She never pleaded.

She commanded, requested, scoffed, and pouted, but never pleaded.

But on the dirty hall in front of his office, in potential line of sight to many a lineage that wouldn't be caught dead bowing down, there his student was, crumpled to her knees. Tears streaked down Rin Tohsaka's face, staining the now dirtied beige chemise that she must have just woken up in.

She never was a morning person either, Zelretch absently realized.

She looked him in the eyes, the florescent blue that he was used to seeing frustration, embarrassment, and elation in, but this time only conveyed sheer desperation and sadness.

"Please"

"Please save Shirou"

He was tired.

Tired of hypocrisy, of the endless schemes of mice and men.

Too often, his work only led to more lives lost, each betrayal punctuated with several more children that would grow up without fathers. Time and time again, the incarnation of a weapon made to kill swung his sword with intent to save. Time and time again, he would bear the burden as the life left their eyes. Searching for that smile, his frown grew ever deeper. With each look in the mirror, he looked more and more like the man he so vehemently hated those many years ago.

Thus, this time, he allowed the knife to stab him in the back, held his wrists out for the rope that would bind them, and let himself be captured for execution.

Now, staring at the noose that he saw in Archer's memories, he wondered if it was Fate that led him here. He wondered if he would later look upon a younger version of himself, try once again to kill him, and perpetuate the cycle. He wondered how Rin was doing, the genius apprentice of the Wizard Marshall himself. He hoped she wouldn't mourn him for long, he had already caused so much pain in her life.

Each leaden step up the wooden stairs was one more nail in the coffin of Shirou Emiya. The certainty, the inevitability of it all, was oh so clear to him right in that moment. As such, he wasn't quite expecting the kaleidoscopic tear in the fabric of reality that opened up, revealing a small truck to come plowing through at highway speed.

The body of Shirou Emiya, adopted son of Kiritsugu Emiya, was proclaimed dead on site, discovered with severe blunt trauma roughly 20 meters away from what appears to be the wreckage of a makeshift gallows. Evidence suggests an automotive accident, though no such vehicle was ever discovered in the general vicinity. Further investigation pending.

The gasp was what drew her vision towards it, the thud was what turned it red.

The 3rd ranked esper in Academy City looked on as her new friend hit the ground, the silhouette of a boot evident on her face as she cradled the young boy in her arms.

"Ku-ro-ko…" she announced through gritted teeth.

A girl with twintails flinched at the unspoken command, a wary smile appearing as she prepared to witness the spectacle that was about to occur, as well as deal with the resultant paperwork.

Tracking the stolen car making a U-turn in the middle of the road ahead, a short haired brunette stepped out into middle of the road. Rather than any fear of being run over, she instead wore a disdainful frown, while her eyes stared predatorially at the vehicle ahead.

"If it wasn't my problem before," she calmly stated while drawing an arcade token from her skirt pocket. "It certainly is now."

"Ehhhhehehe…", Kuroko nervously stammered. The pyrokinetic robber trapped beneath her also appeared to have an epiphany. "I remember now! There were rumors of a psychotic teleporter in the ranks of Judgement who would perforate those unlucky enough to warrant her attention!"

"Oh? And who might you be referring to there?", a completely unrelated teleporter asked from atop the pinned man.

"They say she's sold her body and soul. All to gain the favor of the most powerful electromaster in the city!", the man continued, pupils dilating as he realized the forces that he and his comrades just so happened to anger.

"Indeed."

An engine revved, an arm lifted.

"That girl right there stands atop the 2.3 million residents of Academy City."

A car shot forward, a coin shot upwards.

"The third ranked esper among the seven Level 5s."

An old, white sedan rushed towards the middle schooler standing in the middle of the road with intent to kill. Lightning sparked about said middle schooler's arm, increasing in brightness and intensity as the coin almost gravitated downwards just in front of her hand. The car was intercepted by nearly molten stainless steel traveling at over 4000 m/s, striking the engine block with enough momentum to send it airborne. Kuroko watched in awe as it lazily flipped end over end over the brunette's head before landing nose first into the asphalt beyond.

"The Railgun. Misaka Mikoto onee-sama." she finished with pride.

"The nonchalant hair flip is overdoing it a bit, onee-sama. But I love it." she thought with a smile as she made her way over to the crumpled sedan, which had now fallen back into a horizontal position.

She glanced over and noted that her fellow Judgement member, Uiharu Kazari, was already on the phone with what she assumed was the authorities, reporting the situation in real time. Looking back towards the car, the occupant inside was both surprisingly and unsurprisingly unharmed by being on the receiving end of a hypersonic jet of metal, completely unconscious atop the deflated airbag braced against the shattered windshield. A trickle of blood leaked out from both his nose and his ear, likely from the overpressure of the shockwave, but he should make a full recovery, she noted with a cursory glance. The car itself though was a complete write-off, with the bodywork completely crumpled by an attack that could cripple a modern main battle tank. "Hope the owner has both theft and acts of esper covered." she drily thought, concluding her inspection of the scene for the inevitable report with her higher ups.

As she was about to walk away, the soft hiss of the trunk opening on it's own stopped her in her tracks. She glanced curiously at the contents of the trunk, before gasping loudly and jumping back.

Tenderly wiping off Saten's bruise with the hem of her Tokiwadai uniform, Mikoto called out, "What is it, Kuroko?".

"It's… It's a person…", stammered Kuroko.

"What?" Mikoto and Saten both looked up, the brunette taking no time to process this new information before running over to her roommate, quickly followed by Saten, with Uiharu running over to join them.

"There… There's a person in here." Kuroko said, as they all stared at the red haired girl in the back of the car, several developing bruises visible across her head and arms, likely caused by the violent changes her surroundings had undergone.

"Hey! Hey! Wake up! Are you alright?" Misaka asked the crumpled girl, almost reflexively.

"Were you expecting that to work?", Kuroko thought incredulously as she took her eyes off the girl with the sidetail, looking for anything else she might have missed. Her gaze caught the glint of a plastic card lying in the corner of the trunk. Picking it up, it appeared to be a Japanese student ID card, barely legible from the amount of wear it appears to have gone through.

"… uki City Middle School, 2nd year student, Fujimaru Ritsuka"

Author's Note:

I've noticed a severe shortage of decent Railgun fiction out there, and I'd like to take a shot at correcting it. A few things to get out of the way first. As natural as it is to hear in our minds for us anime fans, I'll be actively avoiding slapping "-san", "onee-sama" and other Japan-isms everywhere in an English language fic. As you can tell, I'll still use them when thematically appropriate, but just know that those won't be a staple of my writing. On a similar vein, I'll be using the Toaru wiki as my guide for whether I refer to the Toaru characters by their family or given name, so Mikoto, Kuroko, Saten, and Uiharu. On the topic of canonical accuracy, I'll be bending it here and there when I think the science isn't up to snuff, so I've buffed Misaka's Railgun to a more reasonable velocity of Mach 12 in order to flip the car. Hope you all have enjoyed my first foray into fanfiction writing, and be on the lookout for future chapters!