Toaru Kunren no Seikatsu

A Certain Life of Training

After Kuro had sorted everything out and handed their body back to Shiro (via a surprise kiss in the middle of a street that caused Misaka to punish her quite harshly) She hid the capacity down and then met Misaka back home shortly before curfew. By this time Misaka had cooled off enough that she did not push Kuroko away when she slid into bed beside her and shortly after that the two were asleep.

The next day they had school again. Misaka decided to avoid the lunchroom and the people in it, instead she ate on the roof with Kuroko. The fact that the school did not have a stairway up to the roof was hardly an issue to the teleporter, one of the many perks of the two girl's friendship.

After school Misaka began wandering around town until she saw two familiar faces.

"Hey Uiharu, Hey Saten," Misaka said to her two friends as they walked down the street. Over the last couple days she had managed to completely forget about her embarrassment (as well as the incident that had originally caused that embarrassment) mostly due to the fact that Saten hadn't brought anything up about it nor changed her behavior at all as a result. Even with all that had gone on recently it had hardly taken any time whatsoever to return to "normal", a state which they were all quite content with.

"Hey Misaka-san, What's up?" Uiharu asked, "Is Shirai-san with you? It's one of my first patrols alone and I'm kind of nervous about it."

"Sorry but she isn't, she left right after school. She left a note saying that she was going to go train," the older girl told her, leaving out the other contents of the note which would just embarrass Misaka if she had to read them aloud, "if you want I can accompany you though, I don't think that you'll have many problems that I can't solve."

"Would you?" Uiharu asked, excited. Even though they had been friends for over 2 months now she still at times reacted like her old fan girl self around her level-5 Oujo-san friend.

"So cruel Uiharu…" Saten declared, melodramatic clearly feigned hurt in her voice, "Are you saying that I'm not enough protection for you? And here I was putting life and limb on the line for you…"

"tha-that's not what I'm saying at all Saten-san," the flower-headed girl tried to explain, mistaking the hurt as real, "It's just that…"

One skirt flip later the long haired level zero said, "I know I know, it was a joke. It's more about company than security right and the more the merrier on that front."

After recovering from her embarrassment (and reprimanding her friend for causing it) Uiharu admitted, "that's kind of true actually. It's been very quiet for the past few days. The worst crime I've seen is littering."

"I heard that there was some pretty major vandalism somewhere else in the district, a whole parking garage or something," Misaka piped up as the trio continued their walk, "completely pulverized but there was no sound of explosions or anything. It just kind of… fell."

"Yeah, I heard about that too," Uiharu said. Saten had told her about it earlier while they were still in the office and she had looked it up, "They don't even have a culprit yet or any clue of how it was done. The garage was a hideout for Skill-Out so there's motive for just about anyone who has been targeted by them and the ability or mechanism that caused the crash doesn't narrow down the search enough to begin questioning. It's not in our jurisdiction though so we don't need to worry about it."

"Maybe it was 'The Great Scourge of District Seven'" Saten joked.

For a second Misaka remembered what the teleporter had done with the building during the Queen incident and wondered if she had been involved. But she quickly shook off the thought. A parking garage would be far more difficult to destroy with that method and besides, "she was with a friend yesterday while that happened." The electro-master told the other two.

"Besides I don't see how Shirai-san could bring down a building without explosives," Uiharu said, being the only one of the three not to see the trick in action

"Well," Saten started a smile growing on her face as she launched into her story.

A jet black raven soared amongst the clouds in a blue sky. It flew towards a mountain growing out of the distant horizon. It perched upon a lone tree rout growing from the face of a cliff that fell off into a snow covered plateau. In the middle of the flat stretch of rock was a temple complex with several buildings, each with towering pagoda-style roofs.

In the courtyard, despite the blistering wind, there stood many men and women in thin orange robes, among them a young girl with pinkish brown hair tied neatly with two ribbons. Fluidly they moved, almost as one, through a series of forms and strikes. In front of each was a pile of several bricks balanced on two concrete blocks. Suddenly, with a cry from each of the robed martial artists, they struck the pile of bricks, shattering each and every one as well as the concrete blocks upon which they rested.

"And that's where Kuroko's gone off to do her training,"Saten finished still sounding as serious as when she had begun, though now she was having trouble containing her laughter at the image and how well it actually fit the other girl. [1]

"Sorry to disappoint you but she did her training in a dojo within the city," Misaka told her, though she had to admit as well that it was not that outlandish a concept and the image worked surprisingly well.

"Besides, the Shaolin temple's in China, Saten-san," Uiharu said,"Even if she teleported she couldn't reach it in time. I'm sure it's more like this…"

In the middle of a forest thick with fog and thin of light, perched upon a long dead tree a lone raven cawed its carrion tone. The ground was slick with mud and the sun had long since vanished from this god-forsaken place.

Still the forest was anything but quiet or calm. In the middle of a clearing free of trees a battle raged. A dragon roared in a terrible fury, its firey breath whipped towards its prey. However the young girl that was its prey was too quick and she teleported aside before a single tongue of fire could lap at the bare flesh still left uncovered by her ridiculously impractical armor consisting of just a breastplate, codpiece, and cape. Now that she had a second of safety from the dragon as it recharged its breath, she cut down its demonic minions with her massive battle-axe, which, despite being at least a foot taller than herself, she wielded with ease. With them defeated she turned again to the dragon which breathed its flames again at the girl. But this time she did not teleport aside, instead leaping through the flame right at the dragon. A second later and she was behind the dragon, clearly hurt while the dragon looked fine. Then she smiled and the mighty dragon fell with a thud.

As she stood up she heard a ding that signaled that she had leveled up.

"And that's what she meant by training," Uiharu concluded. The other two looked at each other and shook their heads.

"At least China is a place, even a teleporter can't go to a fantasy world," Saten teased.

"And, while the ridiculously revealing armor suits her, I don't really understand why you chose a battleaxe as a weapon. It doesn't really fit her does it?" Misaka decided, "I see it as being more like this…"

The rain poured down hard as a single raven circled in the sky, waiting for its next meal to drop dead. Below was a compound encircled with barbed wire fencing. Several tents and temporary shelters were set up within the borders of the fence.

Carried on the winds were the cries of a man wearing a military uniform as he yelled at several people wearing the same, including one particularly young one with a stern face that belied her years. They ran through the pouring rain and slick mud along a track, an obstacle course. The sound of bombs and bullets filled the already screaming night. Several of the other uniformed men were downed by the rubber training bullets that were shot from the sideline but Kuroko pressed on, narrowly avoiding one of the bullets which was heading right for her head with a timely dodge.

She jumped and clambered around the obstacles as even more people fell all around her until finally, as the finish line came into sight, she was the last person standing. But as she ran for the finish line she accidently stepped on the final obstacle, one of the mimes in a minefield. It exploded in a flash of fire and sound looking like it had completely obliterated the girl. But as the smoke cleared she was standing on the finish line, having teleported at the last instant. She held her hands high in victory.

"And that's the way it is,"Misaka finished.

"Did you say she stepped on a mime?" Uiharu asked, wondering if she had misheard.

"Mime, mine, whatever, it was close enough."

Saten laughed, "as suitable as that image is," she said when she calmed down, "I don't think she is quite old enough to join the army. I'm sure her training is far more normal than any of this."

Kuroko dropped low to the ground and listened to the beeps that signaled the countdown to go. When she finally heard the final beep she took off down the track as she headed for the first obstacle, the towering rock wall.

She knew the entire surface like the back of her hand and she knew exactly the best and most efficient path up. She jumped onto the rock wall landing with one foot on one of the larger stones near the bottom and from that perch she jumped again, straight up, and grabbed onto one of the rocks higher on the wall. From there she quickly climbed the surface at a speed that few would believe a human capable of. But she had had plenty of practice, she had been climbing for years now, ever since she was kid and she knew just where to look and what to grab to climb as fast and safely(sometimes) as possible.

Once she had reached the top of the wall the next stage began, The multi-level parkour course that she had run numerous times in the past. When she had first started training she had dismissed this part as unnecessary and a waste of time for a teleporter who would one day be able to teleport any and everywhere without this silly "free-running" thing. But she had run it despite these feelings and in the incident with Jericho it had paid off. So she leaped and rolled and did all manner of ridiculous acrobatics the course required as she made her way through the course without a single stop or hesitation in her movement.

When she had finally reached the bottom her knees were sore and her legs were beginning to hurt quite a bit but she pressed on. The next part could not afford hesitation. As she ran the track narrowed into a corridor with holes riddling the walls. From these holes at random intervals shot cattle prods that would deliver a nasty shock to whoever touched them with only a pneumatic hiss and half a second of warning. Still that half-second was enough for Kuroko to weave her way around them.

Suddenly the corridor went into a room, a firing range with 5 targets set up 10 yards away. Each target had a black circle inscribed in the middle of the torso, the head, and the neck. For this step a gun was usually required but Kuroko hated guns. So rather than shooting them she used the ancient shaolin art of needle throwing to accomplish the task. Since there were several circles in a vertical line all she needed to do was aim for the head and factor her horizontal movement into her throw. Though her aim wasn't the best, she hit somewhere within the three circles in all of the dummies without stopping her determined run. When the last one had been hit, the door out of the room opened and she ran through.

Next was the rope climb, followed by the high altitude balance beam, followed by numerous other obstacles, ending with a final high speed run. When she passed the finish line the large sign that had been timing her stopped. As Kuroko and caught her breath she looked at the time and was somewhat disappointed to see that it was 17 seconds less than her previous best time. Though she comforted herself that she was a bit out of practice as it had been more than a month since she had last trained here.

Not only that but this time she was weighed down by 70 pounds of weight whereas that time it had only been 55 pounds. The weight came from a series of five-pound sand filled weights strapped to her arms legs and chest to weigh her down without hindering her running ability. So all in all it had been a good run.

It would probably disturb the young girl's trio of friends to know that their guesses hadn't been very ridiculous at all and how close to the truth the three, but especially Misaka, had been.

Though the electro-master was wrong in her guess of where exactly it would be Kuroko was training, as well as the "mimefield" at the end of the course, she was right that the teleporter was, at this moment, training in a paramilitary training compound. It was tucked away in District 2 where the training of both Judgment and Anti-Skill agents took place but it was not for either of those groups. Kuroko did not know it but it was actually far harsher than Anti-Skills training compounds and was actually intended for Academy City's secret special forces.

She did not know this because, despite having found this place 4 years ago and using it ever since, she had never seen anyone else use it. While it was remarkably well maintained by robots there was not a single piece of evidence which would suggest that it was being used or had been used by people for months or even years. Academy City's special forces were not trained in a constant stream and only very rarely needed to be replaced. Since this was the case their training grounds spent months, sometimes years, completely unused. Last time it had happened they had carelessly left the door open for Kuroko to wander in and begin using it for her own.

It was the best possible training site she could hope for, with several different sections each designed to train in certain areas, such as endurance, speed, stealth, or various more specific skills like lock picking (which she was okay in) and hacking (which she was terrible at, having never really tried it). It also had the toughest obstacle course she had ever seen (After 4 years of running it almost daily, the obstacle course she had had to run for her Judgment exam had been almost like walking a straight line in terms of difficulty and had led to her setting the record by a margin of almost an entire minute) in its central portion with every type of obstacle she could think of. It even auto-timed her as she ran. After 3 years she had managed to beat the previous record on this one as well, though not by so large a margin, and had only improved since then.

Another area had weapons training with a combat training bot and every weapon imaginable. While Kuroko wasn't usually a weapon user, she had still spent a lot of time training here for the workout it provided . Because of this, and because of her natural dislike of weapons in general, she had chosen the most cumbersome, unwieldy weapon of them all to train with to discourage her from using her training in a real-life situation in the future. After all, when would she have the opportunity to use something like that?

The weapon in question was the battle-axe, and over her 4 years of training she had managed to become proficient enough with it that she could wield it as easily as any other weapon, almost completely disregarding the massive weight and size of the thing. She was hardly a master but she was the closest thing to a master someone her age could realistically be.

It was the same way with her martial arts. The Shaolin style martial arts she had been taught by her teacher (whose mother and father were actual Shaolin monks that had left the monastery at an older age to ensure that their daughter had a better, less reclusive life) could never be truly mastered without a lifetime of training. However she had spent 6 years training almost every day for anywhere between 2 hours to 17 hours, so it would be wrong to call her anything else either. She was as proficient as someone her age could possibly be.

Proficiency was a matter of time and, before being admitted to Judgment and Tokiwadai, Kuroko had spent almost every waking moment of her life training or learning for the past four years. She even had figured out special techniques for maximizing the efficiency of her workouts or mental training, the chief of which were the drugs that her doctor had prescribed to her. The recovery drugs especially. Normally trying to work out every day would be counterproductive as, without giving your muscles time to heal, they would end up getting more and more broken rather than stronger. Normally this meant resting for two days for every one day of extensive exercise. But the recovery drugs allowed her to shorten this resting period to overnight, allowing her to do constant training and reap all the benefits of it.

Of course the constant training had had its cost that not even pills could fix. She sat down next to her bag and grabbed a cup from it. This cup contained a mixture with the flavor and consistency of swamp muck and the aroma to match. It was the raw form of a specialized concoction commercially available but primarily used for professional athletes or soldiers (though they usually chose to flavor it to get rid of the taste and smell) and was what Kuroko had lived on for a good portion of her life. It had all the vitamins, minerals, and proteins needed for a human and could be used as a substitute for any other sustenance. But its true value lied in its ability to be easily digested. Kuroko's body had, for years, been under almost constant stress and, in addition to her unique risk of stress-induced Hell, this severely hampered her immune and digestive systems to the point where eating anything other than this specially made goop would probably make her nauseous. Even when she had stopped training so hard after she had joined Judgment it still took two weeks before she could eat something solid without vomiting shortly after.

After drinking the concoction, suppressing her gag reflex while doing so, she stood up and grabbed the backpack that was sitting close by. She hefted it onto her back and began her jog.

"You had to do a lot of training when you were joining Judgment as well, didn't you Uiharu?" Saten asked.

"yeah, it was really tough. I was younger than most of the people there but I still had to do the same amount of work. I did horribly… I could hardly do a pushup and jogging was difficult. I was the slowest in the class."

"Well, as you said you were the youngest person there, right? It's understandable that you'd be behind," Saten comforted.

"Not really. I was only the second youngest. Shirai-san was the youngest," Uiharu corrected.

"Oh yeah, you guys went to the academy together didn't you?" Misaka remembered from a story that Kuroko had told her a while ago, "How did she do."

Uiharu sighed, "Her record for the obstacle course at the end of training still hasn't been beaten. Nobody's even come close. She beat the previous record by, like, a minute. She was the most advanced person in class. If I hadn't gotten such a high grade on the other portions of the work I might not have made it in given my physical." The teleporter had always been better than her in almost all aspects. So much so that it had always made the flower-headed girl feel a bit under confident. But she comforted herself with the knowledge that Kuroko still relied on her support so she was hardly worthless. It was why she had gotten so angry that one time when Kuroko had forgotten their promise, when Kuroko had chosen not to listen to her despite the fact that giving advice was all she could do for the other girl. and in these past several days the teleporter had stopped relying on her once again. She had grown more withdrawn and distant, almost like she was suspicious of Uiharu or hiding something from her. It was starting to make her feel like she was worthless again, not only that but it made her feel like she was losing one of her friends.

"But you made it through in the end didn't you?" the long haired girl reminded her, "It's more than we can say. Even the great Railgun herself found Judgment work daunting and you do it every day."

"I didn't find it daunting," the girl in question corrected, embarrassed, "I found it boring and I wasn't used to it."

"But you can understand how annoying it is to be bad at something that others find so easy don't you? It's the same thing the people who used the level upper felt," Saten said, speaking from experience. She felt this way all the time and had come to accept it, but she still could understand the feeling of her friend, "the feeling that all the practice and hard work in the world still won't help you catch up to those with natural talent."

"We-" Misaka opened her mouth to respond but her words were cut short the next second as she was tackled by the ground.

"Onee-sama," a familiar voice said, "what a wonderful coincidence. I've been missing you." Kuroko said as she rubbed her cheek along the older girl's face. This time it actually was a coincidence as well. Though she had put a tracker on every one of her three friends, she hadn't used them. She had simply seen them as they were walking down the street. Figuring some Onee-sama loving ought to get her nice and motivated, she had stopped to get just that.

"Off," the electro-master ordered. The teleporter let her go and she pushed herself up, "honestly, was that completely necessary?" she asked as she extended a hand to the other girl. The other girl took it and Misaka tried to pull her up only to find that she was too heavy. She pulled again but failed, "geez Kuroko, how much do you weigh."

Suddenly Kuroko remembered the weights that she had on. That must have been why Misaka fell to the ground in the first place, rather than just stumble a bit like usual. Next time Misaka tugged she pushed herself up and dusted herself off, "Onee-sama," she sighed disapprovingly, "that is not a proper question to ask a lady."

"Hey there Kuroko," Saten stepped in to stop an argument, "How are you? We heard you were training, what are you doing here?"

Kuroko walked over to the backpack she had dropped in order to hug her Onee-sama, "I was going out for a jog," she explained as she hoisted it onto her back, "what about you?"

"I'm on patrol and I asked the other two to join me," Uiharu said, "There's no activity really so we were talking about training and talent."

"I heard the last thing," Kuroko told her, "did you know that only 2% of ESPers gain their powers directly out of the power curriculum program? And only a tiny fraction of those have powers higher than Level one. And even that tiny fraction has to go through the power curriculum program like everyone else. The idea of talent is ridiculous. So is the idea that anyone finds anything easy. 'Nothing ever becomes easy, you simply get used to the hardship'," She quoted Kuro.

"But isn't that easy for you or I to say Kuroko," Misaka said, a bit annoyed at Kuroko's insensitivity, "sure I trained like everyone else to improve my power but some people just have a harder time doing so. It's not necessarily their fault."

"Powers aren't the only thing I'm talking about. Uiharu, how many hours have you spent practicing your computer skills? Thousands probably, and that time shows. You are the best computer person-thing I have ever seen. You were the top of the class in the academy while I just did a bit above average. Saten, you…" there was silence for a few seconds as Kuroko scrambled for an example, "are the same…" she mumbled, not finding one.

A giant spear with the words "no skills" pierced her heart at Kuroko's accidently harsh words. Seeing that her friend had been accidently insulted Misaka rose to her defense, 'yeah Saten you have your…" then she realized she couldn't think of anything either and meekly finished, "stuff…". A second spear pierced right next to the other one. Now it was Uiharu's turn to try and mend the situation, "You're really good at…" but in the high pressure situation she drew a blank too, so she said the first thing that came to mind, "um… flipping skirts?" Five more spears one after the other stabbed Saten.

The next second the long haired girl was kneeling beside Uiharu hugging her waist, "it's just you and me against the world 'lime green panties'. You know I have skills don't you?" she narrated dramatically to Uiharu's underwear. Misaka and Kuroko sweatdropped while Uiharu blushed.

"I didn't mean to imply that you had no skills, you just don't showcase many of them. I'm sure you're good at plenty of stuff, but you goof off a lot too. If you want to be good at something you need to train," the teleporter said in both lecture and comfort, "before joining Judgment I usually trained about 80 hours a week to get to where I am now."

Suddenly everything became quiet as the other girls turned and looked at Kuroko, "did you say 80 hours a week?" Misaka asked.

"During a school week, during vacation I could sometimes get in almost 120 hours. How else did you think I could be so proficient at martial arts. I'm sure you trained as much Onee-sama. Though knowing you and how amazing you are you probably didn't need to. If talent exists I have none of it, I need training or I'm completely useless."

Misaka trained 10-25 hours on a good week, less probably on a week without school. That number that Kuroko said… "how in the world do you train 120 hours in seven days?" She didn't necessarily think that Kuroko was lying but if it was true, "that would mean you spent 17 hours a day. Is that healthy?"

"6 hours of sleep, an hour of necessary functions, and 17 hours of training. Seeing as how I'm still alive I think it was healthy enough," the teleporter explained, suddenly feeling like she was in the spotlight. All she had meant to do was comfort her friend. She should probably change the subject before her Onee-sama started asking more questions. It wouldn't be good if Misaka had discovered everything about her past, especially about those four years and the cause of them, "but my point is that the work you get out is directly proportional to the work you put in. Maybe it's not the same for ESPer abilities but for everything else I know it to be true."

"I guess," Saten said, "but I don't think any skill is worth that kind of training… except maybe the guitar…"

"you play the guitar?" Uiharu asked, never having heard about this before.

"A little bit when I was younger. I've always really wanted to play it but I've never really found the time or motivation. I hear it's really hard to pick up an instrument."

"Actually, while it's quite hard to learn the basics and get a feel for the instrument, it's quite natural once you do," Misaka said.

"You play violin don't you Misaka-san," Uiharu sighed, "such a ladylike instrument, I hope I could learn to play it one day."

"If you'd like I could give you lessons sometime. I don't think I can teach the guitar but I could teach the violin pretty well," the older girl offered.

"What about you Kuroko? Could you teach me guitar? Do you happen to have any rock in roll in your blood?" Saten joked.

"I could teach you a bit of piano but I'm trying to put my punk rock days behind me so no guitar," Kuroko said, sarcasm dripping from the last part of the sentence.

"Pity, I'm sure your hair would look great in a Mohawk," Saten mused and laughed, the others joining in.

"Well I should probably get on with my jog," Kuroko said. She gave Misaka a long hug, "I'll see you at home my darling Onee-sama. Keep up the good work Uiharu." She added just before setting off. However, before she could get far, Misaka spoke up.

"By the way, do you know anything about the incident with the parking garage that happened yesterday?"

"Nope," She called back with a smile and no hesitation, "Should I?"

"No, I was just wondering. See you later."

With that Kuroko continued her jog. Lying was another thing that improved with practice and she had practiced far too much in her life.

[1]: This story, as well as the others, were, once again, not word for word. Also the recurring raven within these stories isn't part of what the girls are saying. The raven is a symbol that tells you to doubt what I'm saying, a symbol that it might not be reality.

Author's Note: Final chapters of the Jericho arc are coming up next.

One of my readers has asked to see Kuroko's training in action and I personally wanted to talk about it myself. I am a firm believer in training. I think talent exists but isn't nearly as helpful as people think. Kuroko's only good at so many things because she has trained so hard, though even she only has a limited skillset. Training From Hell, as it is called on TVTropes, is not an excuse to have a character be good at everything nor should it allow a character to overcome someone who has trained considerably more, if less harshly, than they have. According to the 10000 hour rule(though with a slight alteration because I believe 5000 hours is sufficient for most things) Kuroko would have time to either master 4 things or master 3 things and become proficient it several others. Kuroko is a master at the spatial geometry and calculus used for her teleportation (she is especially skilled at precision teleportation), martial arts, and the battleaxe. She is not, currently, a master at anything else, though she is proficient at lockpicking, stealth, photography, the piano (though her skill has grown rusty), cooking, and etiquette. She has also extensively studied medicine, weaponry, maths, and physics. She is weak in the fields of History and the nuances of technology (she can use a computer well but she is terrible at things like hacking or driving). I am listing these now so you can call me out if she does anything not on the list at an unrealistic level of proficiency. I don't want her devolving into a do-everything-perfectly character that is boring to read about.

Coming Soon: Royal flush, the fall of The Queen.