Toaru Kaiteki-sa no Tatchi

A Certain Touch of Comfort

Now that she had checked in with her Onee-sama and narrowly averted a crisis, she began making her way to her final obligation. Once again she teleported to her destination to lessen the strain of walking. While teleporting did strain her mentally, to a higher degree than walking strained her physically, it was easier to recover from mental strain than physical strain.

She teleported all the way to a skyscraper that was located in the middle of the city. This skyscraper was home to the Mendeleev Engineering Company. It was a company that tended to employ ESPers with abilities having to do with chemical reactions. It was a relatively new company, as many Academy City companies were, but it was already a powerhouse in the business world and had shown 200% growth in the past 3 years since its creation. The reason for this growth was the founder and co-founder whose powers could cause and alter Silicon and Carbon bonding respectively. This allowed them to create huge ranges of material that were otherwise very difficult to create. The co-founder, for example, could turn a lump of graphite into a hunk of diamond with ease.

It also happened to be the company that had made Kuroko's armor. She was here to get the combat data from her "scourge" analyzed by the people here as promised. So she walked into the front office and told the secretary that she was here to talk to Garu, not knowing what else she should do. Luckily the secretary understood and told her that she was told to direct her to go down to floor 3B.

Kuroko thanked her and followed her instructions. Getting on the elevator and pressing the button. Upon doing so the button scanned her fingerprint. After a second the elevator said "unclear reading, access denied." Kuroko sighed at this and simply teleported down, skipping the hassle. She arrived on the laboratory floor that she had been on earlier. Garu and surprisingly Itora were on the far end talking. They glanced her way and seemed to acknowledge her presence so she teleported over.

"Ah. Hello Kuroko. Find your way here easily enough?" Garu asked.

"Yes but I did run into some problems with your elevator. Something about an unclear reading," She replied.

"Ah, yes. It has a fingerprint scanner in order to prevent any unauthorized personnel from accessing this floor and contaminating anything. I thought I added you to the accepted roster however," Garu clarified. Indeed he had but the fingerprints he had used were the ones that existed on "public" (or at least accessible by a decent hacker) record that had been taken when Kuroko first entered the city. But since then numerous acid, chemical, and thermal burns that she had received over the years had radically changed the small girl's fingerprints such that the "public" record was unreliable.

"Ah well, no matter," Garu continued, "I take it you are here for data gathering?"

Kuroko nodded, "As promised."

"Very well then, come this way," Garu said, leading her to project room #147. Once there she handed the suit of armor to the man who was there.

"Ah, thank you," the scientist and creator of the suit thanked in a noticeable British accent and slightly strained Japanese, "so how was it?"

"It was fine," Kuroko said in English, recognizing that she could speak that better than he could speak Japanese, "It's as bulletproof as I was promised, though the bullets still hurt very badly. I think the armor cut me a few time too."

"Oh? Where did you get cut miss…"

"Shirai, Kuroko Shirai,"

"Ok. You can call me Q," the scientist said. Garu rolled his eyes. The man was good, one of the best. But he did have his… quirks. This time the quirk had probably worked to their advantage. While the man had gone over budget to indulge in his fantasy (the first prototype, which was nothing but him acting out his desire to invent the ultimate special service gear, had had to be discarded entirely for its impracticality), he had managed to create a very serviceable prototype in the end, even if outside error had caused that one to fail as well (at least until Itora had come in and dealt with it).

"Ok Q. It was on the arm," she told him. He checked the arm and saw that there was a loose fiber that had come free. The fiber was very thin and had probably cause the cuts when it had been pulled across flesh (though at a normal person's strength it shouldn't have been enough to do so).

"Oh, I see the problem, I'll fix it immediately," he said and began, "as for the bullet thing, the padding should protect against the blunt trauma. The Aegis which makes this up has the highest impact hardness of any material ever made or discovered but that just means that the bullet will break before the nano-plates do, the energy from the bullet is still transferred. Getting rid of that would take magic." He chuckled, "if only that existed then things would be so much easier. Anyway this should take around ten minutes and after that I'll have a few more questions for you."

"Until then I'd like to thank you," Itora said, "and to congratulate you on your latest endeavor. From what I understand you really put the armor to good use. 357 criminals arrested in 2 days. An impressive record for someone who puts away people who deserve to get put away."

Kuroko cocked an eyebrow, "you're congratulating me for that? Aren't you technically criminals too?"

"Technically I suppose you're right, and if you were targeting us then I would be far more worried than grateful, but you seem to be making no effort to persecute us. Not only that but your actions have actually helped us. We are legitimate businessmen before we are criminals and businesses are hurt by crime. Unorganized crime at least."

"I see..."

"Though I do admit I find it difficult to imagine your motivation in doing this. I can understand that you are a Judgment agent but this seems a little over the top wouldn't you say?"

"The removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless," Kuroko quoted.

Itora frowned. He did not understand the reference so he assumed it was an actual religious reason. He thought that the idea of persecution of anyone, even criminals, for the sake of religion was a terrible idea as so many past events had shown. He had not pegged the other girl to be particularly religiously zealot, but apparently looks could be deceiving. "I see…" he replied.

Kuroko shrugged, "at least one might think that was the case. Not like I believe in a god anyway, but all my service has done so far is get me kicked out of Judgment and probably get me in trouble with the Dorm Mistress when I get back." These word dispelled Itora's worries and opened up a window of opportunity.

Smiling Itora put his hand on the young teleporter's shoulder, "yes, it is a fairly thankless job isn't it. Or rather it is a fairly thankless position in life. Being so capable yet only ever being seen as a child," he spoke, noting the tensing of her shoulders that accompanied his words, suggesting that they had hit a sensitive spot, "I remember when I was your age. My power is the ability to increase the efficiency of simple and complex systems, including myself. That power propelled me to the top of my class and I soon became far more competent than many of the adults around me. Yet none of them saw me as anything other than a child."

"Unfortunately, no matter how much it frustrated me, I could do nothing about it until I was old enough to become rich and powerful and show all of them just how capable I was. You, though, have managed to prove your capability despite what others may see as a disadvantage. I knew I was better than those adults but you have proof. That is what deserves a congratulation."

"Thank you" Kuroko said, grateful that somebody recognized her actions and her competence.

"In fact," Itora continued, "I have something for you to thank you." He said getting a piece of paper from his pocket and beginning to write, "you said you will get in trouble with your dorm mistress for missing some days correct? Well give her this and youed" He said handing her the piece of paper with writing on it saying that she had been enlisted for an official experiment for the past two days, pardoning her absence. At the bottom was Itora's signature with B.O.D. next to it.

"Huh?" she asked in confusion.

"As a member of the Board of Directors that signature holds substantial power, it should get you out of trouble easily."

Kuroko looked at him, confused by this kind gesture. She did not raise her suspicions however, simply saying, "thank you."

"Don't mention it," Itora said with a smile on his face as the teleporter was called into the other room to finish the examination.

"Business partner eh," Garu piped in, "I think that was a little outside the relationship of a business partner."

"Diplomacy is never a bad idea. But I suppose you're right in a sense. I still see her as a kid, even knowing what she is like. And when you see a kid looking that sad you just want to comfort them don't you?" the businessman half-lied.

"A little, but I prefer animals to kids."

Itora shrugged, "there's no accounting for taste I suppose. Now shall we get back to business?"

Shortly after that Kuroko made her way back to the dorm, armor in hand. She stopped shortly before she reached the dorm and put her glasses on. Then she turned on the tracker for the dorm mistress. It seemed that she was waiting inside the building, probably for her, probably to snap her neck like a twig. She had perhaps been unreasonable when she predicted Konori's reaction but she knew that her view of the dorm mistress was realistic.

She cautiously walked in and was, predictably, immediately assailed. Luckily she already had her plan worked out. Instead of standing there and letting her neck break or pulling the same move that Kuro had pulled (an easy possibility for her) and making her angrier, she teleported away to her room, leaving only the excuse note behind.

Once she got into the room she immediately collapsed onto the bed. She was tired and in considerable pain from the medication she had taken. The pills aided muscle fatigue by rebuilding the muscles broken in exercise that were normally regenerated over a number of days in a matter of hours instead. However this took the soreness that you experienced over those couple of days and compressed it into a 5-8 hour window, with a little extra suffering for good measure. It had taken all her concentration to teleport for so long despite the burgeoning amount of pain.

Her head buried in the soft mattress she whimpered at the ever increasing pain. Then she felt a soothing pressure on her head. "Are you all right Kuroko?" Misaka asked. She had come home a while ago and until around a minute or two ago she had been reading the article that Saten had shown her, trying to get a better understanding about what had happened over the past couple of days. Now that she had a better picture she was equal parts horrified, curious, and oddly proud of her girlfriend.

"I'm fi-" she began but Misaka interrupted her, saying simply, "the truth." Kuroko sighed in response and said, "I'm mostly fine. My muscles are aching and I'm out of pain pills."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Misaka asked. Though she expected a ridiculous and likely lecherous answer, she thought that she should ask anyway.

"hmm…" Kuroko said, considering the answer seriously. She remembered back in the day when this was a far more regular occurance and recalled the doctors suggestions (though she took very few of them), "a massage might help."

Misaka was not sure if this was lecherous or not. She knew enough about this kind of thing to know that massage was a recommended treatment but was still wary, "I don't exactly know how to give one," she said cautiously.

"There's a book on massage theory on my desk along with the other medical texts. Several of the principles are useful in precision martial arts so I've been studying it," she said truthfully. She saw and exploited the more perverse potential of this but none of her words were lies.

'What a convenient coincidence,' Misaka thought. Still it was not too implausible… "If I agree then I want you to tell me about what you were doing over these past two days."

A few seconds passed before the teleporter answered, "ok. If you say that I can trust you then I have nothing to hide. "

Sighing Misaka stood up and walked to Kuroko desk and browsed the selection of medical texts until she found the book in question and plucked it from the pile. She flicked through it until she found the section on massage basics. She also found a section about the application of an electrical current during the massage to enhance its effects that she skimmed through before returning to the previous section.

She read a bit then took a seat on the bed and put the book down, keeping it open so she could still reference it. Then she turned back to the other girl who was still lying on the bed on the same spot. She then immediately turned away. "Put your clothes back on Kuroko," she said frustrated and flustered.

"You can't massage while I'm dressed," She pointed out, her logic as infuriatingly impeccable as ever, "I kept my panties on at least and considering what you've already seen today, my back isn't too bad is it?"

"I…you…just… uggh," Misaka sputtered, shaking her head and looking back to her. Then she noticed something. Though her back still had several bruises, her sides, which earlier today had been quite badly bruised, were clear. "Kuroko…" she began, confused and slightly concerned.

"Don't worry about the bruises, they don't hurt, just be gentle in that region," Kuroko said.

"it's not those ones I'm talking about," she said, placing her hand on Kuroko's side gently. Kuroko didn't recoil though the region was still quite tender.

"Coagulant," Kuroko elaborated, "it helps dissolve the bruise topped with a concealer to keep it hidden. Whether or not I'm ashamed about my injuries it would be best to keep them from the others or else they'll just get needlessly worried. Oh, but of course that doesn't include you anymore Onee-sama. I promise I'll share every part of my body with you, no exceptions."

"Must you make everything perverted?" Misaka said, exasperated as she put her three quarters of the way up the teleporter's back and felt her heartbeat. The asymmetry had calmed down but it was still beating unnaturally fast, betraying the girl's excitement, despite the calmness in her voice.

The other girl didn't answer. And Misaka began her massage, gently rubbing the other girl's shoulders where the muscle spasms that she had observed earlier were still present and quite severe. "So what were have you been doing these past two days."

"Having a childish temper tantrum and taking it out on the criminals in this region."

"Why?" Misaka asked as she added the tiny electric current to her movements. It was quite hard to concentrate on that, the massage, and the conversation all at once while at the same time trying even harder to not concentrate on what exactly she was doing.

"My work at Judgment is one of the only things that make me feel useful and since I thought that you were mad at me for being such a burden I assumed that if I could prove that I wasn't, say by arresting a lot of people, I thought I could earn your forgiveness. I now know that this was faulty reasoning though," she said honestly.

"And these people, did they deserve to be arrested?" Misaka asked. This was one thing that had worried her. While several of the people definitely deserved to be arrested, such as the gangsters who attacked her and the people involved in the other major crimes, "how could you have possibly found that many criminals by chance?"

"They deserved it. And I didn't find them by chance. I had help."

"Whose help?"

"I can't tell you. It is not because I don't trust you but because my source would rather remain anonymous and it is my duty as a Judgment member to respect their wishes," Kuroko said. It was probably the truth, she hadn't exactly asked but she doubted he'd want her to tell anyone he was aiding her all this time. She also didn't want her Onee-sama to find out about her less-than-legal activities recently. She had decided to be more honest with her but that did not mean she wanted to tell her everything.

"I see…" The electro-master said as her hands moved to Kuroko's upper back and continued the massage, going more gently to prevent exacerbating her injuries. She consulted the book again and again to help refine her still quite clumsy technique. But Kuroko didn't exactly care about how good she was at this (she would improve over time if she could use this excuse again) all she cared about was that it was happening in the first place. Her Onee-samas gentle, if somewhat hesitant, touch was the teleporter's personal heaven and she was smiling widely in pure bliss.

"So you went for two straight days. Did you even sleep? Where did you stay?"

"I slept a little… but It's hard sleeping without you," Kuroko admitted. Misaka understood. Her own sleep had been considerably restless since Kuroko had gone as well, both by the worry that had plagued her constantly and the teleporter's lack of presence. She had been a bit like a security blanket to Misaka these past few weeks and suddenly having her vanish like that was difficult on her, even unconscious.

"Why didn't you just come back earlier…" Misaka said, trying hard to keep the emotions out of her voice. But Kuroko felt the hurt and anger and worry through her hands which were rubbing her lower back quite hard along the lines of the scars on her back.

"Because I'm an idiot who, in trying to not hurt you, managed to hurt you even more."

"You're not an idiot. If one of us is guilty of that it's me," she said, recognizing that what Kuroko had said was a crime she committed regularly, "you need to stop blaming yourself for everything."

"Blaming other people is an exercise in futility," the teleporter explained in her chivalric tone that she used when she was acting tough, adding in her mind, 'I deserve any guilt I receive.' However all of this posturing was somewhat nullified by the cute, childish squeak she gave the next moment as Misaka began, somewhat reluctantly, massaging her thighs.

"What are you? The Buddha?" Misaka joked, somewhat comforted by the return of the other girl's normal, haughty tone.

"Nope. Just a knight tilting at windmills," she answered after making several other noises that she tried hard to mute in the mattress of the bed.

"And here I was thinking you were the damsel in distress, considering I had to haul you back here after you collapsed."

"Come now Onee-sama… is distress ever a word you associate with me?"

"I have more trouble with the damsel part actually…" Misaka snarked as she finished up the massage. "feeling better?" she asked.

Kuroko pushed herself up to face her Onee-sama, "much. You did very well. Was this your first time giving a massage?"

Turning away with a blush, "yes, now put some clothes on please," she said.

Kuroko grinned and sat up, giving the electro-master a tight hug and a peck on the cheek. "Come now Onee-sama, we're lovers now. You need to get used to this."

"Not yet I don't," the older girl answered, pushing the teleporter away as she turned even further around with an even brighter blush, "now get dressed or else."

"Very well my love, if you insist," she said as she stood up and went over to her closet, pulling on one of her very revealing negligees that she hadn't worn in weeks. She had missed the feel of the soft, breathable silk.

Of course it was hardly better than being naked in terms of coverage, and as she climbed into bed besides her girlfriend the older girl began to rethink her decision to go and retrieve the other girl.

"I love you Onee-sama," the teleporter said as she got settled into the bed.

If she hadn't retrieved the girl then she might never have heard those words again. "I love you too Kuroko,' she replied, all the regret vanishing in a moment, "good night," she said and turned off the lights.

Once again Shiro found herself in the world of dreams and memories, resting on a dais on an infinite plane of clock towers. She would rest soon and bask in the hopefully pleasant dreams that awaited her, but for now she had something that she needed to do. Something quite unpleasant.

She sighed as she focused on the distance, locating what she was looking for. When she finally spotted one of the crumbling towers in the far distance she mentally opened the doors pulled it towards her, much as she had done before. Soon she was drawn into the threshold of the ruined building.

Inside it was just as crumbled as it was outside. While the walls were lined with clocks and plaques like the other one many of those clocks were either stopped all together, spinning wildly, or completely fallen apart. Several plaques were cracked or shattered.

It has been quite a while since I have gone through my childhood memories, she said. She had never liked thinking back to these times but she needed to know what in her life was real suffering and what was imagined suffering. Perhaps all her life's unhappiness was caused by her insanity. Either way she needed to know.

So she touched one of the plaques with a strange feeling that this was what she was looking for. Even though the memories only label was their date and time of occurrence, she could tell with a simple glace the vague details of the memory and from there she could go into a full recollection.[1]

This plaque that she had chosen was one of the few that were still intact, though it was still slightly cracked and the date was hard to read. It looked to be when she was around 4 years old.

She found herself back in her childhood residence. She took a moment and absorbed the sensations that she was experience. Her face felt cold but her body felt warm, though slightly heavy. Her feet had an unpleasant wetness to them and her hands were numb.

Her nose was cold and running and she couldn't smell a thing but the taste of fresh, clean water was on her tongue. She was looking up in the air to a cloudy sky.

Then she looked down to see her yard covered with a thin blanket of snow. And perched on the bare, snow covered sakura tree that was in front of her was a large black raven standing perfectly still, still enough to have gathered a tuft of snow of top of its head.

She heard herself giggle at this sight, "Hiya Prometheus," she found herself saying, "Come to keep me company?"

"To watch" The bird corrected, the movement of speaking and bobbing on the branch caused a lump of snow from higher on the tree to fall onto the bird. Kuroko laughed at this.

"you look so silly Prometheus," she said with a grin, then she sighed and recited, "white white snow on a black black bird."

Then suddenly Prometheus disappeared as a voice called out. "Kuroko."

She turned around to see the maid that took care of her[2] standing in the doorway. The maid opened her mouth to say more but Kuroko suddenly found herself awakened by a sharp pain that coursed through her.

She found herself buried deep in her Onee-sama's embrace, almost being smothered by it. Occasional sparks caused jolts of minor pain but that was not what had waken her up. She tried to identify what was hurting but the pain that had woken her up was gone now.

Shrugging it off she chose instead to revel in the closeness she had with her Onee-sama right now. It had been three days since they had snuggled like this and far longer since she had worn something thin enough to truly feel the warmth of her one true love through it. With these thoughts in her head, satisfaction that her mission had been successful, and comfort that every little suffering in her life must have been imagined, she drifted off to a nice, peaceful sleep.

Kuro found herself relieved that she had managed to wake Shiro up before the rest of that memory had played out. When she had last gone through she had had far less power than she did now. In those days she could alter Shiro's perception of a memory but not a memory itself. She still couldn't alter memories, only repress them and hide them from Shiro. It was what she had down to the original memory of that phone conversation that had been the catalyst of her help to Shiro, but it had not been done to anything else in fear that Shiro may begin to suspect something.

Normally Shiro kept her distance from her memories of childhood so Kuro had thought it would be safe. It was, perhaps, not the best plan, but it was all for Shiro's sake.

It was all for Shiro's sake.

It was all for Shiro's sake.

She kept repeating those words to herself. It was all she could do. Kuro's job wasn't to make Shiro happy it was to keep her from being sad or hurt. She was Shiro's guardian, the knight of the knight. That was what she was. She was meant to wipe Shiro's tears not to make her smile.

But no matter just how much she told herself this she knew in the back of her head that her job was not that of a guardian.

She was Kuro, she hurt people.

[1]: Kuroko doesn't have photographic memory or anything like it. This is actually a trick that other people use. The memory is far more powerful than most people give it credit it is simply humans ability to link to those memories that cause confusion. If someone created a place where their memories were reliably sorted like this (as some people do, mostly people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but not always) then it could be like this for anyone.

[2]: In chapter 33 (Toaru Kuro no Honto) I mentioned a butler that looked after her rather than a maid. This was not a mistake

Author's Note: After ****** talked about the Queen last chapter many people seemed excited about her imminent return. Rest assured the Jericho Arc is almost at an end and after that there will only be a few chapters until the last part with the Queen begins. Despite this the Queen herself doesn't make an appearance till late on simply because there isn't really a way to do so. Her power is mind control and is useless against Misaka. In a direct battle she would lose in an instant This is why I can't really include her much in here at all. She is good villain material but not good enemy material.

Also in response to Ashuras's review, Touma will never have more than a cameo in my fic for the simple reason that I do not believe I could write him well, so I am avoiding the risk altogether. And even if he did he couldn't do anything about Kuroko's state of mind as it is purely biological not magical or ESPer (ESPic? ESPive?). Even his motivational skills would be useless because she does not want to be helped, especially by anyone other than Kuro or Misaka. She would probably just kick his ass for bothering her and throw him in jail (again).

Dedications: This chapter is dedicated to a new reader and reviewer, PokeRescue18. Thanks for the reviews and I hope you are enjoying my writing.

Coming Soon: The Seal of the Six and the royal guardian.