Toaru Sonzai-kan no Tsuyo-sa

A Certain Strength of Presence

Misaka's eyes flittered open and she gazed up at the familiar ceiling. There was a familiar pressure of a small girl on top of her along with the familiar feel of a hard jagged line on otherwise feather-like flesh as her hand rested on the girl's back. The familiar, but nevertheless rare, scent of lilies filled her nostrils; it was the small girl's natural scent, without any of her usual perfumes or scented body washes to cover it. Tucked beneath her chin was the familiar sight of pinkish brown hair carefully brushed straight.

The next second she registered more familiar things. The familiar blaring of her alarm clock and the familiar taste and feel of Kuroko's lips on her own as the smaller girl's familiar bright and shining eyes opened and gazed into her own.

"Morning my love," Kuroko said like usual.

Misaka reached up to pat Kuroko's head, a simple show of affection even she was capable of doing daily, and said, "good morning, can you please put some clothes on." This sentence, too, was a surprisingly normal part of their daily routine, though usually said with more annoyance and without the word "please".

Kuroko obliged, standing up and walking over to the closet to get dressed, showing Misaka a little more than she was comfortable with. Kuroko meanwhile was disappointed that it had, once again been Misaka who had gotten her naked rather than the other way around.

Everything was just the same as it always was, a trend which continued throughout the morning until the lunch bell rang. As Misaka stood up and walked over to the door she noticed Kuroko's absence from her usual spot. This was evidenced by the fact that her classmates were not keeping a minimum of 10 feet away from that particular exit as they usually did to avoid the malevolent aura that the younger girl seemed able to cast. This was not too unusual however and she simply began her walk down to the cafeteria alone.

As Misaka walked down to the lunchroom, she received a note from a girl. The girl seemed quite nervous, handing her the note then scurrying off quickly. This wasn't new to Misaka, it had happened before, and when it had it had usually been a love letter given by a kohai (despite Tokiwadai being an all-girls school, but considering the relationship she was in at the moment…).

But this time it didn't look like a love letter, the stationary was far too plain for that and the writing wasn't nearly flowery enough. As she walked she unfolded the note and read it. The writing was simple and to the point and there wasn't a signature or any markings to denote who had written it.

"I would like to help you with your battle against STORM, meet me at the Amber Teahouse after school."

Once Misaka was done reading it she put it in her pocket and thought about the note. It could be a trap but the place that the note had suggested was quite public and within the highly secure Garden of Education, though quite far away from the school. So the chances of it being a trap were quite slim. She mulled it over for a while longer before deciding to risk it. It was more likely a genuine offer of aid by someone with something against STORM than it was another attempt against her.

She was joined shortly thereafter by Kuroko and they went up to the roof for lunch again.

"What took you?" Misaka asked as she sat down on the bench that, despite there being no roof access, had somehow made its way up here.

"Just doing something. Not really important." Kuroko replied as she handed Misaka her bento.

"Right, thanks," the older girl said as she opened up the box and saw the usual delicious lunch. The biggest benefit to Kuroko moving in was the bentos that she had made for her daily. Though it did raise one question, "where do you find the time to make these each morning?" she asked as she picked up a Gekota-shaped onigiri with a smile.

"Careful time management," Kuroko said. She had always tried to eliminate useless things from her daily schedule and use her time the best she could in order to free up more time for training. It transitioned nicely over to the busy schedule that she still kept herself to however.

"And why haven't you been making yourself one recently?" Misaka asked, looking to the girl who was leaning against her with empty hands.

"Because," the teleporter replied, "Onee-sama is the only thing I need, your presence is like a feast for my soul."

"Your body's what I'm worried about," the older girl said, honestly concerned, "You're not on a diet or something that's causing you not to eat right? You don't need to be." She assured Kuroko, perhaps unnecessarily considering just how thin the younger girl was.

"I suppose you could call it a diet, but it's not a weight loss thing. It's a fitness diet to help get the most out of my training, high protein, lots of vitamins, things like that. Mostly liquids and shakes."

There was silence for a while as she ate and Kuroko rested against her, then the younger girl spoke up, "I'll be doing more training after school so I'm going to head off immediately."

"Sure thing," Misaka said, glad that she was freed from having to come up with an excuse for her own after-school activity, "are you going to be training all weekend too?"

"Saturday I think, but If you really miss my company that much we can hang out on Sunday if you want."

"That's not what I meant," the older girl defended, "we just haven't spent much time together, which is kind of surprising given that you're you. I thought that you'd want to spend every minute of your newly earned free time with me."

"I do Onee-sama, I really do. But I know that when I spend too much time around you I'll lose control and get too clingy. I'd prefer spending less time but better time to more time with you angry at me half that time. So I use the rest of my extra time improving myself so when I get back in Judgment I'll be ready."

"That's… mature of you," Misaka admitted.

"I've been waiting months for you to fall in love with me and I'd hate myself if I messed it up now." She said, standing up as the bell rang. She took the empty bento from the electro-masters hands and kissed her cheek. Then she teleported the two of them back and they parted ways.

School proceeded normally from there and after school she went to the Amber Teahouse like the note said. She sat down at a table and ordered something, waiting for the person she was supposed to meet. It wasn't too long until she was joined by a somewhat familiar face, it was one of the girls who had accompanied Yashinko the last couple times Misaka had had the displeasure of meeting her.

"Hello Misaka," the girl said very formally. She was clearly nervous; her eyes darted back and forth as if afraid of people jumping out of the shadows. Her whole bearing was quite different than what it had been before. "My name is Rya," she continued, "I'd like to help you, or rather I'd like you to help me, actually I'd like if we helped each other. I know all about this whole STORM ordeal and I'd like you to know that I'm on your side here. I can tell you where to find Yashinko tonight and how you can end this once and for all." She handed Misaka what looked to be the floor plan to a building, "Go to the Honogun company headquarters and follow that map. Will you please help me."

It was an excellent stroke of good fortune for the electro-master, one that she was not planning to overlook. While it was again possible for this to be a trap this Rya girl didn't seem to be deceiving her. The other girl's heartbeat was slightly panicked in accordance with her general aura but it was steady, suggesting that she wasn't lying. So Misaka replied, "of course. Thank you for this."

"I just want to help you. She'll be there at 8 P.M. It's after closing time so there won't be anybody else other than security. Now I've got to go before she catches me." Rya said as she hurriedly stood up and left. Misaka didn't catch the proud grin on her face as she walked out the door.

The plan left her a few more hours of free time so she began to prepare. She went back to the dorm and began rooting through her desk until she found what she was looking for. It was a kit that Kuroko had prepared after the queen incident. The teleporter had given it to her saying, "if you ever go on another escapade, with or without me, at least bring this. It isn't for any long term romps but it has things that you might need in an emergency."

She looked through the kit to see what it contained then took out some of its contents, putting them in her pocket for greater ease of access then she began to put it away only to stop as she saw something. She took out the rest of the stuff and looked at the bottom of the box where a little card sat. Misaka half-smiled and half-frowned as she read it then placed the stuff back in the kit and put it away.

Once she was done with that she did a little research into the Honogun Corporation both to find out the address of the headquarters (which Rya had failed to give her) and to try and figure out what she could expect. When it was time she left the dorm and began her trip to her destination.

Her trip was short and uneventful and she now stood, in the dwindling light twilight, outside the headquarters of the Honogun Corporation.

She went over to one of the side doors and used her power to unlock its simple electrical security system then she entered. The map she had gotten from Rya said to go down a couple of floors to get to her destination so she walked over to the elevator. She overrode its controls and sent it down to the target floor. As it descended she focused on the surrounding electrical grid, trying to sort out what was and wasn't part of the security system. There were so many electronics that it was hard to sort out. So she decided to simply shut down everything but the lights within a small radius from herself to be safe. It seemed to work as the door opened and the camera at the end of the hall monitoring said elevator was shut down. However she must have missed something because it was hardly half a minute after that that an alarm sounded.

Misaka frowned at her bad luck but in the back of her mind she was grateful to finally have a challenge. She picked up the pace, running through the halls. Doors blocked off the path that had been suggested by Rya but that plan was already down the tube so she simply followed the open doors until she came to a dead end. There was a room leading from the dead end but the door to the room was closed.

Remembering the basic layout of the building from the map she knew that this room would give her a passage through to her destination. So she got out her container of iron sand and formed it into a small circular saw, using it to saw through the hinges of the door. It took a while but finally the door fell down into two halves and Misaka entered the room.

The room was fairly large and rectangular. The floor was littered with powders gels and solid blocks of stuff. Against the walls were many containers. The containers were all labeled with a similar sticker, a multicolored diamond with 3 numbers each within a smaller blue, red, and yellow diamond. It was a hazard sticker though Misaka wasn't skilled enough to decipher it she noticed that many of the numbers within the yellow diamond were quite high.

The containers were also labeled with chemical formulas, though Misaka didn't really understand those either. However underneath the chemical formulas was another label, and this was what finally made Misaka understand the danger she was in. The label had common names for what were in the various containers: Gunpowder, Nitroglycerin, TNT, C-4. And all the contents seemed to be scattered about on the floor, just waiting for a single spark or bit of heat to go off completely and bring this whole place down around their heads.

At the end of the room, next to another empty container, was a lone girl, Yashinko's other companion. Her name was Kazege if Misaka remembered correctly. She was trembling, appearing terribly frightened but also strangely brave, as if she was holding her ground in front of a hungry lion.

"Go away," she said. Her words were so quiet that Misaka could barely hear.

Misaka was not exactly inclined to do as she was told, but fighting was out of the question given the volatile nature of their current location. So she decided to try and talk. "Listen..." She began.

"GO AWAY!" The other girl yelled this time, her voice full of fear. She raised her hand and the iron sand blade that Misaka still had out and ready to use fused together in a solid clump of red and black flecked iron and dropped to the floor, getting rid of the electro-master's one weapon she could use without causing an explosion.

Knowing this it took a lot of guts for Misaka to say, "no. After all that STORM and Yashinko have put me and my friends through I'm not going to leave and let it continue."

"IT WASN'T HER FAULT!" Kazege yelled, "it wasn't her fault... it all just got out of hand. She never wanted this fight... she never wanted any of it. Please... go away..." with each word she got quieter and quieter until the final words which were said in the same whisper she had begun with. Tears streamed down her face.

Misaka thought over her words and considered them, then she took a deep breath and said, "maybe she didn't mean it but it doesn't change the fact that it happened and that it might continue happening. I'm not going away until I get a promise that it will stop, but if I can get that peacefully then I won't need to hurt anybody ok?"

"R... really," the other girl asked. She seemed hesitant to trust Misaka but she seemed even more hesitant to fight her, "promise you wont hurt Ya-chan?"

"I pro-" Misaka began until a gunshot suddenly rang through the corridors. Misaka, already strung up by the stressful situation, instinctively shot a lightning bolt in the direction of the sound. Luckily no explosives were set off, unluckily the lightning bolt created a massive flash and clap of thunder, causing Kazege to cower behind the container which stood next to her.

"LIAR" the now completely terrified little girl yelled as explosions suddenly started going off in the room. Big ones and small ones, randomly going off throughout the entire room with no apparent target.

The fringe of a few of the shockwaves served to knock Misaka out of the room into the hall were she quickly took cover behind the door frame. She glanced down the hallway. It would be easy to take another route but not only could that mean even greater opposition but it would also mean leaving a barely stable girl in a room full of explosives which were slowly destroying the building. She sighed and looked back into the room.

The explosions seemed to happen completely at random but the weird thing was that it did not seem to be a part of any sort of chain reaction, there didn't seem to be any sort of chain reaction. However that didn't change the fact that there were several deadly explosions happening a second and she had no way of traversing the room. She closed her eyes and tried to think.

That's when it hit her: Kazege's power. Her power must have been the thing that was making sure that the explosives didn't go off even when there was an explosion near them. Kazege's power was control over oxidation reactions. It even explained how her iron sand sword had been broken apart into its compound iron oxides.

Of course knowing that at this stage might not be much of a help… unless…

Misaka fired another lightning bolt to create another thunderclap. The explosions stopped momentarily as Kazege began sobbing harder, but the sounds of her crying were covered up the next second as the explosions resumed, though now they were slightly smaller than before. The electromaster continued creating thunder until the explosions continued even with the thunder ringing. Misaka figured that either the other girl had put earplugs in (much as she herself had done with the earplugs she had gotten from the kit when the first explosion had gone off and she had taken cover) or had done something else to lock herself off from the noise. But it had served its purpose. During that time she had managed to clear a small lane free from explosives using one half of the door to scoop and dump them. She had gotten as much room as possible before the door had been ripped to shreds by the explosions.

The only problem was that the lane wasn't wide enough to traverse safely with the explosions on the side and the remaining half of a door wasn't good enough protection right now. So she concentrated on the static she had spread throughout the room, concentrated on all of the electrons bounding about, and used one of her lesser used power to lower the electricity level throughout the room.

Contrary to popular belief Misaka's main power was not the creation of electricity. She did attract a constant, low level static charge(one that Kuroko was all too familiar with given it was what was released each night) and could control the flow of static electricity, but this was not what allowed her to wield a billion volts at once. Her true ability was the ability to alter the amount of energy that the electrons had, their elementary charge. This manipulation of energy allowed her to make a lightning bolt out of the same number of electrons that one would normally find in a cell phone battery.

However, not only could she increase the energy contained in electrons, but she could also decrease it. Passively this allowed her to be immune to electricity, but actively it wasn't much good. However, oxidation reactions were all about the exchange of electrons, so lowering the amount of energy that an electron held would also lower the energy of the oxidation reaction thus decreasing the size and power of the explosions.

With that done she picked up the other door with her powers and used it as a shield as she ran down the lane to the other end of the room. Then she ran towards the container Kazege was hiding behind. She was halfway there when she noticed the door open, she looked towards it only to see a bright red fire extinguisher speeding towards her. She barely made it in time to block it with the door. As footsteps resounded throughout the room out the door and down the hall. The door slammed shut behind them and the electronics were disabled like they had been on the door at the entrance.

Yashinko ran down the hallway at max speed, dragging along the sobbing Kazege by her hand. "there there," she tried to comfort, "I'm so sorry I left you but I'm here now and it's going to be alright. I have a plan, just follow me."

Author's Note: It's kind of hard to understand why Kazege is so upset and afraid when she's fighting Misaka. But as I see it, not only is she fighting a level 5, people so powerful they are capable of taking on a military force and winning, alone, but this particular level 5's ability is the embodiment of what she fears most. It would be like someone with a fear of snakes fighting Apep or someone with a fear of bugs fighting Mothra. Knowing that puts into perspective the dedication it must have taken for her to volunteer to hold her off while Yashinko escaped, and Yashinko's reluctance to allow her to do so.

Sorry for another late update by the way. The thing is I actually finished this chapter a couple days after my last one but it got deleted and working up the motivation to rewrite something is 1000 times more difficult than working up the motivation to write it in the first place.

Anyway, next chapter is the last of the Jericho arc (I mean it this time) and then there are 7-10 more chapters until the story is over.

Coming Soon: Return of the shadows,whispered favors and the mind's eye.

Dedications: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to all the people who have recently favorited my story, it makes me happy to see that you like my work. Don't be shy and write me a review too.