Toaru Ishi no Hyōji

A Certain Display of Intention

Rya grinned as she took the keycard she had stolen from Yashinko a while ago out of her pocket and slid it through the electronic lock on the wall turning one of the lights from red to green. Then she took what looked like a glove out and put it on. Then she pressed her thumb to the fingerprint scanner and waited a few seconds until the other light turned green and the door slid open. The room was unguarded and empty of people, not surprising considering her little pawn had tripped the alarm several minutes ago.

Now, laptop in hand, she walked into her rom, talking to herself as was her habit. It was a common trait of telepaths, either being overly quiet through an acquired aversion to interaction with people that came from being able to read their thoughts, or being overly loud in an attempt to drown out the background noise. Many chose music, Rya preferred the sound of her own voice. Right now she believed it was time for a bit of gloating.

The room which she was in was filled with databanks and computers holding the collective results from the Honogun Corporations Research and Development teams. Very few things were kept on a physical medium any more so this room contained almost everything that they had created through the years or were going to create in the future.

"It took months to get here," Rya said, "months cozying up to that worm Yashinko and playing along with her little club. It was a bit of fun undermining her efforts and ruining her reputation but it was really way too slow. Thank god the Queen dropped out and her faction fell apart or I might never have been able to find an opportunity to betray Yashinko."

Rya laughed a little, "and Misaka just made it too easy. She's so easy to manipulate. Simply alter a few of Yashinko's orders to get her and her friends a bit beaten up and she turns into the perfect weapon. A powerful little pawn that destroys everything in her path, all she needs is a path to go on. With this Yashinko will be hospitalized or maybe even killed," Rya said with glee apparent in her voice, "not only that but with all the armed guards in the building Misaka will probably be bumped off too. Two thorns out of my side for the price of one. "

"Not only that," She continued feeling even happier as she listed each of the many facets of her victory, "but now I have access to all of this companies records. Once I've downloaded every piece of data that I can fit and uploaded the little virus I got from that Riko guy, I'll have this entire place by the throat. I could blackmail it to my heart's content, or just steal what I can now and leak it to one of their competitors for a hefty fee."

"And the best part is, no one can stop me," she said as she put her laptop down on the nearest flat surface. A second past before she jerked to the side just a moment before a needle appeared in the place she had just been. She put her hand out and let the heavy metal pin fall into her gloved palm as she said, "Not even you."

Rya spun around, still appearing as if she was talking to thin air, "given that that was teleportation I'm guessing your Misaka's little crony, koko or whatever. I'd guess you were here to help her out but that wouldn't explain why you're here to hack into this place too. Not that that matters. Come on out of the shadows and fight me properly, though even if you don't you're still no match for me." She continued as she moved her hand up to block a kick that wasn't there, the leg that delivered it appearing only after the impact. Suddenly in front of Rya appeared a small individual dressed completely in a black catsuit, though either it was hardly form fitting or the person wearing it had a chest flatter than a table

"Interesting. How exactly did you do that huh? Your power isn't invisibility."

"I'm not invisible, you're just blind," A voice issued from the helmet of the suit. The voice was slightly disturbing. It sounded artificial, very flat, emotionless, and standardized, such that it would be impossible to tell anything about the person inside merely from listening, but it was not totally artificial, the intonation of the words were natural.

"Blind or not what I said before was true. You can't stop me. It's not like you can beat me in a fight, I've had years of martial arts training. Besides, if you heard what I said earlier you should know that Misaka's in danger. Yashinko's no match for her but all the security guards with all their guns are. She'll be swiss cheese before you know it."

"All the more reason to finish you off quickly," Kuroko said as she smiled under the helmet. Normally she would be off in a second to defend her Onee-sama but the only danger were the security guards, all of whom she had knocked out shortly after the alarm sounded. Though she had almost gotten shot before she could finish them all up, luckily the bullet missed. Not that it mattered. Today she was wearing the second part of the suit as well, the padding, making her even more bulletproof, "and you're not the only one with training."

So the fight continued. However something strange was going on, Kuroko wasn't winning. She undoubtedly had more experience than this other girl but none of her shots seemed to hit. It wasn't even that Rya was fast, but she seemed to be able to block almost before Kuroko herself had begun to move.

You cannot lose this Shiro. You're wearing armor and she is not, nothing she can do can hurt you so abandon your subtlety, grab her arm, and flip her onto the floor. Kuro suggested as Shiro kicked.

Then Kuro noticed something strange, Rya blocked the kick but she also adjusted her stance so that her arm was in a better position to defend against grapples and her eyes looked around. Kuro considered this and decided to test a theory. 'Strike from the top left,' she thought as Shiro attempted to sweep Rya's feet.

Once again Rya dodged both of the attacks. Rya's power worked best in a fight. In a fight an untrained person's mind was usually on what they would be doing when the fight was done so their intentions for what happened in the actual fight weren't too strong but were still clear and readable. On the opposite end of the spectrum a trained martial artist was very fluid, any intentions for their moves were weak because they were able, ready, and willing to change what they were going to do in the middle of their move but even this could be read, in fact because a martial artist tended to think several moves in advance it was actually easier for her. Either way it was still enough to allow her, with all of her training, to beat pretty much anyone. Knowing exactly what your opponent was going to do was an invaluable tool in a fight.

Still this fight was different. This girl, Koko or something, obviously had even more experience than she did and she was wearing something akin to armor. None of the few blows that Rya landed seemed to have any effect, not only that but now there was a second person that she couldn't see. It must have been the one that had been cloaking her in the first place. Still Rya could hardly betray these doubts, so she arrogantly said, "Even with all your trickery and backup you can't win. The sooner you admit defeat the sooner y..." Suddenly Rya felt an overpowering will. As opposed to the vague and weak feelings from the fight, this was a powerful urge, something that the person feeling would do anything to fulfill: The urge to crush her arm into a fine powder.

She was momentarily stunned by the gruesome and overwhelming thought, long enough for Kuroko to finally land a hit, knocking Rya down onto floor. Happy that her plan was working Kuro continued.

Now on the floor, Rya tried to recover when she was suddenly bombarded by thoughts and intentions similar to before. Horrible feelings washed over Rya, a powerful desire to rip her apart piece by piece as slowly and painfully as possible. Her eyes widened in fear as she tried to back away towards the wall from this invisible person who seemed to want nothing more than causing her as much pain as possible. Over and over again these she felt these urges in the air, she had never felt such a strong urge to hurt someone before, she knew nothing would stop the person feeling them from hurting, torturing, killing her. The sheer power and grotesque nature of these intentions caused her to feel sick and puke as she looked all over the room for any sign of this invisible psychopath. She was so distracted that she didn't see as Kuroko walked up to her and knocked her out with a quick hit to the temple.

Once that was over Kuroko opened her mouth to speak but Kuro interrupted her, What was that about?

"I was about to ask you the same… I guess she's just mentally unstable. Either way," she began as she fiddled with a few of her helmet's buttons, "Either way we have some work to do here." She said, turning to the computer that she had been at before Rya had come into the room.

It had all begun at lunchtime when she saw that she had gotten a text from Birdy, with the subject "Urgent". Worried, she had gone to the roof to read it.

"Dad wants to speak to you after you're done with school. It's about those things you've been looking for. He says to meet him at the usual place and that it's really important for him, and you, and the entire city." Given that there were still Birdy's usual smattering of emoticons all over the text she guessed that she herself wasn't too worried, but the fact that it was completely typed out rather than Birdy's usual abbreviations and acronyms meant that she did understand it's importance. Not only that but she referred to Itora as "dad". Usually she only did so when talking about him getting caught, it meant that she was worried about him.

She texted back saying that she would head there after school then went to have lunch with her Onee-sama. She made up an excuse about having to do some more training and had gone to Garu's office in Mendeleev industries where the two CEO's were waiting for her.

"Ah welcome," Garu said, slightly surprised by her sudden appearance. His office had quite a bit of security but it, like the rest of the world, was as vulnerable as anything to teleportation. It was slightly disturbing, to know that no lock could defend you from invasion, even if it was only one person who could invade.

"Glad you're here, we have some news regarding the Horns of Jericho. It appears that the Honoguns have managed to acquire one and are working on replicating it as we speak. If they succeed they can create enough to shut down every ESPer in the city, effectively putting it under their control. I hardly need to tell you how disastrous this would be for Academy City, if even one more of those are made then the consequences could be dire. However we don't have enough evidence of any of this to go to the police and our forces can hardly attack without there being enough media investigations to unearth the entire underworld. So I would like your help, you have proven as or even more able than Anti-Skill at things like this. We can give you all the information and supplies you'll need, so will you help us."

"Yes," Kuroko said simply and immediately. She understood exactly what would happen, she knew the power of these Capacity Downs, she had seen her Onee-sama, the 3rd most powerful level 5, left completely crippled by it. She knew what would happen if a group of people as powerful and cruel as the Honogun's were to suddenly have access to dozens. "Tell me what to do and I'll handle the rest."

For the next hour or so she was completely debriefed on the situation and her part in it. She was simply to wait until the employees went home then infiltrate the building, locate the room that held the blueprints and research data on the Horns, then destroy it, as well as any physical documentation on it.

Once she had been completely debriefed, she had armed up and waited until it was time. When she got here she was quick to destroy the physical documentation first, disappointed to see that the horn wasn't among the files and initial prototypes that were quickly and efficiently dealt with as she teleported them 80 meters straight down where they were quickly crushed by almost 400 pounds per square inch[1].

She then began to move towards the research database room but was slightly surprised when the alarm sounded. At the time she had thought that someone had noticed the sudden disappearance of most of the contents of one of the room on a hidden camera overseeing the room but now she guessed that her Onee-sama had set it off by accident.

Unfortunately Kuroko had, at the time, been very near the armory where almost every guard was currently arming or disarming for the shift change and the alarm had caused them to flood out of the room. It had taken her a while to dispose of all of them but the delay was apparently for the best as it had likely saved her Onee-sama's life.

When she was done dispatching the guards she had teleported into the research database room and had begun her deletion of the data of the target computer using the login information, obtained through the corporate spy who had first discovered this plan, that Itora had given her during the debriefing. She had hardly managed to get any done by the time Rya had opened the door. When that had happened she had hid and listened, finally striking when she could no longer contain her anger that someone would use her Onee-sama like that.

Of course now that she was done with that she got back on to her duty, wrapping up as quickly as she could then flipping on the tracker. She trusted in her Onee-sama's ability to defend herself but it wouldn't hurt to check up on her. She turned cloaking back on then left the room, dragging Rya out into the hallway. With that done she activated the explosives she had planted in the room, utterly destroying many of the memory banks and teleported away to the tiny blip on her sunglasses' map.

Misaka checked the door to see that the electronic lock had been effectively destroyed; preventing her from opening it like that, and unfortunately her iron sand supply had run out with that last fight. Still she was not without her wits and she quickly formulated a cunning plan to get the door open.

Abandoning any hint of subtlety that still remained, Misaka levitated the remains of the other door with her electro-magnetism. She floated it across the room then quickly sent it flying back, ramming the other door with enough power to destroy it. With that she followed the direction she had heard the footsteps going towards. On her way she was surprised to see the heaped bodies of what looked to be around 20 security guards all in armor though lacking guns for some reason or another.

Misaka soon arrived at another, much larger, door, however this one opened as she walked up to it, allowing her entrance into another room. This room was far bigger than the other one and lined on both sides by robots of various sizes with one massive robot in the middle. In an adjoining room at the far end, behind a thick sheet of bulletproof glass was Yashinko, with Kazege still sobbing at her feet.

The doors slammed shut behind her as the robot in the center of the room activated. It towered 10 to 12 feet tall and bristled with weapons. Suddenly it lunged forward with surprising speed leaving Misaka barely enough time to vacate the spot she had been where the robots giant fist was now lodged.

Using her powers she shot herself towards the steel-plated walls, landing on one of the small robots as the large one turned back towards her and lowered its other arm, which was actually a massive machine gun, at her. Quickly she jumped behind the robot she was on and used it as a shield. The powerful, full metal jacketed bullets were making quick work of the thick armor however and one of the robot's large bladed arms was soon shot completely off with the torso almost ready to follow.

Thinking quickly Misaka shot the robot that she was using as a shield at the larger one. The bigger one batted it aside like an annoying fly with its fist. In that time however Misaka had managed to close the distance and was wielding the smaller robot's fallen off blade arm with her power. A quick slice cut off the joint where the gun connected sending it and the ammo clattering to the floor, embedding her weapon into the ground in the process.

Unfortunately this hardly stopped the giant metal machine which sped backwards as what looked to be a large rectangular box flipped from its back onto its shoulder. Then the front swung up and Misaka's eyes widened as she saw that it was full of missiles.

The missiles launched out of the container coming at her at speed. But the electro-master was quick and used her power on the cupronickle plated full metal jacketed bullets that the robot hadn't yet fired when Misaka destroyed its arm. She whipped them towards the missiles as if they were the iron sand of her Satetsuken. The bullets shredded through the missiles, destroying them in a series of eight explosions.

Next Misaka fired a powerful lightning bolt right at the metal monstrosities feet. However the tires that it used to move were made of rubber and the solid steel floor plate dispersed the lightning so no harm was done.

Now ready to finally finish this fight up the robot began to move towards her only to discover that it was stuck. While the rubber tires had insulated it from the electric shock the heat that the lightning had produced when it had hit the floor had melted the rubber together, preventing the machine from moving.

Now that her enemy was immobile, Misaka took a deep breath and drew the remaing bullets into a small cloud around her right hand. She could feel Yashinko manipulating the robot's circuitry which meant there was nobody inside. That meant that she didn't need to hold back.

Drawing her hand back then rapidly forward again she fired the 50 cupronickle bullets at 3 times the speed of sound right at the robot. The cloud of bullets spread out as she fired, shredding both the robot and the wall behind it apart.

Her enemy dispatched, Misaka now turned towards Yashinko. But before she could do anything she was surrounded by the smaller robots. The ones who had guns fixed them onto her, ready to fire at a moment's notice. She was completely trapped.

Now that she had the level five exactly where she wanted her Yashinko readied her power to set the robots to shoot, but before that she wanted to know why the electro-master had gone so far for revenge. Speaking into a microphone, the technopath addressed the electro-master, "You've gone too far this time, invading my home and hurting Ka-chan."

"I've gone too far? You were the one who started this whole mess. You hurt me and you hurt my friends and I'm not going to allow it to continue," Misaka stated with anger in her voice.

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone, and you've hurt my people more than I've hurt yours. You've escalated this conflict as much as I have. This is as much your fault as mine. If you're eager enough to come to my father's company and knock out all of his employees just to end this then you clearly want this war more than I do."

Misaka was about to respond when suddenly another voice cut into their conversation. It sounded like a recording of a familiar voice, "It took months to get here," The voice said, echoing from the speakers in the room, "months cozying up to that worm Yashinko and playing along with her little club. It was a bit of fun undermining her efforts and ruining her reputation but it was really way too slow. Thank god the Queen dropped out and her faction fell apart or I might never have been able to find an opportunity to betray Yashinko."

The person in the recording laughed a little, "and Misaka just made it too easy. She's so easy to manipulate. Simply alter a few of Yashinko's orders to get her and her friends a bit beaten up and she turns into the perfect weapon. A powerful little pawn that destroys everything in her path, all she needs is a path to go on. With this Yashinko will be hospitalized or maybe even killed," the voice was full of glee as it continued, "not only that but with all the armed guards in the building Misaka will probably be bumped off too. Two thorns out of my side for the price of one. "

The voice continued for a few more paragraphs then stopped. Suddenly the microphone was destroyed as if with an invisible hand. Yashinko had been so distracted talking and listening that she hadn't even realized it when a piece of technology had appeared in the room right next to her.

"The girl's coming her was not her fault, nor were the unconscious security guards," A voice said, flat and artificial, "what happened to you was the fault of your subordinate. It was betrayal. And as for what has happened here, what will happen to your father… it is the fault of me. Judgment desu no [2]."

Then, before Yashinko could do or say a thing, she was knocked unconscious by a quick hit to the head, with the same happening to Kazege shortly afterwards. After she had done that she left the room. She had managed to save her Onee-sama with that recording.

It was yet another one of the suits many fabulous features was its ability to automatically record and reproduce sounds that had happened within a couple minutes with the ability to save parts of the recording for the suits database, which she had done with Rya's gloating to herself. She had intended to use it as a confession when she brought her in for her crimes but she was glad it had served an even more meaningful purpose.

With that done she began heading off. Her Onee-sama was safe and she had one more person to find before she could reveal herself to the older girl. Not that she was going to anyway. She knew that she was here for her own personal revenge but she would prefer the electro-master didn't know why she was here or that she was here at all.

Shortly after the recording had finished all the robots surrounding Misaka suddenly shut down. She looked to the room where Yashinko had been and saw that she could no longer see her in it. She went over to investigate and discovered that the two girls were unconscious. Whoever had played that recording (and knocked out the guards on the way here in all probability) must have knocked them out too.

Misaka clenched her hand into a fist, angered that she had been manipulated. Next time she saw Rya she would make sure to give her a piece of her mind, until then she saw fit to forgive Yashinko for what she had done.

So she began to look for the exit. The door leading to the way back was locked and the lock disabled. It was too thick to break easily and she was too tired to used her powers to any great degree, so she went through the door at the far end with the intention of circiling back. She recalled the map she had seen and began walking through the corridors back towards the entrance until she came to a room.

'Right through here and then a few more corridors and I'll be back at the entrance,' she thought to herself as she opened the door and walked through only for this one to slam shut and lock behind her as well. Misaka groaned as she fell into another trap.

This room was different from the others. It was large and consisted of what seemed to be two stories. If Misaka remembered this was where the general work floor was and the second story contained the offices of the CEO and overseer. A large scaffold like wall lead up to it but it was otherwise inaccessible from this room. On top of this looking down on her was a man with a suitcase in his hands. Beneath him on the main floor were two guards with guns pointed at her.

"Ah, how serendipitous that you choose this route," the man with the suitcase said, looking down at her. His voice hardly sounded surprised (why would it be, he had locked down all other paths). "The famous level five, the railgun. You'll be a valuable research subject. Let's start the experiment now," he said as he opened the suitcase and flipped a switch. Suddenly a loud high-pitched noise filled the room and Misaka fell to her knees. She recognized this noise, the only noise which could completely shut down her powers, as they were right now.

"Blow her leg off beneath the knee. She should survive that and it seems like a good price for all the trouble she's caused." He ordered casually, as if he was ordering what to have for dinner.

Misaka's eyes widened as they lowered their guns at her. She could do nothing, she was powerless and the pain from the capacity down kept her immobile. She shut her eyes tight and listened as the shots reverberated around the room. Opening her eyes when she realized she wasn't feeling any pain. When she did so she saw someone kneeling in front of her, the person held themselves to completely cover her, blocking any bullets from hitting her by planting herself in the way.

Kuroko had hardly expected to teleport into such a scene and she had utterly panicked when the Horn had been suddenly activated when she was still too far away from Misaka to do anything and Kuro took over. She knew how Kuro felt about her Onee-sama, she was sure she would let her die.

But instead Kuro lunged in front of her and waited until all 60 bullets, 30 from each of the automatic rifles that the guards carried, had hit her and the clicks of empty barrels was all that could be heard. When this happened she lunged forward, ignoring the immense pain. She was over to the first guard in the blink of an eye and she slugged him hard, knocking him unconscious. Then she grabbed his empty gun before it hit the floor and spun on her heel, chucking it hard at the other guard. It clipped his head and knocked him out too

Then she turned to the wall and jumped up. The scaffold was easy to climb and she was up the ten foot wall in half a second. She pushed herself up and over the rail and tackled the man on top to the ground.

Now out of sight of the pereskia Kuro spoke calmly and quietly to the man as she kept a hand pressed hard over his mouth, preventing him from making any sound. "A message from the Board of Merchants Honogun. 'if you break the rules, so do we'." She said, then she plunged her other hand into the man's eye socket and plucked the orb out, crushing it in her hands. She could feel the screams of pain muffled beneath her hand. She hit him again to knock him out and stop the screaming. Then she retrieved something from his pocket.

With her last mission done she stood up and walked over to the capacity down and turned it off. Then she picked it up and hopped over the railing to the floor. She walked over to the pereskia, who was just recovering . She stopped in front of her and she spoke, "Thanks," she said.

Kuro didn't respond, simply walking past her and out the door. "wait," the pereskia called and followed her. She walked through the corridors, opening any locked doors in her way with the master keycard she had taken from Honogun's pocket.

No more words were exchanged between the two as she left the building, the pereskia tailing her. All was silent as they walked for around a minute, then Shiro spoke up.

You saved Onee-sama

"I did," Kuro replied. The microphone of the otherwise soundproof helmet was turned off so literally no sound escaped as they walked through the corridors.

I thought you hated Onee-sama…

"I dislike her, but you care about her and I care about you. I would not rob you of something you loved because of my own petty dislike. I would not sacrifice your life to save her as you would if I had the choice, but if it will not kill you in the process I promise to protect the people you care about any time I need to take over your body, even if I find them detestable."

Thank you.

"Who are you," Misaka's curiosity finally bursting as she asked the strange person dressed all in black who had saved her life. The person stopped and turned to her then they walked up. Misaka was cautious but she doubted they would hurt her and she wanted to see what they were doing. Finally they stood about a foot away from her, hand on the lower part of their helmet's visor. Misaka was about to speak up when suddenly the person was on her and something soft and familiar was pressing against her lips.

A few seconds later and they separated. "Kuroko?" Misaka asked, confused as to why the teleporter was here in that outfit and a bit embarrassed that she had had enough practice to be able to tell exactly who it was from just a kiss.

"I'm surprised you're surprised Onee-sama," she said as she took the helmet off completely and teleported the briefcase into one of her secret spots which happened to be within 100 meters of her, "don't you remember what I told you?'

Misaka thought for a second then smiled as she remembered what had been on the notecard in the emergency kit. "You are never alone," she recited. "I guess this is twice you've saved me. I guess that makes us even on that front," she said, recalling the two times she had saved the younger girl before they had become roommates.

'Not quite, I still owe you so much, more than I can ever pay back, for saving me from me,' Kuroko thought, but out loud she asked, "are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What about you? You got hit with a lot of bullets back there… how did you even survive?" She said, getting more and more worried as she recalled what had happened.

"I'm fine I'm fine," she waved off and tapped her chest, "bullet-proof armor. I'm going to have some bruises tomorrow, but I should be fine."

"Where did you get that?" Misaka asked.

"Same place as the nightstick and flash grenades. From a military surplus supplier," the younger girl replied. It was a half-truth since technically the Black Market did sell lots of military surplus.

Misaka nodded, grateful that Kuroko hadn't been hurt, then she noticed something else, "what happened to the suitcase you were carrying?"

"Oh I destroyed it, teleported it straight down as far as I could," she lied, " I was too worried about you to remember to do so until you spoke up."

"Do you know what it was," the electro-master asked.

"From the sound of it… a capacity down. I managed to turn the sound proofing on in my helmet as soon as I heard it so I wasn't affected," Kuroko lied again. She knew that she had been powerless even with the suit's protective measures. The power of the capacity down didn't need to be heard to affect people.

Wanting to end the interrogation quickly, the teleporter took Misaka's hand, "We should probably hurry if we want to be home by curfew," she said and began teleporting back home.

When they got back Misaka went into the bathroom for a nice shower as Kuroko stripped out of her armor and put it back in her sports bag. With that done she walked over to the bathroom door. She could hear the shower running inside. She reached up to the knob and turned it, surprised to see that it was unlocked. She guessed that was simply from her Onee-sama forgetting to do so because she was tired and stressed, but that didn't stop her from taking it as a deliberate invitation and quietly walked in.

The warm water from the shower poured over Misaka as she began to relax. The difficult conflict was finally over and she had made it out mostly unscathed.

Suddenly she heard something behind her, she turned to see Kuroko standing naked behind her with a gentle smile. Misaka's eyes widened in surprise and she drew the shower curtain up to hide her as she drew her fist back and sparks shot from her forehead, instinctively ready to punish Kuroko harshly. Before she could go through with it however she saw the other's girl's chest and the skin, which had only just recently recovered, showed signs of severe bruising. Her fist fell back to her side and the sparks died, her anger, however, did not and she yelled at the other girl, "WHAT THE HELL! I'M IN HERE KUROKO,"

"It's lights out soon," the other girl responded as water began hitting her form causing an almost imperceptible wince of pain, "there's not enough time for us each to have a shower separately and you're not the only one who needs one after today."

"Then you take it," she said as she began to step out of the tub, not wanting to argue while she was naked.

However before she could leave she felt Kuroko's arms wrap around her in a tight embrace. "Don't leave," the younger girl asked, her voice pleading, "back there… when you were being attacked… you were so close to dying… I was so worried… I don't want you to leave me." Her voice was shaking but the water pouring on them from the shower head made it hard to tell if those were tears that were rolling down her shoulder where the younger girl's head was buried.

The sincerity in her voice weakened Misaka's resolve but the skin on skin contact was making her incredibly uncomfortable. Her soft skin interrupted only by the rough strips of scar tissue and the wet gauze of the bandage that was still wrapped around her lower stomach were pressed against Misaka's bare back. Kuroko's arms were wrapped around her bare stomach with her head resting on Misaka's shoulder. The heartbeat was close and loud in Misaka's ears, though it could hardly compare to Misaka's own thundering heart. "I'm not going to leave you," she said carefully, "I just don't want to shower with you, it's too much right now."

Kuroko replied with only one word, "Please…" she said.

That one word was just enough to convince the wavering electro-master. "Fine… just back up a little bit okay."

there was a pause as the arms let go of her and the teleporter stepped back slightly, "can I wash your back and hair?" she asked, deciding to push her luck.

She was surprised to hear her Onee-sama say, "… eyes up and if your hands wander I will hurt you." Which was the closest thing to a yes that she would ever receive.

She smiled widely as she gratefully accepted her cosmic reward for her work tonight.

[1]: This is one reason why I think Kuroko is immensely powerful. At 80 meters below the surface of water the pressure is around 130 psi. Since the earth's crust has an average density 3 times greater than water this would triple leading to the figure mentioned, probably even higher given that there is something on top of it. This would be enough to effectively crush anyone or anything she, or any other teleporter, teleported downwards and there would be no evidence of it either.

[2]: "It is Judgment".

Author's Note: With this the battle of STORM and the Jericho arc comes to a close. Rya was soon afterwards placed in an asylum after Kuro's psychological warfare finally broke her already fragile mind. The Honogun Coroporation's stock plummeted after the attack on their headquarters, an incident that oddly was not reported to the police, but the company was saved from collapsing when it was purchased by Mind Over Matter, Itora's company. He kept Honogun as the CEO but now Itora has his men overseeing Honogun's every move. STORM disbanded as Yashinko was finally stood up for herself and told her father that she didn't want to have a faction. She successfully wrestled some freedom to do what she wanted back and now spends her days hanging out with her imouto-ka-chan and enjoying that freedom. And Community finally got its fourth season.

A pretty good ending I think.

But here the real battle begins for Misaka and her friends.

Coming Soon: Out of the frying pan into the fire, the sweltering springtime faceoff.