I'm Not Afraid

Shirai Kuroko was a rather refined girl and came from a good family. Her father was a senior police office and her mother was so good at Judo that she had once represented Japan in the Olympics. Kuroko could also trace her family line back centuries and it had been leading by example for a very long time... so it was fitting she had become a Esper of note and a member of the prestigious Tokiwadai Middle School, as well a exemplar member of Judgement.

It was because she was such a refined girl that Kuroko would only settle for the very best in a romantic partner, and as fitting of Shirai, would not rest until she acquired what her heart desired. Barriers were just tests and obstacles something to overcome. So what if the one she had set her heart on was a female Level Five with anger management issues and tendency to hide herself in childish habits? What if she had took a interest in some boy and chased after him? She -would- acquire her heart's desire and she -would- make her Mikoto happy, barrier's be damned.

Kuroko had already got herself closer to her destined lover by becoming her roommate via removing the previous roommate (a whiny Level Three Electromaster who only interest in Mikoto was of a selfish desire to steal her secrets and increase her ability level) in a perfectly legal manner (never underestimate how far a good grasp of grammar and thoroughly reading rule books could take you.) and then she had a most fortunate encounter, one that you could almost say was destiny playing its hand.

She met one of the 'Sisters'. She was a sweet doe like girl, through she was physically identical to Mikoto, her character was rather different and she also spoke in a very odd way (the whole third person thing was still taking some getting use too). However what had really grabbed Kuroko interest was the fact the young Misaka was also interested in that boy that Mikoto obsessed over and after some carefully questioning, Kuroko had come to the conclusion the girl's love was real and the girl also has absolutely no idea what she was doing.

So Kuroko had made a point of making sure the innocent little thing had a clue and had a plan to follow, and aimed her right at the biggest pain in Kuroko's love life. She was ideal for the job, since there was no way in a million years that her Onee-sama would lay a finger on one of her little sisters and that girl was clearly mad about the boy, so all she had to do was give nature a little push in the right direction and wait for the fireworks of love to happen, then her Onee-sama would stop chasing that boy and realise her Red Ribbon of Fate was joined with Kuroko's. It was a flawless, perfect plan, there was absolutely no way things coul...

"KUROKO!" Screamed a Level Five Electromaster as she pushed open the door to their room. "What rubbish have you been filling my little sisters heads with and what the hell do you mean 'I'm not afraid'!?"p

"Ahh.. Onee-sama" Kuroko said in a voice that sounded far calmer than Kuroko felt. "I see you've finally found out what I've been up to on most Tuesday evenings..."

"Going behind my back!" Mikoto shouted as she slammed the door close behind her. "And pushing my little sister into unsuitable relationship for your own twisted and sick amusement!"

Kuroko bit her lip slightly as she laid on the bed. To a casual ear, Mikoto sounded angry, however to Kuroko's trained ear there was something else mixed in there... real pain and upset. It wasn't like Kuroko hadn't expected it, but hearing her Onee-sama in pain would never feel good, whatever the reason.

She pushed herself up and sat cross-legged, she would have to be strong as iron for her Onee-sama's sake.

"Firstly, I didn't push her into a relationship with Touma, she was trying to make her own way before she even met me. However I will admit that I decided to take on a responsibility that your unsuited for and gave her advice to made sure she wasn't chasing after the wrong guy and was likely to get somewhere." Kuroko said sternly.

"And secondary I wasn't doing it for my 'twisted and sick amusement' as you put it. I was doing it because it neatly fitted in with my desire to make your world a brighter place in the long run, along with making my love life a lot more simple."

Kuroko stared her Onee-sama down, she didn't shift her eyes from hers, and didn't let a drop of weakness show.

Mikoto snapped back with weak words.

"He far to old for her and a pervert with dozens of girls chasing after him!" She screamed.

"He will protect her with his life and I'm happy to join with you in laying down the rules and enforcing them if your worried he'll take advantage of her." Kuroko replied sharply. "How's tomorrow morning sound, might as well strike while the iron is hot and all that?"

A difficult silenced filled the room, Kuroko words were reasonable and fair, but for the topic 'Touma's suitability for the younger Misaka'...

"But that's not why your mad at me for is it Onee-sama?" Kuroko said bluntly after letting the silence drag for a while.

"It's!" Mikoto blurted out awkwardly "It's!"

But what 'it's' was, wasn't coming out easy. Kuroko took action.

"Well if this conversation is going no were, I'm going back to my little nap, give me a little shout when it's about five minutes to our evening meal" and with that, she laid back and closed her eyes. It felt a little cruel to pull her Onee-sama along like this, but her childish side was her worst enemy and Mikoto needed to overcome it.

Kuroko laid there for what seemed like a good minute before finally...

"Kuroko". Mikoto spoke softly in that somewhat awkward and cute tone she used sometimes. When Kuroko open her eyes she found the girl had come over and kneel down next to the bed her face was now mere inches away. Kuroko had a hard time suppressing the urge to try and snog her senseless, but reason told her to contain her fire, if only for a little longer.

"I know what your trying to get at." She continued. " I know what you mean by 'making your love life more simple' and I can understand why you must feel frustrated..."

Mikoto had a guilty look on her face.

"I wanted him because I can't break him." She admitted. "And I care about you enough to know that I don't want to break you... I should have been more clear about my feelings with you, but now because I wasn't clear, you gone of and done what you thought was a clever plan and got my sister with whom you saw as the biggest rival to you getting me..."

Kuroko had had many sleepless nights over this element of Mikoto's character, her tendency to push others away in order to 'better protect them'. After the whole Remnant business it had become painfully obvious to Kuroko that her Onee-sama had a very bad habit of pushing others away when she thought things were dangerous, and she did it believing it was for their own good. Furthermore Kuroko had concluded that the whole electrocution response to her advances were a way of saying 'keep away, I am not safe!' as well as a way to cover up the fact she secretly enjoyed them. Therefore Kuroko had logically concluded she needed a way to face this negative side of a wonderful person, a way to prove her strength and stand beside her...

"I'm not afraid." They were three innocent sounding words, but they hit Mikoto with the same sort of force as a unexpected 'I love you'. She jumped back with a clearly shocked expression.

"You knew I act like this!" She blurted out. "You knew why I wanted Touma in the first place, yet you continued on to get him out of the way and to get me, despite knowing you could get really hurt!"

"Completely" Kuroko admitted. "I know your scared that if you -really- enjoy yourself that you could end up losing control of your electricity and hurt the source of that enjoyment... and I also know if someone doesn't decided to take that risk and help you overcome that fear, then it going to haunt you for the rest of your life and become a self fulfilling prophecy. So I will be that person and who will take that risk and I will be the one who strong enough to say there not afraid, and mean it!"

They were fierce words and Kuroko meant them. Loving her Onee-sama was no easy task, but she was a Shirai and didn't cower from difficulty, especially for the sake of one who deserved true devotion. However said Onee-sama was a fighter and took fierce words as a invite to conflict. With something that sounded very primal coming from her throat, she leaped onto the bed and pinned Kuroko to it, her hands very firmly on Kuroko's wrists.

"You really want this you crazy perverted fool!" Mikoto shouted inches' from her face with her aggression level set to max. Kuroko could also feel the older girl's electricity flowing through her body in a way that was deeply uncomfortable (and it certainly wasn't cute static, that was for sure).

"Well it is kind of kinky..." Kuroko said with hint of mischief and a lot of bravery.

"Oh ho ho ho, very funny!" Mikoto replied as she turned up the charge, causing Kuroko's muscles to spasm. "You know this is only a taste of how far I can go. If I really lost control, it could go ten times as bad as this easy!"

" You're are worth the risk!" Kuroko shouted out in a tone that sounded far more panicky then she like. "I knew when I set my heart on you it be a lot of hard work!"

After those words Mikoto voltage dropped somewhat, it still wasn't cute static, but Kuroko could access her full wits again.

"I don't get it." Mikoto said with a sigh. "Why are you so devoted to me? I'm a girl who shoots electricity at you, I'm hardly lady like and I causes you mountains of paperwork at Judgement whenever I lose my temper. You're cute and interesting, why don't you try seducing someone who a lot less hassle?"

"I tell you if you promise to let me finish without upping the voltage? It kind of hard to get your thoughts in order when that sort of thing weighing on your mind constantly." Kuroko replied honestly.

"... ok" Mikoto said reluctantly. "I promise to let you finish without upping the voltage."

"Thank you Onee-sama." Kuroko said politely, and with that she closed her eyes.

It was a carefully measured move. Right now Mikoto's heart was in a strange place, torn between her more aggressive side drive to succeed and her more gentler side desire to be comforted. Kuroko was effectively baiting the first by leaving herself exposed... but that side was chained by a promise. But that more gentle side wasn't chained, all she had to was pull it out and let that desire to 'win' coming from her more aggressive side go down the unchained gentle path... and 'achieve victory over Kuroko'. She felt a blush come over her as she thought about that.

"Do you remember the day we first met?" Kuroko asked.

"Of course" Mikoto replied somewhat tensely. "I was one of the volunteers who took on the responsibility of orientating the new Tokiwadai first years, and you were part of the little group I was in charge of."

"Do you remember what I was like on that first day?" Kuroko questioned.

"Bitchy mostly." Mikoto said with annoyed tone. "You wouldn't shut up about how glad you weren't a Level Five. I remember that you mentioned that 'Railgun' was a out of control serial vandal especially."

Kuroko let out a nervous little giggle at that remark.

"That how I use to think." She admitted. "All I saw in Level Fives was a bunch out of control nut jobs with far too much power and too little morality. Like 'Mental Out' a insecure telepath who made people her puppets and 'Accelerator' a violent thug who keeps several hospitals busy with his day to day life. I was Judgement, I got to see all sorts of paperwork on the 'Top Espers of Academy City' and it made me sick on how much they got away with."

"And you had no clue I was one of them." Mikoto stated.

"Correct." Kuroko replied softly. "I could not see 'Misaka-senpai' who words were gentle as a vandal, I could not see 'Misaka-senpai' who took time out of her day for her juniors as a monster and I could not see 'Misaka-senpai' as 'Railgun'."

Kuroko felt warm breath on her face, Mikoto was clearly leaning in closer...

"Then I met 'The Queen'" Kuroko said after a long savoured moment.

"And she took offense to your views." Mikoto spoke softly.

"She did." Kuroko replied equally softly. "I think it must of been after a hour of chasing that I finally ran into you."

"You were scared." Mikoto continued softly.

"Everyone I met was under her control and after me..." Kuroko continued. "I had no reason to believe you wouldn't be."

"Her power doesn't work on me." Mikoto quietly pointed out. "But you didn't know that."

"I thought you were going to hurt me, but then you pushed me softly to the side and said to a mob of a dozen girls that you would hunt down and crush her if she didn't ceasing hounding that 'first year fool'."

"She was out of order." Mikoto simply replied." Even if you were still a fool to pick a fight with her."

"And then she made one of the girls tell you 'guess you win this round Railgun', and as they left... my whole world exploded!" Kurko explained, losing control of her emotions somewhat as she admitted that precious moment.

"That when you fell for me, isn't it?" Mikoto asked in a tone that was so soft and gentle... and so very close too.

"I was really confused and mixed up at first" Kurko admitted. "I didn't know what going of inside my head and my heart. At first I thought it was the fact that a Level Five could be heroic that had blown my world to pieces and the fact you kept turning up in my dreams fitted with that..."

"I take it there's weren't perverted then?" Mikoto asked with curiosity, clearly from a position were her lips weren't to far from Kuroko's. It was getting increasingly hard to resist temptation.

"From a pretty early age I always had dreams were I was a warrior fighting for a Just Cause, I guess it was all the old family legends my grandfather filled my head with." Kuroko explained. "Anyway, you started turning up in them, sometimes as a Sensei, sometimes as a Senpai, but always as someone I could respect, always someone strong. I didn't realise I was doing it at first, but I started envisioning you in more and more mature outfits..."

"Would some of those 'mature' outfits, be the sort of outfits that get you electrocuted in real life if you suggest I wear one?" Mikoto inquired.

"I suspect yes! Kuroko said in cheeky tone, and to her surprise, her Onee-sama giggled before saying playfully.

"So you are learning!"

Kuroko let out a bright smile as she laid there with closed eyes, her Onee-sama was letting down her defences, she coming closer and closer to opening the Gates of Heaven. Kuroko just had to keep going, keep knocking at the gates.

"Funny enough it was Uiharu who actually called me out." Kuroko explained as she continued with the story. "I sometimes talk about my dreams with her, and when I told her about this one featuring you, she slowly went red, before telling me 'Shirai, you been talking about a outfit for a good ten minutes that sounds suspiciously like a chainmail bikini, are you that way inclined?' And it was at that point I realised..."

She stopped because she felt Mikoto's nose actually tap her's.

"That you had fallen in love with me" Mikoto said seriously.

"Yes." Kuroko replied.

"And if I'm getting my timescales right... it wasn't that long till you teleported yourself for the first time after that realisation, I remember you showing it off in one of your early 'Onee-sama moments'..." Mikoto talked softly before pausing and talked in a more shocked tone. "Oh god, It's just dawned on me, I made you both believe you could do it -and- I made want to improve, I completely killed your fear of becoming Level Five and made it a desirable goal for you to aim for!"

Kuroko just gave her a grin full of mischief.

"Your not afraid, you really not afraid..." Something akin to a gentle panic was rising in Mikoto's voice. "you want to stand next to me and... and..."

Mikoto's next action was a communication of a different sort, and much to Kuroko's surprise it was surprisingly softly done.

Kuroko felt a pair of lips gently touch her own. She didn't need to be told to open them and shortly after she did, a tongue slowly and softly decided to explore Kuroko's mouth. Kuroko had no way to track time, but that exploration seem to go for a good long time.

Eventually, as with all things, the kiss came to a end. Kuroko opened her eyes to find the older girl face as red as tomato.

"That was nice." Kuroko spoke warmly to her partner.

"It was." Mikoto replied. "It wasn't disgusting at all, you taste really nice, even through your a girl."

"I love you Mikoto." Kuroko said softly as she declared her stance.

"I know." Mikoto said buried herself into Kuroko's shoulder. "And I love you too Kuroko."

They just laid there for a while, Mikoto still hadn't move her hand's from Kuroko's wrists, so it wasn't like Kuroko could do anything to her Onee-sama, even through her body was screaming with desire.

Eventually Mikoto broke the silence.

"I bet your wondering why I'm still restraining you, aren't you?" She asked in that same soft tone she been using before, her mouth clearly close to Kuroko's ear. "It's because I don't want you ruin this lovely moment with lust. I've lost count of the number of tender moments your perverted side has ruined, so I'm adamantly set on making sure my first kiss is not ruined by you trying to teleport my shorts off or worse."

"But Onee-sama.." Kuroko started.

"Shhh!" Mikoto whispered in he ear. "You seduced me with that clever thought out little plan of yours, but if you think you can now have your wicked way with me whenever you want, you are very mistaken."

Kuroko had got the Gate of Heaven open, why was her Onee-sama not letting her enjoy herself!

"Now I can feel you squirming, which I know must mean your head too full of perverted thoughts to properly focus on using your power." Mikoto correctly guessed. "And your likely thinking something like 'dam this is unfair, I went through all that work and all I get is a kiss and cuddle!'. But I want you to know, I'm very serous about you, which is exactly why we're going to take this slow, and why I'm going to help overcome that more twisted side of you and become a Angel of Love, instead of a Demon of Lust."

"What do you mean?" Kuroko asked in a somewhat frustrated tone.

"You need rules, you need prizes." Mikoto said somewhat playfully. "So here how it going to be. Firstly, let keep this quiet for now. I'm not ready for the world to know I enjoy kissing a girl. Secondly I want you to start behaving yourself, -especially- in public and thirdly, if you can pull that off, I will make sure these quiet moments in our room become very fun for you... at a pace I'm ok with."

Kuroko thought over her Mikoto's words (-her- Mikoto!). Her plan had been completely derailed and she had lost control of the situation completely, Mikoto was clearly the boss here... but that felt natural, that felt how it should be.

"As you wish my precious princess Mikoto!" Kuroko said proudly.

With that, Mikoto finally let go of her wrists and jumped of the bed. She looked down at Kuroko with a deeply satisfied look on her face.

"Good, it's about time for dinner and I need a cold wash before I go down... and I suspect you do too." Mikoto said while smirking. "And if you manage to make it through that meal without incident, I might help you comb that lovely long hair of yours before we go to our beds."

Kuroko grinned in return, she had finally got somewhere with her Onee-sama, not her wildest fantasy, but she got somewhere real, somewhere were the love was mutual and the future looked full of joy.

She was really going to enjoy finding ways to tempt her forwards!