.

She has a lot to say, but he will have none of it. It's an endless circle of awkward mismatches and unlikely alliance. Mikoto relents, maybe she won't be the sane one of the bunch after all.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment and the characters used in here all belong to their respective author, Kazuma Kamachi. The cover image that's being used here also belongs to the Light Novels of the series.

W/n: Contains spoilers.

A/N: Well, here goes.

This has been steaming for a while, I'm not even halfway done with the story and there's still lots of plot holes to cover, but uploading it usually makes me work faster.

The first few chapters will be quickly updated but from then on I can't make any promises. Although I do have a lot of free time lately, and reading through the manga and light novels helps so I should be fast in progressing this.

For two people who have so many connections to each other, I'm really surprised at how little Accelerator and Misaka Mikoto actually interact. But then again they make nice writing materials, and figures I am being biased too since the idea of making up interactions between unlikely characters never stops intriguing me, so I guess we'll see how this goes.

Feel free to add reviews and let me know what you think!

Prologue

It starts off with a mishap.

This is what she remembers - loud crashing, buildings crumbling, the force of their esper powers burning hot in her veins and his voice nagging through her brain. Misaka Mikoto stared, her other clone, no, sister, sister, laughed and teased, all hysterical and mischievous, but it made no differences. They were on their way to rage war, to actually save people, the battlefield laid wide open. She stood beside them. The clone, an older version of her, with arm in a sling and a manic glint in her golden eyes, and him. Hair bleached white. Blood red irises. The force of his powers merciless and unforgiving. It pricked on her skin, swept into her bones and weighed on her mind. Mikoto knew this feeling. The kind of terror that reminded her of a thousand girls laying dead and broken, merely lab rats succumbing to a failed experiment. She hoped it would reflect in her eyes, in her voice then when she told him exactly what she thought.

But the chance never came.

The Hawaii Invasion was a bigger problem than any of them had anticipated. And by the time they were done, Accelerator had already disappeared and Mikoto was more preoccupied with a certain rather unfortunate boy to even notice. When she'd realized her mistake, it was already too late

Four months later and she would still be despairing over this.

Tokiwadai is a prestigious school, but that doesn't mean all its classes are excellent. As good as a student she is, Mikoto figures she'd have her moments eventually. Such things often come when time feels endless, when the lecture gets too boring even for her nerdy standards and when she's too awake to even feel sleepy. At moments like these, she would find herself indulging in those times when she needed to reconsider her life choices, or mostly, when faced with mistakes.

She'd made plans, when Touma informed her about who would be joining. She'd panned out the whole thing. A speech. A scream. A warning. Something to make him feel. Know. You can't just kill without feeling. Can't just do something like that and get away with it. She would say her piece of mind, maybe pulling a few punches because surely the guy deserved it and she damn well needed it. It could have been perfect.

She should have known better.

"Onee-sama. Onee-sama!"

"Whoaa…What the..? Kuroko!"

Kuroko barely had time to release her dear onee-chan before a familiar surge of electricity zaps through and numbs her body. Although it did not stop her from grinning at the flustered girl sitting in the chair next to hers.

"Ne, ne Onee-sama, no need to be shy."

"I'm not shy. I'm angry," Mikoto mutters, sneaking a peek at her teacher who was still relentlessly going on about her lecture, unconcerned with the little chaos at the row of desks way back at the classroom. "What the heck was that all about anyway? Don't go around grabbing at people like that in the middle of a class."

"Uh huh, so I was saying, let's hang out today. I have something to do before so you can go pick up Uiharu and Saten at Judgement Office and then we can meet up."

"Sure."

The girl threw her a curious glance, but said nothing more as she turned back to where she had been staring mindlessly at.

Somewhere behind her, Kuroko sighs. Her beloved Onee-san has been doing that lately, spacing out anytime possible. It has been going on for quite some time, and still she has not found any way to pry something out from the chestnut haired girl. She understands perfectly well, Misaka Mikoto is independent and deals with her problems on her own. But for someone who's been on her side for so long, it stings to see this happening over and over again while she stands by. It is obvious the attention she receives from the older girl will never be enough for what she fervently gives away. But nevertheless, she will do whatever she can to be by her side, and if there is ever a time comes when the third strongest esper of Academy City finally breaks and falls, she will stay, and never give up.

In a fair, ideal world, Accelerator would have said sorry, and Misaka Mikoto could have forgiven him.

But it's not that kind of place that they live in. The world is different now, reformed, renewed, filled with endless possibilities of scientific powers and magical abilities. And even when she could fire off electricity from the tips of her fingers and there are thousands clones of her running around, at the end of the day, Mikoto would still be left feeling useless and alone.

"I intend to repay my debt to the clones, but I have no intention of apologizing to you. You aren't conveniently forgetting that you too were one of the ones responsible for that experiment, are you?"

It seeps and clings to her like a second layer of skin. The feeling, it speaks of more than just a hard crushing on a boy she couldn't reach, more than lives she had unknowingly created and killed, or the name she had to bear and uphold for years…The world they are living in now lays burdens and rages wars. And amidst all the fights and chaos ensuring, inside, Misaka Mikoto despairs. Because eventually, at some point, she will break. And there will be no one to stop her from falling into the madness.

She's too young.

Really, she is. Oh, Accelerator knows he's only two years ahead of her, but when it comes to mental physics, he is one-hundred percent sure he is much older. The girl that stood beside him during the breakout of the Hawaii Invasion maybe powerful, but the doe eyes and expressive manners spoke more of ignorance and stubborn determination than battle-worn experiences and darker intents. Honestly, Last Order is the perfect version of this girl, albeit younger and with more childish tendencies.

No less annoying either, apparently.

The last thing he would have expected was to see the Original again when coming to Hawaii. It really wasn't much of a difference from the other while when they met for the first time, of course. The look of sheer terror was still evident in the girl's stare when directed at him, yet then it had turned into a shimmer of restless fury and quiet contempt. Not that he gave a damn. Get in and get out. That was the plan. If she had had something to say, well too bloody bad. He'd already made his piece of mind clear, and that was that.

It should have been the last time he ever even thought about the girl, but it's not.

There's something. He does not know what to call that is and frankly he does not even want to delve on it. But maybe it's because of years of staying incoherent and acting on wild, psychotic impulses, but if he sees a crack in someone, it will eventually be – a crack. And he knows this pattern. He's seen it with his own eyes when the Second fell to his doom. And by then even with the help of ten thousand brains to help him do the calculations right, somehow he knows he will still be left confused and puzzled. He doesn't know Misaka Mikoto. Sure, he's connected to the Misaka Network, lives with two Misaka clones and has more than enough of a piece of the original Misaka, honestly. But he doesn't know her. The Original, Third-rate, or whatever else she is called, is something of her own league. And this, he relents, will probably be even worse.

The guilt still eats away at him more often than not. For the clones. For Last Order and Worst. Even for the Original herself. He thinks of it sometimes, tries not to do it all the time. Delving on feelings and whatever these mushy, pathetic emotions are makes him too human for his likes, but even he can't help it.

Maybe that's why, sometimes, when it's late and there's no one else around to keep him off from dwelling, Accelerator thinks to himself, if that day comes, when somehow, Misaka Mikoto finally tears herself apart, what will he do?

Four months and counting, and still not a single answer was found.

(TBC)