Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I yawned as I rested my head on one hand and stared at the cram school whiteboard. On it were several equations and notes about the properties of light, the most prominent of which was underlined twice in thick blue marker.

Seriously? I thought. How cliche. Everyone knows the most famous equation in all of physics. That's like asking if people know about Gekota. But can anyone here actually explain special relativity?

Nuclear fusion, wave functions, electrons and the uncertainty principle, the double-slit experiment. These were all words that held no meaning to the other third-year middle schoolers around me, and had even less meaning to me. I was only here to prove that I had learned this material at all. In other words, I was here because I wanted to fit in.

I already knew all of this of course, at least to some extent. I knew the reasons why light behaved differently when observed. I knew why we could only observe such a small section of the electromagnetic spectrum. I also knew why, if I focused just a little more on the odd feeling that swirled through and around me and the theory I'd ingrained into memory, I could make out the rest of the spectrum no one else could see.

And I knew the reason why my hair began to click and snap at the edges that brushed my uniform's vest. Biting the inside of my lip, I sighed and grounded the static I had been building up into the metal frame of my desk. I could have just as easily channeled it through my feet and into the ground, but doing that would have meant potentially discharging it all into the person who was now poking my ribs with her pencil.

"Heeeeeey! Are you even paying attention?"

I turned glumly to my only other seatmate and best friend. It was funny how life worked out sometimes when my name in this new life just so happened to match a character even someone hiding under a rock would recognise. And, of course, fate had its hooks deep into the comedic fabric of the universe as my first friend since I entered middle school was named exactly the same, and she wasn't the only one, either.

"Yes, Kuroko?"

Shirai Kuroko, sporting darkish hair and twintails that were as iconic as they were cute, frowned as she gave me an odd look. "You've been out of it since this morning, Mikoto. What's gotten into you? I know you like Christmas Eve more than other people, but still…you'd usually say something like 'stop bothering me or I'll punt you across the room.'"

I hummed as I matched her with a long glance from the side. It wasn't hard to tell that she was worried about me, but if she knew just what I was thinking about, she may have just booked it for the hills and flown to Hawaii.

Speaking of Hawaii…

"Ne, Kuroko."

Kuroko pursed her lips a little at my tone as she raised an eyebrow and piped out a sharp whisper. "What's up?"

I turned my head in my hand to look at her. "If you knew monsters were real but only in Japan, what would you do?"

In true Kuroko fashion, she hummed quietly before nodding and pointing her pencil at me with a small grin. "If you're proposing hypotheticals, then I would use my teleportation powers to go to America!"

That got a laugh out of me, and a glare from the teacher but I couldn't care less about that. I lifted up my head and nodded with a soft smile. "Yeah, it's just like you to say that."

After all, Kuroko was a completely normal middle school student still choosing where she wanted to go for high school. She couldn't teleport. She struggled with vectors and velocity and had a terrible sense of space. Nothing in particular gave her any sense of obligatory justice, and her imagination was wild enough to take her anywhere.

If only that imagination was able to perceive the Fly Head curse that was buzzing around her head and annoying the hell out of me.

…Yeah. My name in this new life of mine just so happened to be Misaka Mikoto, and I wasn't entirely sure what I was. I didn't think I was an esper; At least, not in the way I thought espers from Academy City must have been like. But my memory was practically perfect now. I chalked it up to being able to cheat thanks to memories of another life, but again that didn't explain a lot of things.

Example: Why could I manipulate a fundamental force of nature, like her? My namesake?

Example: Why could I see grotesque creatures I only ever thought I'd see in a battle shonen manga?

There were two possibilities: I could see curses because I was a sorcerer, or I could perceive curses because I was an esper. At the very least, both possibilities worried me. Knowing whose name I had inherited, it was difficult to rule anything out, but whether it was my own personal reality or cursed energy, I could manipulate electromagnetic waves. To what extent, I was too afraid to find out.

I really didn't want to find out

Because if it was cursed energy, then my own potential esper powers were the least of my worries when I was in a world mired in a deep well of bullshit that I could only remember the broad strokes of. If I was an esper, that still wouldn't explain why I could see these monsters that none of my other classmates or parents could see.

And even I wasn't dumb enough to dismiss the strange gas explosions and deaths that seemed to plague this version of Japan, nor did I ignore the rumours I found online about an up-and-coming cult with an enigmatic Buddhist monk at its head.

I was, after all, trying to scrounge for scraps of anything recognisable from a series I had only ever really joked about.

"Ugh."

The worst part was, I knew something was going to happen soon. Something was in the air, something that made my skin bristle, and it kept making me lose my concentration on keeping my powers in check. As I ignored Kuroko's concerned side-eye, I gave her a weak smile and raised my hand.

"Hey, teach? Could I go to the toilet?"

The cram school teacher merely matched my sigh as she nodded. "I get paid whether you're here or not, but please make it quick."

Kuroko's mood shifted just as I got up to leave. I booked it as she began to drill holes into our teacher's back with her eyes. "Is that really how a cram school teacher should act? You don't have to be so honest, especially to my Mikoto. What a…"

I took a deep breath to ease the queasiness in my stomach. Walking right past the washrooms, I stood at a window and stared out at the distant brilliance of Shibuya's skyline.

Even after 14 years of living a new life on the complete opposite side of the world, it still took my breath away. I'd visited once before in my past life, but I'd never had the chance to really explore. I was never much of a big-city kid either, even though I lived in my fair share of them from what I could remember, so I couldn't help but smile seeing it now with new eyes and a new appreciation for what I had always missed.

And that was when I saw them.

They came into view like it was any other Sunday. My gut lurched as the feeling I'd been having all day skyrocketed into full-blown goosebumps and crackles of electricity as a veritable wall of curses floated towards Shinjuku from all sides. One minute, the sky had been clear, but now…

"That's…today?" I whispered. But there was no way I could have remembered that detail from my past life when I couldn't even remember how I'd died.

No. None of that was important right now because the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons had begun.

And every curse I could see within a couple blocks was beginning to turn my way.

I was already running as the first curse smashed through the window behind me.