{ Loser's Bracket }
a Fate Stay Night x A Certain Magical Index crossover
by fallacies
002.2: Code Ninety-Nine
//
Though it was widely established that high-end esper abilities cultivated under the Power Development Curriculum heavily relied on the use of mental calculation, Kuroko had found that misconceptions regarding what this meant on a practical basis were extremely commonplace. The understanding most popular among non-espers and Level Zeroes held that Fours and Fives could initiate phenomenon merely by thinking out complicated equations.
The truth was somewhat less magical:
As abilities functioned more or less like phantom limbs, any 'calculations' that underpinned their operation were of roughly the same variety as the hindbrain processes that mediated motor control -- the automatic adjustment of leg exertion when walking, for example; or the intuitive balancing of the center of weight. The notion that high-speed algebra could mysteriously bestow the ability to shoot laser beams was the stuff of magical girl anime.
'Subconscious' well-described the calculations involved in psychic powers of Level Three or lower, but climbing higher in the ranks generally required specific cognizance of the 'how' and 'why' of things. With practice, ability application could potentially reach machine-like precision, but not without careful measurement and calculation of 'force.'
For Kuroko's teleportation, any slight misrepresentation of coordinates or velocities had a very real chance of reducing her body to a smear -- but this was to her mind a perfectly acceptable risk. If she weren't prepared to put her life on the line for the sake of her ideals, why bother joining an organization like Judgment?
Such a conviction was the lowest possible prerequisite to standing as her Onee-sama's equal.
//
The good thing about evening patrols, Kuroko felt, was the relative lack of attention that street-level pedestrians allotted to the sight of middle school girls falling from the sky. Objects in the air tended to be more difficult to see against a darkened backdrop.
"A Code Ninety-Nine?" she reconfirmed, plummeting feet-first down the side of an office building. "And this would be in Sector Nine, Akishima?"
[Yeah,] replied Uiharu across her earpiece. [CCTV feeds are showing an attack on a male student. The perpetrator seems to be using a heavily customized submachine gun.]
Kuroko pulled herself to the top of a water tower twenty meters away, landing with a metallic noise.
"Who am I dealing with?"
[I'm running facial recognition on the involved parties, but the poor video quality makes them hard to identify,] said Uiharu. [Luckily, they're both fairly unique in appearance. The student's a redhead in a Tachikawa uniform, and the gunman's almost two and a half meters tall.]
Kuroko frowned, throwing herself into the air above a canal.
"Two and a half meters?" she asked.
[Maybe a little shorter. Asian, brown hair, black leather clothes.]
Komaba Ritoku, Kuroko's mind supplied -- the leader of Red Virtue, one of the larger Level Zero gangs involved in the anti-establishment coalition known as Skill-Out. On so little detail, Kuroko couldn't be absolutely certain that Komaba was the perpetrator, but there really weren't very many Asian men of over two meters in height in the city.
If indeed Red Virtue were involved, the motive was likely to be retribution against the Tachikawa pupil -- unattainable through the legal channels for whatever reason. The gang had a reputation of never resorting to violence unprovoked or without just cause, and their victims were invariably guilty of hate crimes or acts of discrimination against Level Zeroes.
'Still, it's highly irregular that somebody in a leadership position like Komaba would venture so far out of District Ten to pursue a hit himself,' she thought. 'He's smart enough that there's never been enough evidence to pin a crime to him. Violates his modus operandi to be caught red-handed in a district known to be under heavy CCTV surveillance ...'
"Uiharu," she said suddenly, landing on the pole of a street lamp. "Has First Branch posted any alerts relating to the Skill-Out situation recently?"
[There was a large fire in one of their District Ten holdings two weeks ago,] said Uiharu. [Other than that, I don't see anything of note. Why do you ask?]
Five meters above a building-top, Kuroko frowned.
"It isn't anything too important just yet," she replied. "I'll inform you if my suspicions are proven valid."
The final eighty meters to Sector Nine, Akishima were crossed in an instant, and Kuroko landed on the top-floor catwalk of a fire escape. It was obvious at this range that the gunshots were at least partially suppressed, and on the echoes alone, it wouldn't be easy to situate the origin. Surveying the street below, she caught sight of the telltale flashes of muzzle fire at the corner of her eye.
"What in the world ..."
Toward the southern end of the block, twenty or thirty slabs of stone were planted perpendicular in the street -- piercing the blacktop by cutting edges crudely knapped in the manner of Paleolithic tools. The redhead that Uiharu had mentioned was taking cover behind them, but given the shrapnel and the shattered granite that littered the ground, it didn't seem as if they constituted a very effective defense against bullets.
Further on, the perpetrator had suspended gunfire.
"Tell me where your superiors are keeping the children," he said, "and I'll consider letting you off lightly."
Moving to the rooftop of the building left of the perpetrator, Kuroko said, softly, "I have visual confirmation on our quarry. Search the database for a Komaba Ritoku, Level Zero. The victim isn't known to me, but he's at least a Level Three. Ability looks to be rock manipulation of some sort -- probably Geo Hand."
[Got it,] said Uiharu. [Reinforcements are en route. They'll be there in about five minutes.]
Even if it was standard procedure for a Code Ninety-Nine, five minutes was far too long a wait.
"Understood," she replied.
Pressing the earpiece to mute her microphone, she walked to the edge of the roof and took note of Komaba's position. Intervening without backup technically wasn't permitted for Ninety-Nines, but as the sole officer on scene, circumvention of the rule was theoretically permissible on 'extenuating circumstances.' Even if her superiors didn't buy the excuse, better that she be marked for an infraction than to stand by and allow a life to be meaninglessly claimed.
Clutching the cloth band pinned to her left sleeve, she landed on the street five meters behind the man, facing his back.
"This is Judgment!" she shouted. "Lower your weapon, and put your hands in the air where I can see them!"
//
Bullets were fast. Extremely so.
Shirou's appreciation of this wasn't theoretical. The few times he'd participated in target practice at the shooting range beneath the Fujimura compound, Taiga's grandfather had praised him for his supposed talent as a sharp-shooter.
Tonight, he'd learned that being on the other end of the barrel was a wholly different experience from pulling the trigger.
He'd escaped injury at the outset of the encounter on rough anticipation of bullet trajectory and a lot of luck, making reference of his opponent's line of sight. The technique turned out only to be useful until the man realized that squeezing off shots at random was more effective.
Shirou had by then planted multiple replicas of Berserker's axe-sword in the street as a makeshift barricade -- but after the initial volley of shots glanced off the surfaces of the weapons, the composition of the bullets somehow 'changed.' The altered projectiles came at significantly greater penetrating power and mass, shattering through the lines of blades closest to Komaba as if they were so much china.
'Prana depletion's getting to be moderate,' he thought, sitting on the blacktop with his back against a sword. 'I'll need to take him out before the collaborator decides to join the fight.'
There was always the option of bringing higher-ranked mysteries into play, but he was hesistant to trace out an actual Noble Phantasm for much the same reason that he'd held back against Harway during the examination: Atop the lampposts and along the sides of buildings, there were a multitude of security cameras trained on the street.
Now that he'd confirmed that there was in fact somebody targeting him with intent to kill, it was doubly vital that he conceal his trump cards for emergency use. Letting slip too much information of his limits on camera would provide any observers with the ammunition to set up countermeasures against him.
Still, the situational assumptions he'd adopted for the Grail War didn't all apply. The combat here wasn't about dealing the maximum amount of damage in the smallest period of time. Both of his immediate opponents had thus far been human, and bringing to bear weapons expressly intended to injure Servants was overkill. Death was no longer an acceptable outcome.
'Am I even equipped to perform a non-lethal takedown?'
Pacing forward in the dust of broken swords, Komaba Ritoku ceased in his onslaught, lifting his bizarre weapon across a shoulder.
"Tell me where your superiors are keeping the children," he said, "and I'll consider letting you off lightly."
Speak up and die, in other words.
Before the War, Shirou might've been inclined to respond, but it was difficult now to interpret the overture as anything other than an attempt to discern his location. The destruction that Komaba had rained upon the street wasn't the sort of thing that one offered with heartfelt words of mercy. Likely, the man intended on finding the 'children' he'd mentioned with or without Shirou's cooperation -- and either way, Shirou's life would be forfeit.
The gun needed to go.
"Trace On," he whispered.
The weapon that came at his call was known as the Hrunting -- an ancient blade of black iron, inset on its surface with a twisting, spiral pattern. The javelin-like form that lay now in his grip was the result of a restoration -- a tracing back of the changes applied by Archer, who'd used it primarily as an arrow. In its forging, so long ago, it had been quenched on the lifeblood of hounds loyal unto death -- and in unyielding loyalty, its thrust sought ever after any marks its bearer desired to strike.
It was the kind of sword that lost none of its relevance when carried into a gunfight.
'Let's see how he honors his word ...'
Shirou hefted a grapefruit-sized fragment of granite and tossed it, forcefully shattering a glass storefront adjacent to his barricade.
The response was instantaneous:
Without hesitation or reserve, Komaba pulled back on his trigger, issuing a spray of continuous fire that penetrated through to the hindmost layer of slabs. The axe-blade at Shirou's back fractured and chipped under percussion, crumbling about its edges until only a scant few centimeters of cover remained.
'No openings,' thought Shirou, clutching tightly at the hilt of the Hrunting. 'How am I gonna do this?'
As the barrage ceased, it turned out, the opportunity to strike presented itself unprovoked.
"This is Judgment!" shouted the voice of a girl. "Lower your weapon, and put your hands in the air where I can see them!"
//
Komaba didn't comply.
Smoothly swiveling, he squeezed off a chain of shots in Kuroko's direction -- much as she'd expected. Flitting several meters to his side, she displaced one of the stiletto spikes stowed in her legstrap into his right forearm.
Surprisingly, he didn't yell or drop his weapon.
"There are places I need to be before I'm taken in," he said, scowling as he pulled the trigger again.
'Preemptive use of painkillers?' she thought, evading to a second-floor balcony just outside his peripheral vision. There was blood dripping from the stiletto that punctured his sleeve, but he wasn't in any visible discomfort.
She could try to go for his hand or the weapon itself, but either option could render permanent debilitation -- a messy resolution that she didn't want to deal with. Making her choice, she rematerialized at his back, placing her arms about his neck in a chokehold.
Confirming that while holding a gun, he did indeed exceed the mass limit of her ability, she began to exert pressure. Kuroko had attempted the move a number of times before to varying effect, but correctly performed, it could in theory reduce an opponent to unconsciousness in seconds -- all without much in the way of physical exertion.
In theory.
Whoever developed the textbook blood choke Kuroko had been taught in basic training had apparently never tried it on a heavily muscular opponent more than two meters in height. Incorrect application of pressure won her an elbow to the stomach, and intuitively, she relocated a short distance away -- close enough that Komaba still had an unobstructed shot, she belatedly realized.
Just as the man made to take advantage of it, something fell from the sky -- planting itself clear through the firearm, and knocking it to the blacktop. Inexplicably, the barrel had been bisected along its center by what appeared to be a bronze or iron age javelin.
"What?" asked Komaba, staring.
Kuroko recovered first. Porting herself directly before him, she kneed his groin and slammed her fist to the underside of his jaw. Still in contact with his skin, she delivered him three meters above the street surface -- momentarily following herself to ride his body down into the blacktop.
Panting lightly, she drew a plasticuff from her legstrap and restrained Komaba's arms. Stepping away from his body and dusting off her skirt, she turned to regard the male student, who had only now emerged from the cover of the granite slabs. Was the javelin a product of his esper ability as well?
"You'll need to take my statement, I suppose?" he asked, expression resigned.
"Unfortunately, yes. Your name is ... ?"
"Emiya," the boy replied. "Emiya Shirou."
//
"Goalkeeper is supporting the 177th Branch as rumored," she said, holding the phone to her ear. "Digital evidence might not be the best medium for this ..."
//
Subject: Shirai Kuroko
Age: 13
Designation: Teleport
Rank: Level 4
AIM Range: 81.5 meters
Precognition: C
Clairvoyance: B
Psychometry: D
Telepathy: D
Psychokinesis: A
Retrocognition: C
With relative reference to a three-dimensional Cartesian representation of the esper's immediate environment by default, objects may be relocated between two sets of coordinates via an eleventh dimensional translation. At present, Shirai Kuroko's ability can transport an upwards limit of 130.7 kilograms per utilization.