Toaru Shidō-sha no Tsūkoku
A Certain Ultimatum of Leadership
Within a minute Kuroko had arrived at the main base. It was a large shipping building, more than half of which was taken up by a massive garage. Unsurprisingly this is where she went first, teleporting up to the rafters and keeping her suit on stealth mode. Looking down to the main part of the freight garage she saw the twenty or so vans lined up in rows as well as a mass of Skill Out around them. A few quick scans with her helmet showed that beneath the sides were massive stereo systems. It seemed like these were her targets.
Though the vans were all roughly the same size and build they looked considerably different. Some looked like converted ambulances or news vans others more like the van they had come across before. Many were decorated with custom images though most were the cliché skull and crossbones or flame patterns. The most interesting ones featured a picture of an eight legged horse with an eye patched man on top fighting a massive wolf and on the other side a chariot pulled by two goats held a hammer wielding man against a huge serpent.
The teleporter quickly weighed her options, deciding what she should do. A direct assault was out of the question, for as good as she was, she was outnumbered by what looked like 200 gangsters to her one single judgment agent. Even with her armor protecting her she would soon die from the sheer amount of blunt trauma.
So she got out the box she had picked up from her secret spot. They were a series of small, remote-controlled explosives that she had picked up in her last paranoia-induced trip to the black market. A place Kuroko was surprised she was still allowed into considering her reputation, which actually seemed to be more appreciated than not. Apparently the gun and drug smugglers she had apprehended had actually been rivals of some people in the black market system who actually appreciated it.
Kuroko then got out the file she received from Ritoku. She leafed through it until she arrived at the blueprints of the van and scanned the diagram for a safe place to put the explosive to disable the speakers without killing anyone inside. She decided on what she felt to be a relatively good spot, right next to the speaker's power supply. The power supply was a bank of batteries which was not explosive and was shielded in enough metal that the explosion would be contained and the acid from the destroyed batteries wouldn't kill anyone. With that decided she teleported the explosives into each of the vans one by one.
Now the question was when she should detonate them. If she did it now then no ESPers would get hurt but then again it also meant that none of the Skill Out thugs would go to prison for their crime. But if she detonated them later on then some people might get affected and hurt by them, not only that but even if she let them run loose she had no guarantee that they would be arrested. With that in might the obvious choice was the first option. She took the detonator out of her pocket and was about to press it.
Then in a whisper so quiet as to be almost silent, a voice spoke to her, Let them suffer… let them pay… Kuroko did not hear it but she put the detonator away. 'It is my job to enforce the law. If I let them run wild then they will hurt more people in the long run than if I help get them arrested now. I am sure they will be arrested if I detonate them in the field,' she told herself to justify her action.
Perhaps if we could introduce something to increase those chances, Kuro said, unaffected by the voice's subtle manipulations. But she still felt like getting them arrested was more important than other people's safety so she did not try to talk her out of it, but rather make it more efficient, We know that if they activate the capacity down then there are people nearby, ESPers who they are using it against. Therefore if we plant listening devices on the trucks then wait for them to go off we can be relatively sure that there will be someone nearby to defeat them and get them arrested.
"But then they'll affect me. If Capacity Down retains its debilitating properties even through secondary mediums then the sound that would warn me would also shut me down," Kuroko reasoned after shutting off her microphone to prevent herself from being heard.
For a moment perhaps but you can simply reach up and shut down your headset without me having to take over. Then you simply detonate. If the plan in the folder is accurate the other trucks won't even leave for another half hour, plenty of time to destroy the others so you can be safe while you do it.
Kuroko nodded. It seemed like a good plan. So she teleported a listening device onto each one and then searched for the tracker Ritoku talked about. She found it in the shipping room guarded by a couple people. Defeating them would betray her presence and she couldn't take the tracker without them noticing. So instead she wirelessly synced it up to her headset which layered it on the HUD over its own city map.
With that done she located her first target and teleported onto the roof, unaware of the whisper that was playing in her head. No need for fear, no need for caution. Make them pay with your own hands. You don't need all that fancy equipment. Kuroko took off her helmet. The suit wouldn't be nearly as effective outdoors and it would probably just make her over confident. But she kept it for its value as armor as well as the sunglasses and earpiece for purposes of detection. She put on her sweatpants and sweatshirt over it to cover the black bodysuit. Then she tied the ninja insignia to her arm as well as one of her spare Judgment armbands, completing the outfit of the scourge, the embodiment of fear itself.
She smiled as she teleported to the first van which was on standby quite a distance away. Ten people gathered around it. No need for fear, no need for caution. Make them pay with your own hands. You don't need all that fancy equipment. Kuroko readied the explosive and her needles, still too cautious to attack them head on.
What are you? A helpless princess or a strong knight? If you aren't weak than fight. Prove to those who think you are beneath them that you are strong. Fight and show your strength.
Kuroko put away the needles and the explosive. She didn't need such technology and fancy maneuvers to take these people down. She was stronger than they were. She would teleport down and show them that. She took a moment to consider her strategy, a moment that she would have spent disabling the people and the van otherwise.
Unbeknownst to her she wasn't the only one whose mind was penetrated by whispers. Down below messages of hate and anger played in the heads of the Skill Outs as the Queen weaved her web of honey and thorns indiscriminately in the area surrounding her targets, hoping to make their lives as miserable as possible in the intervening time. Luckily for Misaka, who was the mind-controller's other target, she was wandering through the alleys at the moment, deliberately avoiding people who would otherwise have been affected by the Queen's circle of influence.
The already impatient Skill Out members decided to just turn on Capacity Down, despite not having received the orders to yet.
If Kuroko had ignored the voice and taken them out via her methods she would have already been gone, but the delay that she herself had chosen to create caused her to receive the full blast of the horn. Unlike the ones she had planted the listening devices on there was no way to turn this off. Therefore, reluctantly, Kuro stepped up again to put things right.
She sighed as she took the ribbons out of her hair and reassessed the situation. The ten people would be a problem but another problem was the fact that the explosives she had wouldn't work from the outside. There were too many stereos on each truck to try and disable them individually and the explosions weren't big enough to cause enough internal damage to shut them down. Looking down she saw a way to remedy this though. One of the people below her carried a grenade launcher and a large sack of what she guessed to be extra ammo.
'Good enough,' she decided, activating one of her armor's features as took a running jump at the grenade launcher holding thug. She grabbed onto a stoplight near her target and swung around, using the rotational momentum the motion built to kick him hard and knock him unconscious. She used her remaining momentum to launch herself into a second one standing nearby. The third one of the group fell likewise unconscious as he was hit by the upper part of the stoplight that the gloves previously activated micro-blades had cut off when she swung from it.
This got the attention of the others, arranged into two more groups of three as well as the driver. Kuro turned around to deal with the group behind her but first she knew she should disable the truck. Chasing it through the city wouldn't be the best of things. So she activated another blade, a larger one near the wrist, and slashed the tire before sheathing the blade with a single fluid motion.
With that done she stepped forward and picked up the fallen stoplight bar and swung it at the group of three who were still frozen in fear. It hit them all and sent them onto their backs with the heavy metal bar pinning them down.
She turned around to see two of the other group of three down with the third one standing over them, hands raised in a sign of surrender or peace. The driver at this point began to speed away but the popped tire made him end up careening into the side of a nearby building. It began to back up and try to speed away but this had allowed Kuroko enough time to pick up the grenade launcher from the unconscious thug and point it at the side of the van.
She pulled the trigger. The recoil of the gun was considerable and because Shiro (and by extension Kuro herself) had never had training the accuracy was off. But accuracy was not as important with a gun like this and the shot hit. When it did the results were splendid as the explosion peeled open the side of the van like a grape and instantly shut down the noise without killing the driver.
With that done she pointed the launcher at the last Skill Out member, the one with his hands raised who had knocked out the others. "Explain," She said simply the threat clear enough without her mentioning it.
"I'm one of Ritoku's men. I'm against Zangyaku's leadership. We were told that by Ritoku you were going to be going around and destroying the trucks and when they were destroyed we were told to defeat the members still loyal to Zangyaku then call Anti-Skill to get them to come and arrest them," he responded, looking a little less confident than he had before now that he was staring down the barrel of a gun.
Still the answer was sufficient to Kuro and she nodded. "Then get on with it." She said before picking up the sack of extra ammo and running towards the wall of a building and up its face before jumping and grabbing onto the ledge of the roof opposite. She pulled herself up then began to make her way through the city to her next target. Even without teleportation Shiro and Kuro were masters of getting around both quickly and unnoticed due to their training regimen. The weight of the sack and grenade launcher was even less than what she usually lugged around during training as well, though they were considerably more awkward.
She soon arrived at the next van. However this one was currently in motion. She followed it to a small park. Nearby the wind was gusty, the clouds in the sky twisting around miniature tornadoes which picked up and threw anything nearby. However the wind soon died down as the Capacity Down activated. At this point she was still a short distance away but she quickly caught up reaching the location maybe half a minute later. Then she took aim at the van and fired, destroying it.
After that she continued hunting down the vans one by one until the remaining three were destroyed. Then she turned on the tracker she had teleported into Ritoku. She was glad she had. It seemed he was a member of Skill Out after all, just using her for his own purposes. Kuro would hunt him down for this.
She travelled to his location, detonating the explosives in the other trucks as she went as soon as she heard them activate. By the time she reached the building that the tracker signal was coming from all twenty were destroyed.
She noticed by the entrance were several unconscious thugs. A similar sight met her throughout the building's corridors as she tracked down the signal. Finally she arrived at a metal door that seemed to have been welded shut recently, the acetylene torch and welders mask used for the deed were still nearby in fact. Though the welding job was sloppy it functioned well enough as evidenced by the sound of someone attempting and failing to open the door from the room on the other side. The signal was coming from that room meaning that Ritoku was probably in there.
This was validated the next second as his voice came from the room, echoing around the room through the door and to Kuro's ears. "You have nowhere to run," the voice said, calm but with a noticeable hint of exhaustion and pain, "We've beaten your thugs. Your leadership has collapsed, your time is up." Kuro flipped on the T-ray filter on her helmet to get a better view of what was going on.
"YOU!" Another voice yelled, this voice came from the man right behind the door, "You would dare betray me? Is this your repayment for all my kindness to you? Is this how you treat someone who saved your life from those ESPers?"
There was a sigh from Ritoku who stood with two other people at the far end of the room amongst thirty or so unconscious bodies. "You know for the longest time I thought I owed you everything for that. You did save my life that night a year and a half ago. After that I looked up to you, I was as loyal as they came and I worked hard for you for months. But then you asked me to attack a defenseless little girl just because her power could be a nuisance for us later on. That day you showed me who you really were. That day way back then when you beat up those ESPers who were attacking me, you never intended to save me did you? You just wanted to attack some ESPers, saving my life was a side effect to you wasn't it? You don't care for anyone's life but your own. Your goal was never to help the plight of the level 0's. You never had a power so you just decided that no one else should either. You decided to kill anyone with more power than you so you could stand above them all. I could never be part of something like that, part of an organization that's only goal is to hurt not protect. So I decided to stage a little coup, overthrow your leadership and replace it with my own, reform Skill Out into a group dedicated to helping and protecting level zeros rather than hurting and killing ESPers. Defeating you is… just a side effect."
"Don't think I'm defeated yet," Zangyaku said as he pulled the gun that he had out of its holster and pointed it at the three, "I might not have an ability, I might not have a gift, but that does not mean I do not have power. This is a Smart Weapon that I obtained a while ago from an Anti-Skill agent just before he was hunted down and killed by his own partner. It never misses and it always kills. That's the problem with you three, you're no different from those arrogant ESPers. You put too much stock in one thing, in one ability, and you think it grants you immunity. You three think you are so good at combat but I don't think a punch can save you from this no matter how good you are at swinging. You and all ESPers are weak because you rely on certain things to save you and when those things fail you have nothing else. That is why you will lose."
"I couldn't agree more," Kuro said as she drove her gloved hands through the metal of the door, her reinforced fingers piercing it as if it was paper. She grabbed hold of it and ripped it from the threshold, the shoddy welding giving way under her strength, as well as her shoulders which dislocated themselves as she threw the heavy metal door behind her. She then stepped forward and grabbed Zangyaku by the throat as he turned around to see who had spoken and what was causing the noise.
"Arrogance always leads to defeat," She said as she contorted Zangyaku's arm that held the gun and pointed the barrel at his own shoulder. Then she pulled the trigger sending a bullet through his shoulder damaging the brachial plexus nerves and paralyzing his arm causing him to drop the gun into Kuro's waiting hand as she threw him across the room where the impact with the wall knocked him out.
Kuro kept the gun pointed at the Ritoku who still stood at the opposite side of the room as she pulled out the grenade launcher and pointed that at the blond haired one standing next to him. She recognized the third as the one who had been there near the parking garage where she had rescued Jericho. She spoke to him, "You spared me before so I will show you the same kindness. If you do not attempt to attack me you are free to go regardless," predictably he didn't move an inch as she addressed the other two, "As for you two, you have a minute to explain to me why you chose to deceive me before I begin shooting out your joints."
"I thought you said she didn't know where this place was?" the blond one addressed Ritoku.
"An odd thing to do," Kuro remarked, "Complaining about being saved while someone is pointing a gun at you and a time limit is in place."
"I deceived you simply because you would not have trusted me otherwise. What you stopped needed to be stopped and having suspicions getting in the way would not have helped anyone," Ritoku explained, as calm as ever.
"Acceptable response," Kuro acknowledged but did not lower the guns, "Now take your time as you try and explain why I shouldn't arrest you right now for all your crimes?"
"I'd like to see you try," the blond one said aggressively as he lowered his stance.
Kuro lowered the grenade launcher and fired at his leg, scoring a direct hit and sending him to the floor. However she had deactivated the grenade before she shot and set its distance down to decrease the power. Though she didn't train with guns she had studied the workings of many different types in order to learn how to best disable them. "You would not like to see me try in earnest," she said to him, her meaning getting across clearly.
Only Ritoku's hand kept Hattori from cutting down the girl who had tried to hurt his friend, regardless of the fact that she was part of an allied clan. "here is a reason for you," Ritoku spoke, "Skill Out will exist with or without my leadership. The weak and oppressed will always feel need to rise against their oppressors. Leaders may rise and fall but that feeling won't change. What will change is the purpose of the group. Zangyaku was dedicated to crushing ESPers, I have someone I want to protect and that is what I will fight for, that is what Skill Out will be about."
Kuro looked at him, then down at the gun she held in her hands. She understood what he meant. Protection was Kuro's entire purpose in life and a desire to protect was the one thing she respected. Still she could not let him become an enemy. So she decided to give him a choice, "This gun is not meant for killing," she began, "That is completely against its purpose. It was built to neutralize hostiles without killing them. It has a failsafe that prevents it from being used at a lethal level when something with the consistency of flesh is detected. To kill that needs to be turned off, it is the switch right on the end of the barrel[1]." She tossed the gun to Ritoku and lowered the grenade launcher, straightening up as she popped her shoulders back into place, "I am the scourge of crime, your greatest enemy. This is the only chance that you will ever get to kill me. But if what you say is true then prove it to me now. Turn the switch to non-lethal and break it so that that gun will never have the capacity to kill again. What will it be?" She said, though there was no choice. Her armor would protect her if he tried to fire it and she would knock him and his subordinates out the next second. But if what he said was true then it would be better to have him lead Skill Out than someone else.
Without hesitation he turned the switch off the moment he caught the gun and ripped it out, "Whether you say you are my enemy or not I would not kill you. You have saved my life today and the life of my friends. You may have hunted down and arrested the members of my gang but you do not persecute innocents. You protect the weak, ESPer or not," he shook his head, "we are not enemies."
"Then I shall spare you from arrest today and allow you to take over Skill Out on one condition. If there ever comes a day when Skill Out becomes unnecessary, when there is a better way to protect the weak from the strong, then you will immediately disband the group even if you must do so by force."
"When that day comes I will do so happily," Ritoku agreed, not a hint of deception in his eyes.
"Then I will go for now. I will visit periodically to ensure you are still upholding your ideals of protection and if you violate that, if you hurt or kill anyone, I will arrest you in a second," Kuro said as she turned and left. You handled that quite well actually, as much as I distrust them what he said was the truth.
"Until that time then scourge," he called after her.
After that Kuro began walking home. She had gotten perhaps half a mile before a phone call came. She picked up her cell and answered, making sure to put the proper emotion intonation in her voice so that it would sound exactly like Shiro's, "Hello?"
"Hello, this is Shirai Kuroko correct? I'm Marshall, chief of Anti-Skill and I am calling you to inform you that we currently have Misaka Mikoto in custody. As per our agreement she is currently your ward and as such responsibility for the damages incurred and crimes committed rests with you. Normally she wouldn't be arrested because of that but it has been a busy day and my agents don't have time for all the details. So as it is she needs your signature to be released into your custody."
You will go. You will sign what needs to be signed to get her released. And you will be civil. Shiro ordered in a stern and harsh fashion.
"I will be there soon," Kuro said and hung up. "I was planning on doing the first two. You cannot regain control if I do not. And as for the third," she said to Shiro, "I cannot be overly rude without drawing undue attention. But I will maintain my distance and attempt to not be too antagonistic." She promised as she began her trip there. Given how far away the Anti-Skill station was, she decided to get a cab. So she packed the grenade launcher and spare grenades into her exercise bag along with her helmet then put the steel plate that she kept in the bottom on top of them and finally placed her swimsuit and towel and everything else on top to cover that up as well.
As the cab strolled down the road towards her destination she thought about the state of affairs. The reason that she was the one who called when the electro-master had gone to jail and the reason Misaka could be released into her custody was, as Marshall had said, She was declared as Kuroko's ward.
Guardianship in Academy City was a sometimes confusing matter. When a child was sent to Academy City their parents were effectively relinquishing guardianship of the child. Though they had the ability to reclaim this guardianship the process was lengthy and rare, only expedited in certain cases such as a the child being at high risk of injury or death such as the cases of a few powers which had a high rate of self-mutilation and accidental death.
As guardians the city accepted full responsibility for their actions until they became legally an adult. However there were exceptions to this. Guardianship of a child could be legally shifted onto another person as long as they were legally an adult and resided within Academy City. In this case the child becomes their responsibility. The process wasn't too long or difficult as Academy City preferred in many cases to relinquish responsibility especially for particular, troublesome individuals. After seeing how much trouble the pereskia could get into and the frequency in which she got into it, Shiro had decided to go through the process of declaring the electro-master as her ward.
She sometimes regretted the choice given how quickly the electro-master drained her finances with her rampant amounts of property damage. It was even more annoying considering that most of the money that she was draining were actually her finances rather than her parents'. While she did use her parents' money to pay for her more illegal ventures, her more tasteful expenses were mostly paid from her own pocket: such as living expenses and her tuition for Tokiwadai. After all she did not want to rely on them for something which she, by all rights, earned herself. Not only that but it was a way to prove to herself that she was better than those other students who were put through by their parents and didn't need to work a day in their lives to earn something that was so valuable as education.
It had started 3 years ago with a bit of start-up capital from the money her parents put aside so they wouldn't have to deal with her. She had only taken this reluctantly because she knew starting from nothing was impossible for a kid her age. After that she got a little bit of help from the person who had saved her, who she had seen every now and then in the 3 years following that day.
He had told her that it was impossible to open an independent bank account or possess more than 500$ at a time for anyone below the age of 12 unless they had a level one emancipation and impossible for anyone below 15 to have anywhere close to enough money to be able to provide for one's self.
Because Academy City was a city of students there were several laws and restrictions that needed to be in place to control what they could and couldn't do and what age they could do it at. There were four age categories that corresponded to the school that they were in: under 12 or elementary school, 12-15 or middle school, and 15-18 or high school, and finally 18+. Emancipation levels effectively boosted the person's status higher by however many levels. Someone who was 8 with a level one emancipation would be treated as a 12-15 year old and someone like her who was 12-15 with a level two emancipation would be treated as an 18+ in several respects.
This was what allowed her to claim the pereskia as a ward despite being even younger than she was. She had actually thought the city wouldn't accept it, wouldn't want to relinquish their power over a level five, but they had acquiesced quite readily. She supposed that it gave them someone else to punish so they didn't need to do things like fine and jail someone who was practically the perfect representative of ESPers on a citywide and worldwide scale. Having the electro-master as her ward had caused her to become a whipping boy, almost literally, taking the punishments for someone who couldn't otherwise be punished.
When she had achieved legal adulthood she had begun to accumulate funds with some sage advice from that man. He had told her to go into investing, since that was the best way to passively earn money, and given her a lot of advice on how to do it, including surprisingly detailed tables and graphs. In the next few years she would review her finances whenever she was in the hospital, meaning every few days, investing and building her funds to a level where she could support herself and even send herself to a nice school like Tokiwadai. The tables and graphs which she continued to receive from the man were always right, predicting economic data to spookily accurate levels far enough into the future that she still used the last set she had been given a year and a half ago when the man had visited her for the last time though she was now proficient enough to make a few of her own calls as well, including purchasing several shares in the Honogun's corporation after the fall so that when it rapidly gained in price right after that she had managed to garner a huge windfall of cash.
By this time the cab had arrived so she paid and walked into the station immediately seeing a familiar face who looked at her and sighed with exasperation, "I was thinking as much… so this is your work I take it." Judgment agent Aiho said as she processed a group of Skill Out thugs.
"If you are asking if I was the one to arrest those people then no. I am no longer a member of Judgment and have no power to arrest anyone. I've been training all day," She said. Looking at her it would seem to be the truth as well. She was sweaty and tired, even with the trip in the air conditioned car, and wore what looked to be, in fact what were, exercise clothes.
Aiho looked her over. She couldn't see any sign of nervousness or anything to suggest she was lying. She just looked to be tired so she nodded and said, "what are you here for then?"
"To pick up Misaka Mikoto," she said.
"Oh right because you're her… yeah. That's why I can't arrest her right," she recalled, "the secretary should have the release forms. By the way your other friends are here too. Your Judgment colleague, the flower headed one, is in the infirmary recovering from heat stroke, I need to thank her for saving my kohai. The other one was arrested for a similar charge."
Kuro nodded and went to the secretary to fill out the appropriate paperwork, picking up some for Saten as well, posting bail for her and paying the property damage bill caused by Misaka(which would have completely wiped out the profits from her recent windfall and more had Kuro not been willing to use Shiro's parents funds, which Shiro would likely not have done had she been in control). Then she was escorted to the cell by Aiho.
On her way the criminals began gathering at the bars, many of them had been arrested by her and had an understandable grudge. Others just wanted to hurt her for the reputation or sheer hell of it. Kuro slowed her pace, allowing Aiho to get a bit ahead of her, then she spoke quietly to the prisoners gathered around the wall making a ruckus "a caged dog is easiest to put down," she told them with a cold, merciless gaze: the gaze of a demon, the gaze of the scourge.
Instantly the criminals backed up as far away from her as they could. Kuro continued walking.
Inside the cell in question Saten had just relayed the tale of her own encounter after Misaka had told her about hers, noting the similarities. When she began to talk about the Capacity Down Misaka had responded with concern but she told her that it had been destroyed by an explosion.
"How could a level two be that powerful?" the older girl asked when Saten had finished, "even the Level Upper wouldn't boost power by that much."
"I don't know, and why would Capacity Down only work sometimes… didn't it shut you down completely?"
Misaka nodded, "perhaps we should investigate this." The electro-master began. Then she saw that a group of criminals had gathered near the bars of the cell and seemed to be causing quite a fuss. A few seconds later the crowd disbursed in a panic and Saten and Misaka could see Aiho walking down to the door and trailing several feet behind her was Kuroko. Oddly enough her hair was down rather than tied in ribbons.
Aiho walked to the door and opened it then pointed at Saten and Misaka, gesturing them up as she called their names. They walked towards her, the other prisoners knowing by now to keep their distance.
"You're free to go," she said to Saten, "and your friend with the flowers in her hair is currently in the infirmary. She suffered a bit of heat stroke protecting my kohai but she should be all right. Make sure you take care of her because I still have to thank her for that."
Saten's eyes widened when she heard Uiharu was hurt. She rushed to the infirmary to see her lying in a bed in a separate room. She talked to the nurse and told her she was a friend and she wanted to take her home. The nurse gave her some instructions for care and then released her. Saten brought her home and then followed the instructions.
She blushed as she brought her into the bathroom and began to strip her. It felt so awkward, like she was taking advantage of her friend while she was in this unconscious state. It got even worse when she actually had to lift her up, touching her bare body, and put her into the tub.
Still she braved through it to ensure her friends health. And now Uiharu was awake again and she was outside the bathroom door telling her what had happened. "And that's how it was," she finished.
"That's weird," Uiharu said as she opened the door to leave, "I ha- oof" she began before she fell over her long haired friend who was curled up in a rather hard to detect ball right outside the door. The two girls ended up in a pile on the floor, Saten gazing up into her friends eyes. Though she was still embarrassed she hugged the flower headed girl who was still cold and damp and not too pleasant to hold onto. But the feeling of comfort helped calm her down, "It's been a long day…" Saten said into the girl's wreath, her chin resting on her damp hair. Oddly enough the flowers seemed as immaculate as ever despite the less than perfect condition of the one wearing them.
After only a second of slightly confused hesitation Uiharu returned the hug. Her friends grasp was warm and inviting. They remained like that for a while until Saten finally spoke up, "by the way, you got a medal for heroism. I put it on your wardrobe. It's pretty cool looking. I heard you saved an Anti-Skill agent. Good job. What do you say we go out for ice cream tomorrow after school, my treat, as a congratulations."
"A medal? For heroism? Seriously?" she asked, slightly confused.
"Yeah, the chief gave it to me to give to you when I left the station. He just reached into a bag that he had on him and pulled out a medal. He seems like a pretty cool guy actually."
"Oh…" Uiharu said. She wanted to get up and look but at the same time she didn't want to leave the embrace. Not only that but she still felt very weak. So she decided, in the end, to just stay where she was. "Want to stay over tonight?" she asked, "I'm still not feeling too good and I'd kind of like the company."
"Sure thing," Saten agreed.
Kuro walked out of the Anti-Skill station, Misaka trailing behind. She seemed different from this morning, she didn't scold her or even speak to her, she didn't cling to her or even go near her at all. Misaka couldn't tell if she was angry or disappointed or what. It bugged her and made her feel uneasy.
"Kuroko," she began as she quickened her pace. But the teleporter simply matched it.
"What? I'm staying away from you like you asked," She said, her voice flat but with a cutting edge to it, "or are you going to yell at me for coming to get you out of that cell? Was that getting too close?"
Misaka was honestly shocked when she heard these words, they were so… aggressive for the teleporter. She didn't have any anger in her voice but there was an odd type of hostility there that chilled Misaka to the bone. "If that's all that this is about then I'm sorry," she tried to apologize.
"Oh that is hardly all that this is about. How about the hours of community service and hundreds of thousands of yen you just racked up for me to pay off." Kuro, you promised you wouldn't be overly antagonistic! Hate, hurt, be enraged. This last part was silent as ever but it was powerful, powerful enough that even Kuro could feel the anger coursing through her veins, though it felt like an out of body experience more than anything, like most of the emotions that Shiro felt.
"I never asked you to do that!" Misaka yelled back, "what the hell is that all about anyway?"
Kuro gave a brief overview of the process she had gone through to get Misaka claimed as her ward. "After the disregard you showed for the law Shirai knew Shirai had to find a way to keep you out of trouble lest you spend all your time in jail rather than with Shirai," Kuro said, using third person to distance herself from Shiro's actions.
"And why didn't you see fit to tell me?" She seethed, too annoyed to pay attention to the shift.
"Shirai didn't want you to feel guilty as the knowledge that someone you treat so poorly is the one who has been looking after you so well and to such a degree would likely cause."
This of course hit Misaka right in the sore spot and she quickly grew quiet as the guilt hit and hit hard. It was even worse that Kuroko herself was saying it. Normally she never protested her treatment. If even she was doing so then it must mean that Misaka went overboard sometime today. Finally she got out a quiet, "sorry."
"Don't apologize now. We'll kiss and make up when we get home and then you can say sorry. Until then let's just walk back in silence."
Misaka agreed to this and they reached their dorm without exchanging another word. When they finally entered their room Kuroko was quick to pull her down into a kiss though this one lasted only a brief instant before she pulled away.
"I'm sorry," the younger girl said, "For what I said… it was rude. And for not telling you about the whole guardianship thing."
"I'm sorry too. I've been overreacting all day."
"I've been provoking you so they aren't really overreactions."
"They still are… I shouldn't hurt you as much as I do for as little as you do."
"…'as much…' so you aren't actually apologizing for shocking me, just for shocking me too harshly," Kuroko attempted to clarify.
"Exactly. You deserve some shocks just not to the degree that I do them. Hugging and kissing and general 'skinship' in public is an automatic shock though, and it always will be," she said, willing to give in a little but hardly willing to give her free reign.
"what about this morning? What I said…"
"That was perverted and it completely ruined the mood so of course that deserves a shock," she said anger slipping back into her voice as she blushed and covered her chest as she remembered her words from this morning.
"It was the truth though. I was happy when you were naked, but not just because it is an amazingly beautiful sight. It made me feel like you trusted me. After all, putting yourself in such a vulnerable state as nakedness is a strong symbol of trust," she unzipped her sweatshirt as she spoke, having teleported off her armor at the beginning of the conversation, "even someone usually as unabashed as I am would hesitate to show someone my completely bare body, especially now that it is so riddled with scars," she discarded the piece of clothing, leaving her chest covered by just her purple, lacy bra, "But around you it's ok," she said, as she took the increasingly embarrassed electro-master's hand and placed it on her chest, right over her heart. Misaka began to resist but stopped once the skin of her hand touched the younger girl's chest, the edges just barely scratching against the fabric. She felt her heartbeat resonating through her palm and it calmed her down. Almost by instinct now her five fingers splayed, overlapping each of the five scarred lines of flesh, "I completely trust you with every inch of me, I have for a while. But I haven't quite earned the same thing from you yet. You've always been shy about your body and suspicious of me so I didn't think I'd ever get to see you in such a state, certainly not until marriage. The fact that you let me means you trust me enough and that is what makes me so happy."
"And as for the other thing… I was telling the truth about that as well. I am a teleporter and I am extremely good at measuring an object's dimensions as I need to be," Kuroko explained. This was also the truth, though her obsession with the older girl as well as her daily examination of her Onee-sama's body probably helped as well, "they have grown by almost a centimeter since we've met. I think you're beautiful no matter how large they are but since you seem to be self-conscious about the size of them I thought that it'd make you happy to hear that. For the same reason my offer was a genuine one. While milk has no scientific effect on how large a person's bust is (Konori aside), massage stimulates blood flow and is actually scientifically proven to increase the size of one's breasts. I wouldn't do it again without your permission but I wanted to offer at least."
Misaka's brow furrowed. Had she misread Kuroko's intentions that morning? Had the smile been genuine rather than mischievous? Had her words been an innocent conveyance of her feelings rather than her perverted mind weaving its lecherous ideas?
Suddenly Kuroko's other hand rested on the arm of the electro-master that was still crossing over her own chest. It didn't pull or tug or try to remove her hand. It just sat there, making sure permission was granted before she made another move.
She looked into the teleporter's eyes. There was something in there but it was not lust. Her heartbeat and breath were steady. Still… even if it wasn't motivated by perversion or lust she still wasn't ready. It wasn't a matter of trust it was the fact that it was embarrassing. She began to open her mouth to say something when the younger girl said, "I love you."
Misaka didn't respond with words but slowly she lowered the hand that covered her chest. Kuroko took it as permission enough and her hand began moving slowly towards Misaka's chest. It touched her blazer and teleported the piece of fabric off of her. Then she began unbuttoning the shirt with a single hand going the slow method to give her Onee-sama time to protest. But she did not even as she unbuttoned the last button and teleported the shirt off as well.
It wasn't until she began reaching for her Onee-sama's childish bra that she said anything. "Wait," Misaka spoke up and grabbed the teleporter's hand before it could reach its destination. She couldn't do it after all... not yet.
"Sorry Onee-sama," Kuroko said, chastised. She withdrew her hand.
Misaka brought her hand back from on top of Kuroko's heart and put both of them at her sides, curling them into fists as she worked up the nerve. "Turn around," she commanded.
Kuroko was slightly confused but followed the order. She heard her Onee-sama breathing deeply from behind her, clearly trying to calm down. Then she stepped up behind her and, with shaking hands, began trying to undo the strap of Kuroko's bra.
"Onee-sama?" Kuroko questioned.
"Don't say anything," Misaka warned. She was already nervous and embarrassed enough. The idea of doing this thing was actually scary to her… but, "If I do it first I can handle it." It wasn't so scary if she wasn't the one in such a vulnerable state, if she wasn't the one that had something this strange happening to them.
After far too long a time spent fiddling with it, Kuroko's bra finally fell to the floor. She coiled her arms around the younger girl, her hands trailing down her lines of scars and resting on the two almost imperceptibly small yet soft mounds of flesh. She grasped them eliciting an almost immediate squeak from the other girl. The sound was odd… kind of cute actually. She moved her hands in a circular motion causing another squeak as Kuroko began to squirm a little, pushing her chest further into Misaka's hands unconsciously.
She continued this, slowly acquiring an odd sense of power over the girl as she teased out the squeaks and other sounds from the teleporter. As she did she became less and less nervous and drew closer to Kuroko until her chest touched the other girl's back and she could feel the teleporter's heart beating a thousand miles an hour in her chest, a pace the electro-master's own heart easily matched.
She took in everything about this moment. The scent of lilies filled Misaka's nose as her chin rested on Kuroko's head, her face buried in her mane of auburn hair. The sound of her breathing was both rhythmic and random, interrupted by sharp gasps. Under her she felt soft skin.
She did not know how long this went on, nor how long it would have gone on afterward had Kuroko's heart not stopped for a moment as the teleporter shivered and inhaled sharply. She stopped immediately and asked with concern in her voice, "are you all right Kuroko?"
Her heartbeat resumed after a second but it wasn't until several seconds after that that she was able to respond.
"I'm fine," she said, "is it my turn yet?"
"… fine… I guess," she replied. It was only fair she supposed.
Kuroko swallowed and went around to her Onee-sama's back.
'What a wonderful dream,' she thought as she reached up, 'what a pity it's almost certainly not real…'
[1]: This is the logical purpose of such a gun and having such a precaution is not only not unreasonable but highly likely. However the complexity of the gun would mean that assault rifle versions of it would be difficult to mass produce, it is more likely that Anti-Skill snipers are equipped with sniper rifle versions while only a few automatic weapons were ever made.
Author's Note: There we are, a nice, long (quite long) chapter with a mix of action, exposition, and interaction. I have like three or four chapters to go so I'm trying to move the romance into a climax as well. Sorry for being so graphic with it in this chapter, I hope this isn't enough to make my fic M but I felt like it was necessary for me to go through the thought process during it, to either show how Misaka has grown but is still young and/ or to cast additional doubt on whether or not this is Kuroko's delusions or not.
Dedications: this chapter is dedicated to Akurelus, Ashuras, X-Ross, and my other fellow readers who left comments under "guest". Thanks all of you.
Coming Soon: The Shepherd versus The Butcher, the vengeance of the sacrificial flock.