Kyouma absentmindedly nodded his head as they continued to whatever restaurant Torako had in mind. The stories weren't quite interesting, especially given his lack of participation in anything remotely social outside of school. To his, her antics sounded like something straight out of a high school comedy, which was... Fitting, if anything.

Torako's sudden greeting to the girl in front of the restaurant caught him off guard for a moment. Given that the two seemed to know each other, two logical explanations popped into his head: either they were friends or she was also a Nagatenjouki student. Either way...

"As she said, I'm Kyouma Sakamoto. It's a pleasure to meet you." he said, giving a light bow to the small girl in front of him.

Before Nadeshiko could put her plan into action, she had found herself scooped up by the bigger girl and, unable and unwilling to put up any more resistance than a high-pitched squeak, was carried off through the streets of Academy City. She really couldn't complain, though. Sakie was so warm... And more importantly, so soft too. The tiny girl's face turned a bright scarlet as she was held against Sakie's chest...

And then she suddenly gasped in shock as they approched the door and the distinctive sound of crackling electricity accompanied by a loud accusation of perversion erupted from behind it. Suddenly, she was a whole lot more apprehensive about this... At least until Sakie opened the door and revealed that the room was filled with cute girls! Like...

...Oh, I recognize them...

Well, they probably didn't recognize her... Even if they went to the same school, she wasn't in the same class as them and she didn't really have much presence. But she immediately noticed the girl with flowers in her short hair, and the longer haired girl that just had to be her girlfriend. I mean, after she saw her flip the flower girl's skirt the other day... Actually, that kind of made them the reason she got into this whole mess in the first place! But... Since they were so cute she was willing to forgive them.

...And then there was another girl who looked familiar, but Nadeshiko couldn't quite put her finger on where from. But she was really pretty, even if she seemed kind of angry... And sparking... And... And why was there a twitching girl lying at her feet?

...Actually, this was kind of scary... Poor Nadeshiko could only tremble in Sakie's arms as she stared at the electric girl.

There had been no trouble transporting the girl, seeing as she was as docile as a sleepy kitty which made her all the cuter in Sakie's eyes. In fact, it was after she made it to the building and went up the flight of stairs that things started getting... weird. Goggling for a moment at the fact there was a twitchy and spastic twintailed girl on the floor with scorch marks on her and another that was sparking, she thought about it and then looked down again while putting two and two together to get something that was definitely not four.

"Ahh, so she hit herself with her own taser. Poor girl." Nodding to herself, she then put Nadeshiko on the ground and patted her head while she held out a hand to help Kuroko up. "Judgement members shouldn't be so clumsy, tasers are serious business. And you should probably turn off the taser you confiscated from her since that'll run the battery down." Given that she was really worried about Kuroko, she didn't give Misaka more than a glance and thus Sakie didn't realize who she was.

Beatrix stared at Torako silently for a few moments, surprised at her sudden appearance. All that searching, and in the end that girl just came to her? Sure, that was how it was supposed to be, but still!
This time, Torako was accompanied by some boy. One who possessed manners appropriate to display to someone like Beatrix! With an almost stereotypically, self-absorbed chuckle to herself, Beatrix straightened in her seat and smirked arrogantly at the duo.

"Well, obviously there's no need to introduce my esteemed self," she began, "but as I am exceedingly polite, I am Beatrix Alexandria Katherine Avalon. Feel free to use any of those words with the correct honorific and title!"
Her attention was now turned to Torako, a small frown on her face, "and you! How dare you flee from my sanctuary so rudely! I demand only the finest cuisine in compensation!"

Hands on her hips, Beatrix waited for Torako to lead the way, momentarily forgetting the reason she had ventured out in search of the girl in the first place.

Well, that was quite the familiar sight by now. Ruiko could really only watch as Kuroko slid to the floor like she was made out of jelly after the flash of electricity. Maybe Kuroko should try more subtlety if she wanted to avoid that? This was the result for everything else... but Ruiko really didn't have much of an idea. In any case, as she finished nodding in asset to Uiharu's explanation of the whole thing, it was right about then that two other girls showed up. There was a tiny girl who looked pretty shaken(and was also a fellow Sakugawa student by her uniform), and a taller girl who looked like a highschooler.

"Oh, what's-"

It seemed like this was a job for Judgement... and even if Ruiko was not part of the organization she still wanted to know what was happening and if the girl was okay. But then the taller girl knelt down by Kuroko, assuming it was somehow a taser malfunction.



"I-it's not an overreaction at all!" replied Mikoto, swiftly, her face still flushed with embarrassment. It was bad enough that Kuroko had teleported onto her lap, but then the answers she gave were just... it was way, way too far! The electricity crackled around her head for a few more moments, at least until Mikoto noticed that others had arrived in the office. Two girls. One was from the same school as Saten and Uiharu, by the looks of things, and the other was a highschooler. The smaller girl looked like something pretty bad had happened, judging by how shaken she seemed...

Mikoto's expression softened as the electricity ceased crackling around her. If someone was in trouble, it was important to try and help out.

"Are you okay?" she asked, pre-empting the people who actually had this as their job, "What happened?"

Unaware of the proferred hand until she'd already pushed to her feet, Kuroko recovered far faster from the shock than was entirely normal for anybody that didn't have a burning need to make sure that their phone was resistant to sudden current surges. "It was no taser, simply onee-sama's overenthusiastic chastisement. I am fine."

Straightening up, the teleporter looked at their new arrivals and the hand that she had failed to notice from her position face-down on the ground. Someone quite clearly from the same school as her colleague, though somewhat smaller than herself when she wasn't even particularly tall to start with. The other girl appeared to be highschool age. From the fact that she wasn't the one shaking and had in fact offered Kuroko help, it was clear that the smaller of the two was the one in need of assistance.

Fortunately, she was saved from having to ask what brought them to the Branch Office by Mikoto... though if the reason that brought them here even remotely involved conflict, it was going to be hard to stop the electromaster from getting involved, even after the reminder she gave after the delinquents earlier.

"Ah, I see," Annette replied, looking between Uiharu and Misaka with the two explanations for why Kuroko was on the floor, though it seemed the teleporter was recovering. She would admit that they seemed to be telling the truth , if her tolerance to electricity was this high. She just wasn't sure whether she should consider this relationship abusive in anyway, not that it mattered to her.

Still, she would admit that it was amusing, and she made a mental note of it. Perhaps she could or would use this later, though she didn't have a particular reason. But they always presented themselves, that much she knew.

A distraction arrived then as two girls entered, and Annette straightened up as she looked between the two Judgment members as they got to work. "Don't mind me," she said to them with a wave. "I'm just here to watch right now." She hadn't transferred in officially yet, and seeing how they ran things around here was the whole reason for being here.

With that said, she settled in to observe and see what happened. It seemed this would be a productive visit after all.

Murakawa Torako

"Ahaha~ Looks like she took a liking to you, senpai."

Chibi- Beatrix's attention was now turned to Torako, a small frown on her face, "and you! How dare you flee from my sanctuary so rudely! I demand only the finest cuisine in compensation!"

"Sorry sorry, I'd something to look into." Tora put her hands on Beatrix's shoulders, gently pushing her inside the restaurant grinning widely all the time. "Don't worry, this place has some great food in it." She tilted her head back, looking at Kyouma. "You're coming right?"

Once inside, it was clear what the specialty of this place was meat, meat and more meat, though they had some more ordinary dishes as it was a family restaurant. Almost as soon as she sat down, she ordered for the 11 inch wide burger set, with a tall glass of juice to go with it. She wasn't the type to speak while eating however, so she simply started snarfing up her meal.

---

Uiharu Kazari

"Ahh, so she hit herself with her own taser. Poor girl. Judgement members shouldn't be so clumsy, tasers are serious business. And you should probably turn off the taser you confiscated from her since that'll run the battery down."

She could only smile wryly at Shirai's situation, and the apparent misunderstanding from the girl. These two were obviously seeking help from the way they entered, and from the look of that girl there, but Misaka had already asked the important question, she just stayed silent, awaiting the girl's response.

"So it seems..." Kyouma sighed at Torako's remark, shrugging his shoulders at the girl as she entered the restaurant. Man, there really were all types of people here in Academy City, weren't there? What was the likelihood of running into a wannabe European princess in the middle of the city again?

Snark aside, Kyouma nodded toward Beatrix in acknowledgement. It wouldn't hurt to humor her for a while, at the very least.

"Well, I don't think we should keep her waiting, either." he said, following Torako as she seemingly left the two of them behind.

The smell of meat was... Overpowering, for sure. In fact, he wasn't sure if it could be called a 'restaurant' as much as it would a 'slaughterhouse'. His stomach, however, seemed to think otherwise, almost egging him on to grab whatever was the largest on the menu and chomp it down. He almost followed it, too, at least until his rational mind kicked in. Beefsteak and a soda. That was fine.

The giant slab of meat that presented itself to him was intimidating, to say the least. It felt like he was in America or something, especially with the way with how stereotypically it presented itself. What he expected was, of course, much smaller than this.

"Er... Are these... Supposed to be this big?" he asked apprehensively as he cut off a piece of his meal. "Looks like someone just chopped it straight off of a cow..."

"...Do-don't make it sound like I'm a cute little pet..." Beatrix mumbled, almost inaudibly as her cheeks flushed a faint red. She wasn't taking a liking to anybody! She was just appreciative of her proper treatment, was all!
Preoccupied with her protestations, Beatrix didn't resist being guided into the restaurant, and seemed almost confused when she bothered to take in her surroundings once more.

The young lady almost never visited places like this. If she was at home, it was all high-class cuisine fit for royalty. While living in Academy City, she... had far too many instant meals than one would like to admit (when the hell were those idiots running place supplying her with at least six maids?!), so after staring at her menu for several long moments, Beatrix finally chose a steak.

Th-this thing is almost as big as me... she found herself commenting, once her food had arrived. How was anyone supposed to eat all of this stuff?! And where was all the other food? Surely it wasn't possible to just eat meat alone? It, like, threw off the balance or something.

Still, she wasn't about to admit defeat to stupid food, and after steeling her mind for the arduous task ahead, finally began to cut of small sections and eat.

Onee-sama's... Chastisement?

Nadeshiko's face once more turned bright red as thoughts began racing through her head. So they... They have that kind of relationship? That's so... So kinky! And they're both so cute, and... And I really need to draw this down, and... And...

She was so preoccupied with some rather questionable thoughts about the twintailed girl and her electric dominatrix that it took a moment for her to realize the latter had just asked if she was okay.

...Well I know I'd be okay if she'd... And maybe the other girl too... And together we could... Eheheheh~

For a moment, a goofy smile spread across her face as she giggled wildly... Before she slapped herself. She had to focus! That delinquent had to be brought to justice, after all! But... That meant having to talk to such a cute girl, and... Resuming her trembling, Nadeshiko hugged the bag of art supplies close to her.

"Um well um um... W-well, um... I w-w-was, um, uh, g-getting some, um... Some s-s-supplies and um..." She almost inaudibly began, turning her eyes to the floor, the ceiling, the desks at the side of the office, and occassionally to the electric's girl's smooth thighs. "In an... An a-alley and um... D-d-delinquent... And a b-b-big d-dog and um um... And um y-y-yeah um..."

A large dog? That was uncommon in Academy City--maybe Uiharu would be able to track the delinquent down from that? Even better if there was more information to narrow down where the incident took place: even if it wasn't covered by cameras, sneaking about with a large animal for long without getting seen would be incredibly difficult.

Following the small girl's flickering gaze, Kuroko noticed that it kept coming back to her onee-sama... but not somewhere appropriate for someone else to be looking at so often, and she subtly adjusted her position between this newcomer and the Railgun to block her line of sight before asking, "Can you tell us where it happened?"

Sakie furrowed her brows at an inconsistency found in the story, at least from her perspective. "Eh? Was there a large dog?" The high schooler asked herself in a low tone of voice, nocking her head to one side as she tried to remember the inclusion of any such intimidating canine of above average size. "I don't remember that... All I found when I charged into the alley was the poor kohai and some kind of smarmy hooligan lurking about in the shadows. And then he ran away shortly I made my appearance." The girl stated with a bit of confusion on her face. "And even if I couldn't see the dog, I would have at least heard it."

At this point, Ruiko couldn't restrain herself. A dog that was there, but wasn't?! This had to have something to do with the rumor! There was no way it wasn't something to do with it. Stepping forward, she couldn't stop herself. Sure, it was a job for Judgement, but on the other hand she knew that bringing up the rumor would help out! After all, if this girl got away from the ghost, that meant that there was a whole lot they could learn about it!

"That dog must be related to the ghost!" she declared, "After all, why else would one person see a dog and the other person only see some guy?"



For a few moments, Mikoto was silent after the smaller girl relayed her story, and the highschooler mentioned that she hadn't seen a dog. Judging by their testimony, it was pretty obvious that something had happened, but what exactly? This was Academy City, and naturally that meant it was very likely that there was some kind of Esper power behind the appearance of the dog... the rumor about the ghost was just plain silly. Still, what kind of power would it be? Maybe it was some kind of illusion, or appearance-masking?

"... If only one of you saw the dog..." Mikoto began, thinking things through as she spoke, "... Then maybe it was some kind of illusion? Or its appearance was masked?"

She didn't pause for a moment to think that she was basically taking over for Judgement right now, and asking all the questions before they did. It was just what was coming naturally to her, Mikoto had to help out.

Murakawa Torako

"Er... Are these... Supposed to be this big?" Kyouma asked as he cut off a piece of his meal. "Looks like someone just chopped it straight off of a cow..."

"I know! Isn't it grand?" Tora replied with a mouthful of meat. "Its so cheap too. In my hometown, we can't even afford this sort of luxury."

Say what you will about the restaurant, but they really know how to cook meat. The heavenly taste of it in her mouth was almost enough to make her forget about why she came there. Almost.

"Alright." Tora started talking. "You wanted to know about that power up, right? There has been a legend going around of people passing out there and then suddenly gaining a level. So I'm thinking, if I go to those alley and get knocked out, I'd be able to get a powerup too."

She started wolfing down her food faster than before, an amazing feat since she was already tearing through the burger before. "Oh, Chibiko, would you like to come as well? You might get powerup to your level if we do."

---

Uiharu Kazari

Well that was something to go on. An unseen dog that could be an illusion or something else that can make such an appearance. All she really had to do now was just go through the list of Espers, filter out those with suitable powers that can have that sort of effect, and then have the two identify the person through the filtered list.

"If its an esper, we can get him. Lets see if I can find him."

With that, Kazari sat again at her desk, running several searches for Espers that can cause effects similar to what the girl just described.

Kyouma opened his mouth in order to respond, but ended up shaking his head and sighing instead. This girl really was one heck of a carnivore, wasn't she...? She did have a point, though; the meal was huge and decent and the price for each dish was relatively cheap given the portion size. If worst came to worst, he could very easily just ask to have it packed up so he could refrigerate it at home for another time.

By the time Torako brought up exploring abandoned alleyways for the powerup, Kyouma had slowly milled through about half of his steak. With such a meal, after all, slow and steady seemed to be the only solution to even attempt to finish it all in one go. BUt with her comment, he stopped for a moment and stared at his kouhai, almost in disbelief. Was she serious about letting herself be knocked out just to see if a rumor was true...? And all for a powerup?

"H-hey, I'm not entirely sure if that's a smart idea. You know, at all. There's probably a safer way to research this, don't you think...?"

Of course, given the way that Torako had been since he had met her, it was unlikely that she'd heed his call for safety. That just meant he had to follow her to make sure that something shady and/or undesirable wouldn't occur. Even IF they had just met, he was still supposed to at least TRY to be some sort of a reliable upperclassman in some way, shape, or form.

Beatrix listened to this talk of power ups with her head tilted to the side. Given her lack of social skills, friends, and not watching the news in lieu watching all the anime/playing all the games/generally shutting herself inside a bubble, she knew just about nothing of these rumours. They sounded rather silly to the obviously-powerful esper. What desperate idiot would use such a method to gain power?

...

...Well... maybe it would help those foolish idiots that designated her as a Level 0 realise just how awesome her abilities were...

Silently poking at her barely-eaten meal with a pondering frown, Beatrix tried to decide if this weird method of leveling up was worth her time. After all, she had only intended to pay Torako back for doing her job. Still, a potential increase in power...
Eventually, temptation won out. Scoffing at Kyouma's attempt to inject logic into their actions, Beatrix simply said, "it's perfectly safe! After all, if it's already happened to other people, then there's clearly no problem, right?"

Crossing her arms smugly, Beatrix continued, "frankly, I can only see an upside! Unless getting knocked out hurts a lot. ...Er, did the legends say anything about that...?"

Annette listened calmly as the Judgment Branch swung into action, with the inclusion of Saten and Misaka. Well, they might not be in Judgment but she supposed she couldn't disagree with the two of them helping out. It wasn't as if this was incredibly sensitive business that had to be left to people who knew what they were doing. It was simply an alley mugging, as far as they knew.

She nodded in agreement with the idea that Misaka presented, of the dog being an illusion, with Uiharu going to look as well. She knew she should keep quite, but it wasn't exactly interfering in their jobs anyway. "That seems most likely," she agreed with a nod, ignoring the idea of it being a ghost or related to the ghost somehow.

There was a pause before she elaborated further. "The fact that only she could see it would indicate that it has a mental component, and isn't simply manipulation of light to create a false image." Otherwise, the rescuer would have been able to see the dog too. Still, it would be best to see what Uiharu came up with.

"Y-you didn't... Um, you didn't s-s-see it? B-b-but..." Nadeshiko stared blankly at Sakie. How could she not have seen it? It was so big, and... And horrible, and if she hadn't shown up it would have... That wasn't a good line of thought, really, so Nadeshiko turned her attention back to the electric girl's thighs. Unfortunately, the twintailed girl had moved to block her view, in a way that seemed almost intentional. Undeterred, Nadeshiko simply found her eyes drawn to this girl's thighs instead.

"Um, b-b-but um it was um... In an alley! N-near, um, near the school and um..." The thought hadn't passed her mind that just saying "the school" when referring to Academy City didn't really give much indication of where she meant, but at least her uniform would probably help that matter. "And, um, um... M-maybe an illusion? Um..." Poor Nadeshiko couldn't stop trembling, even as she continued staring at the twintailed girl's thighs in a vain effort to calm herself down. Even though the crisis was over for now, she couldn't help but panic seeing how she was now surrounded by pretty girls who had their attention fixed on her.

Unconcerned by her own thighs being looked at, since it wasn't the girl sat behind her that was doing the looking, the teleporter considered what they knew. Some sort of mental component seemed an understatement--for an illusion to only appear to one person it was either mind control or... "He could be an illusionist with the ability to direct the phenomena."

Indeed, with some more questions to further narrow it down--including that Nadeshiko could hear the dog--there was only one result remaining. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it could be the right person:



The ability displayed--and picture--was consistent with what the two girls had encountered, though more skilled than this, but couldn't escape the fact that the suspect had apparently been dead since an accident resulting in the destruction of a lab the year before.