A Certain Time Travelling Imagine Breaker - 4 (Patreon)

"Ahh!" Mikoto leaned back on her hands with a sigh of happiness, her stomach warm and full, "That tasted great! I've not had a traditional breakfast like that in a while now."

"Man, you really pigged out," Touma stood up from his spot at the table and began gathering the empty dishes, "What is it with all the girls I know and their absurd eating habits?"

"Watch what you say idiot," Mikoto looked over her shoulder at him as he made his way towards the kitchen and fired a small spark of electricity from her bangs at him. She huffed when he merely reached back without even looking and brushed it out of existence with his right hand. An expected result, "Don't go comparing me to that silver sister, I might eat a bit more than usual for a girl my age but that's only because I'm always active."

"Sure, sure," he deposited the plates in the sink and turned the tap and, and waved her off. He looked over at her as he began washing them and arched a brow at her, "You know, you always get mad at me for calling you biri biri, but have you ever actually called me by name?"

She had. In her head. "Idiot's an appropriate title for you." Mikoto retorted with a smirk.

Touma sighed, "So not cute, Misaka," he replied with a roll of his eyes, "Is it fine then, for me to go back to calling you Biribiri?"

"Sure, if you want me to start firing my railgun at you every time you do."

"So unreasonable!" the spiky haired boy groaned.

A thought occurred to her. She turned away from him to look towards the television, so he couldn't see the red flush that appeared on her face, "...I'll call you by your first name...if you call me by mine." Mikoto said, her voice dipping in volume and becoming softer.

"Hmm?" Touma's second eyebrow joined the first in raising up to his hairline, "What's with going all docile all of a sudden? Not that I really mind, but are you fine with that? Pretty sure your friends still called you Misaka last time I saw you hanging with them. People might get the wrong idea if they see me calling you by your first name."

'That's the point!' Mikoto thought to herself, "Are you ever going to get a clue...T-Touma?" she replied, a slight stutter appearing as she stumbled over his name.

He didn't say anything for a moment, so the tea haired girl peeked over her shoulder and found herself meeting his his eyes, he had been staring at her back. For a second, he just held her gaze before sighing and smiling lightly, "Alright then, Mikoto." he replied warmly and softly.

Mikoto swallowed heavily at the tone of his voice. It wasn't like normal, it reminded her of after they met up at that vending machine after she had confronted him about his loss of memories and when she had realised the kind of depths her feelings for this idiot of a boy had reached.

'..Now might be a good chance to..' Mikoto shook her head before she finished that thought. "So!" she hurried changed the subject, "What exactly should we do right now? Since we're back in the past, there's so much bad stuff we could stop from ever happening." and wasn't that just an absurd thing to say?

"How about sleeping?" Touma paused in washing the dishes to grin at her humourlessly, and only rolled his eyes when she narrowed her own brown eyes at him, "What can we do? Most of the stuff happening on the magic end of things are things that I have no idea how to get involved in or have no way of getting involved in without Index."

Magic. Mikoto tasted the word in her mouth before shaking her head. It was so absurd to her that magic was real, it was so unscientific. But that Silver Sister was at least good at giving her a rundown on everything when they were attending that victory feast with the Royal Family after the defeat of Coronzon.

Even more absurd to her was the fact that Espers like herself and the idiot washing dishes a few feet away from her were apparently creations based on Gemstones made by a crackpot pervert former mage.

A thought occurred to her that distracted the tea haired esper, "Hey, are you actually an esper?" Mikoto's head tilted to the side in thought as she asked, "I mean, your right hand isn't an esper power right?" she'd quizzed a few people like that Saint woman with the absurd chest, and they were pretty adamant that his Imagine Breaker was not an esper power.

"It's not, but I'm an esper, I went through the program back when I was six," Touma answered, before snorting, "I can remember that now thankfully, and I confirmed it by trying to get Index to teach me some magic a while back, the burst vessels in my eyes I got for my attempt was all the proof I needed."

Mikoto winced, that didn't sound pleasant at all, "Does that mean those dragons are your esper power?" she wondered.

"Couldn't tell you," the spiky haired boy shrugged, lifting his right hand up covered in soap suds and clenching his fist. Before her eyes, the pale skinned shifted into lemon yellow and sky blue fibre-like scales, "I'm not exactly running any mental calculations, I just feel it and make it happen, kind of like instinct." he shook his hand and his arm reverted back to normal pale skinned.

Huh, now that she thought on it, wasn't he pretty tan before? That must have come from all the time he spent outside of Japan running around saving the world and fighting who knows what.

'Maybe he's a gemstone?' Mikoto mused. She didn't have much experience with gemstones, but she had met the number seven level five, even got into a fight with him once. Twice even counting what happened during her forced shift to level six.

And that sounded an awful lot like Attack Crash. From what she knew, he was all instinct as well when it came to using his power.

"What about the sisters?" Touma spoke up suddenly, breaking Mikoto from her thoughts. Her head jerked up at the mention of her clone sisters and she looked up to see him staring at her, eyes serious, "It should be pretty early in the project right? You should be able to find the labs and we can put an end to it quick."

Despite the heavy topic coming up, Mikoto couldn't help but smile lightly, "So eager to go pick a fight with Accelerator huh?" she teased. Honestly, picking a fight with that guy again was the stuff her nightmares were made of, but he didn't even hesitate to bring it up.

It just showed how far behind she was compared to him. She had a lot of catching up to do.

Touma blanched, "No way, if I could, I'd never fight him again, three times is enough!" he quickly denied, waving his soapy hands in denial rapidly.

...Wait three!? She thought he only fought him twice, did she miss one? And he obviously won considering he wasn't dead. 'This idiot really is something else.' she shook her head, "As much as I'd love to go dismantle that project and crush everyone behind it, we can't." she replied, even if it physically hurt to say it, made her sick to the bottom of her stomach.

"What?" Touma stared at her blankly for a moment before his eyes narrowed, "What do you mean we can't? You can pretty much handle the vast majority of it outside of Accelerator alone, easily even, between the both of us I don't think they can stop us outside of dragging in other level fives and I doubt beyond one or two they'll come happily."

"The number two hates Accelerator, so probably only Meltdowner the number four would help out," she nodded even as her chest warmed with pride at his faith in her abilities. Attack Crash not helping them was a given, and Shokuhou definitely wouldn't. And nobody had ever really seen the number six in person, that guy liked to work in the shadows. "That's not the issue though, it's the fact that the first fight doesn't begin until the first day of the new year, and I'm not sure if all the sisters have been born yet, I don't want to risk them not being born."

Once upon a time, the boy across from her had told her, that if nothing else, she could take pride in the fact that the sisters were born, they were worth taking pride in. And she was proud of them. She loved her sisters, clones or not and wanted to protect each and every single one of their lives.

This was a chance for her to make up for not finding out about them until nearly a full year had gone past. And to save those she hadn't had the chance to before.

"...Ah, yeah, got it," Touma nodded, "That would be bad." he agreed.

"Yeah, so we'll have to give it a few months before busting down their doors, guns a blazing." Mikoto sighed.

"...So we're right back to where we started huh?" the spiky haired boy mused, piling the washed dishes beside the sink to dry out before making his way back to the living room, "So, what can we do?"

"Pretty much nothing other than prepare," Mikoto sighed leaning back onto her hands a bit and staring up at his dorm room ceiling, "I need to try and find the AAA again as well."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Touma asked, sitting down in front of her, "It's got some kind of magic to it, so it'll do you damage won't it?"

"The original, yeah," she agreed, "But I'll just make a new version like I did before that runs on my powers instead, trust me, it'll be fine." he wasn't wrong in that the one she had found initially did quite a bit of damage to her body, but the newer version she had constructed with the help of Tokiwadai students hadn't caused her any real problems.

He stared at her for a moment before shrugging his shoulders, "Well, you're the expert on it, and I can't deny how useful it was, plus that motorcycle variation was just cool," he replied before crossing his arms and frowning, "..Ah damnit, getting thrown a year back means I need to wait even longer to get my own motorcycle, and I was looking forward to that to, such misfortune." he lamented in defeat, shoulders slumping.

"Knowing you, you'd total it within a week." Mikoto couldn't help but tease with a grin.

"Ack!" Touma grasped his chest before glaring at her, "Oi, oi! Just because it's true doesn't mean you should say it out loud! Kamijou-san has youthful dreams too you know!"

"Well who knows, you might get lucky and not destroy it, your phone has held up pretty well." her grin grew as she used that word in front of him, making him wince.

Not that she was at all opposed to the idea of him getting a motorcycle. It fit his delinquent image. Plus, she had quite the nice time riding behind him on an electronic bike, she was sure she'd have an even better time on a proper motorcycle. And she could just imagine the shock of her fellow Tokiwadai students faces if she drove off on the back of a motorcycle clinging to the back of an older delinquent looking boy like her idiot.

Especially Shokuhou!

"Me, lucky? Yeah right, you just jinxed it!" he accused before snorting, "Next thing you'll tell me is that I've been chosen to become the eighth level five."

...Hey now there was an idea. "That's not a bad idea actually." Mikoto's grin turned cattish.

"...What..?" he gave her a blank look.

"Your Imagine Breaker is basically the personified absence of power, but now you can bring out those dragon powers as you please right?" Mikoto pointed out, and the more she thought on it, the more she thought this was a great idea, "You've got super speed, super strength, super durability and you can turn into a freaking dragon that can shrug off my railgun, no matter how you slice it that's definitely level five tier, beyond it even." there wasn't a single level five that could take him on in a fight and win as things were if he used that.

That was pretty much true already granted, and he should have totally already been classified at least as a level four on pure physical ability alone. Seriously, his physical ability, no matter what he said, was not normal or average in anywhere shape or form.

His body was just plain weird. But she'd come to terms with that a long time ago.

"I'm not sure if these dragon abilities are actual esper powers though," the spiky haired boy pointed out, "Besides, I've not really got any interest in being a higher level I'm quite fine being your average every day level zero."

Her eyebrow nearly twitched, "You are in no way shape or form an average level zero even without those dragon powers!" she surged to her feet and growled, "I wish you'd stop saying that, it's an insult to me with how much stronger you are than me, it makes me sound pitiful!"

"Alright, alright," Touma waved her off, rubbing the back of his spiky haired head, "Still, it sounds like a whole lot of bother."

"You get bothered by everyone else's problems anyway, for once do something for yourself idiot!" she scolded him and reached over the table and grabbed him by the nose and shook his head up and down by it, "You're always looking out for everyone else's and carrying the worlds burdens on your shoulders, well I'm looking out for you now, and I'm saying you should go for it!?"

"...Eh..." Touma stared up at the tea haired electromaster, wide-eyed.

"Got it!?" she repeated her demand once more, she had to be firm with this idiot. If nothing else, becoming a level five would take care of his money problems. Level Five's got paid three million yen a month after all.

"...Okay?" the spiky haired boy nodded numbly to her demands, clearly taken aback by her sudden switch in mood and sudden pushy demands.