Important note: This is and will remain a "T" rated fic. This chapter may skirt a few lines but I assure you that it never steps over it, even when it looks like it might.

Toaru Tatakai no Shuuryou

A Certain End of the Fighting

For the second time in as many months Misaka carried her unconscious roommate and girlfriend through the hallways of their dorms to their room. She entered the room and sat down on the bed, the other girl, still unconscious, cradled on her lap.

It had taken more than a day of searching to find her, dividing her time between an active search for the teleporter and a more passive one while she spent some time doing her other task and destroying the assets of Yashinko's father. In all that time she hadn't discovered a single clue or gotten even a momentary glimpse of the other girl. She was starting to seriously worry when she finally found the other girl sleeping fitfully beneath the tree in one of the city's parks.

When she had first seen her she had been so relieved yet also very angry. Had Kuroko been awake Misaka probably would have said something that she would have regretted in her anger. But now she had some time to calm down and start seriously considering what to say as well as how to say it.

Though perhaps the first thing that she needed to figure out was how she was going to prevent the other girl from teleporting away again as soon as she woke up. She was sure she could (probably) convince her to stay if she could just talk with her and get everything sorted out, but there was no way to keep a teleporter somewhere that they didn't want to be. She could theoretically disrupt her ability. She knew that Kuroko could not teleport while distracted. This could be achieved through a low level of variable pain (constant pain could be ignored) or by creating other distractions. Since hurting Kuroko was not only an unpleasant idea for Misaka to handle but also counterproductive to her plan she decided that distracting her with something else would be preferable.

She looked down at her girlfriend's peaceful sleeping face and ran a hand through her hair. Her pinkish brown mane, normally silky and well cared for, was now quite tangled, messy, and slightly greasy. Her face, the only visible patch of flesh on her body at the moment besides her hands, was marked with a bit of dirt which Misaka wiped off for her.

She wondered what new injuries were under those sweatpants and sweatshirt. She thought for a moment about checking but decided that this would not be the best way to find out. It would be better if Kuroko chose to show her.

Then an idea hit Misaka, an idea on how to handle this situation.

From the moment that Misaka picked her up Kuroko was aware of what had happened. Only one person's touch could so easily dispel her nightmares after all.

Kuroko smiled at this. Her hard work had paid off it seemed. She had worked for three days solid until she had finally collapsed in exhaustion, all to prove that she wasn't a burden to anyone. It seemed that it had worked as well. She had finally done enough that she would be forgiven.

Still she would need to be careful. Doing this had not solved the initial problem that her actions were causing her Onee-sama's unhappiness. She resolved that she should probably stop with the skinship and the kisses. Those were the most likely causes after all.

Of course the changes would make her unhappy, but certainly not as unhappy as being rejected by the love of her life had been. Sacrifices were the essence of relationships after all.

Soon Kuroko began to stir. "Kuroko," Misaka called, gently stroking the other girls temple, running a slight charge through her fingers to produce a pleasant tingly effect… in theory. She hoped that a pleasant feeling could distract Kuroko as effectively as a painful one.

Despite the fact that it was unnecessary it still worked, and Kuroko relaxed at the soothing gesture. "Hey Onee-sama. Have I become less of a burden to you?" She asked fairly directly, the calming stroking putting her off her guard as she began to wake up.

Misaka sighed, though she had been expecting this. It seemed that Kuroko still misunderstood what she had been trying to say. It seemed that she would need to take a more aggressive approach after all. "I never said you were a burden Kuroko. I was trying to speak with you about something else… Stand up and follow me." She said and waited for Kuroko to obey, though she looked confused as she did so. Misaka led her into the bathroom and closed the door behind them. She took a deep breath in preparation.

"Take it off," Misaka told Kuroko in a steady voice, leaning against the wall, her eyes hidden by her bangs.

"What?"

"Your shirt. Take your shirt off."

Kuroko's eyes widened as her face turned crimson. She had not been expecting this but... they did just have a fight… this was how adults made up wasn't it? But she had not expected her Onee-sama to be that mature. "Are you sure Onee-sama… do you… I mean…" She stuttered. She was tired, put on the spot, and her Onee-sama was being uncharacteristically aggressive. It was so confusing and she was far too exhausted and panicked to think straight.

"I want to see… just take your shirt off."

The level five's voice was stern, commanding, hard to resist, and Kuroko didn't truly want to resist. It was sudden but… she was ready. She had been ready for a while. So she took off her sweatshirt and teleported her armour back into the closet. Then, her hands shaking from exhaustion and nervousness, she began unbuttoning her shirt. Kuro was jabbering but she ignored her voice, her full attention taken up by the task at hand. Despite her shaking hands the task was soon complete. Her shirt was fully unbuttoned and now all she had to do was take it off.

Still her hands hesitated. Her mouth was dry, her stomach was in knots, she was shaking. This was what she had been waiting for all this time. Now that it was before her though, it was a bit… daunting. But her Onee-sama was waiting for her. She had taken such a bold leap in doing this, Kuroko couldn't disappoint her by hesitating. They may have had their moments of conflict but now it was time to take the final step and her Onee-sama would be right there with her. So she took off the shirt and let it fall to the floor. then she closed her eyes and bared her chest to the cold air, ready to give herself fully to her Onee-sama.

Over her thundering heartbeat Kuroko heard her take a step towards her. Then she felt a soft, warm hand press against her stomach oh so gently. Then she moved her hand upwards, tracing a line up her chest with each of her fingers, almost like they were following…

"You're very good at hiding your scars," Misaka said to Kuroko as she examined the latest damages. Any embarrassment she would normally have felt ordering Kuroko to take off her shirt, or looking and touching her bare chest was completely forgotten as soon as she looked upon the tapestry of cuts, bruises, and wounds, both old and new, which marred the flesh.

It had gotten worse in the past couple days. Now her arms, as well as her chest, were bruised and cut up. Band-Aids of various sizes were plastered all over her right arm while her left arm had several bruises all along the forearm. Her left shoulder was wrapped in a bandage stained red with blood.

Looking closely at the other girl's body for the first time Misaka noticed how athletic Kuroko was. Her small body looked very spindly but closer inspection revealed lean, tightly grouped, and very well defined musculature, seemingly without a single ounce of fat, excess or otherwise. The reason the teleporter was so flat chested was because she had burned off all the fat that would have made up her breasts before they had begun to form. That and the fact that she had yet to begin going through puberty…

The muscles, however, held signs of damage and fatigue as well. They twitched and pulsed irregularly under Misaka's hand, suggesting that they had undergone severe strain in the past couple of days to be this bad even after more than an hour of rest. Her heart, which the electro-master could feel beating under her hand, was similarly irregular, even more so than usual. The electro-master had always been sensitive to, and fascinated by, the dance of electrical signals and firing nerves that was a heartbeat, and ever since she had known the younger girl she had felt a belated, irregular rhythm from the teleporter's heart. Now that steady beat was even less rhythmic and even.

Misaka took another deep breath as she tried to recover from the sight of all of this and focus on what she was trying to tell Kuroko.

"You try and keep all your pain to yourself, convinced that you need to suffer in silence if you don't want to be a burden to others. You think that your pain is your pain and your fights are your fights. You don't tell your friends because you don't want them to get hurt. But as a very wise girl once told me 'do you really think that your friends want you to get hurt? That I want you to get hurt? Your fights involve me because they involve you.' You are not a burden; you are my girlfriend and the best one that I could hope for." She spoke in a calm and comforting voice, working hard to keep her other emotions out of her voice.

Tears welled up in Kuroko's eyes at her Onee-sama's words. Her lips quivered and she shook with the strain of suppressing her emotions.

"And more importantly, know that my feelings for you won't ever change because of a couple of scars. I said in the hospital that I don't care about them and I meant it. You don't need to be ashamed of them. No matter what scars you may bear, I promise that I will accept you. Nothing can ever change the fact that you belong here… with me." Misaka finished with a smile as she waited for Kuroko's reaction. The electro-master was quite satisfied with herself for managing to keep her cool throughout this entire thing and also for managing to end on such a touching and heartwarming sce-

Suddenly Kuroko stepped forward, closer to Misaka, and captured her lips in her own as her hands attended other matters. "Onee-sama," she said a second later as she pulled herself momentarily aware from the kiss. Her voice was so full of emotion it was hard for the electro-master to tell exactly what the teleporter was feeling, "thank you. Thank you. I love you so so much…" she finished as she continued her actions in order to show just how much she did love her Onee-sama.

After the initial shock that the action had caused had worn off, Misaka pushed Kuroko away very firmly, sending the smaller girl stumbling backwards for a couple steps until her finely honed sense of balance helped her recover.

"What the hell Kuroko," The electro-master almost shouted, "how in the world did you hear the words 'grope me' in anything I said?" She had thought that everything had been going great but it seemed that the other girl couldn't control herself for long enough to not ruin the mood that she had worked so hard to set. It seemed that it was hopeless trying to be sentimental with her.

The teleporter looked completely and utterly confused at this turn of events. She had thought that everything was perfect. The mood seemed to be right and everything, "but… but we just made up… isn't this the next step. That's how making up goes between lovers… isn't it?"

Misaka was actually surprised by the baffled look on her face and the confusion in her voice. She had thought that Kuroko was just being lecherous and misreading her actions. But it actually seemed that she really didn't know how these things went, she actually thought her actions had been proper. Misaka sighed and rubbed her temples, "No Kuroko," she began, her anger turned to exasperation. She felt like a parent explaining to their kid why it was wrong to pull on their crush's pigtails, "that's not how things go. After making up we hug, maybe kiss at most, and that's it. We do not do… what you were doing." She said, finding herself too embarrassed to put the other girl's actions into words.

"Oh…" Kuroko replied simply. The younger girl knew that her Onee-sama was naïve but not this naïve. She hadn't expected her to be too childish to grasp the concept of make-up sex. Really she should have known, her Onee-sama was far too new to relationships for something like that. She had gone too far this time and she felt a little embarrassed and more than a little disappointed.

After that an awkward silence fell over the two, neither of them willing to speak or leave, until Kuroko cleared her throat and continued, "well my words are sincere regardless." She was now much more in control of herself and her steady, slightly formal voice attested to this fact, "thank you. And I love you. I apologize for my behavior the past few days. If you accept me back then I will stay and I promise it will not happen again."

"Of course I'm going to accept you back you idiot," Misaka said. The "idiot" was perhaps unnecessary in that sentence, but overall she felt that Kuroko deserved at least that for making her worry so much.

"Then if you would excuse me," Kuroko said, "I haven't had a decent shower in 2 days and my hair isn't in the best of shapes. It's embarrassing for my girlfriend to see me like this."

Misaka reached up and ruffled said hair affectionately, "fine, but no more running off, ok?"

Kuroko wasn't sure whether she should be annoyed at being looked down upon by someone as childish as her Onee-sama, satisfied that her Onee-sama was growing up enough to look down on her at all, or ecstatic that her head was being patted so tenderly. She decided on the last one and said, "Yes Onee-sama. But I do need to do one thing after this, so I will need to be going soon."

"What do you need to do?"

"Check in at Judgment. I have a feeling Konori will have a lot of chewing out to do for the past couple of days."

"Ah yeah, you missed work didn't you?" Misaka asked only to receive a grunt in response. "ok then. But you better be home tonight or you're sleeping in your own bed from now on." Never before would Misaka have thought that this would be a threat rather than a statement of fact.

After saying that Misaka left the room and Kuroko began to tidy herself up.

Though her suit had kept her mostly clean and protected from the elements, she had still been dirtied somewhat since this morning. So, to remedy this, she began stripping out of the rest of her clothes. Soon Kuroko stood in the bathroom alone and began to concentrate. She focused hard on her sense of self and oneness, feeling each and every part of her body and creating a picture of herself in her head. After several seconds of this she used her power and teleported everything that was not part of her down several meters into the ground. All the dirt and grime and sweat that had accumulated on her for these past several hours since she had last done this as well as the latest bandages that she had put on were teleported off of her into the ground, leaving just a clean and completely bare Kuroko standing there.

Being a teleporter had a great many perks to it that she was still discovering [1]. This particular trick she had discovered a few years ago in an effort to free up more time in her schedule and get rid of as much personal maintenance as possible. It had been easier back then, back when she couldn't teleport herself. Now she needed to focus hard on where she ended and the dirt began in order to do it, but it still saved an immense amount of time and allowed her to maintain a basic cleanliness even without a shower. Of course it didn't extend to her hair so she still needed to take care of that in the usual fashion.

So she stepped into the bath and turned on the shower to its coldest setting, as per usual. As the freezing water poured over her she turned her mind to more important things. "She was touching my bare chest," she quietly said to herself, glee apparent in her voice, "it wasn't exactly groping or anything but it's still something." In her mind she replayed what had happened a couple times, "She seemed to have an obsession with the scars from the whip," she thought out loud as she recalled the events. Her eyes had darted to the five white lines several times and her hand had remained on it, her fingers each tracing a line, for almost the entirety of the conversation. "Maybe it's a kink…" Kuroko swore she could have seen some signs of arousal from her Onee-sama.

This thought caused her to smile broadly. She had initially thought that it would be a turn off to her Onee-sama so she had taken care to cover it from that point on. But if her Onee-sama liked it then she could exploit it. It was still embarrassing and she would still keep it covered from everyone else, but for her Onee-sama alone she could flaunt it.

Is that really what you're going to take away from this whole thing? Kuro was satisfied to see that Shiro was happy again but the transition between sad and happy had been alarmingly fast, even for someone as naturally polar as Shirai Kuroko.

"It's the most pleasant train of thought available," she said quietly as she began shampooing her hair, "Sure I could choose to be embarrassed by my utter failure to grasp basic social norms or disappointed that that failure did not bear any fruit, but I'd prefer to focus on the good things. Plus I clearly have good reason. It turns out that the only thing I was doing that was making her unhappy was keeping my scars to myself. I can continue the skinship and kissing all I want after all… well at least I can continue them as much as she wants. I'll also need to make a note that she still isn't quite ready for something as intimate as that… maybe in a few more weeks."

Kuro was glad nothing had happened. Shiro did not seem to grasp how close she had skirted to severe psychological damage. For once Kuro was actually grateful to the pereskia for being so harsh on Shiro. True she had done nothing but her normal behavior but in this case it turned out that that was what was needed.

The reason Kuro was grateful and the thing that Shiro didn't quite seem to understand was that had they done the act that Shiro had wanted to right then it would have screwed everything up. From that point on Shiro would have linked that act, and the pleasure it brought, with forgiveness and conflict. This would have led to more fights being started in hopes of the forgiveness that the fights eventually led to, much like she had, over time, come to see the pereskia's shocks as statements of love and actually sought the shocking out. This had ended the first night of the Queen incident which, even though she didn't remember it, had affected her strongly enough to break her of that conditioning.

After seeing how damaging to Shiro's psyche a single fight had been, Kuro had been understandably panicked when she had seen her start down the road to destruction that was make-up sex, and understandably relieved when she had been pushed off that harmful road by the very person that Kuro despised for her tendency to hurt Shiro.

Then think away if you wish. But If I may ask a question beforehand… do you still cling to your supposed insanity now that you are happy again?

"Yes and no. I have figured out that my happiness is certainly not a product of my insanity. Everything good that happens to me is real. It's everything else that is my delusions. Every bad thing that has ever happened to me was just in my head."

I am intrigued to hear the reasoning behind this. Indeed Kuro, who was a (mostly) purely logical entity (aside from the severe paranoia and pessimism), couldn't possible see the connection between the events that occurred and the conclusions she drew. It was as if she had read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and took the moral to be "The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful" [2]. Granted the events were far more… unusual than a clear cut fable like that, but even then it should have born some semblance to what had actually happened.

"Oh that's easy. You're the reason. You only come out when times are tough and I'm unhappy correct? Well you are the greatest proof of my insanity. Meaning that times when you're here must be delusions."

What about your recent happiness then? Or what about the horrible things that happened before I was around.

"Of course recent events are exceptions. Now you are here constantly and there is another sign that I am insane. The bird; you know, Prometheus. As for my childhood I'll have to get back to you on that, but maybe those times I was actually unhappy."

Kuro wasn't sure that this use of insanity as a shield from reality was admirable or potentially damaging, but she decided that it was ok for now.

Now Kuroko turned the water of the shower off. She heard the door to the room open and close, signaling that her Onee-sama had left. She sighed with both disappointment and relief. She left the bathroom and went to the closet, digging around until she found a well hidden box with a lock on the outside. She teleported the locks off and opened the box to reveal a large number of pills bottles, ointments, and other things.

"I should have remembered to bring this along before," she sighed as she took out several different bottles, doling out the contents in preset doses out into her hand and swallowing them. Then she took what appeared to be two patches of fabric out of the bag and placed them on her "knife" wound, cursing the fact that they were too big to fit on her bullet wound which she was forced to rewrap with normal bandages. After that she rubbed one of the ointments all over her chest, arms, and legs, making sure to cover all her bruises. Then she rubbed another ointment on top. The first was an ungent that would help to heal the bruises while the second was a concealer to cover them up. The pills were to help with her severe muscle fatigue and exhaustion.

"Try as I might I know I cannot convince you to stop this behavior, even if it is damaging to your body," her doctor had said long ago, "but I can at least help ensure that your body can recover quickly afterwards. Take these in the evening and they will make sure that, in the morning, you're healthy enough to continue."

She was very grateful to that doctor and the man who had introduced them. Those two had truly saved her in her time of trouble. But now she was better and the doctor was busy with other people and things so she checked in with him less and less regularly, even if her injuries were equal to those that would have once made her go. She hadn't even seen him once since the last time they met coincidently outside the hospital with that other women with him.

But that was alright. She had everything that she needed in this box. He had already given her so much, more than enough to make it by on her own. She could leave him in peace now.

She sealed the box back up and put it away and got her clothes on. She retrieved her glasses and armor from her sweater and the closet respectively. Then she left to go to Judgment. She arrived maybe half a minute later (teleporter was far less strenuous than walking at the moment) and braced herself for the verbal onslaught that was sure to come.

Then she opened the door and stepped into the room. Konori sat at her desk with a mound of paperwork. Kuroko cleared her voice and the older girl turned around. Her eyes widened and she immediately stood up. She was over to Kuroko in a couple of steps and the teleporter, closed her eyes, expected her boss to strangle her or break her neck or something over the trouble she had caused but ready to accept that punishment.

What she did not expect was for the older girl to hug her tightly and say in a tearful voice, "thank god you're all right Kuroko… I've been so worried about you." Konori had thought that she was responsible for the other girl's actions. It had happened right after she yelled at her on Friday and then hung up on her on Saturday so she was sure that it had been her fault. She had been feeling so guilty these past couple days and was just so glad to see Kuroko in one piece.

Kuroko, confused, simply chose to return her hug and comfort her, "I'm fine, I promise. I'm sorry for making you worry in the first place."

Misaka, meanwhile, was going to the diner that she and her friends often hung out at after receiving a text from Saten asking her to meet her there. At first she had been hesitant, still embarrassed by what her friend might know and might think. But then she had received a follow up text clarifying that it was urgent and had to do with Kuroko. At that she decided to go, if for no other reason than to tell them that she had found the teleporter and that they didn't have to worry about her any more.

Several minutes later she arrived and walked over to the table where Saten and Uiharu were waiting for her.

"There you are, come here," Saten urged when she saw Misaka walk in. Her voice was full of excitement and she had a laptop sitting in front of her.

"She's here," Uiharu said as Misaka sat down, "now can you please tell us what's going on?" She asked, as confused as Misaka now was.

"Well you know all those Anti-Skill sirens and vans that have been going all around the district for the past couple of days?" She began. Thinking back Misaka had seen far too many to be normal as she had been searching for Kuroko, but she had been too busy at the time to have given it any thought. Still she wondered what it had to do with the teleporter.

"Well," the long haired girl continued, "I was browsing through the usual sites to see if I could find out why and I found this." She said as she pointed to the laptop. On the small screen was one of her favorite urban legend websites. More specifically it was one of the threads on the site, titled 'The Scourge of Crime'. The thread talked about the numerous arrests that had happened over the past couple days had all been the work of a single person, who the poster referred to as 'The Scourge'. This "unknown hero of justice" , as the poster put it, had struck a massive blow against the criminals living in District Seven, arresting over 350 people and stopping or resolving over 200 crimes.

The thread also had a few embedded video links. After briefly summarizing the article for the other two she clicked on one of the links and the three girls watched as the video began. The first thing they saw was an overhead view of 24 teenage boys split into two groups of twelve. Each group wore the same outfit with different colored bandanas.

After a few words of trash talk another person appeared on the scene. It was a young girl in sweatpants and a sweatshirt with pinkish brown pigtails in her hair and a Judgment armband around her shoulder. Then the final nail in the coffin came as they heard Kuroko's voice issue from the speakers, "this is Judgment," she said.

After a few more words and a look between the leaders the action begun. Misaka watched in horror as a massive fireball sped towards Kuroko only to be deflected by her palm. She seemed to completely calm the next second as she casually listed the crimes they had just committed as if her hand hadn't just been hit by a ball of flames.

They continued watching as their friend quickly, calmly, and easily took down one ESPers after the other without a single apparent injury (not even her hand had been hurt from what Misaka had seen). She had defeated about half of them when suddenly the laptop screen was flipped down revealing an angry looking Kuroko standing right in front of them. "Am I interrupting something?" She asked coldly.

Her unexpected entrance startled the other girls. The sudden appearance combined with her frightening look caused Uiharu to literally jump out of her seat and cling onto Saten for some sort of protection. Misaka jerked back suddenly in her seat. Both of these actions caused the involved parties to become unbalanced and they almost toppled to the floor only to be caught by the very person who had caused this reaction in the first place.

Grabbing the hems of her friends' shirts from across the small table with her firm grip and quick reflexes, she gave them a gentle yank towards a more balanced center to allow them to recover.

"Umm…. Thanks," Misaka, the least terrified of the three by Kuroko's fierce eyes, said after a couple of seconds passed in tense silence, "did you already go down to Judgment or did you decide to stop here first?"

"I already stopped by. Apparently I've been suspended for a week due to absence," she lied. In truth she had been suspended but it was for violating one of Judgments principle guidelines, not for missing a few days of work that was volunteer anyway. The guideline stated that Judgment agents cannot make arrests based on past transactions. The only arrests they can make are for crimes directly observed or that are part of a larger investigation which they are handling. While violation of this rule did not invalidate the arrests as it might have had it been an Anti-Skill agent breaking a rule, it was still punishable by suspension or even expulsion from Judgment. The only reason she had gotten off so easily was an understanding Anti-Skill chief and the appeals of both Anti-Skill agent Aiho (who, despite her annoyance at the events, still understood that Kuroko was just trying to help out) and Konori.

"But…" Kuroko continued, her face lightening up, "I suppose that can't be avoided. It's better to focus on happier things," She looked at Uiharu and Saten, "on that note, congratulations you two for finally admitting your feelings for each other."

A couple seconds passed as the influx of new information flooded over them.

"How did you know?" Saten asked, finally breaking the silence. While she had many other questions to ask she decided that this was the best one.

Kuroko had known for a while that the two had had feelings for each other. Her months of searching for a sign of reciprocated affection rom her Onee-sama had taught her to be quite sensitive to those kind of things, and between those two it was obvious. But what had convinced her they had gotten together was the fact that, "You're still clinging onto each other."

[beat]

The two girls' faces immediately filled with a blush as they separated and they got even more embarrassed as Kuroko continued, "I'm happy for the two of you. Make sure you take good care of Uiharu for me," She said to Saten, sounding like a father giving his daughter up for marriage.

Misaka turned towards the other two and opened her mouth to say something, but she realized that if she pried too much Saten might start asking about Misaka's own relationship status. So she remained quiet as the silence stretched on. Inwardly Kuroko was happy that she had so effectively managed to get the topic of the conversation off of her and her exploits and created such an awkward atmosphere. Now with any "luck" the awkwardness would cause the entire conversation to fall apart and everyone to leave.

But Saten seemed to fight against the awkwardness and embarrassment and say, "yeah… we confessed to each other. We aren't dating or anything yet, but it's better now that it's out in the open. We were planning on telling you two soon actually."

"Your courage is admirable Saten. This can't have been easy to talk about," Kuroko complimented her.

"It was harder to do than talk about. You're my best friends, I trust that you won't reject us for something like this," the long haired girl directed towards the level five that was beside her. Unfortunately Misaka was not the best at detecting subtlety and this flew right over her head.

"Your trust is well placed," Kuroko replied simply before turning to Misaka, "anyway I came to tell you that I have to do one more thing before I come home. I'm off to do it now and it shouldn't take me to long so expect me home in about half an hour. Will I see you there?"

"Uh… yeah… I was just heading out, bye guys," she said as she left, growing more and more uncomfortable with the entire situation since Kuroko had first arrived. By this time she had almost completely forgotten the original reason she had gone to meet the two.

"Well I'll be going to I guess," Kuroko said, "bye you two. I'll come and visit you at Judgment Uiharu but you'll have to do most of the work on your own for a while. I trust you can handle it." Then she disappeared, leaving a very confused pair of girls sitting together at a small table in a diner.

"Things are quieting down for you then?"

"Yes," said the chief of Anti-Skill to the other occupant of the room, "It seems her little anti-crime-spree has ended." His voice held amusement. As opposed to what one might think he would be feeling, indeed opposed to how many of his subordinates did feel, he had thought these past two days to be quite fun. It had been a long time since something had really shaken up his "life".

"Yes… Vyers told me that he tracked her down. She had apparently collapsed in exhaustion. He said that he reunited her with the electro-master."

"I have to say I'm a little surprised at you actually. Normally you're more possessive of your little pawns. Especially that one," the chief teased, "the fact that you would actually let someone else use her is not something I would have expected."

"The situation was too advantageous to my future endeavors to pass up," he explained, "Now have you managed to keep everything covered up?"

"Yes. The other officers know as well as the dark side. There is some leakage due to that one computer programmer but that falls under the acceptable variance. The evidence has been kept a matter of private record and the trials are being processed by Judge Cain to ensure that there is as little outside contact with it as possible."

"Good to hear. I understand the Queen is sitting around at the moment training for the experiment that's coming up with Lammington. We could probably use her to wipe the majority of the officers if such a step becomes necessary and pass it off as training. Other loose ends are being processed by Oak I right now."

"The step with the Queen is unlikely. While most of the officers involved know that they were not the ones who made the arrests very few could identify who it was. Io and Europa are handled the evidence so they are the only ones who saw her. I believe Aiho also knows but she will keep quiet about it."

"Then it seems that plans will go forward as expected."

[1]:It's really fun to think how some superpowers would be useful in everyday life. Like EtherealFox once suggested in one of his reviews, Uiharu's power of temperature regulation could be very useful in keeping a computer from overheating. Misaka's power could help her keep her phone charged constantly. Kuroko's has just as many, if not more, applications.

[2]: This is the moral to another of Aesop's fables, the Farmer and the Viper.

Author's Note: This chapter was quite interesting. I wrote it in several different segments that I only later on joined together. I'm not sure about the overall effect but I hope that it doesn't hurt the story.

Anyway…One thing I like about the Raildex universe is that the Board of Directors isn't ever truly laid out. Only 4 of twelve are ever mentioned, meaning the other 8 can be whoever you want them to be and have as much power as you chose. It is not unrealistic for one of them to be in control of Anti-Skill.

Dedications: This chapter is dedicated to all my anonymous reviewers. I literally can't reply to your reviews and tell you that they mean a lot to me so let me do so here. Every review is enjoyable and I thank you for leaving one.

Coming Soon: Through the ice and fire; the march of the angel of destruction.