like a spider trapping its prey. Shiro went further into the darkness and Kuro's own voice weakened as she was forced to watch Shiro plummet back towards the bottom they had worked so hard to climb out of.

Crying is for those who have given up.

Kuro was an extra voice but she was not an extra heart. She had no emotions. She felt nothing. She could not cry. She could never surrender and shed tears of defeat. She could never give up.

She grabbed Shiro with hands she did not have, caught her plummeting form and lifted her back up with strength she could not possess. In her desperation she had borrowed Shiro's own hands, used Shiro's own strength to pull her back up. A spare part turned something more, something stronger. She would never let Shiro fall again, now she could protect her with more than just words.

Still, it was her body, her life. When the time came when she was emboldened enough to claim it back, Kuro would always relinquish it.

The ordeal was over now, the voice of honey and thorns driven out leaving only the scars behind. Shiro didn't know what had gone on, only shadows of the past and the kiss remained in her head. Kuro remembers. She was the one who gathered up the memories and locked them up. Kuroko didn't mind, she trusted Kuro when she said that they were painful. She was strong but she had a feeling that not even the strongest would want to face what lay behind those locks and chains.

It had left Kuro stronger though. Her voice which had weakened was now louder than ever, it could not be ignored. Not only that but she was restless, unable to simply lapse back into the peaceful place she had always retreated to when Shiro didn't need her. She saw it as a blessing for her but a curse for Shiro. So she tried to keep quiet, made sure to come out only when completely necessary. She would protect Shiro till her last breath but would not stop her from being happy at other times.

That was the day that Kuroko dreamt of the past and of her oldest friend.

She was not sure if it was a nightmare or not.

Author's note: This chapter is… different. There's no romance or action or comedy. It's more poetry than part of the story and nothing really happens. But it is necessary to truly understand Kuro and how she came to be. I hope you enjoy it and I promise that next chapter will have plenty of the romance, comedy, action and story that this chapter doesn't.

Also, I recognize that it can get confusing at times so I'll try and explain it. Shiro is what Kuro calls the main personality, that is to say the person who I've been calling Kuroko. There is a story behind that that comes later. When Kuro is talking about Kuroko, after a certain point at least, she uses Shiro. When I'm talking about her as an author or using her viewpoint than I use Kuroko.