The seventh chapter!
I want to thank for the positive feedback I got before the adventure proceeds.
Thank you!
And now the story continues.
Enjoy!
chapter 7: broken wings freeing the light
Kumiko walked over the street towards the windowless building. The whole district got evacuated.
In front of her was a barricade, hastily set up, and all weapons pointed at her.
The barricade was build up of two tanks, three Anti-Skill trucks and one FIVE_OVER, a special and unmanned power suit, equipped with a gatling railgun, in power even surpassing the original it was build after, the #3's signature move.
Normal powered suits were all around, accompanied by Anti-Skill personnel and members of Judgment.
Kumiko stopped and got immediately surrounded.
Four Six Wings came, flying over them.
And even with so much fire power pointed at her, she had an bored expression on her face.
"Anti-Skill, Judgment, two tanks, one FIVE_OVER, powered suits and four Six wings, huh? I expected more to say the truth.", Kumiko said.
"You're the girl Accelerator fought!", shouted Yomikawa, now being noticed by Kumiko.
At that the defense forces became nervous.
"Correct, that was me. Pleased you remember me. And know that you all know what I'm capable of, I'm going to say a sentence a person I know says. Something that suits this situation perfectly: Do you have the guts to fight against me?", she said, a predatory grin forming on her face.
At that the FIVE-OVER fired a barrage of shoots with its weapon, bullets with enough force to rip through buildings.
Everyone was shocked to see the bullets piling up in front of her, levitating.
"Nice effort.", she commented and the bullets fell down.
She then vanished. The forces began to panic.
"Where is she?"
"I don't see her!"
Over the com came the answer.
"I located her! She is standing on a Six Wing!"
Every pair of eyes wandered to the now on top of a Six wing standing Kumiko.
"Damn, the controls won't react anymore!"
Kumiko watched bored as the others Six Wings repositioned themselves for an better firing angle.
"Well, even if this Six Wing is a nice standing place, I think I'm going to return him to you.", she said and slightly tapped with her foot on the helicopter.
It shoot down and slammed in the ground, exploding there.
But the eyes were still on Kumiko, who stood in the air.
"So,..." she asked everyone around her, deep crimson wings of energy shooting out of her back, the forces petrified by the monster that appeared before them.
The wings stretched and pierced the other Six Wings and one tank instantly, tearing them apart and then retracted back, getting positioned like a peacock wheel.
All started to fire, but the bullets evaporated the moment they got near her.
She descended to the ground and then walked towards them.
"Shall we get started?"
Gunha saw smoke rising up in the distance.
"There is happening something. My guts are needed!", he said and took off.
The moment he got there he saw wrecks and fire everywhere, bodies laying on the ground, but still alive, and Kumiko standing in the middle.
She currently hold the FIVE_OVER with her wings.
'So she is using those gutsy things again.'
"Kumiko, what are you doing here?", he asked.
She turned around, twisted the FIVE_OVER in the middle, ripping it apart, and spoke:
"Gunha, I didn't want you to see this.", she said.
"Seeing what?"
"I don't have time to talk with you now. I need to go.", she ignored his last question and walked away towards the windowless building.
"What are you going to do?", he asked another question.
"I'm going to rip apart the windowless building." she answered.
"STOP!", she heard a yell. She turned around to Gunha who has a serious expression on his face.
'Please, don't do that.', she thought pleadingly.
"I don't know what happened to you, but I won't allow you to do such a gutless thing.", he said, getting in a fighting pose.
'Please don't.'
"Get ready, because I'm going to insert some serious guts into you!", he said running towards her.
"Super...", he said, lifting his arm, hand in a fist.
"Amazing...", he stretched his arm backwards and jumped toward her.
"PUNCH!", he shouted and punched at her.
A explosion occurred, leaving Kumiko in a cloud of dust.
When the cloud cleared you could see Kumiko had stopped the punch with one hand.
She threw him over her shoulder in a nearby building, he crashing through the wall.
"Gunha, you can't stop me! So go away!", she ordered him, hoping he would follow.
"I can't do something so gutless!", he answered, walking out of the building unharmed. Then he got on a pose she already knew.
"Godly...", he began and Plasma started to spin around his fist.
"ANNHILATION!", he shouted and unleashed an stream of plasma, engulfing Kumiko and the nearby area around her.
The streamed died down and once again one could see Kumiko standing there, unharmed.
Then she began to attack too.
Her wings lashed out, grabbed debris or parts of the former machinery and threw them at Gunha.
He responded by dodging and destroying the things flying at him.
he then stopped abruptly, pressed himself with a foot from the ground and flew straight towards Kumiko, yelling:
"SUPER AMAZING KICK"
But when he was around 8 meters away she grabbed him with the wings out of the air, enveloping all his body but the head.
She moved him closer to her, he now being at her mercy.
"See, that won't lead you to anything! Stop that now!", she tried to convince him again.
"NO, I refuse to let you be without guts!", and with that he ripped the wings enveloping him apart, landed on his feet and punched her.
The punch stopped before it could harm her.
Then, faster he could react, she grabbed him by his neck and lifted him up.
"I'm sorry...", she said with sadness filling her eyes.
Then the wings pierced through him, coming out of his back.
His face was filled with surprise and... mournfulness?
Then his eyes glassed and his body became numb, limbs hanging down.
She laid his now motionless body on the ground gently and folded his hands on his chest. Tears began to run down her cheeks.
'I'm sorry, Gunha... I'm so, so sorry...'
Kumiko looked a last time on his body, wiped away her tears, turned away and walked onwards her target.
Unbeknownst to her, the place her wings had pierced him started to glow and distort...
Touma saw something in the distance.
It was the column of smoke that raised up from the area the fight was.
He didn't think about it and run towards the column, ignoring the stop shields and shut off.
Four persons followed him.
He found the area and looked shocked at the destruction.
'What had happened here?'
Then he saw a teacher from his school, namely Yomikawa Aiho, laying unconscious on the ground.
He ran to her and kneeled beside her, checking for life signs.
'Thank god, she is just unconscious!', he thought relieved.
He suddenly heard a stone getting kicked and a suppressed "shit!".
Touma turned around and saw Hamazura.
"What are you doing here, Hamazura?", he asked.
"Ähm, stopping by...?", Hamazura said sheepishly, trying to cover the real reason.
Touma looked at him for a few seconds.
Hamazura began to sweat.
"Well, ok. I'm going to look who had done that.", Touma said and walked in the direction the destruction took.
Hamazura, relieved Touma was sometimes an idiot, decided to follow him and signaled the others to follow suit.
They both stopped as they saw Gunha laying with hands folded over his chest on the floor, motionless.
They ran towards him.
"Hey, wake up!", they shouted and kneeled beside him.
Gunha had his T-shirt ripped and his chest and belly was bare, but unharmed.
Suddenly he sat up fast and looked around, confused and angry alike.
The sudden movement made them flinch.
"Where is that person that had lost its guts?", he asked in the round.
"Who?", Touma asked.
"A girl I know, former 'most-guts' I have met so far, name is Kumiko."
"WWWHHHHAAAAAATTTT? SUPER MIKO-NEEEE?!", they heard a girl yell.
All three turned around to the one who yelled, Kinuhata Saiai, who now stood in the open, looking at Gunha with wide eyes.
"Miko-nee?", Touma asked, wondering from where the girl popped up.
"You know her?", came a question from Hamazura.
"Well, it was when the Dark May Project was super still running...", she began to tell.
*FLASHBACK*
Six years ago:
"Now, now, don't cry, Sai-chan.", Kumiko said to Kinuhata after the first overwriting process.
She embraced Kinuhata tight, who was crying from the pain.
"B-But it hurts so much, Miko-nee...", she said, tears rolling down her face.
"Nah, nah, pain is indeed something that is not pleasurably, but we must overcome the pain to move further into the future. So be a big girl and fight against it with all your might, okay."
At that Kumiko pressed her more tightly against her and patted the back of her head, succeeding in calming her down.
"Sai-chan, I will be away soon. So do me a favor: Stay alive by all means. Bite yourself through life. You will struggle sometime, you will be hurt sometime, but fight against it. Can you do me this favor?", Kumiko asked Kinuhata and released her so that she can look up at her.
Kinuhata, though shocked that the other girl will be away soon, smiled at her and answered.
"Will do, Miko-nee."
*FLASHBACK END*
"... at last it was also Kumiko who super gave Umidori the chance to kill the scientists and that marked the end of the project, but I heard that only months later.", she finished.
The three boys had different reactions.
Hamazura had found respect for this him unknown person and started to feel sorry for Umidori who became Worst's plaything .
Touma was shocked to hear that Kumiko had let someone get killed and he too felt sorry for Umidori.
Gunha was... well, he was Gunha.
"I knew she had some guts! And because she lost them, we need to infuse her with some so she has guts once again!", Gunha exclaimed, jumped up and had a look of determination in his eyes.
"Let's go stop her before she does something really stupid.", Touma agreed and the other three nodded in agreement.
They sprinted through the path of destruction.
Mugino, who followed them in some distance with Takitsubo, had got herself an earpiece and listened to the com.
"She is a monster!"
"Stop her! Stop he- aaarghhh..."
" A Tank is lost, I repeat, a tank is lost!"
"Why won't my bullets hit?"
"She got the other FIVE_OVER!"
Mugino began to get... excited.
Everywhere laid wrecks and Anti-Skill or Judgment members, the street got ripped apart, and in the distance they heard gunfire.
The gunfire stopped then slowly and silence followed.
They saw Kumiko using her wings to pin a FIVE_OVER to a wall.
Suddenly the FIVE_OVER exploded.
"Kumiko!", Touma yelled and she turned around.
Her eyes widened when she saw Gunha unharmed, and alive.
"Miko-nee, what are you super doing here?", Kinuhata asked the other girl.
"Well, hi Sai-chan. Long time no see!", she answered smiling, now regained her composure.
"And could you please call out your little two friends following you?!"
At that point were hiding was useless, Mugino decided to come out, together with Takitsubo, who looked at Kumiko terrified, but nobody noticed it..
"To you too: Long time no see! Right, Mugino?", Kumiko greeted and everyone looked surprised at Mugino.
"Yeah, it was a long time, 'Valkyrie'.", she replied.
"WHAT? She is Valkyrie?", asked Hamazura, looking at Kumiko now in fear.
Kumiko fake bowed: "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Kumiko, you haven't given us an answer yet: What are you going to do?", Touma asked with emphasis in his voice.
"I'm going to make the man pay who made me Valkyrie, who is the cause of me becoming a murderer and who blacklisted me. I kill the one who made me a monster.", she answered him truthfully, not seeing a reason to lie.
"...Do you really think you are a monster?", Touma asked her.
"No, I'm not thinking it, I'm stating a fact. If you don't believe me, ask the black haired girl over there."
All looked at Takitsubo.
"She is not fully human.", she said after a few moments.
"What?"
"Her AIM field is not like that of an esper. Normally an AIM field is like a from the body pulsing out frequency. Hers is like veins flowing through her, starting around the clavicle. And it is far, far more dense than every human's that I saw."
"That's correct. I'm the one who failed to ascend, the failure of the Orion project. An Abomination of science.", Kumiko's answer came.
"You think you are a abomination? A monster? You, one of the most overzealous persons I know?", Touma asked.
"Yes, I think so. I'm physically not fully human, a hybrid, something that shouldn't exist. And I'm a murderer of many; There is no other way to describe me."
"Say, when you are truly a monster, why didn't you kill one of the Anti-Skill or Judgment?
If a person like you, a zealous, caring big sister, who would do anything for her little brother, calls herself a monster...;
If you degrade yourself to the level of the one responsible for all this...;
If you are going to go deeper into the darkness by killing another person instead working on paying for your sins...
then I'm going to destroy this fucked up illusion of yours!", he said with determination in his eyes, his right arm outstretched in front of him, making the hand into a fist.
Kumiko began to laugh, coldly and without any emotion in it.
"Very well, let's make a bet, shall we? If you are able to destroy my illusion, the illusion of Valkyrie, the angel of death, the abomination of science, the product of three whole projects, and make me a human once more, than I will stop the rampage.", she said, energy enveloping all of her body and the half of an halo formed over her head.
There were no more need for words.
Touma ran straight at her, evading the incoming wings.
One wing managed to hit him in the left side and he was send flying.
Mugino fired her Meltdowner, but couldn't harm Kumiko. She needed to get in cover as Plasma was send her way.
Kumiko's wings lashed out and produced an shockwave and a hail of debris.
Kinuhata simply ran through the rain of debris and was only 10 meters from Kumiko away, but a wing hit her, sending her away in the opposite direction and crashing in a wall.
Hamazura, who couldn't do anything to harm Kumiko, simply protected his girlfriend.
Gunha suddenly appeared in front of Kumiko shouting and doing an 'amazing punch', but his fist stopped before hitting.
One wing clashed in his side, letting him fly in a nearby building.
Mugino fired another barrage and let the area surrounding Kumiko explode, leaving it burn.
The fire vanished after some moments, revealing Kumiko unscratched.
The wings suddenly moved and pointed to a single point above her head.
Plasma started to accumulate at the point.
More and more Plasma got added and the ball of plasma got bigger and bigger.
Kumiko then send the ball on its way towards the group.
Before it melted them away Touma got bleeding in front of them and hold his right hand in front.
The moment the ball mad contact with the boy's hand the ball dispersed.
The ones who didn't know his Imagine breaker had wide eyes.
But they didn't have time to be suprised about that yet.
The next barrage debris came flying towards them.
"Hey, you said the point is at her clavicle, right?", asked Touma, dodging the debris.
"Yeah, why?", Takitsubo answered, hiding behind a wreck.
"Ok, listen up: I think I can stop her when I get to touch her. Can you open a path for me?", came a question from Touma.
The others looked at him and nodded.
"Then go!"
Touma began to run towards Kumiko.
40 meters left: Debris came flying at him but Kinuhata positioned herself in front of him, blocking the debris, and then ran with him frontwards.
30 meters left: Two wrecked powered suits came flying. Two green beams got fired and evaporated them before they hit.
20 meters left: 4 wings came in his direction but got punched to the side by Gunha.
10 meters left: Two more wings lashed out at him, but he grabbed and twisted them similar to accelerator's in Russia during world war III.
5 meters left: Kumiko stomped and send debris at Touma but Kinuhata blocked the debris, getting send flying by the force.
1 meters left: Touma reached out...
And his arm sunk into Kumiko's clavicle.
It looked like cracks opened on Kumiko where his arm subsided.
His arm went deeper until he felt like he touched something. He grabbed and pulled it out.
What he hold in his hands was a prism.
He clenched his fist and the prism fragmented.
The energy shrouding her, the half halo and the wings vanished slowly.
After a few seconds her body was visible again.
Kumiko's lips formed a smile while her arms hanged down numbly.
She said: "Thank you... for me... being able to be... human... again."
Blood began to came out of her nose, mouth, eyes and ears.
Then she fell on her knees, head laying in her neck and eyes starring up in the sky.
Her eyes began to glassing, her vision blurring.
She heard voices that seemed to be far away.
Something grabbed her on the shoulder.
The only thought in Kumiko's mind was:
'Thank you...'
Then all turned black.
Kumiko woke up in a hospital room. But something was different.
She felt...imperfect, incomplete, fragile, so... human.
It was a wonderful feeling.
She knew already who owned this hospital and used the call button.
The frog faced doctor smiled at her widely when he entered the room.
"Slept well, Kumiko-san?", he asked her.
"Very good, Heaven Canceller. I haven't slept so good in 4 years."
"It seems that someone had finally get you back from this path. And to think that you also get back to being human."
"Well, I think it's wonderful.", she answered but then her expression darkens.
"The 'back to being human'-part. I still want to rip him apart."
"Considering your history with him, It's not something to wonder about."
"Yeah, but a bet is a bet, I will stop attacking him... until he gives me a reason, that is.", she said and sighed.
"I don't think you will do that. You being back to human dropped the strength of your ability. You won't be able to get in the windowless building by force anymore.", he reminded her.
"That's true. But I can still defend Kureno.", she said.
"AH, before I forget, there is a person from Anti-Skill that need to talk to you. I call her and say that you are awake now.", and with that he left the room.
She looked at the date on the watch next to her bed.
'One week were I out, huh?', she thought.
After a hour the blue haired woman from Anti-Skill came in.
"Hello, my name is Yomikawa Aiho", she introduced herself.
At her sight Kumiko flinched, then bowed and shouted:"I APOLOGISE FOR WHAT I DID!"
The woman just smiled at her.
"Don't worry, I don't have a grudge against you. You didn't killed a single one in this accident, so it's alright. Though you need to pay for the damages you caused", she said reassuringly and gave her with a smirk the paper.
Kumiko looked at the bill and visually paled.
"That's double the amount of money I have!", she exclaimed.
"Only the double? I thought it would be at least hundred times the amount. And don't be surprised. After all you destroyed 150 powered suits, ten from them FIVE_OVERs, 20 Six Wings, 15 tanks, 45 trucks and 15 buildings." , she listed the things Kumiko needed to pay for.
"I have lost my job! How in the world should I pay for all of that?", Kumiko asked as desperation filled her.
"Don't worry, I looked at your profile and saw you already have a degree and a teaching license. I looked for a job for you in the time you were out. And don't panic, no one apart the persons involved in the fight knows that you caused the destruction.", she said and gave Kumiko a folder.
'Thank god I got myself these things to teach Kureno so he wouldn't get caught when he would walk to school!', she thought and opened the folder.
Kumiko looked at the job description and where she would work.
Then she turned to Yomikawa.
"Are you sure?", Kumiko asked.
"Yeah!"
"You are not kidding with me, right?", she tried to ensure what she read was not a bad joke.
"No, I'm not.", Yomikawa replied.
A large, large grin spread across Kumiko's face.
Yomikawa replied in kind and got one too.
"When do I begin?", Kumiko asked.
Misaka Mikoto's thought processes had stopped.
She couldn't comprehend what exactly was happening.
Misaka was in her classroom and in front of the class was...
"Hello, everyone! My name is Kurokami Kumiko and I'm going to be your teacher in all school subjects for the next year! Pleased to meet you all!"
"What?"
And this was the seventh chapter!
In this chapter came up Touma's slogan. I just needed to put it in, it matched perfectly!
To the Dark May Project: I didn't really find an date from when to when it was active, so decided it to be six years so that it could match the relation between Kinuhata and Kumiko.
For the people who don't know how Kumiko's wings look like after I tried to describe him, I 'created' them after the wings of an arch angel from diablo III;(If you still don't know, just google it!)
With this chapter my first arc, I decided to give it the name 'Valkyrie Incident', ends! But do not worry, more chapters with a new arc are coming!
Remember to leave a review, questions you maybe have or feedback!
With that, I'm out! Bye!