II

Chapter 8: Coincidence Meeting, Rescue Operation!

Blood_Trail

Part 1

Zap - Zap - Zap

At regular and short intervals, the three girls instantly travelled a distance of roughly eighty meters. This was just possible thanks to the ability of the level 4 teleporter Shirai Kuroko, who was holding hands with Kinuhata Saiai and Takitsubo Rikou to bring them along every time she warped through space.

"Shirai-san, tu - rn left on the next stree - t, then go forward - for another two ki - lometers and you'll r - each the car!" Uiharu's instructions arrived through her communication device. The signal got cut for a moment every time she teleported.

"Understood!" Kuroko followed the instructions and covered the distance in a record time of thirty seconds.

They were currently chasing a black car that was present on the image they got from hacking the satellite Hitoboshi II fifteen minutes earlier. Since they had no idea where those men in black had took Hishiro, this was their only precious clue. Uiharu searched quickly for the car with the same plate and, luckily enough, it was running on the neighbor District 4. From there, they pursued the vehicle all the way to District 14 close to the city wall.

"I can see it!" Said kinuhata as she pointed towards it. "It's super turning right... that's the direction of the road that goes outside the city!"

"That means there won't be any civil buildings in the way... perfect!" Kuroko smile almost seemed bloodthirsty as she pointed out.

"Don't charge in recklessly." Warned Takitsubo. "Those three trucks close to it don't seem to be regular cargo ones."

"In that case, there's going to be a lot of them... this is going to get super huge."

"Leave it to me! I'll open enough space for us!" Proclaiming that, she increased the peace of her warps and got several meters ahead of the vehicles. She then picked something that looked like a gun and shoot it upwards.

The shot exploded in the sky like a signal flare. Everyone in the road made quite a ruckus trying to get out of the way. Those who lived in the city knew that this signal was an order to evacuate. Of course, those inside the car and the trucks would also know that, but Kuroko had already took the necessary precautions to keep them from running away.

The four vehicles drifted, trying to turn 180 degrees without success. All their tires were pierced by steel darts teleported by the twin pig tailed girl. Just as she expected, their targets were isolated together with the three girls in the road with no escape routes. Satisfied, she stepped forward and yelled "This is Judgement! Surrender yourselves!"

Without wasting any second, five people left the car - each of them carrying a submachine gun - and started to fire without mercy. Kuroko teleported away to avoid getting hit. Kinuhata jumped in front of Takitsubo to protect her from the rain of bullets.

Kuroko reappeared right behind the five men and pierced their guns with needles, neutralizing them. She then dropkicked one of the man on his head, knocking him down, and teleported away once again before they could counterattack.

While they were confused, Kinuhata tackled the foremost man, sending him flying. Two other came for her and sent punches for her head, but she grasped their fists and pulled them down, smashing them on the asphalt.

The last one - apparently the younger of the group - noticed that it was useless to go for a hand to hand combat and threw his damaged gun at her. Kinuhata punched it on reflex, her arm pierced right through it destroying the object in dozens of pieces that continued to fly at her direction. None of them harmed her because of her Offence Armor, but it delayed enough for the man to reach one of the trucks. From its cargo, he got an large sniper rifle and pointed at the hoddie girl confidently. "Try and survive that! Ahahahaha- Guha!"

Before he had the chance to pull the trigger, Kuroko teleported in front of him and kicked his gut with all her strength, driving him unconscious.

But it wasn't over yet.

Mechanical noises rang from the inside of the other two trucks. Their containers opened, revealing a couple of powered suits inside each. Without delay, the machines charged toward the girls, ready to fire their high caliber guns and smash them with large cowbar-like tools.

"Now the situation got a little complicated..." Complained Kuroko. She was almost at the limit of her stamina after all the fighting and chasing she had done that day.

Kinuhata wasn't liking this turn of events either. To fight against all four of them at the same time is going to be a super pain. If at least either Mugino or Frenda were here… just one more would be enough. Deciding that it was better to take the initiative this time, she ran for the black car, teared the door away from the vehicle and launched it at the closest suit.

It was an obvious attack. The machine fired its gun at the incoming object rapidly, obstructing its path. What wasn't obvious though was that the car itself had been launched as well right after the door. The pilot couldn't react in time and the car crashed at the powered suit and exploded, knocking the machine to the ground.

Two from the three remaining foes went after Kinuhata, leaving a single one for Kuroko to take care of. The armor swung down the massive crowbar multiple times, forcing the twin pig tailed girl to jump out of the attack range again and again. At some point, the blunt weapon pierced the asphalt and got struck.

"Way too slow!" Before it could be pulled back, Kuroko touched it and teleported it to inside the leg of the powered suit, piercing the area slightly under the knee articulation and sending sparks flying all over the place. Unable to move anymore, the machine recurred to his gun, but Kuroko had already foreseen what it would do. She teleported to the armor's shoulder and lightly kicked the helmet visor. The pilot must have panicked because the armor started to make weird movements trying to shake the girl off until it lost its balance and fell to the ground. Meanwhile Kuroko jumped off, grabbed the crowbar again and teleported it inside the arm.

The result was a powered suit pinned to the ground by by its own weapon piercing its arm. "I see you're not very used to pilot those things, nor to deal with teleporters, am I right?" Mocked the girl wearing a satisfied smile. She then looked over her shoulder to see how her partner was doing.

One of the remaining suits was on fire and completely trashed at the edge of the road. The other one was struggling, trying to smash Kinuhata with the crowbar while she held it in place with a single lifted hand. "Give up. You super can't outpower me." Kinuhata slowly twisted the object in her grip, moving the armor's arm in an angle that it wasn't supposed to. But before she could break it, her enemy pointed the large gun at her and fired thrice, sending her a few meters back.

She's brutal... Thought Kuroko, as she approached to help. She picked four darts and teleported them to specific points on the gun, rendering it useless. Both Kinuhata and the pilot noticed that it couldn't shoot anymore, and the hoodie girl dashed to give the final blow.

"Wait, Kinuhata! There's an Esper-" Takitsubo tried to warn her friend from the distance, but it was already too late. Kinuhata suddenly stopped on her tracks, lost balance and fell to her knees - but her suddenly cold feet never left the ground. From her knees on, the lower part of her legs were suddenly frozen solid. Literally covered by a thick layer of ice.

"Haha! I was just trying to freeze the asphalt to make you slide, but damn, that's fantastic!" The scornful voice came from the inside of the powered suit. The pilot pushed the helmet open and jumped off the armor. "The deal may have ended in an utter failure because of you, but I guess I'll be getting an reward far more valuable than all that money."

The pilot was a young man - probably between nineteen and twenty two years old - with pitch black short hair and wearing a red racing suit. "For some reason, you seem to be vulnerable to my freezing techniques... Hahaha, I'm gonna have a lot of fun with you, little doll!"

"Oh... I got it..." Kinuhata quickly analyzed her enemy's ability while she still was all on fours "You use nitrogen to super freeze things. That's why I can't break free of this." The man didn't confirmed nor denied and simply walked forward towards her while smirking. But he couldn't reach her in time.

Kuroko got to Kinuhata's side first and teleported her away from the ice sticking on her legs. "Are you alright?"

"This was nothing." Her ankles almost sprinkled and the cold hurt her skin, but this was really nothing when compared to what Hishiro had done to her a few days ago. "But his ability is super troublesome to deal with using mine. I probably got lucky it just affected my legs. Next time I might freeze to death inside an ice coffin."

Kuroko didn't understand what nitrogen had to do with the inhuman strength and endurance Kinuhata had displayed until now, but the phenomena that had just happened was proof enough that the situation was dangerous for her. So she stepped forward and stood in between the man and her ally, glaring coldly at him. "You can't win by yourself. Leave her alone and surrender."

"Really lady... do you seriously believe that I would stop after finding that interesting toy just because you're asking?"

"No... actually not. You don't seem to be smart enough to back off when confronting someone you can't defeat." Her retort was accompanied with the eerie shine of her last darts teleporting to her hands. "But these are Judgement regulations, so I have to ask anyway."

"Since when do you care about the regulations this much, Shirai-san?" Uiharu's voice got her by surprise. She had already forgotten that the girl was hearing everything through the communicator.

"Someone I can't defeat? You're messing with me." As soon as the male said that, the asphalt around him suddenly turned cold and got covered with a thin layer of ice. "The day I lose to someone of your age is the day I give up being an Esper."

"Are you sure about that? You never fought against anyone from Tokiwadai before, did you?"

"There's a first time for everything. And the first time is the most exciting!" Without taking his feet from the ground, the man closed his distance to the girls in a flash. On raw reflex, Kuroko grabbed Kinuhata's hand and teleported out of the way before he could freeze her again. But once they reappeared, they lost their balance on the slippery ice covered asphalt and fell on their backs.

"H-how did he got to us so fast?"

"Look! I don't know how it works, but he can super slide and move freely on the ice!" Kuroko turned to see what Kinuhata was talking about. Neither of his feet were moving. He glided on the surface unnaturally at tremendous speed without effort.

His ability wasn't that strong. Putting what happened to Kinuhata a moment ago aside, the layer of ice was very thin and fragile, to the point that once he got far enough, it would instantly melt without a trace. He should probably be classified as a level 2 if that was all. But the problem was the range of effect and his ability to move freely over it. That made difficult for any opponent to close in and gave him high chances to dodge long range attacks due to his speed.

"Here he comes again!" Kuroko tried to teleport out of the way again but against her expectations, only Kinuhata warped away, leaving herself defenseless to the upcoming attack. The man reached her and punched her face, sending her sliding several meters until she hit the side of the truck. Before she could recover, he had reached her again and wrapped his hand on her neck, choking her. "Ghhh...!"

"HAHAHA! What's wrong, young lady? I'm still waiting for this someone I can't defeat! Where is she, huh?!" She tried to teleport again, but under these circumstances she couldn't concentrate enough to do the needed calculations. Her best option was to try to get out of this situation by teleporting something smaller. With her darts still on her left hand, she aimed for the male's shoulder and...

"Gwah-! Wha- what have you done!?" The sudden sharp pain forced him to let go his grasp, freeing Kuroko as he desperately reached for the source of the pain. The dart digging deep inside the back of his upper arm. "You little...!" Filled with rage he attempted to stomp on the twin pigtailed girl, but she saw it coming and avoided by rolling to the side. She quickly stood up and sent a high kick to his neck, but because of the slippery floor she couldn't gather enough strength to knock him down. After taking the weak strike, he slapped her with the back of his hand, sending her sliding on the ground again.

However, this time he couldn't keep his assault because a huge chunk of metal came flying his way. It wasn't a clean hit because he noticed on the last moment and sidestepped, but it managed to hit his already injured arm. "For someone so interested on your new toy, you forgot about me super fast. Is she really more fun to play with?" Another mass of scrap - that used to belong to the powered suit - came flying following Kinuhata's taunt. This time the male managed to avoid it completely by sliding on the frozen asphalt.

"If you want to play with me so much, be prepared to die!" His anger blinded him and he dashed towards the hoddie girl without noticing the cylindrical object she had kicked to Kuroko. She received the item and caught on what her partner was planning just by glancing on it.

The man was just a few steps away from getting Kinuhata inside the area of effect of his ability when it happened. Zap - Something suddenly appeared right in front of him and started spraying an unknown substance all over his body. He could move fast on ice, but a surprise attack at this range was impossible to avoid no matter how quick one was to react, specially because he was already moving forward at his monstrous speed. "Cough Cough! Cough! What the hell is this?!"

"It's nitrogen." Announced Kinuhata while grinning devilishly. "Can you super guess what's going to happen to you now?"

"Wait, you don't mean-" He couldn't finish his line. In an instant, his whole body got enveloped by ice. It was way worse than what had happened to Kinuhata before, the ice this time was at least forty centimeters thick.

"Amazing… not even I thought it was going to cover him completely. Looks like the concentration of nitrogen in the air super buffs the effect beyond his control. I wonder if he breathed in some of it? If so, his lungs must be super gone by now." The hoodie girl examined curiously the work of art from many different angles. "It's really a scary ability. I don't envy him one bit."

"Why were you carrying that spray with you in the first place?" Asked Kuroko out of curiosity.

"... That's a lady's secret."

I thought we were supposed to use this line on men only… "Anyway, we need to take him out of there quickly." Kuroko approached the ice statue. "I can't use my teleportation for a while, so lend me a hand."

"Why? We had a lot of trouble to get him stuck inside this thing."

"You… can't be serious, right?" Kinuhata looked serious though. It may sound comical, but getting your whole body frozen like this was no joke. Risks of hypothermia aside, there shouldn't be enough air to breath inside there. He could really die in a matter of a few minutes if nothing was done.

Thankfully, Takitsubo left her safe cover and convinced her friend. "Kinuhata, wouldn't be a better idea to question him instead?"

"Oh, that's right. We need information on his whereabouts. In that case… baaamm..." She nonchalantly karate-chopped the huge ice cube and it's upper part cracked and fell apart, freeing the man's head which was enough for her goal.

"Gaahh… I'm alive? I-I can breath? Uuugh - it's so cold!"

"Yeah, you're alive… but your body temperature will keep super dropping, so you're not safe yet."

His head jerked - it was impossible to tell if it was a shiver from the cold or if it was panic caused by her words. "H-hey, c'mon. Can-can you take me outta here?" Everything he got as response was a stare from the three girls colder than the ice around him. "L-listen! There's a representative o-of a huge enterprise waiting f-for us outside of the walls. P-part of the cargo got damaged, but the guns i-inside the truck are still in one piece! They are n-no regular guns either. I-I'm talking about Academy City's exclusive model, t-the Metal Eater! W-we can make a lot of money! I-I promise to let keep the larger part- no, everything! You can keep everything! Just let me go, please!"

"Wait, you are weapon smugglers?" Inquired Kuroko.

"N-no, w-we were just taking c-care of the t-transport. T-that's all we d-do, we transport t-things unofficially. S-so there won't be a problem if a cargo just d-disapeared..."

"We are not interested in the money." Kinuhata cuted in harshly. "Instead, answer this: by any chance, were you transporting a person last night?"

"H-huh?"

"A person, a corpse, anything with a similar shape or that could be carrying something of this size inside. It super happened very late in the night. Any bells ringing?"

"I… I don't know… Ghh - it's too cold to remember anything inside here!"

"Just so you know, I have no intention of releasing you if you're useless to us."

"Okay okay, wait! There's something! I don't k-know what the cargo was, but last night w-we did an weird delivery… that might b-be what you're talking about!"

"To who?"

"I-I don't know! We went all the way to district 10 and left it an alley! There was no one there to pick it up… sorry, but that's all I know!"

Both Kinuhata and Kuroko crossed their arms at the same time. An alley in district 10 - that probably meant two things: it was delivered to members of Skill-out, or it was left in a covered area where the satellite can't detect. Both of them were equally hopeless possibilities.

"Uiharu, are you still there? What do you think?"

"This is bad, Shirai-san… I can try to track down the vehicle's route last night and verify which alley he is talking about, but it will take a while… and even if I do this, they are being extremely careful to get through the surveillance system, so I'm not confident that it'll be easy to identify who picked him up after he was left there."

"And we don't have this much time..." Reminded Kuroko. She was starting to get irritated by now.

Takitsubo and Kinuhata exchanged glances and nodded to each other. They had a last trump card to find him. "Well, there's no point in wasting time here. We just have to use another super method. C'mon."

"W-wait! Aren't you forgetting about me! Hey!" The three girls simply ignored the desperate calls of the ice-man. Uiharu had already contacted Anti-Skill to pick him up and to look into the smuggling business.

Part 2

"Alright… that should be enough fuel for a few more hours." Proclaimed Kuroko after finishing her snack. They were forced to stop at a foreign looking restaurant for a while. Their fastest way to move around the city was Kuroko's teleportation ability, but she was too exhausted after the battle for another marathon in the 11th dimension. And Kinuhata had not eaten anything since this morning because of what happened in the dorm they were investigating, followed by the disappearance of Frenda, so the short fifteen minutes break was a welcomed luxury. "Well then… you sounded like you had a plan when we left the road. How are we going to find him now?"

"She's super working on that right now." Kinuhata pointed to Takitsubo beside her. The black haired girl was acting weird. Her pupils had shrunk, her head was shaking unnaturally and she was staring into the nothingness. She was also crunching something... Kuroko doubted that it was a piece of the pie she was eating just now.

What is she doing? Clairvoyance? Kuroko could just tilt her head and wonder.

"I found him." Takitsubo said after a few seconds in that state. "He is inside an underground facility… in this direction… by the distance, it's probably the northern area of district 7… no, there's no mistake, it's underneath the building west to the park at the border of district 7 with district 1."

The twin pigtailed girl widened her eyes, impressed with the skills of the other girl. "Amazing… you can say that with such precision..."

"That's not all." Added Kinuhata. "If she can see him, then there's no doubt that he's still super alive."

"REALLY?!" Kuroko shouted and stood up hurriedly. "Then we need to get there as soon as possible! We may still make it in time!"

But Takitsubo continued before they could leave. "Wait. I also found Frenda... that's not good. She is heading to our place in district 3. If she meet up with Mugino there, we..."

"WHAT?!" This time, Kinuhata lost her temper and hit the table with both hands. "What's that super idiot thinks she's doing?!" Her desperation wasn't baseless at all. If Frenda returns and tell Mugino that she doesn't know what happened to the other two, Mugino probably would search for them, and if she discovered they were trying to rescue Hishiro, then... "We need to stop her somehow! And we can't even call her because the idiot super lost her phone!"

"Leave it to me." Takitsubo kept her emotionless tone even in front of the disaster. "You two go after the boy. I'll deal with Frenda. If you get into trouble, I'll ask her to join you."

"Are you sure? Aren't you going to feel dizzy after doing this?"

"Don't worry about me. I'm not good with fights, but I can at least help with that."

The hoddie girl knew that her concerns wouldn't be enough to make her give up. "... okay. But don't push yourself too hard." She then turned back to Kuroko, who has been left out of the loop for a while. "Let's go."

...

They arrived at the building in question. It was a commercial Skyscraper, meant to deal with business related with the outside of Academy City. But Kuroko found it suspicious. "Weird... I thought that the company responsible for that was located on District 16."

"It is." Kinuhata confirmed. "This is a super facade for what this place actually is."

"And what it actually is?"

"Who knows... Maybe it's better for us if we don't find out." Kinuhata shrugged. Given how things escalated into a clash with an organization that seemed to be of considerable size, she wanted to finish this as soon as possible without drowning too deep into their secrets. "By the way, it should be a good idea to hide this from now on."

"Huh?" Kuroko followed her eyes – she was referring to the Judgement band attached to her arm. "Why? This represents my authority as a member of Judgement so-"

"That's exactly why." She cut in with a serious tone. "If you think that you're authority means anything inside there, you should just stay behind. We're dealing with people that confined that boy in an almost dead state. Common sense doesn't apply to them."

"But-"

"Remember, we're not here to super take down an evil organization. We're here to rescue him. If you don't keep that in mind, you're going to be swallowed by them in a flash."

The pigtailed girl thought about the meaning of these words. A member of the branch 177 of judgement shouldn't be doing what they were about to do. The correct way to act in that situation should be calling Anti-Skill so they could investigate, and only act later once they had evidence.

But she, as Shirai Kuroko, couldn't wait. That person needs her help as a human being, not as a part of this city system. She had to act as an individual, just like that other girl beside her who didn't need to get involved in the first place (even though she seemed to be very used to this). That's what her onee-sama would do in this situation as well. Sighing, she took off the band. "I understand. We are going to get this done no matter what!"

They nodded at each other and headed forward. Rounding the building once, they found small dark entrance near the garage with stairways that led to an underground facility, probably the one Takitsubo referred to. The place was like a maze made of pure white concrete, with the exception of the dark steel floor. They kept walking there for about ten minutes, avoiding being spotted with the help of Kuroko's teleportation.

"That's not working at all." Said Kinuhata, fed up of walking aimlessly. "We're never going to find where he is confined like this."

"I agree, but... what else can we do? We don't know the place, so we have to search each and every room."

"We don't, but they super do know." The hoddie girl grinned as another person was approaching from the other edge of the corridor. Kuroko quickly caught on and teleported them both to behind the person. Kinuhata then jumped at him clamped his mouth and bought him down to the floor. Then Kuroko teleported them to inside an empty room they had just been (and had follow on feet due to the limits of her ability).

"We don't have much time, so I won't ask twice. Where are you keeping the boy named Hishiro Yamazaki? If you don't answer, I'll just super kill you and ask someone else."

When Kuroko entered the room, Kinuhata had the man pinned on the floor holding a knife to his throat. "I never heard this name, bu-but the prison ward is on the second lower floor."

"And how do we get there?"

"There's an elevator turning right on the third intersection at the end of this corridor. But you need an ID to- GAH!"

Kinuhata hit his head with the handle of the knife, knocking him out, and pocketed it. "That won't be necessary. We got a super master key with us."

"M-me, huh..." Kuroko could only smile wryly at the girl's comment. "Where did you even got this knife?"

"He tried to fight back using it. It's super self-defense."

"I-If you say so..." Though it didn't look this way at all. They followed the path the man instructed them, went to the penultimate floor, but when they were about to get to the door sealing the ward several guards blocked their paths and started shooting at them.

"Tsk... I should've guessed. That guy was being too cooperative." Kinuhata took the frontline to intercept the bullets While Kurko used her darts to damage their guns. Unable to shoot anymore, the guards took out knives, batons, stun guns among several other close range weapons and charged towards the two girls. Kinuhata took their attacks head on, but none managed to even scratch her. Then the girls both counter attacked, finishing them off in seconds.

"More of them!" Kuroko spotted reinforcements coming from both sides. She quickly drew more darts to disable their weapons while Kinuhata knocked them out. The pattern repeated a few times until Kuroko started to run out of darts.

They don't even try to change their tactics even though they must super know that their weapons aren't going to work on us, and keep trying to overwhelm us with numbers instead. Could they be... the same group that super attacked the private saloon the other day? If this was a LIZARD headquarters as Kinuhata suspected, then it would be useless to keep fighting back. They felt no sense of danger and kept coming until their enemies couldn't fight anymore.

"We can't keep this going on for much longer! Can you super teleport us out of their sight?"

"I think I can, but it won't help much. They'll be alert and will keep searching for us."

"That's fine, we just need five minutes to pick him up and get the super hell out of here!"

Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Kuroko nodded at her. Kinuhata took out her knife and threw it at the LED lamp, destroying it. In the dark, Kuroko held Kinuhata's hand and teleported them multiple times around the corridor to confuse the enemy and then inside a cell in the prison ward. There, they waited a few seconds until the army dispersed and they started to search for the boy, using the teleportation to avoid contact again.

To their surprise, however, none of the cells had any prisoner. None except the last one, but the prisoner in the last cell was actually a guard tied to a bed that seemed to be taken out of an hospital room. Upon closer inspection, the bed was bloodied, but there were no signs of injury in the guard, meaning the blood belonged to someone else. Not to mention there was a faint trail of blood leading outside the cell, which simply ended in two meters or so. There was no doubt that something had happened inside there. "What do you think?"

"The same as you, probably. Whoever was being kept here super tricked the guard, beaten him and got away on his own."

"Yeah. And by the looks of it…" Kuroko noticed scraps of cloth on the ground that seemed to once be part of a winter coat or a jacket. "I mean, with all this blood… the one who was here before probably was..."

"How in the world he managed to escape on his own in that condition?" It was hard to accept, but there was no other explanation to what had happened here. Kuroko didn't noticed, but the guard wasn't alive. With no visible injury, one possible cause of death was a heart attack. "How ungrateful can he be. We super came all this way to help him..."

His current state was impossible to confirm. Even if he had left the place, they couldn't be sure how long he would last. All they knew was that when they were eating less than an hour ago, Takitsubo confirmed that he was here. Kuroko wanted to investigate a little more, but they had no time left, as the guards were heading this way. They were forced to leave the base without knowing what was actually going on.

Between the Lines

She couldn't understand what was going on at all.

After she set a foot inside the dorm building everything around her became blurred and distorted, as if it was a mirage in the middle of a desert. And her companion, Kinuhata, had literally faded away into nothingness in front of her eyes.

She was currently inside the building, there was no mistake about that. But it felt like a completely different place. Actually, it felt completely different from reality itself, to the point that she had to question herself if it wasn't just a dream.

As the blond girl explored the place to try and grasp the situation, she reached the rooftop without even noticing. There she saw another person standing near the edge of the building, looking at the street below. Even though she didn't made any noise, the person felt her presence and slowly turned towards her. "Oh my... that's unexpected."

It was a man wearing a gray hooded robe. It was impossible to clearly see his face because of his hood and blur effect constantly wavering the image before her eyes, but he wore a gentle smile and his voice sounded calm, even though the whole situation was unnatural. "If I'm not mistaken you're... Frenda Seivelun, correct?"

Astonished, Frenda could only nod blankly at the figure in front of her. The man seemed to be amused by her reaction. "Ufufufu... This is a little too early than what was originally planned for introductions like this, but... My name is Rázval Serafin. It's a pleasure to meet you, child of men." With exaggerated movements, he courteously bowed at her as if inviting her for a dance in an european style party. The girl just kept staring, unsure on how to respond.

Before the silence dragged on, the man named Rázval continued. "It really is a curious and beautiful work of fate for you to be standing on where you currently are. I wonder if it was your ability as an Esper that made such event possible... Oh, please forgive me, I shouldn't be talking to myself during our blissful encounter. You must be rather confused... Tell me, my dear, do you have any idea of what this place is?"

The girl shakes her head from side to side, unable to speak. The man explained. "This is a gap between planes, formed by the concentration of the unconscious energy released by the inhabitants of Academy City. You probably know it by the name Imaginary Number District."

Her body jerked after a little delay when she understood Rázval's words. But how could it be? First of all, no one was sure if the district really existed or not. Sure, there was the recent document released by Kihara Gensei that could prove it, but even that was questionable by itself, since Gensei was disappeared and believed to be dead. And second, even if it's real... how come she managed to get into it? Rázval said it could be because of her ability, but she doubted that someone on her level could do this feat without even trying.

In any case, there were several scary rumors about the District that Frenda never payed much attention to, but right now she started to remember about them and it terrified her. Something like going from one district to another at specific times of the day could trap a person there with no way to go back. However, the gray man explanation eased her fears to some point. "Well, to be more accurate, we are not inside this place. It's impossible for our bodies made of flesh to exist there, so I created an isolated space for the purpose of simply observing this plane. And you somehow managed to break right inside it, which is a miracle in many ways. If you were a higher level Esper, your body probably wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure and... who knows what could happen. Ufufufufu..." His words were mostly incomprehensible, but she got the main idea. Just now she noticed how her body felt lighter than usual... so this was some kind of vision after all.

Rázval lifted his hand towards her, inviting her to get closer. "There is no need to be afraid, my dear. Come, let us watch the magnificence of this world together." With slow steps, Frenda carefully approached the edge of the building and looked bellow, exactly like he was when she arrived. Down there, several people could be seen walking on the streets and doing their own things like you normally see on Academy City.

No, there was something wrong. She couldn't tell what it was, but something was out of place there. "Can you see it? Take a closer look there." On the direction Rázval was pointing at, there was a little boy and a woman - probably his mother - happily chatting together as they got inside a car. The vehicle turned on and headed down the street... nothing unusual. Until...

"!"

A business man that looked to be on a hurry was standing on the bus stop nearby. Once the car got close to it, it changed into a bus and it let the man inside. What had happened to the woman and the boy? Frenda couldn't tell, but the bus seemed to be empty. "In this world, each and every existence is eternal and ephemeral at the same time. One being disappears and is immediately replaced by another one that better fulfill the immediate needs of the society as a whole. Perhaps it would be better to say that they shift into someone - or something - more useful for the moment. It is a fascinating, cruel and utopic system, isn't it?" Frenda couldn't share the man's enthusiasm, but it piqued her interest. She saw an old lady turn into a dog and later into a police officer in less than a minute... and several of similar phenomenons were happening all around the city. Everything and everyone worked together in perfect synchrony in order to keep the whole system functioning, as if the city was a living being.

After a few minutes, Rázval spoke once again. "It's a shame, but I'll have to send you back now. Just like the people down there, you have your own role to fulfil on the other side, so it's risky to keep you here any longer." He took some steps on her direction and literally placed his hand on her pocket, grabbing her cell phone. For some weird reason, she felt no danger nor any awkwardness from the action. He had an aura of serenity around him that almost did not allow her to doubt him for even a second. "I'll be lending this for a moment, if you don't mind. Your friends seems to be worried about you, so we better let them know that you are fine, right?"

The image of her phone on his hand became more and more blurry, and then with a weird noise, it simply wasn't there anymore. Just as if it was teleported by an Esper. "Well then... it was quite pleasant to be on your company. I hope from the bottom of my heart that we can see each other again soon." With these words, he patted the girl's head... and she vanished in the exact same way her phone had a moment ago.

...

Rázval was the only one left on the rooftop, with a somehow sad and lonesome smile on his face. "How interesting... the Seivelun sisters really are exceptions among the Exceptions." His plans for today were utterly ruined by this turn of events, but it didn't bother him in the slightest. Instead, he was eager to understand what was the meaning of this meeting. "Is she perhaps our missing Eve in this game board? Or... just another forbidden fruit, waiting to be eaten?"

Welcome back! This time, an action filled chapter! What do you think of Kinuhata and Kuroko tag team? I sure had a lot of fun writing their fights and interactions, I hope you guys felt the same while reading.

Meanwhile, Frenda… well… I won't comment on that yet. I want to hear your thoughts on that first, if there are any. One thing I can say though: More OCs are coming. For those who don't like that - I'm sorry! But it's either that, or I would have to change the events of the main story, which I don't want to do (yet... He he he he).

Someone said that Hishiro won't survive long if he kept prying on Aleister's business. I haven't said anything about that back then because I wanted to answer it through the story. Do you still think that? Or not? For the record, I have no problem killing him off if the story heads a certain direction (honestly, I haven't decided which of my ideas for the middle and the ending I'm going to follow), but he isn't going down so easily. He also have a lot of people backing him up from behind the scenes, even though he might not like to admit it… but that's the theme of the next chapter, so I won't get into details.

Again, special thanks to the Guest(s) helping out with prof reading. I can't believe the amount of stuff that keeps escaping my (blind) eagle's eye before I publish. Your reviews are much appreciated!

As always, leave your thoughts on the reviews! See you guys soon (hopefully)!