Ka-thunk! Bang!!
"You're back..."
A twin-tailed girl with drooping shoulders and a dispirited look suddenly shoved open the door to Room 208 in Tokiwadai Middle School's girls' dormitory. She greeted them, then kicked the wooden door shut with a loud bang. Without even glancing at Mikoto Misaka, little Annie, or Index, who were chatting in the dorm room and playing with a cat, she flopped face-first onto a soft bed.
"Honestly, you should say, 'I'm home'!"
Their pleasant conversation had been interrupted by the girl's arrival, so Mikoto Misaka scolded her roommate, who had just slammed the door, was still mumbling incoherently, and had shown terrible manners.
"Ah..."
"Whatever. Onee-sama, just let me catch my breath..."
Kuroko Shirai waved a hand, pulled a pillow over her face, and made it clear she didn't want to talk to anyone right now—not even her beloved Onee-sama.
Today,
the crisis of the dragon in Academy City had gradually drawn to a close. After two days of official reports and "debunking" that all sang from the same hymn sheet, the dragon incident had been put to rest for the time being. But then something happened that caught the Board of Directors and the city's other higher-ups completely off guard...
They had thought that by "debunking" the story and attributing the mythical dragon, magic, and everything else to science and supernatural abilities, they could both contain the damage the "Dragon Disaster" had done to Academy City's reputation and deal a blow to the "Level Upper" spreading in secret among the students. They had hoped to prevent its disastrous effects on some students and citizens. How could they have guessed that so many students and citizens in Academy City were reckless and curious? The "debunking" campaign had not only failed to kill two birds with one