Toaru Jōhō no Ichibu

A Certain Piece of Information

After school Misaka spent some time with Saten and Uiharu while Kuroko went off to do whatever it was she was going to do in order to avoid death-by-dorm-mistress. She hung out with them until it was time for her to go.

She made her way to the warehouse after a quick stop by the dorm to drop something off. As she began walking though, her mind was not focused,as it should be, on tactics, strategies, and plans for her upcoming battle. Instead she walked with a red face and a head full of unnecessary thoughts, unwanted thoughts, all brought on by that stupid little thing she hadn't even meant to buy.

"stupid, stupid, stupid," she scolded herself, "don't get sidetracked." She took a deep breath and tried to calm down, spending the rest of her trip trying her hardest not to think about it with predictably counter-productive results. She was so lost in thoughts of not thinking that she almost missed her stop.

As she stood in front of the warehouse her mind shifted immediately back to the business at hand. She had no plan but at last she could at least think straight about important things. She surveyed the warehouse. The lights inside were on, but no activity could be heard from within. She recalled, to the best of her ability, the layout of the warehouse, with all its boxes and crates pushed to one side. She decided that it would be best to enter through that side, using the crates as cover, and perhaps, later on, ammunition, until she found who she was looking for. Considering the reputed destructiveness of the girl's power, she knew that it would be best to be stealthy until the time came to strike.

So she entered the warehouse through the side door. It was locked with a mechanical lock. However this was not much of a deterrent. She took her container of iron sand out of her pocket and sent it flowing into the lock, pushing the tumblers up and into place, unlocking the door and allowing her to enter. She put the iron sand back in her pocket and cautiously opened the door, went in, and closed it again, careful not to make a sound.

The warehouse hadn't changed much since she had last been in. the only thing different was the opposite wall, now even more damaged and burned than it had been before. She ignored this and slowly, stealthily began weaving her way through the crates, keeping an eye out for anyone or anything. Sparks played along her hair, ready to be shot off in an instant. Misaka was tired of being caught by surprise. She was fighting in enemy territory, but she would not let them set the field this time. Her powers mapped out the environment, covering her blind spots and scanning in advance. Eventually they picked up something in an alcove of the warehouse. She creeped along the wall up to the corner, her sparks even larger and more aggressive as she got ready to strike.

Then she rounded the corner, ready to confront her opponents. However what she saw surprised her. There were two girls in Tokiwadai uniforms, one tall with long magenta hair, the other short, small, and quite sickly looking with mint green hair. That part was expected, but what was unexpected was what they were doing. They appeared to be sleeping, the short one on the tall one's lap, clinging to each other in a very familiar way. Apart from the hair the pair looked almost exactly like her and Kuroko…

Misaka was confused as to what she should do. Not willing to do something as heinous as zapping them as they slept. But she knew she shouldn't just walk away from this. She thought hard, trying to decide what to do when a small, metal crate suddenly collided with her back. The stack behind her fell over creating quite a racket as she was knocked forward by the collision, the crate stuck on her back by her own electromagnetism. She pushed it off of her but the damage was done. The tall girl's eyes fluttered open, she looked at Misaka and yawned. Then she smiled at her and held up her index finger in front of her mouth.

"hello Misaka-san," she said in a quiet voice, clearly trying not to wake the other girl, "I'm surprised to see you here. I'm Mai, can I help you with anything.

It was only then that Misaka realized that she had gone this entire time assuming that the two girls were enemies. She remembered that the reason she had come here. "Well… Hayami told me about you… you're her friend right?" She had come here to get information, not to fight.

"Yeah… how is she? I've heard some rumors about what happened but I don't know the truth," Mai asked, both curiosity and concern in her voice.

"She seemed fine when I talked to her."

"She always seems fine. That's the problem. She's so cheery all the time it's hard to tell what's gone on with her. Anyway… what did you come here for?"

"I had a few questions I wanted to ask you."

"Oh? Well that's fine, just give me a second," Mai said and then looked at the girl on her lap. She gently shook her shoulders, saying, "time to wake up my princess." Then she leaned down and kissed her. Misaka blushed at the sudden, unexpected display of affection and she quickly looked away. Though this type of affectionate display was all too familiar to Misaka, it was still embarrassing to see someone else do it.

After perhaps half of a minute, Mai's voice called out to Misaka again, "so what did you want to know?" she asked.

Misaka repressed her embarrassment and turned back to the two girls, now both awake and looking at her, but still in the same position as earlier. "I want to know more about STORM," she said simply.

"Ah yes. Your little conflict with the club, I'd almost forgotten. You've been causing quite the shake up in the club. Your Aijin[1] has recently caused a stir as well."

Misaka furrowed her brow, "what does Kuroko have to do with…" she paused, "wait… what did you say?"

Mai grinned. "So you two are like that eh?"

Misaka blushed and took a step backwards, caught completely off guard, "what do you mean… Me and Kuroko are… I thought you said Yuujin[2] is all…"

Mai ignored her protests and continued to tease her, "But you have other friends, so how would you immediately know I was talking about her? It seems that the rumors were true. I've thought so for a while, you two are quite close, even if many of the other girls refuse to believe so. It certainly explains why you're so protective of each other. Though, considering you two are girlfriends don't you believe you're a little too harsh and violent towards her?"

At this point Misaka had gone from embarrassed to angry. Mai saw as large sparks erupted from her forehead and her hands curled into fists. Mai's grin dropped and she adopted a more serious tone, "I'd suggest you calm yourself down," she said pointing to the small, green, marble-like ball that she had tossed at Misaka's feet when she was prudishly looking away from their kiss. "That right there is uranium-238. Even that tiny amount will completely and utterly annihilate you if you attempt to hurt me or my princess. Don't mistake me though, I am not saying I will do so without provocation, I am still willing to help you. But I am not willing to allow you to intimidate or threaten us."

"Why exactly are you helping me," Misaka asked, angry at herself for dropping her guard and allowing her to get something so dangerous so close. Now she was being far more cautious and suspicious.

"A friend asked me to," Mai explained, "besides; I would prefer you to win this little conflict. The reason that STORM chooses destructive powers is so that Yashinko's father can study us and our powers for his weapon manufacturing business. I am not going to let my princess be a research subject. But quitting this faction is not as easy as one might think, so the only chance we have of leaving is if you disband it. Preferably without us getting hurt in the process."

"And how exactly can I do that? Disband the faction?"

"From what I understand the faction is kept afloat by support from Yashinko's father who does it so that he can profit off of studying us. If, however, his company sustains losses that outweight the profits, then his support would likely fall apart. I hear they've been building some fancy new powered-suits. Start destroying those and STORM should be gone quickly enough."

"I've seen them before, in the other warehouses. Are they in all of them? Is there one here?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge, no. I'm not quite sure about the others either. I don't exactly have the shipping logs. And most shipments are in between the times when the warehouses are reserved."

"Reserved? So there's like a schedule?"

"Of course there is, Yashinko keeps the complete on her computer at STORM's headquarters, though there is an incomplete version on the bulletine board there. For the shipping logs you'd probably want to go to one of the factories. They'd have it on the computers there. They're closed on sunday so that would probably be the best time. That's all the information I have for you."

"What about what you said earlier, about Kuroko causing a stir?"

"So you do care about your girlfriend after all."

"She's….just… yes I care about my friends, what of it?"

"Someone who does everything to protect the one that they care about more than anything, that kind of person is far more worthy of help in my eyes than someone who fights only for themselves. That's the reason you're here alone, you choose to keep the one you love out of the fray and the reason I am so willing to help you," Mai explained, "now about your girlfriend. There was a bit of talk going on about a run-in she had with some STORM members last night."

"what happened?" Misaka asked, concerned but also confused. Kuroko hadn't said anything about this to her. Could that have been why she was late?

"Given how Kai was so damn jumpy in class, I'd wager she traumatized them. They say that your girlfriend's a little unstable, though she only does it to protect you and your honor, so I can sympathize."

Misaka clenched her fist. She hated hearing these ridiculous rumors. Kuroko was perhaps a little bit crazy at times but she was not "unstable". Misaka knew just how much rumors could hurt, and she had never been nearly as unpopular as Kuroko. She couldn't imagine just what she had to go through each day.

"Thanks, I'll see what I can do about these powered-suits," Misaka said as she turned around and left the warehouse, heading back home, once again lost in thought.

Why couldn't she keep the people she cared about safe. Her conflicts always ended up hurting them. Misaka could only hope that she hadn't been too badly hurt, that her failure hadn't, once again, hurt her yuu…aijin.

Unfortunately that thought brought up another matter. The rumors that Mai had been talking about, about them being together. The way she had talked about them they had been going on for a long time, even before they were true. 'they probably all think it's just some rumor right…' she thought to herself, trying to talk herself out of the possibility that everyone in school knew that they were in a relationship and would soon start treating her like some sort of freak for liking girls and all the other things that people did when they found out about another person's tendencies.

She tried to come up with something else to think about to take her mind off of this. Unfortunately for her, she succeeded. Her mind turned, instead, to the same stream of thoughts that had occupied her on her way to this place. The embarassing string of thoughts were made even worse by the situation, because now the thoughts were of Kuroko. She hit her head against a pole trying to purge the impure, Kuroko-like, Kuroko-filled thoughts from her head to no effect. She remained like this all the way until she made it back to the dorm and went into her room.

"Ah Onee-sama, you're back. How was your day," Kuroko asked her as she entered.

"Oh… fine… how was your… thingy…?" Misaka answered awkwardly, trying her hardest to keep her voice even. Still she couldn't look at Kuroko. Today's events had put her off, and every glance at Kuroko exacerbated her embarrassment. So without another word or glance, without even waiting for an answer, she went into the bathroom for a long, cold shower.

When she was finished she walked out to see all the lights were off and Kuroko was already asleep, curled into a little ball at the far end of her bed. Misaka lifted up the blanket and settled herself in as well, trying to keep as much distance from her bedmate as possible until she finally fell asleep.

[1]: Aijin=lover

[2]: Yuujin=friend. The reason I left it in Japanese, as you probably guessed, is because they are easy to mistake for one another in Japanese, but not in English.

Important Note: Looking for additional beta-readers to help go over new and old chapters for errors.

Author's Note: Sorry that this is such a short chapter (but a quickly uploaded one at least), but sometimes there just isn't much to say. Given how I was building up the destructiveness of Mai's power , this chapter may be a disappointment to fans of Misaka's action scenes (though due to the nature of their powers, their fight would have been like playing tag with rockets, which is quite boring to hear described). Indeed the next couple chapters might be. Partially because the next few chapters focus on Kuroko, and partially because the next chapter that focuses on Misaka isn't an action chapter. Though I admit that part of the reason for the lack of Misaka's fights is because I like Kuroko's fights better. Her conflict arc is more interesting and provides an opportunity for a larger array of bad guys, rather than just the members and resources of one school club.