Cold, yet smothering.

That was the best way to put it. At least, that was the conclusion Kuroyoru came to. It was difficult to really place the feeling of having your personality squashed and assimilated. It was the sort of feeling that didn't have any really descriptive word, adjective, adverb, or onomatopoeia, even in the diverse Japanese language.

It was simply not something society expected would have a need to be conveyed with words.

However, this was all very presumptuous. There was no real reason for Kuroyoru to believe that her personality was being crushed and taken over. Perhaps it was being wiped away and replaced. She had already forgotten what she was originally supposed to be like, so there was really no way for her to make a comparison, as there was no 'standard' or 'original' to compare the 'current version' of her personality to.

How she thought. What she liked. What she hated. What she feared. What she found amusing. What she found disgusting. What made her want to hide her face away in shame. What made her excited, to the point that she was jumping around and cheering.

She had forgotten it all.

She couldn't be sure if all of that had been erased and replaced, or if parts of her originally identity remained. The scientists had never clearly explained the details, nor did they seem inclined to. All she knew was that she had a part of the 'personal reality' of the strongest esper in Academy City imposed into her brain, which affected her personality.

It was like some sick joke. Even at a young age, she knew. She knew that no matter how obviously cruel this all was, it didn't matter.

It didn't matter even in the slightest. How could she miss something she couldn't remember, even if it was her own personality?

At the very least, she knew that she was good at destroying stuff. It felt right.

"Oh, dear, dear, Umidori-chan. Destroyed another wall again? Those walls are meant to divide your rooms so none of you get territorial and argue over whose is whose. Destroying these walls is like an act of war against your adjacent comrades. If you were the leader of a nation, you would be deposed quicker than England's rulers and more violently than France's."

Kuroyoru turned her glare from the rubble before her toward the man in a lab coat who was standing at the entrance to her 'room'. With short disheveled brown hair and a pair of rimless glasses to go with his lab coat, he only came across as a creep who happened to make a living as a researcher. That lax smile of his pissed Kuroyoru off to no end every time she saw it and she exercised her right to sneer at it whenever she could.

"What do you want, Sugane?" Kuroyoru demanded coldly as she glared coldly at the man. "It's your fault for making these stupid walls too cramped. I can't stretch without breaking them down. Give me a bigger room."

"What a terrible liar you are." Sugane chuckled as he shook his head back and forth. "But that's not important. I wanted to ask if you would be willing to participate in today's experiments. We'd love to have you."

"Huh? Since when did you ever ask?" Kuroyoru spat irritably in his direction before she turned face away, focusing her eyes on the cowering boy on the other side of what remained of the wall she'd destroyed. He was no older than her, and yet was so weak. Ever since going through the same process Kuroyoru had, he'd lost his ability to speak or communicate in any way, aside from clear reaction such as this. Lately, he'd only been crying and cowering in fear, whining about scary nightmares like a brat. How annoying. "Of course I won't. I'd sooner tear you all to shreds, burn the pieces to ashes, then spread them over your own family's heads during your funeral."

"I thought so." Sugane sighed with a pitiful tone. "It's really a pity. We'd prefer it if you were more cooperative, instead of letting your powers run wild unnecessarily to destroy equipment. It's a waste of perfectly good funds. Because of that, I'm being told not to bring you to any experiments where your presence isn't crucial. It's stupid, isn't it? I really have fun when you're around."

"I don't care about your stupid funds, idiot." Kuroyoru murmured belligerently as she turned her head further away from Sugane, showing her short black hair to him rather than her face. "Just go swallow them whole, choke, die, and leave me alone."

"Come on, now. Saia-chan never causes so much trouble. Why can't you be more like—"

Sugane was interrupted as a lance of pure nitrogen slammed into the fortified entrance to Kuroyoru's room, exploding like a detonated bomb, though the transparent shield that cut off all the rooms from the outside (despite simple walls being used to separate the rooms themselves) was left unharmed. Sugane was left to gaze at Kuroyoru bemusedly as she glared daggers at him with sheer disgust and hatred that would make anyone with an average ego or less immediately want to crawl up in a ball and wither away.

"Don't. Say. That. NAME!" Kuroyoru roared as she whipped a hand out and sent another nitrogen lance flying directly at the wall, despite knowing it would do no good. "I am not her! She is not me! We're two different people! Don't you get that, stupid?! Stop trying to make me be like that obedient honors student and just PISS OFF!"

Kuroyoru clicked her tongue irritably as she shook her head repeatedly in an attempt to clear her mind. Why was she remembering the past now? She was past that—all of it. She was way too young to be feeling sentimental. It was stuff like that that would be the death of a person in the 'dark side' of Academy City.

"Are you alright?" Heisuke asked curiously as he regarded Kuroyoru through the eyes of his ceramic mask. The smile frozen in the design of the mask immediately reminded Kuroyoru of Sugane's face and she averted her gaze bitterly with a mad grimace.

"Shut the hell up." She muttered as she glared around. They'd lost sight of their target, who seemed fairly good at running away, but she wasn't too worried. A German man running around in plain sight would stand out like a fish running on land, especially since he had no idea where he was going. It would have been easiest to track him if Silver Cross Alpha was still around with his powered suits, but it was far too late to even wonder about that possibility. For the time being, they'd have to ask around and track him at a patient pace.

Heisuke seemed fairly at ease. Nothing seemed to bother him, despite the thick darkness that pressed on him from all sides. None of the shady people or stuff they tried to sell him seemed to faze him, nor did he seem stupid enough to buy into anything they told him. It was clear that he was fairly experienced in this underworld, even if his ideals were stupid. This just confused Kuroyoru all the more. Just what sort of life did he lead to turn into someone so naïve?

"—looks like a sad couple—"

A loud slam echoed through the tarp covered street as Kuroyoru abruptly kicked someone nearby against the wall and slammed one artificial arm into his gut furiously, causing him to keel over. She then picked up his head and pressed it against the wall as she glared into it angrily.

"What the hell did you just say?" She demanded in a misleadingly calm voice. "I didn't quite hear what you said. Do you mind repeating it for me clearly before I blow a hole through your chest?"

"…the hell are you acting up for? I was just—"

"Right, stop right there." Kuroyoru interrupted indifferently. "I don't really give a damn about how you see the situation. I wasn't really asking anyways; I already heard your stupid comment. But since you want to get a word in so bad, I'll give you a chance to talk. Tell me, you piece of shit, that big foreigner who came running by with a wild look in his eyes—where the hell did he go?"

"I…I don't know…what you're talking…about."

"What a waste of perfectly good last words."

Kuroyoru raised her other hand mercilessly as she prepared to fire a Bomber Lance directly into the man's body without considering how one-sided the situation was. But before she could let the attack loose, she felt a sudden jerk on her hand and the nitrogen lance shot into the air wildly, slashing through one of the tarps above to let a shaft of light beam down on the street.

"What the fuck?!" Kuroyoru demanded as she turned on Heisuke angrily. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"Relax a bit. Killing off random people to blow off steam isn't going to make finding this guy any easier."

"How about I murder your heroic ass instead? Better yet, take these damned handcuffs off!"

"Don't you think it's strange?" Heisuke completely ignored Kuroyoru's demand as he looked around casually, though he dropped the volume of his voice to just above a whisper. "None of these people show any hint of know what we're talking about at all, but he definitely should have come this way. Why do you think that is?"

"It probably has something to do with how he blew apart the wall." Kuroyoru muttered irritably, as if she wanted to deny the possibility. Heisuke cocked his head slightly to express his confusion, but she ignored him.

Could it have to do with them? No, that was doubtful. She'd seen how the worked in Hawaii. Their style of doing things wasn't like this at all. Every person involved with them was direct and affected everyone and everything when they acted. What would one of them have to run away from?

Perhaps he hadn't escape from his subordinates simply because he had mistaken the situation. Perhaps he'd ascertained the situation perfectly and had deemed the danger and risk to be too high, so he ran away.

Was there a dangerous factor Kuroyoru wasn't informed of? She didn't really know much about them, who used supernatural phenomena unexplainable through science, aside from the fact that they existed.

Things might get complicated if she didn't find that guy soon. The whole job might be a bust.

"Hey, perverted wannabe hero creep."

"…What the hell is that? My nickname?"

"We're changing our strategy. Don't ask pointless questions and just follow me."

The good news was, Heisuke listened to her without putting up much of a fight. Which was just as well, since Kuroyoru would not have been able to drag his superior weight and size anywhere so long as they were joined at the wrist.

The bad news was, he asked questions anyways.

"Just what do you plan to do—"

"Shut up."

"I'm pretty sure—"

"Shut up."

"Should we—"

"Shut. Up."

Their conversation pretty much went like that as Kuroyoru focused on leading the way down seemingly random paths. She did her best to try and ignore the stares of people around her. Now that she had an idea about what the true cause was, she felt even more conscious of their eyes on her body. Even so, she made herself ignore them all, focusing on the task at hand.

If her plan worked, she'd definitely catch up to and catch the German diplomat. But that would also mean that her job would be a lot more complicated than she expected. In that sense, she figured she was better of dragging Heisuke along for when shit eventually hit the fan.

At the very least, he seemed sturdy enough to serve as a useful lizard's tail.