Toaru Fukushu no Shototsu

A Certain Conflict of Vengeance

The sun was low in the sky as Misaka left the hospital. The sky was tinted with the flaming colors of the early sunset. The streets were littered with people who were on their way home before Academy city's strict curfew time. But Misaka didn't care about the imminent curfew. She was going to take action and take it now.

The first step would be to find out what the whole attack had been about. That Ita person said he had been hired. If that was the case who had hired him? And why and how had they done so.

She knew his name and his power. With that she could probably locate him in the databanks once she had a proper terminal. A person like that ought to have a criminal record a mile long, maybe she could find a clue somewhere in there.

Misaka fished around her pockets until she found a cluster of keys, and among them the key to Judgment branch 177's office. It was originally Uiharu's but she had lost it a while ago. Misaka had found it and had been meaning to return it for... around two months now, but it had always "slipped her mind".

Despite her carelessness, however, Uiharu was a genius when it came to computers. Judgment Branch 177 had better security than Academy City's own databanks and Uiharu's terminal had access (maybe not official access but access nonetheless) to most official networks in Academy City. If there was one place to go to get information it would be there. With its access and her hacking abilities she would have any data she wanted in a matter of seconds.

With this plan in mind she walked on towards her destination with a single minded determination that she had not felt since... well since six days ago actually. But still, it was a feeling she never got sick of. The feeling that nothing else in the world mattered except this one single goal. The sheer rush of walking alone into the unknown to face down whatever fate threw at you. The mystery, the excitement. As much as she complained about it the fact was that Misaka loved this rush of danger, she loved looking for trouble. Even more than that she loved finding it and taking it on. And now that she had a justification for looking she would not stop until she found this trouble and took care of it once and for all.

The sun had nearly disappeared below the horizon by the time Misaka arrived at the Judgment offices. As expected the lights were off and it appeared empty. Misaka walked up to the front door and unlocked it with her "borrowed" key. Then she walked up the flight of stairs to the main office. She strode in and walked over to the terminal on the desk against the far wall and its set of five monitors.

With a touch the computer roared to life, the fans hummed in the background as the screen lit up the dark room with solid blue light. After a second, a prompt came up asking her to input a password in order to log in. Misaka quickly and skillfully bypassed the prompt and was rewarded by each monitor going to its respective desktop screen.

With that done she sat down in the chair and got to work. She accessed The Bank, searching for Ita in the records. It didn't take her long to find someone with that name and a power which fit her experience. Through that file she accessed personal records, sifting through for any useful information.

First she searched under his criminal records. She saw he had innumerous misdemeanors to his name as well as being a suspect in various major crimes. However he had never been convicted. At the bottom of the list was a note, not a crime but something applicable to criminal records: "suspected affiliation with mercenary group Gordian Inc."

Misaka paused as she saw this. A mercenary group? Did Academy City have such things? Misaka decided to look further into it. If it was true and the people who had attacked them were part of this group then it would make sense that they were hired. Then Misaka could go pay them a visit and see who hired them.

So Misaka searched. Though even with her skill she was only able to gather the most basic of information. She discovered from Anti-Skill's databanks that "Gordian Inc." was a group of "private contractors" who were alleged to have committed several crimes including: possession and dealing of illegal weaponry, destruction of property, arson, kidnapping and even murder. But, despite these allegations and suspicions, there was no proof of illegal activities and no warrant had ever been passed to search their premises.

As Misaka read this she got angrier and angrier. Not only at these people who most likely committed all these heinous acts, but at Anti-Skill as well for failing to meet out justice to those who deserved it. Misaka knew from the past that sometimes Anti-Sill was effective and diligent, but she also knew how severely the bureaucracy tied up their operations.

She noted down the location of their headquarters and identified where to go, then she turned off the computer and left. The bureaucracy didn't matter to her though, she didn't need a warrant. She had a pocket full of arcade coins, a chip on her shoulder, and a billion volts running through her veins.

Tonight she was justice: cold, hard, and merciless.

She walked down the dimly lit street. The sun had long since descended, now only the crescent moon's soft glow and the streetlamps glare lit the sidewalk. She had walked for a while now, her anger building and building then dying down to a small, intense ember. She surveyed her destination, now in view, as she walked towards it, along the chain-link fence, covered with green fabric, which blocked her vision of the main building.

Ahead of her she saw the gates, heavy iron, a two part sliding design that would not look out of place in an official military complex. Two heavy concrete pillars supported the mechanism that opened and closed the door. Mounted on top of each were cameras, hidden below fish eye lenses, dutifully swiveling and keeping watch over the complex.

A man stood watch. He had on a dark black trench coat which settled unnaturally over his frame, as if he was wearing pillows or something similar underneath it. Hearing Misaka's soft, quiet footsteps he turned to look at the barely illuminated figure of a young teenage girl.

His hand instinctively went near his hip as he looked at the girl. "What are you doing here so late at night? You should probably leave." He said, more as a piece of advice than a threat.

Misaka didn't bothering answering him, at least not in words. With a thought she took over the security systems and set the camera's display on loop. Then she raised her hand towards him and sent a lightning bolt right into his torso. The force and surprise threw him backwards a couple feet, hitting the ground on his back, smoke rose from the place Misaka had hit.

With one dealt with she turned to the gate. As she did she realized that something wasn't quite right. On instinct she turned back to the guard who was lying on the ground. The lightning had burned away the fabric of the trench-coat revealing a suit of high-end padded combat armour. The suit had insulated him from the shock and left him fully conscious, he had retrieved a combat rifle from somewhere in the folds of the fabric and was taking aim.

With a quick motion Misaka magnetized her hand, yanking the iron barreled gun from the man's grip into Misaka's. She stepped forward and placed her hand on his head then sent a small electric shock into his head, knocking him out. She stepped back and looked him over, making sure he didn't hold any other surprises. Just then an alarm sounded from the building, a blaring horn that echoed around the facility but did not reach too far beyond it. In the man's left hand he held a button, when he was shocked he had reflexively pressed it, alerting his allies to the intruder.

Misaka sighed. "So much for subtlety." She said to herself as she touched the gate and activated the electronic mechanism, opening it and walking in.

It was eerily quiet. The lamps which lit the facility cast massive shadows across the grounds as a cold wind blew. Then the quiet was abruptly cut short as the loud pops of silenced gunfire rang throughout the grounds. They came from the doorway of the building. The pops were short and small, probably from a handgun. Nevertheless it would probably be lethal if it hit.

Misaka magnetically charged her hand and ripped the huge metal door off its hinges, placing it between her and the people firing at her. The bullets continued hitting it with suppressing fire, creating dents in the metal, but the thick door seemed to be reinforced and stopped them before they went through it.

Over the muffled bangs of the pistols she heard a small metal object bouncing and scraping across the dirt. She looked to see a metal canister slightly larger than a soda can rolling halfway between her and the far fence. As it slowed down a small pop erupted from it and smoke began issuing forth in great quantities.

Misaka saw what it was and guessed they were maneuvering under the cover of the smoke while her visibility was low. So she used a trick she had learned a short while ago while they were cleaning the dorm. She negatively charged the smoke grenade's metal exterior, ionizing the air. The dust and smoke particles were attracted to the charged iron, clearing the air and revealing two more people. They were fully decked out in combat gear, they even carried riot shields. They were moving up closer to get a good shot.

Her lightning would be useless against the plastic shields. But that wasn't the only trick she had up her sleeves. The dirt here was rich in iron and she used her powers to gather the particles into a sword, the edges of which vibrated at high speed giving them greater cutting power than a chainsaw.

She sent the tip towards the first of the riot shields. The iron crashed against the face of hard, durable, three-inch-thick plastic and instantly began eating away at the material. In a matter of moments her Satetsuken sawed lines through the shield, leaving nothing but 6 separate hunks of useless plastic which clattered to the ground. The next one took even less time as she wrapped the Satetsuken around it sawing at it from both sides simultaneously.

Now without the protection of their shields they began to draw their guns. But Misaka was quicker. Stopping the high-speed vibrations, she wrapped the sand sword around the two and constricted it, pinning the two tightly together. Then she sent a high voltage charge through the iron particles, fusing the iron sand together into a rough but strong iron band which bound the two together and prevented them from moving.

Stopping for a second to catch her breath, she heard the squeaking of a door and an engine roar to life. She turned around to see a black van rolling out of the garage, stopping halfway down the driveway as part of the chassis fell away to reveal a mounted heavy machine gun.

Quickly Misaka yanked the other half of the front door off its hinges as the machine gun took a second to warm up. She barely covered herself with her makeshift shield when the bullets began flying, several hitting and leaving deep dents in the iron. They hit fast and within quick succession, though the firing slowed down a little as the gunner saw that she had shielded herself. Now he was simply laying down suppressing fire until she made a move or her shield failed.

Seeing that the dents were getting deeper Misaka decided that it would be best to make a move. Perhaps she should show them just who they were dealing with.

She reached into her pocket and took out a coin. With a simple flip she sent it twirling up in the air taking careful aim. The driveway was gravel and any motion that the car made would result in a lot of noise. She didn't hear anything, and so she simply aimed at where she knew the van had been, careful to fire low and towards the middle to prevent any horrible deaths from occurring.

Then as the small metal disk descended she built up a charge, waiting until the perfect moment then sending it shooting forward at 3 times the speed of sound. It hit the gate in one of its many bullet-induced dents. The iron, already stressed from the previous impacts, offered no resistance and the coin shot through it like an arrow through butter leaving only a small hole. It streaked across the grounds leaving behind a bright trail of lightning and plasma as it hit its target dead on, sending the massive car flipping sideways through the air until it crashed into the flimsy chain-link fence which buckled under the weight of the van, now lying on its side.

Misaka was getting quite tired by now, but she had endured worse. She tried to get her bearings and analyze the situation. She blocked out the suppressing fire that was still issuing from the doorway and felt for the electromagnetic disturbances that meant a living organism. She felt the two from the doorway, but she was still protected from them. She felt another around the left corner of the house, but she was protected from him as well by the same door she had been using to guard against the van's machine gun. She also felt two more, sneaking around the fence in an attempt to flank her.

She used her powers to magnetize the fence [1], ripping it away from the spot where it was rooted to the concrete pillars. She twirled it around the two people, wrapping them up in iron fencing and fabric. But just as she finished doing that she heard a deep creaking noise behind her. She turned to see the half of the iron gate that was blocking her from the mercenary behind the corner buckling then caving in all together as several pieces of sand and gravel traveled lazily through the air, ignoring gravity as well as any object that stood in their way as they ripped through the gate as if it were paper [2].

Now she was open, and if she didn't think fast things could go very bad very quickly. So Misaka did what she did best, run straight forward into the thick of things and decide the next step from there. Stepping back a few feet before running forward, she pushed both halves of the gate out of her way as she bolted forward at an inhuman speed, lightning striking the ground behind her and propelling her forward.

She rocketed through the door right between two very surprised looking mercenaries. They quickly tried to fire at her but she reached up and touched their heads, zapping them into unconsciousness like she had done with the gate guard. They collapsed onto the hard wood floor of the entryway.

She heard a commotion ahead of her as three more of them rounded the corner to see what the noise was about. Seeing who it was and realizing their lack of armor they ducked behind the wall again. Misaka checked to see if there were any other people in the vicinity waiting to ambush her if she chased them. Sensing none she followed them, rounding the corner quickly and zapping them harshly as they tried to open a door.

From the neighboring building Kuroko could see the flash of the lightning bolts spilling onto the grounds through the open doorways. She had pondered for a second whether she should have stayed and helped but decided that this was Misaka's battle. Besides, she seemed to have it well in hand, Kuroko's presence would likely just hinder her.

"Besides, I have what I came for," She said as she hefted the heavy suitcase in her hands.

Shortly after Misaka had left the doctor had come back in the room. He rechecked her injuries and asked her some questions about how she was feeling. Satisfied with the examination he had discharged her with a prescription for some pain medication in case it was necessary.

Impressed once again with Academy City's medical facilities, she had left, heading back home wondering how her Onee-sama was. That was when she had gotten a text. She quickly checked it, wondering if it was from her. To Kuroko's surprise it was Birdy. She opened it and read.

"Hey, if you're still looking for those thingamajiggers you were looking for I have some info. I heard some people talking about how this notorious high-end mercenary group got a hold of something fitting the description of the things, a suitcase with a sound-system. Apparently it's for subjugating ESPer's and nullifying their powers or something. They're called Gordian Inc. and they're effective, ruthless, and dangerous, so watch out if you see them."

She texted her back, thanking her for the information and asking where they could be found.

"No problem, we'll just say you owe me one," Was the response, with an attachment which marked their location on a map.

With that info she teleported off, soon arriving at the location to see a battle already raging. By some odd stroke of fate Misaka was there already. She wondered what she was doing here but decided that her rampaging would provide a suitable distraction for her to sneak in and get the Capacity Down. She didn't want to alert Misaka to her presence, which would just make her curious and ask questions. She could handle things here. So instead Kuroko teleported to the side door, left slightly open by the two gents with riot shields that had just run out of it. So she walked on through it, carefully looking for the suitcase, hoping to get to it before it was activated.

She had barely walked 4 feet when a door burst open in front of her and three people ran out of a room carrying a suitcase.

"You sure this will work?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, we already tried it out, works fine. It will stop that ESPer in her tracks, then we just got to cap her quick before the others get too pissy about the noise." The one holding the suitcase replied.

Kuroko teleported in front of them, tripping the one who had just spoken and grabbing the suitcase. Then she teleported away, her business here done. A couple seconds later she was watching the pretty light show from her location away from the action.

It was a simple job, in and out in a flash. That was the beauty of a teleporter, the almost unbeatable advantage of instantaneous action. If all of them are this easy to get maybe we can wrap this up in relatively short order.

"Hopefully," Kuroko responded and teleported away. She would await her valiant warrior at home after she hid her newest acquisition in a safe place.

Back in the house the "valiant warrior" had just finished frying the three people. She looked in the room they had been trying to go in. As opposed to the ordinary plaster walls of the rest of the place these walls were lined with lead and steel. The floor and ceiling were similarly reinforced. In racks along the walls lay several suits of combat armor, helmets, shields, and weapons. It looked like a military armory, lined with expensive high end equipment. Along one wall lay a security booth. The several monitors each relaying the feed from a different camera, still in the loop Misaka had set at the beginning. In the middle of the room lay a bullet proof glass container that looked like it had recently been opened, the contents taken out.

Despite the impressive collection of weaponry and armor, Misaka ignored the room, there was no one else there and she wasn't here to gawk at all the pretty assault rifles.

"HEY!" she heard someone yell. Instinctively turning and looking at the source of the noise only to be blinded the next instant by a bright flash of light. The light left her reeling and she felt as something hard constricted around her. It bound her arms tightly to her sides, unable to move.

"Well looks like we caught her." She heard a voice say

"Yep. Misaka Mikoto, Level Five. Commonly known as The Railgun." Another one said.

Slowly her vision returned and she saw two people, a guy and a girl, both in the combat armour without helmets. They were talking to each other as if they had just caught a prize winning fish.

"How much do you think we can make off her?" the girl said.

"Depends. She's some rich Ojou-sama so we could ransom her. Or we could sell her elsewhere."

Needless to say, people talking like this about her greatly annoyed her, even more so when they talked like they had won despite the fact that she didn't need her hands to beat them. A spear of lighting erupted from her forehead striking them both with sufficient force that they shot backwards across the hall. Even the insulation from the armor couldn't save them from unconsciousness after a blow like that.

Now there was only one more to deal with. She looked around from him and saw him round the doorway. He clutched another handful of sand and gravel and threw it down the hall at her where it traveled through the air as before.

Given what it had done to the solid iron gate she guessed that it would not be a good thing if she was hit by one of those, but the spread would make it difficult to dodge, especially caught up like she was. But she didn't need to dodge. She fired another lightning bolt at the sand, melting it and fusing the pieces together into a large piece of fulgurite which immediately dropped like a rock, leaving Misaka with a clear window to attack. With another lightning bolt she disabled him, the remaining pieces of gravel dropping to the floor as he fell into unconsciousness.

Sensing no one else she took a much needed breather as she figured out how to get whatever was binding her off. It was a large, clear, continuous loop of plastic with no seams or breaks. Since the person who had trapped her was unconscious it wasn't a direct product of their power. It was possible that they had thrown something large over her then shrunk it when it was around her to bind her. In which case she would need to escape on her own.

The problem was… how. She couldn't just melt it. It was touching her bare skin and would severely burn her if she tried. She could trust that kind of precision to her Satetsuken either. Her powers were useless here.

"Damnit… I don't need my powers for this," she said with substantial anger in her voice as she squirmed and flexed her arms. The plastic dug into her skin as she struggled but she ignored the pain. Soon she could feel it give way, bending outwards. She pressed her arms tightly to her again and the loop of plastic dropped off of her, freeing her. She rubbed the deep lines it had pressed into her skin, but pushed them to the back of her mind. She still had to fulfill her original mission.

She turned right and walked down the hallway. There was a door on her left at the far end, she would start her search there.

She opened the door to see what looked like an office. The walls were lined with file cabinets and in the middle was a large fancy desk with a computer resting on top of it. A man sat behind the desk, fingers drumming the mahogany surface as he looked at Misaka.

Before Misaka could react he held his hands up in the air. "I surrender," he said.

As Misaka was still processing this information she heard him continue, "you're Misaka Mikoto right? I can guess why you're here. A contract was recently taken against you. I'm guessing you want revenge. Judging by the fact that you're standing here I'm guessing you got it."

"That depends, who are you?" She asked. If he was part of this group then her revenge wasn't complete until she got him as well, but until then she could use him to gather some information.

"I'm just the accountant," he said, "I handle the business part of this, make the whole thing profitable. I don't do the dirty work."

"If you're the accountant then you'd know who took out the contract against me."

"That would be the Honogun family. We've done some work for them in the past though this is the most unusual contract we've received. They paid in advance though so..." he said with a shrug, "it's really nothing personal, I hope you understand."

"I understand perfectly," Misaka responded before walking up and punching him square in the jaw, knocking him out in an instant as he fell off his chair onto the floor. It didn't matter if he did the "dirty work" or not, he was worse than the others.

Walking around the desk she sat in his chair and hacked into his computer, searching the records to verify what he had said. He seemed to be telling the truth, the records backing up his statements. It seemed like that little person who had had the gall to threaten her at school also had the nerve to back up those threats.

Misaka stood up, "you do understand Miss Honogun, that this means war." She said as she walked away from the ruined building back home. As she walked away she heard Anti-Skill's sirens speeding towards the building she had just left behind.

"yeah. It's me. She's retrieved the second one without a problem."

"I see. And how is the other one doing?"

"The Railgun? Her abilities are as impressive as the reports, possibly more so. She seemed to have no problem breaking all his little toys. Think he'll be angry with us?"

"I do not think so. He has many other pawns. The sacrifice of one hardly compares to the benefits our work will reap."

"And yet you still feel guilty about manipulating those two."

"Some people are easy to sacrifice, others not so much. What matters is the end result. We must have faith that what we are doing is right. When this is all over then we will face the consequences, but until then we must persist."

"I understand. I will continue surveillance and inform you of any progress."

"Very well." The man said as he hung up. He strolled over to the pots that lined the wall.

"It seems they are just beginning to bloom," he remarked as he looked at his most recently planted flowers, "They still require a careful eye to ensure they grow as expected."

Author's note: Well, I promised a buttkicking from Misaka and I like to think I delivered. Sure there are some other things here and there but a solid half of it is Misaka beating the baddies (the other half would have been her chewing bubble gum… but she's all out of bubble gum). Fast paced, high-octane action that truly showcases Misaka's amazing talent.

I did kind of glaze over Kuroko's bit, but it was so minor and I already give her so much attention that it would have been detrimental to the rest of the story if I had gone more in depth. For all those Kuroko fans next chapter will have her as a focus so just you wait. Not only that but there will be considerable plot exposition (cue applause).

I've planned things out a bit more thoroughly now so I should be able to get the next chapters done quicker, but we'll see.

You know it's odd. This arc was originally intended as a side story that barely linked to the events of the rest, but as it developed it became far more important to the action and now it looks like it will contain more content than the "main story" by far. I question whether this is a good thing or not but I think I can make it work out if I try. So keep on reading!

[1] Is it weird that, after all the other feats Misaka pulls off in this chapter this is the one I think is least likely to be canonically valid? I'm not sure if she can magnetize things at a distance or anything like that, so I'm not quite sure if she could do this (or the air ionization thing). But still, acceptable breaks from reality are the privilege of the fiction writer.

[2] If you didn't recognize it, the power displayed here is Equal Speed, seen in episode 5 (I believe) of the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun anime. Whether it's the same person from all those years ago or not is your choice, I leave the matter open.