"Betrayal"

August 25, 2020

The two combatants stood in silence as the tension mounted between the two. The brown haired girl's eyes averted her opponents' gaze which seemed to beg for attention. She remained distant and almost resistant to fight, not that her opponent would allow such actions.

Raising her hand in the teen's direction, the older, more illustrated woman had energy converging a small distance from the previously moved limb. It lasted mere moments before a beam of light resonated from its location towards the girl, whom still fumbled with her feet raising dust from the debris caused by a similar beam. Though this kind of behaviour would seem suicidal in any type of fight, this one did not require her immediate attention. Yet.

The beam stopped short of colliding with the motionless girl. It was a feint attack. She looked up for the first time and their eyes met in this occasion. They spoke the slow samba of deep regret and illusions of existence. The older woman became furious with her, obviously expecting some sort of resistance.

"Hey, look here bitch! How can you be labelled higher than me if you won't even lift a finger to a worthy opponent! Is that it? I'm not worthy to you? Do you want another example?" She growled with a hateful tone. At the conclusion of her rant she gazed down the street that the hospital was on. There was a set of lights with an immense amount of cars piled up. She began to raise her hand, perhaps to send a beam done the street to annihilate the people stuck in traffic. This became a non-thought soon as her provocative spat seemed to work.

Beginning to move her right hand to a horizontal position, the woman was halted before it being put into place. A lash of energy sparked past her, missing the moving arm by inches. Had it moved any further, a one way ticket to a heart attack was guaranteed. It dissolved as it past her.

The depressed girl who opposed the demonic woman stood with renewed energy. There was a small smile on her face and a zap of electricity ran around her. Its white colour was seen as it leeched out gently before dissipating into the air around her. The source of the energy strike was this girl.

"That's a nice thought. You are going to have to kill a lot more people than that to surpass me though. Do it three-thousand more times and I might consider you worthy to take my title - 'Railgun; Butcher of Academy City', except it'll be whatever you call your power. It's not very impressive, you know? " She smugly giggled, almost insanely taunting the destructive force in front of her. The opposition did not take kindly to her remarks.

"Your mother would be ashamed to have raised such a brat. Kids these days sure know where the right buttons are to push someone over the edge. How about you eat some of my non-impressive beams, huh!" was a humiliating retort that was fired back at the seemingly dominating girl.

The woman began gathering a large amount of energy before releasing a large beam, two-fold an adult in diameter. It was shot at a declining axis - it would engulf Mikoto and the surrounding terrain if she was not to move. Powerful attacks are devastating when they connect, however they leave the offense in quite the predicament if they do not connect. Perhaps this woman was not literate in the 'Art of War'.

As the beam rushed with increased haste towards the girl, she looked to her east to the road to find a large ANTI-SKILL wagon parked on the street within 5 metres. Before the beam connected, she turned her body into a giant magnet using the electricity that flew through her nerves and muscles and was pulled to the wagon. Converting all the magnetism into her feet before impact, she landed on the wagon's door horizontally. The aggressor stood in shock for moments when she saw her evasive technique. She was wide open to attack.

A medium sized bolt, the length of a chalkboard ruler and width of a rubber, struck out from the girl's fingers and struck the woman in the abdomen. The woman was temporarily paralysed in her limbs, though her head thrashed and struggled to try to reboot the rest of the body as the girl approached with a swagger.

The brown haired ELECTROMASTER stood over the incapacitated beam-producing antagonist with a smile. A condescending smirk. She pulled out a few coins and displayed them to the woman.

"You know what these are? Tools of the trade. You see, a Railgun is just a weapon that fires accelerated rounds using magnetism. Those rounds don't perish and continue until they hit a target, thooooousands of metres away. But, seeing as everyone needs some kind of restriction, these serve as my ammunition. They… limit the destruction I cause - coins perish really quickly when accelerated. Fun-fact, right? So what one do you want the doctors to find in your head - the one cent, two cent or the big fifty-cent cent? That one is a whopper!" she giggled while displaying the coins to the paralysed woman who's face displayed an agonizing expression, though she couldn't feel any physically. It was all mental anguish at this girl's words.

The brown haired monster randomly selected a coin and placed it in her right hand, pointed at the restricted woman. She remained in this position for moments before her arm started to shake. She couldn't do it. She couldn't 'pull the trigger'.

"HA! You are all talk you little slut! Some grand divine superpower you are, huh? If I was in your position I wouldn't even give you a chance for your last words! Huh! Still not going to do it? Your all bark and no bite you little hussy, huh?" She worded out to the girl who began stumbling backwards, still holding the 'weapon' to her head. She had created some space between them and the woman began to regain control of her limbs.

Fighting a fight without the will to win is praying for defeat.

Just as the woman began to stand up, a figure jumped in between the two opponents. The girl was spooked by this phantom's sudden occurrence and accidently fired the coin, 'The Railgun'. A wash of guilt overtook Mikoto for moments as she realised she had taken another two lives and only added to the mounting blood on her hands. She turned pale at the thought.

However, in front of the railgun's trajectory after the shot was the same image as before. Her despair was replaced by a mix of emotions, dominated by shock and glee. Touma stood between them, right hand outreached and gritting his teeth. Shizuri noticed the flock of ANTI-SKILL exiting the hospital and the amount of new arrivals appearing and took off into the crowd that gathered in a nearby shelter to watch the fight. Orders of capture on her head were issued and suits of armour followed her.

Touma looked up to see Mikoto collapsing to her knees in front of him. She began whispering things to herself- "H-How…?"

"Hey, snap out of it. I told you I'd look after you, right? That's one more thing you don't have to worry about, alright?" he smiled, shacking her out of the trance she was in. She looked up to him with eyes of promise and nodded. Smiles on both faces greeted each other for the first time, which was interrupted by Aiho.

Aiho had pulled Mikoto up from the ground and cuffed both hands with ability repressing technology. Mikoto reached out to Touma who only acknowledged her plea with a smile.

"This… is the best way to protect you, for now."

A clad of ANTI-SKILL took Mikoto and forced her into one of the wagons. Her face was plastered with anger, all directed to Touma, who had betrayed her trust. Aiho removed her presence and returned inside the hospital to assess the damages.

Touma watched as the ANTI-SKILL wagon took the now detained Mikoto away. He felt bad for betraying her but felt it was necessary in order to sort out the business with this shady syndicate.

He felt worse for watching the wagon depart.

As the wagon travelled down the street, about 200 metres before the first set of lights from the hospital it rolled on its side. 'Oh no!' was the general reaction of the people the accident, yet the reaction should have been something along the lines of 'run!'

The moments following the crash were filled with an eerie silence - it could unnerve even the most battle hardened soldier. The silence was broken by loud thudding noises coming from the area of the crash. Those thuds were followed by an incredibly bright flash of light as electricity flashed out of the area of the wagon Mikoto was placed in. The electricity's volume increased with each passing second until the wagon itself exploded into thousands pieces flying through the street and impaling multiple cars and the buildings around them. The explosion created multiple casualties - however this was only the start of a bloodbath that would be labelled as "Academy City's worst Psychic disaster".

"Touma Kamijou! I'm going to kill you!" was the roar that burst into the ears of all those living within a thousand metres of the incident. Touma couldn't blame luck on this one - he brought this all on himself. Bolts of electricity crackled in the air in a massive orb around the enraged girl, but something was different compared to voltage she gave off during the fight with Shizuri earlier. The feeling of discomfort covered Touma quickly, the hairs on his arms stood to attention though the distance between the two was a healthy two-hundred metres.

Stray bolts, lengths of train carriages and radii of two soccer balls flew near him and darted into the hospital behind him but they were not directed at him – similar bolts flew in all directions as she crept frightfully closer. It was then he realised what was different between now and then. Her lightning was a dark blue and it seemed as though she was unable to control it as stray charges sparked dangerously close to fleeing civilians and endangered the integrity of many buildings surrounding the street she pandered on. The street and surrounding building were taking the full brunt of Mikoto's rage, all of which was directed at Touma.

He had to move her away from the hospital, the people inside needed to be protected and the best way to do that was to flee to someone less populated. If she was only after him, then he was sure she'd follow wherever he went.

He was right.

As Touma began to tactically withdraw from the outside of the hospital he realised her slow march up the street from the crash had turned to a full-blown chase. Discharges actually aimed at him now flew high and low, left and right as he continued to run. He couldn't stop and block the incoming attacks – it's humanly impossible to react to a strike of electricity regardless, he'd end up charred just for trying.

So he kept running, praying to find somewhere secluded to try and talk her out of her rage and for the bolts of death to miss him only a little while longer. While fleeing, he lamented on his terrible luck

'If only I was this lucky to have girls chase after me for my love and not my head.'

There was a park ahead, guarded by a sea of trees with a large area of disturbed grass and a massive impact zone. It was sealed off with ANTI-SKILL tape, though that only proved there would be limited people there, those who were would be able to defend themselves. Touma positioned himself near the middle of the abandoned oval and waited for her arrival.

Mikoto was slowly approaching Touma's choice of battlefield, moving in a tranced fashion. Bolts continued to lash out in all directions, incarnating grass and melting metal. Her eyes were glazed and her mouth moved continuously to word out the phrase -

"MISAKA is… MISAKA is… MISAKA is…"

"Betrayal"

END