"A Friend in Me"
August 25, 2020
A piercing glare penetrated the eyelids of the long asleep Touma, so much so that he jumped out of bed to try and to try and stop it. He blindly stumbled towards the source of the glare, which he presumed to be the window and lunged towards it, in order to support himself from falling and to close the blinds.
However, the original location of such a childish endeavour was a lot more human than natural - a steal tray is the perfect item for redirecting light into unsuspecting eyes. Touma came in contact with something, defiantly. However, whether or not that something was the drywall or glass window, to which he expected, was another matter.
"Uwaaahhh! Bro, help! He's trying to molest me! You brought a paedophile into our house!" were the panicked, muffled screams of the maid-in-training, Maika. The tray trashed out of her hands and rolled away. She already had her uniform on and it was already ironed, not that you could tell anymore. Touma had wrapped his arms around her in his half-asleep state and crashed to the floor with her. His grip was one similar of a small girl protecting her favourite teddy bear from the monster in the closest.
Even though Touma in no way, shape or form was touching her inappropriately, the strength of which he had gripped her was like an ever tightening vice grip. Slowly, but surely, the vice grip will get to a point where the sheet metal starts to bend out of shape, and this was happening to Maika.
"Nahhh, Maika, looks like he has tooka shine to ya'! She'sa good girl, Touma, treat her well." Motoharu laughed and joked as he saw the scene that was occurring in the room. Maika's pleading eyes filled with hope soon became fiery daggers screaming "You traitor!"
As Touma's consciousness slowly returned to him as his uncomfortable cushion, Maika squirmed and struggled for freedom, he awoke to see her face in a tomato red fashion followed by a vicious head-butt.
The combination of the head-butt and embarrassment of what he had done in his drowsy state made him leap back several feet. Maika bounced up from the ground, catching her breathe and stormed over to Motoharu. He was still laughing.
"You… bastard..." she panted. She pushed him out of the way lethargically and pondered into her room then slammed the door. Maika would not show her presence outside of her room until Touma had left. She was obviously embarrassed enough to break her maid persona, though that persona seemed to vanish under any stress or negative influence. She still had ways to go before becoming a maid, so it seemed.
Today was a free day for most public schools which didn't run classes on Saturdays - however private schools still had mandatory lessons. It was one of the joys being in the public education system had and one that Touma and Motoharu thoroughly enjoyed.
"S-sorry about that! I didn't know what I was doing! Honest!" pleaded Touma to Motoharu, begging for forgiveness. Motoharu seemed unfazed by it.
"Nahhh, no worries, ey? Its good character buildin' for her, she took'dit well I reckon'." He poorly responded. Though he ignored her earlier pleas for assistance, there seemed to be a reason behind it rather than a simple masochistic pleasure. Touma still demanded that he apologize to her, which Motoharu denied flat and instead proposed an alternative action and lead him to the kitchen.
An entire European breakfast was set out one the benches of the kitchen. Motoharu moved his hand in a way to offer Touma to his fill of the numerous foods sprawled across the counter. German Schnitzel, French toast, Danish bagels, British Crumpets, tea and coffee, all of it was at Touma's fingertips. It truly was a foreign experience, having had only coffee and tea of the above mentioned items. Maika must have prepared it earlier and what better way of thanking her than eating a fair share?
After enjoying the incredible meal, Touma decided that it would be better for him to leave. He was receiving hurried motions from Motoharu, as if he had other business to attend to. Gathering his possessions, including the phone strap, he thanked Motoharu and Maika (though four feet of wall separated the two) for their hospitality and left to thank the one person he owed for allowing him to breathe the air of this fine day – Kuroko Shirai.
However, 8th district hospital was a fair distance from Motoharu's home, most certainly not in walking distance. Recalling the bust shelter he left the ghastly boy last night for Aiho to pick up, he set about to its destination.
There was not a soul in site at the shelter though the constant 'tinking' of the TREE DIAGRAM weather prediction device in the shelter shattered the frozen atmosphere. It must be automatically turned off at nights, since Touma did not recognize the previous night. The time was announced by the machine "10 o'clock!" and it proceeded with the day's weather forecast.
"Sunny with no cloud cover. Wear your hats and sunscreen!" It would prove to be spot on, like every other day.
The bus arrived shortly after the announcement. The trip was uneventful and took little over half-an-hour. Once arriving, Touma stood in awe over the size of the building. It was at least 30 stories tall and half a hectare in diameter.
8th District Hospital was the largest hospital in Academy City and housed the famous life-bringer surgeon known as "The Heaven Canceller". He has been known to save patients diagnosed with incurable diseases as if it was nothing. His abilities are highly sort after and any critically ill patient is sent to his clinic for treatment. He was a god among medical practitioners.
Meeting someone in the hospital without a gift is bad manners, and even worse if that person was a complete stranger that saved your life. Flowers seemed to be the perfect gift and there was a florist nearby - The perfect place for overly priced gifts for those who came unprepared.
Inside was a lone woman, most likely in her early twenties. She was busy attending to a few roses though the length of her dark brown hair was easily identifiable from this position. As she noticed Touma and moved to attend to him, he noticed her elongated face, which despite that fact, she would be regarded as quite beautiful.
"Can I help you?" she questioned with a smile. She obviously knew she had a customer with Touma by the body language he displayed – panic and confusion for the perfect gift.
"Yeah… Shizuri, I need some flowers, but I don't have much money…" He read her name tag and included it in his request.
"Oh that's alright, what's the occasion?"
"Umm, 'Just survived gunshot and saved my life' I guess." Shizuri's eyes squinted with the "occasion" Touma provided to her. Momentarily a flash of anger shone in her eyes and her face screwed into disgust. Her grip on the apron that hung over her clothes strengthened then released as she regained control over her emotions and a smile reappeared on her face.
'Why can't I talk to a girl without anger issues?' Touma thought to himself placing a few extra inches between himself and this lost cause serving him.
"Oh, that's for the girl from Tokiwadaiisn't it…? I saw it on the news last night… it's a shame that…" the florist drifted off and finished the rest of her sentence under her breath. She did so in a way one would expect a schizophrenic, or a person intimidating one on a train to persuade people not to sit next to them, to act. It was defiantly working - Touma didn't want to be in her presence any longer and decided on grabbing the nicest looking bunch in his price range.
Replicating his fine form in the art of fleeing, Touma laid the correct amount for the minor amount of flowers he decided to purchase on the counter and disappeared from the scene. He left the blank faced Shizuri in her own little world.
"I swear I saw him with her at my other job yesterday… Interesting…" Shizuri mumbled to herself in Touma's absence before being simultaneously questioned and chastised for the magical appearing money and her slack attitude on the job.
The hospital was massive - there was no way for Touma to find Kuroko without asking what room she was allocated. He approached a nurse with her head in the hospital records and rapidly scribing something in gibberish on the records. Noticing his presence, the nurse questioned how she could be of assistance. Giving a last name and time of admission the nurse was able to find Kuroko's room – Second floor, intensive care observation room thirteen.
Moving to Kuroko's room, Touma caught a glimpse of someone he didn't particularly wanted to see so soon, Aiho Yomikawa. She was dressed in her ANTI-SKILL uniform and wasn't looking particularly approachable.
'Aiho took that girls body here yesterday for an autopsy… she's probably here for the results, not stalking me.' Touma tried to console himself over a lamentable situation.
Touma entered the room that the nurse on the ground floor referred him to. As his eyes moved to the bed, he reacted fairly calmly to the condition Kuroko was in, only stumbling in his stance and falling flat on his face in his resolve.
Innumerable amounts of tubes, wires and indicators were protruding and attached to her body. Three stands of fluid bags, each holding at least four individual bags were surrounding her bed. The heart rate monitor and brain activity device were on opposite sides of each other and the worms displaying the information remained constant in their 'bleeps' and 'bloops'.
The sickening sight that was, only yesterday, a healthy 14 year old girl working part-time for JUDGEMENT disturbed Touma. He was the entire reason she was in this condition and he wasn't six-feet-under. He placed the flowers he bought at the florist earlier in a vase next to and in between the devices possibly keeping her alive. The vase was empty when he put his flowers in, he must be her first visitor. Taking a seat next to her bed, just to wait and see if she would respond to his presence he came to a somewhat confusing revelation -
Kuroko was only hit by a few bullets, at most. Why was her condition so bad?
Touma waited as both clock's fingers ticked by slowly and she still showed no signs of consciousness. He was pondering about leaving for the moment and check back up on her later when a loud "Excuse me" boomed over the noise of the door opening.
A small face popped around the corner and then the brown haired prestige of Tokiwadai All Girl's school, Mikoto Misaka, stepped into the room. Her eyes told her story her voice didn't, concern was all there was room for. Purposely ignoring Touma's presence she pulled a large bouquet of flowers out from behind her back. The sheer size and rarity of the flowers dwarfed Touma's effort, to which left him feeling inadequate. After placing the flowers in the same vase, which was close to bursting, she pulled a seat up next to Touma and her face of concern soon became mixed with anger.
"What are you doing here? You don't even know this girl. Don't tell me you knew I'd come and you'd get play your stupid detective game." Mikoto chastised Touma, completely ignorant to the circumstances surrounding Kuroko's hospitalisation. She tried to maintain a strong aura.
" She saved me yesterday… That's why I'm here and not her… But why are you here? You should have school today, don't you go to some schmancy-pancy private school."
"Some things are more important than grades…" she was obviously disheartened about the incident, so Touma decided to be the bad guy, just one more time.
"What do you know about what happened to Miss Shirai?" he politely responded. He didn't particularly want to rock the boat in an already stormy sea. Mikoto huffed and puffed and his question childishly.
"Still playing detective, after all… All I got told was that she was in critical condition after being injured in JUDGEMENT duties... but… seeing her like this is a surprise. This is probably the worse state this little runt has ever been in…" her voice crackled, she was slowly losing herself to her basic emotions and resorted to cracking jokes to halt her tears. Touma gave no response, nothing he could say would help the situation.
He searched his pockets for the phone strap of 'Froggo' that he stole yesterday for her. Now would be the perfect time to present it to her and cheer her up. After all, it wasn't her fault that her friend was in the condition she was in, but his.
"Uhh… Mi...koto? I found this yesterday. I'm not particular about it, but I remember you really wanted it…" he spoke in a hushed tone, though it did not matter as the reaction he received from the girl was ten times louder the complete reverse of what he expected.
"Wha-… Why should be I getting anything! Monsters like me don't deserve anything but a bullet!" she slowly whispered then roared into a screaming match with the universe. Touma tried desperately to calm her down, to no avail.
"N-no it's really ok, you didn't do anything wrong. It was my fault. You're just as much as the victim here…" This response, in colloquial terms, made Mikoto 'Lose her shit'.
"Did anything wrong! A victim? I almost killed my best friend, my junior! She is lying in a hospital bed… all because I sent her to do my dirty work. It should be me in that bed lying like a fucking vegetable. I want to trade with her…" The disgusting sight of the powerful persona who is known by first name throughout Academy City, quivering and crying sat next to Touma. Her breathing was heavy from getting herself worked up to the degree she was in. She snatched at Touma's right hand holding the phone strap and moved it to her neck, manipulating his fingers to a grip around her petite neck with her other hand.
"Go. Do it. Put me in a bed like her. Just squeeze, that's what will cheer me up... Give me retribution."
Touma was completely astounded how insanely emotional the situation had turned. He had no intention of injuring this girl, though he had a mind to do so to her "sister". That thought of Mikoto's "sister" then triggered what "3490" had told him before she was killed by a mystery bullet through her grey matter.
"As for RADIO NOISE…Ask Big Sis for the details"
Touma relinquished the forced hold on the small girls neck and grabbed her shoulders in a way an officer would comfort a distressed man 'off his face' on illicit substances. She sniffed and looked at him expectantly for punishment of her mysterious deeds.
"Mikoto, calm down. I think I know how you can help Kuroko. All you need to do is tell me - what is RADIO NOISE?" Touma lied, though he did so for a greater good, or so was his reasoning.
She wiped some of the crocodile tears from blackened, sleep deprived eyes with her palm and symbolically crushed her sadness as she rubbed them into the surrounding skin near the eye sockets. After doing so, she regained some composure and was about to explain the smallest details until the door slammed open and screams of 'FREEZE!' echoed into the room from blind spot where the door is. The composure she momentarily gained was instantly lost.
ANTI-SKILL soldiers armed to the teeth burst into the room, weapons all pointed at Mikoto. Four massive armour clad bodies cramped the already small room filled with medical equipment. Touma stood up to create space and a body between them and Mikoto who was in shock in her seat. Her eyes which were darkened in sadness now stood out of their sockets in surprise.
Behind the faceless goons bobbed the head of the person Touma desperately avoided earlier. Her immense presence and resonated disdain and anger, Aiho was not a person to cross on her good days, let alone the mood she was in now.
"Touma. Step aside we have an arrest warrant for that girl. Move before I have you them go through you to get her." Aiho boomed. She was clearly not happy about the trickery he pulled on her yesterday at those late hours and held a great amount of hostility towards Mikoto.
"Tou… Help… I didn't do anything." squeaked a barely audible Mikoto. Her hands and head burrowed into the back of his shirt and he could feel her shaking. The entire situation would mentally destroy one of her age. A hospitalized junior which she was supposably the cause of, thoughts of death, worthlessness and now a surprise arrest with no reasoning.
"No! I don't know what you think she did, but look at her! Does she look like someone who could pull off any crime? I won't let another get hurt for no reason!" Touma vouched for the girl passionately. He remembered the promise he made to her and change of morals that manifested yesterday.
"Oh? Doesn't she look familiar? Like the girl who put that poor child in that bed, the one who put her life on the line for you...?" Aiho insinuated smugly waiting for Touma to understand what exactly she was arresting Mikoto for. It came slowly, though Touma was prepared to fight to the death to protect his version of the truth.
"That was her sist-" Aiho saved him from the embarrassment the comment would cause him, the only kind thing she would do for him on this day.
"A sister doesn't have a 100% DNA match. That girl was a clone of her, all of them are. She is guilty of every crime they have committed. Now tell me, brat, is she really that innocent? She is the entire source of the problems in Academy City at the moment. Are you going to protect that?"
Touma's eyes widened at the revelation he was presented and turned to the girl who clung onto his shirt. When his gaze tried to search hers, they averted to the side. It was then he realized what Aiho had said was true – this child was guilty.
He slowly backed up and the ANTI-SKILL soldiers moved in to detain her. As they got closer she flew up, knocking the chair she was sitting on to the ground.
'N-No… NO! MISA-argh! I - I will not go back into the darkness!' screamed Mikoto as she corrected the point of view in which she spoke. She gripped both of her arms and held herself tightly as she backed into the machine helping Kuroko breathe, knocking the flowers the two of them had placed earlier.
'I would rather kill you all then go back.' She harshly concluded as she raised her head with the darkness in her eyes clouding the air between them and. She released her arms and static electricity started filling the air and sparks began to spike from her body onto the metal frames of the bed. The situation was getting too dangerous for the already critical patient. Aiho called the ANTI-SKILL out of the room in hopes of luring her away from any patients to take her down.
She didn't get the chance to chase them.
An incredibly bright light shone into the room and corroded the window and wall facing out to the street. The beam continued through the hospital, immense structural damage had occurred. A call came from the origin of the beam, a woman's voice, most likely an early adult.
"Gyaahhh! You prestigious little slut! Get your rich hide out here and face me! You don't deserve No.3, it's time to hand it over to someone more deserving!" roared an insane, menacing voice. Touma snuck a peak before Mikoto jumped out the hole the beam created in the wall to the ground below, completely ignoring Touma.
It was the florist he met with earlier – Shizuri. Yet something seemed different about her. She possessed the aura he felt only for a split second when he mentioned the "occasion" for his visit to her. This was perhaps some kind of personnel grudge, or maybe she knew about Mikoto's secret.
Mikoto fell onto the rubble at the side of the building and slowly trudged over to Shizuri, leaving about 30 metres between the two. She swayed when she walked and did so hypnotically. She seemed almost sickly.
"Today, I, Shizuri Mugino, The No. 4 MELTDOWNER will kill the famous RAILGUN! Come No. 3! Give a show to all these terminally ill patients! Like your friend you hospitalized - think of it as your retribution to her!" Shizuri announced to the crowd that would soon either diminish or gather depending on the danger that the fight between them would create. One thing for sure that would increase is the amount of ANTI-SKILL to be on the scene, an innumerable amount of sirens could be heard from miles away.
The entire ANTI-SKILL force was already on its way to detain Mikoto, their timing was all but a coincidence.
Touma looked out of the gaping hole in the wall at the two combatants waiting for each other to start. He knew he had to stop them for the sake of the injured in the hospital. A stray strike like the beam earlier could easily kill multiple people.
Touma grabbed the bed Kuroko was attached to and wheeled it out of the room over the rubble that accumulated on the floor. Most the equipment attached to her had broken from the shock so he left her with the nearest nurse and prayed for their safety. Moments after leaving the room he was just in, the floor above it crashed into the floors below. However, now was no time to be thankful over his newfound luck. Touma flew outside to the battle which had been raging since he averted his eyes to save Kuroko. He had to stop them to save the helpless people that would get caught in the crossfire.
"A Friend in Me"
END