While Uiharu was gaining her own fan-base and Saten was slowly discovering the secrets of skirt-flipping, someone was stepping into Judgement Branch 177.
“I cannot believe they called me because of this... ah...” Shirai Kuroko exclaimed in annoyance as she opened the door to the small office of the building. “Couldn't they have dealt with these troublemakers themselves?” She mumbled to herself. Then she looked down at her clothes and a gloomy look appeared on her face. Her school uniform, which was normally quite prim and proper, was scratched up and slightly burned at a few places.
The girl had been called off from school to help in arresting a group of out of control Espers. It was nothing too unusual. Once in a while, some guy would get it in his head that they could harass others and get away with it due to their powers. Most of the time it remained with some minor scuffles between students, but this time a fight between two Espers had escalated to the point where Anti-Skill and local members of Judgement in.
These idiots were dealt with and they were going to face some serious consequences for their idiocy, but that didn't make her clothes whole again. Tokiwadai Middle School was very strict on what the students were supposed to look like and going back like this was likely to do more harm than good.
“Well, school won't go all that long anyway and they did give me a permission slip to stay out in case something happens soon. Kuroko frowned as she sat down on her place in the office and started a computer. While she could avoid school with this, that didn't help with any missed class subjects. And as if that wasn't enough, she also had to do write a report on today's event and arrests. Truly, paperwork was the enemy of mankind.
At least with the former problem, she could always ask her beloved Mikoto-Onee-sama.
“Ah, Onee-sama...” Kuroko mumbled to herself, eyes half lidded as she daydreamed of her schoolmate.
If she were asked to describe herself, Shirai Kuroko would probably call herself a “young maiden in love” or something of the like. Saying that she had a crush on Misaka Mikoto was really a bit of a understatement. There was a devotion and also a bit of an obsession that reached beyond the average schoolgirl's crush.
Ignoring that the average schoolgirl wasn't in fact interested in girls and really mostly one girl in specific.
She was also a bit of a pervert if one were honest, at times quite willing to abuse the privileges of skin-ship that exist between girls to cop a feel here or there.
And the number of times she had tried to get into the infamous Railgun's pants couldn't be counted on one hand.
“Huh, what is that?” The girl with the twin-tails asked when noticing something laying next to the computer. She bent her head forward to get a closer look, trying to identify the machine. It looked a bit like one of these old music players for mp3 files, just as if someone had made one with modern technology and decided to make it look rather fancy.
What she didn't know was that this was the Level Upper which was now whole again. Its appearance had changed somewhat. Rather than the simplistic grey colouring, it was now a metallic blue and generally had a somewhat more streamlined look compared to when Saten had found it. Overall, it looked more in-tune with the high tech machinery that was common in Academy City and wouldn't seem that out of place clipped to anyone's belt.
“Did a visitor lose this thing? Huh, wonder what exactly it does...” Kuroko pondered as she searched for buttons anywhere. Then she found a small one at the side that was somewhat hidden but still findable. Another change from the formerly almost perfectly closed appearance of the Level Upper.
With a tilted head, she pushed the button and a beeping sound got her attention towards a small display.
”Input Characteristic“
It wasn't especially complicated, but it still made her wonder for a moment how she was supposed to input anything given that there was no visible keyboard on the little device. Then she considered the possibility that it was voice activated.
“Eh....” she pondered for a moment, uncertain on what would be good. A thought came to her as she remembered the work she still had to do. After a moment she said “Paperwork” towards the little device, unsure of exactly how it would react.
“Paperwork: Level 13
EXP 12/70 To Next Level Up”
Apparently it reacted rather directly and clearly. Kuroko rubbed her nose at what exactly this was saying about her. She had about zero context here. Was Level 13 good? Was it bad? What was the level limit? Were these numbers even accurate... she wasn't the type to believe in weird urban legends or supernatural events like Saten-san, but she couldn't deny what was in front of her. Still, it was most likely a prank item.
She thought for a moment before pushing the button again and returning to the “Input Characteristic” part of the device. Then she answered with “martial arts” and waited for a moment. This time she got a 22, somewhat higher than the low rank of her paperwork skill. Kuroko considered herself rather good at fighting and had learnt so for a long time. Her main weakness was the fact that she was a petite girl and even with training, there was a limit to how much muscle mass she could develop normally.
She frowned, then thought about it for a moment before series of skills was put into. First came dancing, which was slightly higher than paperwork, next singing which was a little lower than the paperwork skill. Then came more things, cooking, administration, leadership and so on. None of these skills went much beyond the 20 mark. She did notice that they all made sense to a degree.
Hobbies seemed to be around 10, work skills were higher and after a moment, she decided to try her Esper ability. Teleportation got a solid 33, the highest of any skill she had seen by now.
How was the thing reading what she could do so well? Was it connected to the network of the city and reading up on her profile or something? But then, some of these skills were so minor and unknown that there was no reason for information to exist in the data-bank of Academy City.
It was rather confusing to be honest.
And then there was the part about levelling up skills. It almost sounded like in one of these RPG games that were so popular. The sort where you get stronger by collecting experience to boost your stats or personal powers and perks.
Kuroko wasn't an idiot. She could certainly put 1 and 1 together, but that didn't make this seem any more reasonable....
“Alright.... let's just test it out and see what happens.” After a moment, she returned it to the first setting of “Paperwork” and clipped it to her uniform. Then she turned to the computer. She had spent almost 15 minutes thinking about this and prodding at the device. Regardless of what would happen, she really should get to work. That report wouldn't write itself, as much as she wished.
Fri Feb 03 22:20:34 2017
6 comments Last updated: Sun Feb 5 20:13:01 2017