ZKC - Colliding Universes

[Kyle]

Babel

The girls looked at one another confusingly, and it showed on their faces to. "What trick?" Kaoru asked and watched as two men came running right back into the room, the same ones who had come in just after the boy had tried to teleport.

"Whose Sakura?" asked Aoi.

 

[Toshiro]

The youth stood back up, holding his arm, clearly confused...Shiho reached out to try and read his mind, a blue light on her palm...when the youth's eyes clenched shut, and he vanished. Minamoto had entered with the grunts just in time to see this.

"So he's a teleporter....girls, go after him! He'll be alone and confused! The Children, RELEASE!"

The young boy, meanwhile, teleported to a building top, wind blowing through his now long hair as he looked over the revived city...the hustle and bustle of more people than he'd seen in years.

"This...is real?"

 

[Kyle]

The girls looked at one another and nodded. Aoi smiled and focused on where the boy had gone, and matched him; teleporting not just herself but also her friends.

They appeared just a few feet from where the boy was; Aoi was ready to jump again though, Kaoru looked over at Shiho briefly before glancing at the boy. "Why are you scared?" she asked him.

 

[Toshiro]

He noticed Kaoru's glance, and stepped backwards, away from Shiho specificly. He was on guard against the psychometry. Speaking of psychometry, the group would see one of his feel glow blue, as he used psychometry on the general area, and demonstrate the ability to use that power as well. Eyes widened as the power confirmed what his normal senses told him.

"...My sister. Where is she? We were together. What did you do to her? And the old man?" He asked, noting the BABEL building, and clutching his head. Using the power, and the brain surgery, had left him with an almost blinding headache...

 

[Kyle]

The girls looked at once another once more. "You were the only one that was found," remarked Aoi. "There was no other person with you...."

 

[Toshiro]

Toshiro looked to Aoi, then to the other girls...before slumping to his knees and letting tears run down his face. He hadn't cried in years...even when he saw friends die, so why...

*...SOB*

 

[Kyle]

It had caught them off guard and the girls weren't sure at all 'why' this boy was upset and in tears, although Kaoru felt it had to do with this 'Sakura' person, it just seemed like there was much more going on.

Curiously, Shiho walked up to the boy and knelt down, placing a hand on his shoulder.

 

[Toshiro]

Shiho sees images of Sakura, who he identifies as a younger sister from before she vanishes. However, mixed in with images from before she vanished is an image of a similar-looking girl, though more progressed in age. There's also the briefest flash of the three of them, but...as adults? The cityscape behind looks nightmarish and destroyed though...

Aoi waits to hear what Shiho saw, but she had a younger sibling herself, and felt concern...

 

[Kyle]

Shiho looked back at the girls; the images she saw were vivid except for those surrounding the older versions of themselves and the city, those seemed scattered, broken but they were still enough to make her ponder..

She beckoned Aoi over, while Kaoru seemed to be keeping an eye out. When Aoi was close, the girl spoke in whispers to her, telling her what she saw.

 

[Toshiro]

Aoi blinked, a bit confused, and seemed to be worried about what this meant...though a tiny tinge of worry at her stated lack of bust size compared to the others struck home. Perhaps that was just Shiho giving a bit of a cruel jab, though.

"Could he be confused by some version of a Precog ability? Fixing his brain damage might have unlocked more than he was used to..." Aoi asked with concern, wondering just what sort of things he'd seen to confuse him so thoroughly.

Hearing this made Toshiro think. His brain damage...had been treated? He raised his hand to his own head, and used psychometry to check...only to find that the various pieces in his brain which he'd been struggling to function against for years were gone. There were still jumbled areas trying to reassert themselves, combined with some problems with memory, and the pain wasn't so much the brain actually hurting as much as coping with the changes to the pathways...was that the problem? Was he really confused because of changes to his brain?

 

[Kyle]

"Dunno," Shiho remarked and glanced up when she noticed some distant storm clouds fast approuching the city. "I think we have better get back inside, don't want to get caught out in the rain," she thumbed toward the approuching storm.

"Maybe Minamoto might be able to help," Kaoru said, walking up to her friends and looking toward the boy.

 

[Toshiro]

"...Rain?" He asked, looking toward the clouds in the distance...he worried. Could the rain be the dangerous kind, or the normal kind? He didn't even know anymore...

It was then that the door barged open, the Chief running out onto the roof toward the quartet of children. "What made one of my Espers cry? I will drain the oceans and crush the mountains to protect you! Don't cry anymore!"

The young boy saw the man rushing toward him, and gave out a scream of fear and horror, only for Aoi to teleport the group out of the way...and let the Chief plummet down the side of the building. Only Kaoru's psychokinesis kept him from getting friendly with the pavement below.

"...Tch..." Shiho vocalized, as Minamoto came up the stairs to find the group huddled around their newest acquaintance.

"Thank goodness...let's go back before it starts to rain and let him rest. This must all be very difficult for him...where's the Chief, anyway?" Minamoto asked, looking around.

 

[Kyle]

Kaoru shook her head, using her power to bring the older man up onto the roof and then dropping him unceremoniously onto the rooftop. Aoi looked at them before teleporting the entire group, minus the chief, back to Babel HQ and into their standby room.

 

[Toshiro]

The youth found himself back on the bed, looking around slightly confused. Aoi would give a smile, and Shiho would look to Minamoto.

"He claims that his sister was with him...and an old man. I think we should look into that, Minamoto. I'm not quite sure what is reality or fantasy, and I'm not sure if he does either. But he feels strongly enough for us to check." She had a seat on the bed with the boy, wondering what his head would be like once it was clearer, as Minamoto went through introductions.

"Toshiro-kun, I'm Koichi Minamoto, Supervisor of The Children...this is Kaoru, Shiho, and Aoi...I know you're feeling really confused right now, but we're not going to hurt you. You just woke up after three months, and had major brain surgery. You may be confused and scared, but this is one of the safest places for you....do you understand what I'm telling you?" Minamoto said, in a kind voice.

"Y-yes..." Toshiro said, looking to the glasses-wearing man.

Sakaki would only now arrive, and give a wave to the group. "Oi, I heard you all did brain surgery without me. Couldn't you have waited until I finished sedating Hatsune?"

 

[Kyle]

Tokyo

"It wasn't a problem doing it without you," Qupiped Kaoru with a smile as she fell backwards into the chair and stared up at the ceiling. "But.. where do we even begin to look?" she asked curiously.

Elsewhere..

Sakura awoke with a groan; her body felt a little tingly as she turned onto her side and coughed a few times. She could see a guard standing outside her cage, who merely stared at her and spat next to the cell before walking away.

"Just the brat trying to break her thing again, you'd thing they'd learn," he would say to another companion, although Sakura naturally wouldn't hear it.

It was pretty much night time right now where she was; or at least, that's how it appeared with the storm still going on outside. She could feel that it was much worse right now, the air felt supercharged but she could also feel something.

A strange 'tugging' on her emotions, in the back of her mind; she couldn't figure out what it was and choose to ignore it, whatever it was, it was giving her quite the headache right now.

"So, another match tonight?" one of the occupants in another cell was saying to another.

"Yea, but I heard it'll be outside this time in the rain, supposed to have a huge ass crowd including a few from Tokyo's upper elite.."

"Hypocrits... they proclaim that they want to help us, yet they instead bid on these matches."

"Well, can't expect a politician to really back their words..."

Sakura listened with her ability; it made her wonder... Tokyo? That makes no sense... Tokyo was destroyed... but these people talk as if it still exists.. in fact, they talk as if there is no war between humans and ESPers.. I don't get it...

 

[Toshiro]

Tokyo


Minamoto pondered...before getting an idea. "Shiho...I want you to extract the image of his sister with your psycometry...then we can relay the image to our precog department. Maybe we can use them to locate her. Aoi, get Shiho to Precog once she's ready."

Shiho nodded, and ever so gently touched Blues' head, re-storing the visions from before...including the one of their older selves....after saturating the image in her mind, she looked to Aoi. Aoi touched her shoulder, and the pair teleported off, to feed the data into the teleporter to find the girl.

Sakaki smirked at Kaoru's quip, walking over to her and whispering into her ear. "Is that any way to talk to the guy who just got the newest issue of 'Bikini Bunnies Magazine'?

 

[Kyle]

Tokyo

"Where?!" Kaoru suddenly said and looked at Sakaki somewhat pleadingly, causing Minamoto to put a hand on his hip and looked at the doctor suspiciously.

 

[Toshiro]

Tokyo


The doctor inwardly cursed Kaoru's lack of volume control, as the boy and Minamoto looked at them with differing looks. Toshiro with confusion, and Minamoto with suspicion and a raised eyebrow.

Sakaki simply smiled nervously, and patted Kaoru's back. "Oh, don't worry, I'll give you an update later."

Shiho was teleported to the room with the three spires, where massive numbers of lower level Precogs compared predictions and got a cohesive picture of the future, along with degrees of probability and a change level -- corresponding to the level of Esper needed to change the outcome predicted. Shiho, after explaining the situation, touched the Precog computer and sent the images to all the Precog Espers connected to it, and they began working...

 

[Kyle]

Babel HQ

"It'll take time," said the one in charge of the precog center. Several of the workers there were sifting through the data that the girls had uploaded, searching for anything in the logs that may have matched anything from the girls.

Some images appeared during the precog, but the actual chances of them happening were so low that they weren't worth mentioning. "We'll let you know if we get anything."

Upstairs, Kaoru paced a bit in the room; walking back and forth and wondering if her friends had found anything or if they were just going to be waiting...

 

[Toshiro]

Tokyo

Shiho and Aoi reappeared, Minamoto looking to them for an update.

"They won't have anything right away. All we can do is wait..." Shiho said, unsure of what else to do. She turned on the television to see what news reports were on, as Sakaki started inspecting Toshiro to make sure he was recovering properly.

Minamoto took out the bag containing the live metal fragment he'd had from the investigation, and went over to a bin containing brain matter fragments to compare it to the one removed from Toshiro today...