Kuroko Shirai was a fairly normal girl, growing up. She lived her life as any child her age would: she made friends, she developed interests, she explored the world around her. And as she grew older, she started to hit certain milestones.
When she was four, she got into her first fight, defending her best friend at the time from a slightly older bully. When she was six, she discovered a passion for writing, and so took that up as her main hobby. When she was eight, she managed to convince her father to send her to Academy City, where she subsequently developed her very own Esper power. When she was ten, she managed to work her rank up to a Level Two. When she was eleven, she applied to join Judgment, and was soon accepted into their training academy. When she was twelve, she met her best and dearest friend, Kazari Uiharu. When she was thirteen, she not only raised her power to that of a Level 4, but she also managed to arrange her transfer to the prestigious Tokiwadai Middle School.
When Kuroko Shirai was also thirteen, she received memories of her old life, and died. The creature she had now become did not like any of this at all.
"Miss Shirai? Can you hear me?"
The sound of an older, gravelly voice stirred Kuroko from her sleep. She found herself slowly stirring to life, her eyes blinking blearily as she took stock of her surroundings. An unfamiliar, sterile looking room greeted her eyes, as did the sound of an active heart monitor.
She looked down at herself, seeing herself dressed in a green surgical gown, while an IV was inserted into her exposed arm. She was also lying in a somewhat uncomfortable bed, such as it was, with a drab blue blanket draped over her lap. Quite clearly, she was in a hospital.
She took stock of herself again, once she had truly absorbed that fact. She seemed to have all of her limbs still attached, which relieved an irrational fear of some horrible accident befalling her. In fact, her body…felt fine, actually, like she didn't hurt at all. Well, aside from a vague, distant throbbing in her temples, but that seemed paltry in comparison to the sundry issues and pains she could have been dealing with.
She heard a voice calling her name again, and Kuroko finally turned her attention away from herself. Sitting next to her was an older, heavy-set man with a vaguely frog-like face—Heaven Canceller, the name comes to her in a flash—dressed in a lab coat. He bore a look of concern upon his features, his eyes searching her own as he studied her.
"…I'm at the hospital?" Kuroko voiced with some confusion, the first thing to come to mind.
The man—Heaven Canceller, wait, where did that come from, how did she know that—gave her a simple nod.
"Yes, you are. How are you feeling, young miss? Are you experiencing any pain? Dizziness? Or any other symptoms of the like?" he asked.
Kuroko blinked again as she considered his—Heaven Canceller, where was that coming from—question. Again, aside from that minor headache, she felt rather fine. Though that clearly hadn't been the case in the recent past, considering where she was at.
"I'm…fine, I think?" Kuroko hedged, uncertainty mixed into her tone. "Did…something happen to me?"
The doctor—Heaven Canceller, why does she know that name—pursed his lips in thought, considering his words carefully before speaking again.
"What's the last thing you remember, Miss Shirai?"
Kuroko frowned at that, a little frustrated at his non-answer. Still, she gave a compliant sigh, closing her eyes as she tried to focus and remember—
Remember.
Remember.
Remember.
Remember.
LevelSixShiftProjectAcceleratorSistersNecessariusIndexITEMScavengerMagicGodsWorldWarThreeKiyamaHarumiLastOrderDAAleisterCrowlyHomeBellaAmericaSherrifsOfficeSistersNiecesNephewsFamilyFiguresSchoolCollegeLouisGraduationDatingWastedYouthAnimeMangaDreamsBooksBelleRegretsDeathEndLossHurtGoneGoneGone—
The creature that had formerly been Kuroko Shirai opened her eyes.
Her hands gripped her bed's threadbare blanket tightly, a slight tremble to her fingers as she adjusted to the memory of a whole different life being crammed inside of her head. Memories of being an adult, leading an entirely different life, living on an entirely different continent, having an entirely different family, and knowledge of a world that shouldn't be real, of fictional characters that had no right to exist.
She slowly glanced toward Heaven Canceller at her side, a spike of fear flashing through her body as she truly took in his features. She looked down at herself again, taking in her smaller hands, her smaller body, and dreaded to think of what she would see in the mirror.
"Miss Shirai?" He prompted her again, appearing more concerned as he leaned forward.
She almost, almost snapped that that wasn't her name before the last piece of sanity that she…he…she had managed to still her tongue. She closed her eyes again, forcing her hands to relax as she engineered a mask of calm. At the same time, one continuous thought started to play in her head.
Don't let them experiment on you don't let them experiment on you don't let them know THEY CAN'T KNOW—
"I'm fine," she said, pushing past the disconcerting feeling of not recognizing her own voice. Or, at least, knowing it wasn't supposed to be her voice.
"The last thing i remember…I woke up feeling feverish," she finally answered his question, keeping her features schooled. "Did something happen?"
Heaven Canceller studied her face for a few moments, his brows still knit, but he gave a nod all the same. "Yes, you came down with quite the nasty bug. A high fever, vomiting, delirium, the works. It's been a rough week for you, Miss Shirai. Thankfully, your fever broke yesterday, and you've been on the path to recovery since. You don't remember any of that?"
Kuroko blinked once, twice, and filed that information away for later. Slowly, she shook her head.
"Well, that might be for the best. You really had us scared there," he said, giving her a sympathetic smile. "This is the first time you've been fully conscious since you arrived. Between that and your fever breaking, it seems like you're on the mend. Now, I'd just like to run a few more tests here, to make sure there's no other issues…"
Kuroko gave a polite smile, nodding as she listened to Heaven Canceller. Her left hand, meanwhile, started to tremble ever so slightly.
Later, Kuroko stared at herself in the bathroom mirror of her hospital room, her expression blank and lifeless. She observed the eyes that stared back at her, a feeling of revulsion and disgust briefly flaring through her. After a few moments, however, that feeling receded, replaced by a detached, clinical interest as she observed her new—old—new body.
She held out her hand, and watched her doppleganger copy her movements, almost feeling as if she was watching someone else entirely. She held out that same hand, brushing it over the left side of her skull. Her eyes traced over her skin as she parted the hair in place, searching for an implant that clearly wasn't there.
Oh, right. Kuroko hadn't had severe ear infections as a child, leading to total hearing loss in her left ear. She hadn't had a cochlear implant installed in her skull to make up for that hearing loss later in life, either.
The Monster that had woken up as Kuroko Shirai blinked once, twice, three times, and finally registered how loud everything was. Though her hospital room was quiet, outside, she could hear the distant murmurs of hushed voices, and shuffling feet. She shouldn't have been able to make out sounds that clearly, not without her implant hooked in and turned on.
But she'd never gone deaf in one ear, so she'd never needed such a thing.
Her hand moved away from her head, drifting down to her stomach. She pressed the uncomfortable fabric of the hospital gown against her skin, blinking some more as she fully registered how skinny she was. Kuroko Shirai had never struggled with her weight, and had never undergone weight loss surgery that had seen her intestines rearranged and her stomach cut in half.
The thought almost brought a smile to her lips, a spark flashing in her eyes as for one brief, brilliant moment, she felt relief. But then she remembered that this wasn't her body, and that smile vanished just as fast.
Finally, she stopped, drawing her hand back to her side. A long moment of silence followed, and then:
"I'm Kuroko Shirai."
The words felt hollow to her, burning on her tongue as she forced them out of her.
"I'm Kuroko Shirai."
The words still stung, still felt wrong to her. And yet, she had to say it. Had to believe it. She had no other name but that now, however much she might wish otherwise. And she desperately wished she had another name, but she knew none other than her own. Of all the things she had remembered, of all the secrets she knew now, her own name had not been among them.
"I'm Kuroko Shirai."
The lie, this time, hurt her less. She breathed deeply, bringing her shaking hands to grip the sink below the mirror.
She smiled before the mirror, her reflection looking as hollow and brittle as she felt.
"I'm not Kuroko Shirai."
The next time Kuroko woke up, she half expected to find out that this, all of this, was some sort of bizarre dream. Either she would awaken wholly as herself, or who she had been, finding out the other had just been some strange, vivid nightmare. But as she opened her eyes, she faced the terrible truth:
This was real. She was Kuroko Shirai. And she wasn't.
"Shirai!"
A happy, feminine voice startled her, Kuroko's eyes fully widening as she searched for the voice's source. This time, instead of Heaven Canceller, a young girl with black hair and a flower crown is sitting at her side.
Kazari Uiharu. She's real. But she's also not.
"I'm so happy you're awake," Uiharu went on, a relieved smile on her face. So relieved, in fact, that she seemingly did not notice the wide-eyed, frightened stare that Kuroko was giving her.
Kazari Uiharu, the best friend of Kuroko Shirai. Such a bright, cheery young girl, so full of promise and hope. All the more pity for her, then, that her best friend is dead.
Kuroko swallowed thickly, her heart beating fast in her chest. Before Uiharu could discern something was wrong, though, she forced her feelings down, and brought out her mask in their stead.
"Uiharu," she greeted, an unnatural smile plastered on her face. "It's good to see you too."
They talked, well, mostly Uiharu talked, and Kuroko mostly listened. Uiharu filled her in on everything she'd missed while sick and away from her Judgment duties. Kuroko couldn't keep track of it, strained as she was in maintaining her facade of peace, but Uiharu was kind enough not to notice.
Eventually, Uiharu bid her farewell, and left her to rest and recover. Kuroko could only stare up at the ceiling in the aftermath, feeling strangely numb. Is this what it was like to lie to a good person?
She is Kuroko Shirai. She's also not. But either way, this is her life now, and she has to deal with it.
After two more days, she was let out of the hospital with a clean bill of health. Kuroko almost ran out of the building, wanting to be anywhere but there, but found herself coming to a halt just outside the front entrance.
A strange look came onto her face, and moments later she vanished from view, reappearing some distance away from the hospital entrance.
She spent a long, careful minute examining herself, making sure everything is where it should be. Then, a palpable feeling of relief filled her, and the thought of thank god it still works filtered through her mind.
After that, though, she spent several minutes rooted in place, a true sense of terror filling her body. Outside of the hospital, now, she cannot face away from reality. And what was her reality, now?
She was stuck in Academy City. And if she did not play her part carefully, then she would almost certainly die a cruel, painful death.
The creature who had once been Kuroko Shirai allowed herself to take stock of this fact. Several moments later, she searched through her memory, through Kuroko's memory, and started to teleport shortly thereafter. A few hops later, she wound up in a vacant lot within the district, not a soul in sight as she stood there.
She opened her mouth and screamed.
Author's Note:
So, I haven't written fanfiction in a few years now. This is my first time writing serious fanfic for ToAru. But I was reading some Railgun fanfiction the other day, and was struck by this idea for a Railgun SI that just refused to leave me be. So, here we are. This is going to be a different kind of self-insert fanfic, more of a character study and drama than focusing just on the changes such a character would make...although that will be explored. This is more to explore the ramifications of a Self Insert and a Canonical Character being merged into one being, and the new entity that makes entirely.