Blind Spots
Grass, Water, Fire. Rock, Paper, Scisors.
Circles of greater to weaker. Every kid of age three and up could understand such a simple concept.
Of course, here in the real world, things were never so clear cut. Still, this cycle of one greater than another taught a very valuble lesson. There was no such thing as invincible.
Accelerator could beat a man with a gun. The man with a gun could beat Imagine Breaker. Imagine Breaker could beat Accelerator.
Every power had its blind spots.
This was something that the final living member of SCHOOL, a blonde teenage girl currently wearing a knee length blue dress was acutely aware of.
Her abilty was extremely rare, though she privately doubted it was unique like a few of the researchers had told her. Measure Heart, the abilty to regulate the distance between peoples hearts. With it, she could make someone see her as a lover, a friend, a sister, a parent - anything she wanted, she could make that person's heart see her as that. The head was another matter entirely.
In theory, she could even use it to take on the Number One in Acedemy City and win. But that's where the problem lay. That was all in theory.
In reality, the girl in the dress' knees shook as the demented girl took one step closer to her, a black jacket worn over her own prestigous school uniform.
The girl's tea coloured hair was matted, and her eyes had dark bags under them, signs that the girl, the Railgun and ranked Third Level 5, hadn't been taking care of hereslf lately.
It had been a preplanned encounter. The Girl in the Dress had met the depressed Electro Master in a back alley, the black jacket of a certain Level 0 casually drapped across her shoulders.
Nuzzaling the cloth, Measure Heart had mentioned that it still had his scent all over it.
"What did you say?" the Railgun hissed.
"I said, it still smells like him," Measure Heart sighed happily. "Such a good smell. Or don't you remember it? Or maybe you never experienced it? Kamijou Touma's scent," she added with a cruel smirk and a girlish giggle.
"I know you loved him. But he never loved you. Did you know that?"
"What are you-"
"I was a close friend of his. All those girls he saved... he held all of them close. He loved them, made love to them all. All but you." the girl sneered.
"You were nothing but a pain to him. A little girl who brought him nothing but trouble. And just you know what the worst part was... It's that you couldn't even save him, in the end. Man, for a Level 5, you sure were nothing but a stupid little hinderance to him. At least the other girls brought him relief as only a woman could, littl-"
"SHUT. UP!" As expected, the Railgun was furious. Electricity crackled from her bangs, the sound of her teeth grinding together practically audible even over the blaring thunder that Misaka's anger created. Even her normally brown eyes appeared blue with the sparks of elecricity surrounding her.
Measure Heart felt that mentioning the Railgun's dead love was a low blow, but she was ordered to anger the girl, and this was easily the most effective method.
With the Level 5's anger at its peak, Measure Heart turned to run, switching the distance of Misaka Mikoto's heart in relation to her own to the same as Kamijou's.
After all, the young woman would at least hesitate before zapping her first love, right?
As it turned out, wrong.
The Girl in the Dress hadn't even taken a single step before electricity coarsed through her body.
Spasming, the Level 4 fell to her knees.
However, the voltage (or was it the amperage. The SCHOOL member wasn't sure at the moment) wasn't high enough to do any more than that. A taser could do more damage.
Scared but still confident she wouldn't be badly harmed, the girl began to quickly climb to her feet, only to have the school jacket belonging to a certain boy ripped from her body as the collar was grabbed from behind and the Level 5's foot impacted onto her ass, sending her falling forward face into the alleyway wall.
Measure Heart scrambled up and turned to face her assulter, and what she saw caused her to pale.
The Level 5 was slipping her arms into the jacket's sleeves, one at a time, an eeary smile on her face.
That was when Measure Heart understood.
She'd come up with this plan using information from before the boy the Railgun loved died in a far off frozen sea. She'd based her steategy on outdated information.
Right now this girl was unstable. She was a blind spot. Who knew how she would react to someone imitating Kamijou in her heart.
However, before Measure Heart could change the distance between their hearts to some other postion, the Railgun spoke, stopping her cold.
"You know, he could block all my attacks with his Right hand." As the mentally unstable Railgun spoke, she caressed her own right hand with her left, the corners of her lips slowly stretching backwards. "I could go all out on him, because I knew he'd be fine. I trusted him to take all I could dish out," she stated wistfully.
"All my power," she continued, taking a step closer. "All my tantrums, all my fear, all my hopes, all my dreams..."
With each point, the brown haired girl stepped closer, until at last the distance between them was nothing. The Railgun's hand shot out and clutched tightly onto Measure Heart's, the younger girl deliberately entertwining their fingers like lovers would, simultainiously slamming the blond girl's back against the alley wall.
"All my love," Misaka finally breathed, fully pinning the Level 4.
The blonde's eyes widened. She had a distinct feeling she knew where this was going, and she was entirely striaght, thank you very much!
Immediately Measure Heart began to stuggle, breaking free of the bonds of fear that had held her captive until now. Writhing, the blonde tried to free herself, but the younger girl held her fast.
In her line of work, not once did she even think of calling for help.
Finally though, any stuggle she still had remaining was zapped out of her with another current of electricity.
"I know," the Railgun began once Measure Heart had somewhat recovered her senses. "In my head, I know you're not him. But right now, in my heart, you feel just like him. Like you are him. That's your power, right?"
Weakly, Measure Heart nodded.
"Don't change it. Keep your power active like this."
"Wha? Why should I?" the blond hissed.
"Because if you don't, I'll kill you," the Level 5 uttered softly, causing the Level 4 to tense. "After what you said, and what you say you did, if it was anything other than him, I'd kill them. But right now, you are the closest thing to Touma~," she moaned his name. "I've always wanted to be close to him, and now I can't anymore. But with you here, I can do things I never could when he was alive. If you take that away from me... I'll kill you like you were the one that killed Touma."
Measure Heart stood frozen, pinned both physically and mentally by indescion.
However, even that point of free-will was wrentched from her when the crazy girl's lips crashed agressively against the older girls, the Level 5's tongue invading the mouth of the inferior Esper.
In the end, there was nothing the girl in the dress could do as the Level 5 forced the Level 4 to kiss down the Electro Masters neck as she moaned Touma's name.
As the girl in the dress slowly succumed, she couldn't help but think: 'Fuck. I should have taken Kakine's teasing more seriously.'