Understanding

[ACSRS: So, I Decided]

Joule walked down the path.

While they had said they were going to watch it at the judgement office. A second message had said they'd be meeting in the park first.

Fear gripped Joule. Were they doing this so she was out of the way of-

"Now stop right there." Lumen stopped her suddenly "That's just paranoia. They are your friends. This is just a detour."

Those words didn't really comfort Joule all that much but she kept walking until she started to hear voices.

"-you call it something cuter like quirky?"

"It's still strange, whatever you call it."

...That was Kuroko's voice.

Joule stepped to the side of the path to hide behind a tree, an exaggerated sigh coming from Lumen as she did so.

"I swear, you'll eat anything with strawberries in it." Saten's voice could be heard as Joule stood there, the bark right against her back.

There was a pause before Uiharu's voice came again.

"Sorry, did you say something?"

Joule peeked out from the tree and saw Misaka was there with them too.

She couldn't face her right now, not after what she did.

"Oh for the love of-" Lumen cursed quietly before taking her full form and stepping out from behind the tree.

"Hey Misaka, Joule's over here."

Joule's face paled "Why did you?"

Misaka turned around to look at her as did Kuroko, the others looked too but they couldn't really sense Lumen.

Misaka was quiet for a moment but Joule heard the footsteps approach her hiding place.

"Joule?" The level 5 Railgun was right next to her but Joule couldn't look her in the eye.

"Misaka... Hello." The words were polite, but the way she said them...

Misaka gave a short hum before nodding and turning for a moment.

"Can we have a minute or two?" She asked the others. They didn't seem to understand the situation but they went ahead a little way to give the two of them some privacy.

Joule wanted to escape, she wanted to get out of here, she wanted to-

"It's all right." Misaka tried to reassure her "I-" She paused, trying to find the right word "I understand, I don't blame you."

"You should." A spark of Joule's feelings came out as she spoke, there was a slight tremble in her voice. The kind that meant she was either about to try and run away or break down.

She still wasn't looking Misaka's way. The only way she knew what Misaka's facial expressions were was because Lumen was very pointedly allowing her to see through her eyes. She saw Misaka's expression, one of... One who understood, or at least was trying to.

"I don't." Misaka repeated "I understand doing what you have to in order to protect someone-"

"But you didn't have to hurt them." Another quiet sob was in Joule's quick reply. Joule's anger at herself coming out again "You didn't have to hurt them, to make them get out of the way. You didn't let them get caught anyway, even after you hurt them to try and save them."

She had failed. Let's put it in terms of stealing. To borrow something without asking was fine as long as you could give it back. To Joule, she had been rationalising what she had done as something like that. She might have forced Misaka to forget, to control her to make her stay away, but that would have been fine if that had actually helped.

It hadn't though, even after hurting her friend, Misaka had been caught anyway. The harm she'd done had been without a purpose.

"Is was Shokuhou who hurt me." Misaka tried "She only used you because it would make me easier to control. You're not to blame for her actions."

"But-" And Joule had to swallow for a moment to clear her throat "My actions hurt you. The context doesn't matter."

One could define an immoral action as "One that hurts people unnecessarily."

That was what Joule did.

"No." Misaka stated firmly "The context does matter, when you opened the way for Shokuhou, you believed yourself to be helping me."

While the outcome of the action hurt someone unnecessarily. That was not a direct cause. That was-

"That was my choice." Misaka continued "When I got my memories back, I came charging in. I wasn't careful enough."

Joule clenched her teeth "No, I won't let you try and take the blame for my sin. We could have just told you-"

"And then I would have run in anyway." Misaka countered "I know what I would have done in that situation. What you did was the only way for you to keep me out of it. Even if it failed in the end, that was random chance."

Joule shook her head "Even then, you would have been caught in the end anyway."

Misaka raised an eyebrow "By Gensei? Yes, I would have. I would have even if you hadn't of got involved too. Your actions didn't change that at all."

"So I-"

"So you can't claim that if you hadn't done it, I would be any more safe." Misaka spoke over Joule "I was in the same danger either way. You acted with the best intentions."

No. Joule didn't agree with that.

"Stop lying to yourself." Misaka declared "You were in a difficult situation and you took the actions you thought would lead to me being the safest. That is all that matters."

No, Misaka was wrong. More matters than that.

And then, Misaka touched her shoulder. Joule felt a little tingle at the contact, Misaka's way of saying "I'm right here."

"Please Joule." Misaka spoke quietly "You don't need to do this."

"She's right." Lumen agreed "You're beating yourself up for no reason-"

"But." Misaka said and Lumen stopped.

Joule finally looked over and in that moment she felt something hit her.

Her eyes caught up a moment later. Warmth blossomed on her face as she realised that Misaka had slapped her.

"There." The electromaster said "You're forgiven. Completely and utterly. If you wanted punishment that badly, if you wanted to pay for what you've done, then I just gave you all the punishment you need for it."

Misaka gave a slight smile "Even then, I suspect I might have hit you a bit too hard right there. It seems that now I need to help you out. Don't try and claim you're the one in the wrong anymore. I'm the horrible person who just slapped a girl just for trying to help me."

Joule was a little stunned by all of this so all she could do was nod slightly.

Misaka nodded and turned.

"Come on then, we need to get there before the fireworks start."

Joule slowly followed her as they met up with the others.

End of chapter

Just checking, if any of my readers write their own stories, have you been seeing glitches recently?

It's just that according to this website, no one has read this story at all since the 13th of this month and no one read the last chapter at all.

Which I know is wrong since I got reviews for that chapter.

If this website is dying, I'll probably move this story (and my others) elsewhere. Probably to somewhere I already write.

Edit: As of the day I'm going to upload this, it seems to be working again but I'm still suspicious. Hopefully that lowers the chance this website could die though.