It was cold.

That was the first thing that came to her mind.

Her body was cold.

The world, through the aqueous lenses of her cultivation tank, was cold.

However, the confusion and loneliness in her heart, unaware of the reason why they existed, or even what those feelings truly were...

Yes, that is where it was coldest.

That day, she was taken out of her tank for the very first time.

It was a woman wearing a lab coat, she had yet to see a person who wasn't wearing one, who had let her out.

"Follow me." The woman had said, so she did.

As she walked behind him, the only sounds that could be heard were the woman's footsteps and the dripping of the tank's liquid off of her body onto the floor. Though the woman would occasionally attempt to speak to her, she did not understand her beyond select words, so conversation never occurred.

In curiosity, she looked around.

Lining the sterile hallway were cultivation tanks, the very same that she was just in. In the first tank she really focused on, there was a girl floating in it, seemingly asleep. She had brown hair and fair skin. She was pretty, she decided.

In the tank next to that one, there was another girl. She too had brown hair and fair skin. They looked identical.

The tank next to that one, that same girl was there.

The tanks carrying the same girl grew in number, from dozens, to hundreds, to eventually thousands.

She did not know how to think about what she saw.

After about ten minutes of walking, they had finally reached their destination. It was a control room, with a full view of the cultivation tanks. There were a few other people there, all wearing a lab coat. The one who had brought her there pushed her forward slightly, as if presenting her.

"This is the one."

One of the scientists commented. "The one that got disconnected from the Misaka Network a few hours ago, yes?"

"That's right."

"I see. Usually, the clone would be a babbling mess, but this one stays calm. I can also assume she walked here on her own, as well."

"Understands simple commands, too. Doesn't seem to talk, though."

Another scientist approached her and examined her from all sides. "There was another oddity with this one, wasn't there?"

"Her power. For whatever reason, it seems to be one level above the rest of the Misaka clones. She's a Level 3, with the aptitude to become a Level 4."

"So she's unfit for the Level 6 Shift Project?"

"Yes. We'll have to make another Misaka Sister to replace her. She's model 12374, though, so while we'll perhaps need to perform additional calculations to make sure the replacement conforms to the project, we have more than enough time to do so. Accelerator only just killed 6839 this morning."

"Naturally. Normally, we'd dispose of anomalies such as this, but there certainly is merit to studying this clone, seeing that she is somehow one level higher than the others."

"Understood. So should we begin studying how she got this additional level of power right away? To try and replicate it?"

"No, no. At the moment, building this clone's replacement and the Level 6 Shift Project are to be prioritized. Not to say that we will ignore her, of course."

"She will simply be a side project of sorts, for now."

All of the other scientists nodded. The one who had brought her there grabbed her hands.. "Should I still bring her to the Testament machine?"

"Yes, yes, Yoshikawa. Once that is done, we'll figure out how to proceed with her."

"Got it."

All this time, the girl stood in the room dazed, unable to follow the conversation at all.

Her arm was grabbed, and she was being led out of the room. Before she exited, however, she pointed at something she found odd.

"..."

"Hm, you're pointing at something? What is it?"

On the wall, in a pane resembling glass, there was another one of that girl that was everywhere in the hallway she had just walked through. This time, though, she was not asleep. She was standing up just like she was, and pointing just like she was. She didn't understand.

"..."

"Oh, that's your reflection from a mirror. That's you."

Oh.

Though she could not understand the first part of the scientist's sentence, she could understand the last part.

That girl in the glass pane was her.

All of the girls in the cultivation tanks that looked the same had been her.

They were the same.

The girl was brought to another room, accompanied by the lab coat wearing woman named Yoshikawa. It looked very similar to the control room that she had been in, only there was a large capsule in the middle.

"Get in." Yoshikawa said, so she did. She lied down inside the pod, and as the scientist attached all of the necessary wiring, she pointed at something once again.

"..."

"What is it now?" Yoshikawa looked, and it was another mirror that sat on one of the tables, albeit this time it was a portable one. "Are you obsessed with your reflection or something?" Shee walked over to grab the mirror, before handing over to the girl. "Here. That's you."

The girl stared into the small mirror as though she was mystified by it. She turned her head slightly to get a better look at every angle of her face. This continued for almost three full minutes.

"..."

"Okay, okay. That's long enough. I need to turn on the Testament." Yoshikawa finally said. She grabbed hold of the mirror and intended to take it out of the girl's hands.

However, to the woman's surprise, the girl's grasp tightened around it, not wanting to give it up just yet.

"Hey, you need to let go-"

"... me…"

The woman stopped talking in surprise.

The girl had spoken, which up to this point she had yet to do. Perhaps even more shocking than that, though, was that fact that as the girl gazed at her own reflection, tears began to form at her eyes, and eventually fell freely down her face.

Yoshikawa was used to seeing them crying; it was what usually happened, after all. However, she could tell that this girl's tears were from a genuine sadness and not the weeping standard for a baby that it consistently was.

"... me… me…"

Yoshikawa hesitated for a moment, but eventually pulled hard enough to reclaim the mirror from the girl. Her tears and mutterings continued.

"... me…."

Yoshikawa did not want this to go on, and so fastened the helmet of the Testament to the girl's head, which just so happened to block her teary eyes from view, and closed the capsule.

The Testament was activated.

And the girl was still cold.

She opened her eyes.

"Hello." It was the voice of Yoshikawa. "Do you understand me?"

"Seeing that you used the word 'Hello', which is a common greeting, I can assume your sentence as such. In which case, hello, and I do understand you." She answered, sitting up.

"Just as robotic as the rest of them when they come out, I see. Though there's none of that self-narration." Yoshikawa muttered to herself. She then asked:

"What's your serial number?"

"12374."

At this, Yoshikawa sighed in annoyance, though it was directed towards herself..

"Oops. Asked the wrong thing. I'm too used to asking for these clones' serial numbers." Yoshikawa said. She shook her head, and posed a question once again:

"What is your designation?"

The girl sitting in the pod did not hesitate to answer.

"MISAKA LEVEL-UP."