A/N: This chapter has been one of the most difficult to write, for several reasons. First, breaking away from the rails of canon is trickier than I'd thought; I had to learn a lot of things about how to turn vague ideas into actual usable plot outlines, especially given the switch to the Mystery genre. Furthermore, my writing time has been extremely spotty as work has kicked into high gear; a lot of this (& the previous) chapter was written at a speed of 1000 words a week or so, and the fact that I finished at all owes a lot to my beta readers keeping me motivated. I hope you enjoy it!
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Doing detective work in real life was a lot harder than it looked in anime. I wasn't exactly what you would call surprised by this revelation, but at the same time, I can't say that I would have been quite so excited about interning with Cyberpunch if I hadn't binge-read more than my fair share of mystery manga series over the course of my childhood. Granted, I was a total novice, not an experienced detective who was de-aged by a sinister quirk; and similarly, Cyberpunch was a real detective and not a narcoleptic phony. Even so with all of the sensory enhancement quirks I had copies of, part of me had still been expecting that I would be able to spot a clue or two that my mentor didn't - or at least that I would be able to notice things at around the same time that she did.
As it turned out, having enhanced senses was distinctly less useful without the experience to actually know what you were looking for. "See these scratches here?" Cyberpunch said, pointing at the steel doorplate set around the locking mechanism to the warehouse's rear entrance. Blocking out the curious stares of the nearby homeless people across the sunny street that the warehouse door opened onto, I leaned in, simultaneously using a quirk to enhance my eyes so that the scuffs stood out in high definition. As I zoomed in I could clearly see a set of scratches arrayed in a pair of loose semi-circles, one around the door's lock, the other about twenty centimeters higher, around the bulge in the faceplate. After a few seconds, I stepped back to let Yukino and Todoroki take a look.
After Cyberpunch saw the 'love letter' and agreed to take the case, Campestris had fobbed Yukino and Todoroki off on her former teacher, saying stuff like 'it was a rare chance for them to learn detective work' and 'it would be a valuable experience for them' until Cyberpunch had sighed and given in. I wasn't petty enough to complain; sure, technically having them following 'my' mentor around was eating into what would have been my one-on-one teaching time, but on the plus side it meant that I didn't feel quite as incompetent since all three of us repeatedly had to have the 'obvious' pointed out to us. And, since they were doing hero work instead of acting as extras on set, that meant that the two of them had gotten dressed in something a little more appropriate than product placement athletic gear. Which meant that 'Shoto' was in his ridiculous-looking Jekyll and the Abominable Snowman getup, while 'Inverna'...
I gawked as Yukinoshita bent forward to stare at the lock. Not because her new costume had a drastically shorter skirt than her kimono - although that was certainly a benefit - but because from the back, practically the only difference between her costume and Campestris' was the color scheme. The green, yellow, and pink accents of her sister's costume had been traded in for pale lavenders and blues, but a white toga-inspired sundress was still a white toga-inspired sundress. From the front the resemblance had been less obvious, since where Haruno wore ancient-style armor over her torso, Yukino had traded it in for pure white fabric accented by a lavender shawl, probably to keep anyone from inadvertently freezing themselves to supercooled metal, but even then the two costumes were distinctively on-theme with each other. If I looked at Yukino's costume objectively, I couldn't exactly say that it looked bad… but as I stared at it, all I could think about was the sudden revelation that Yukino was a major sis-con.
As she and Todoroki stood back up and moved away from the lock, I guiltily looked over at Cyberpunch, who thankfully had been paying attention to the two of them, rather than myself. She cleared her throat. "So, if you haven't seen something like this before, those are the tell-tale marks of a 'stet'."
"The criminal lock-hacking tool?" Todoroki asked, a hint of curiosity entering his normally expressionless voice.
"Right," she said, pointing at the scratches. "Stets come in a lot of shapes and sizes, since they're illegal, but they all have two notable components. One to mimic the mechanical component of the lock's key, while another uses magnetic interference to hack the electronic components. And, because those processes require the stet to be held very, very still in relation to the lock, means that you'll also see markings like these. Stabilizer scrapes, on either side of the lock, from where the Stet was held on to the frame. It's not always scrapes; sometimes you'll find tacky areas to either side of the doorplate, where a stet was immobilized using adhesive or tape."
"Are stets hard to come by?" I asked, once more looking curiously at the door. "I mean, you see them all the time on television, but I've never seen one in real life or anything."
Cyberpunch shook her head. "You wouldn't have," she said. "Think of a stet as something like… support equipment, only for a Villain. Your average robber is going to use something like a RFID emitter hooked up to their phone and a bump key - or, more realistically, they're going to pick somewhere with a less expensive lock. Whoever did this has some connections on the wrong side of the law," she said. Trailing her fingers over the lock, she frowned. "This door's been out in the sun for a while, so most of the traces are muddled… I'm getting a sense of purpose, and of intent to harm, but none of the infatuation or frustrated pride of before, and no nervousness at breaking the law, either."
"Is that normal?" Yukinoshita asked. "How long should impressions like that last?"
"Well, they noticed signs of forced entry last night," Cyberpunch said, "so it's at least two days old. Given that it's a south-facing door, hasn't been too overcast lately, it's late spring…" she ticked off a few fingers on her hand, enumerating each factor in turn. "I'd put the probable time of entry at around two days ago, early in the morning. So, no - either the person dropping off notes had some fairly significant emotional changes between that and their forced entry, or possibly they hired someone else to do the actual lockpicking."
"I see," Yukinoshita said, nodding in comprehension.
"Well, we'll get clearer readings from inside," Cyberpunch said, opening the door with the key that she had borrowed from the movie's staff. "Let's go see where else our stalker friend might have broken into."
As we walked back into the dim expanse of the cavernous warehouse, something seemed different. It took me a second to place what had changed, but I eventually came to the realization that the hustle and bustle of preparations for movie-making had stopped. From the center of the warehouse shone the brilliant glare of floodlights, shining like an artificial sun - and casting the outskirts of the building where we were entering from even deeper into gloom.
Slowly, we prowled around the outer perimeter of the building, looking for 'anything out of place'. The abundance of space available to the film seemed to have led them to stack their bulkier props in locations scattered around the building, their organizational principles either arcane or non-existent. Stacks of wooden pallets and shipping containers towered next to casually-parked 'police cars' and a cemetery's worth of fake gravestones. Honestly, the whole place was such a mess that rather than things looking out of place, things looking like they belonged where they were would be more unusual. I kept my eyes dutifully peeled anyways, visual magnification quirks on full blast, wondering if I could somehow spot a 'clue' before Cyberpunch did. It was maybe a little stupid of me, to try to compete with an experienced detective, but I guess part of me was looking for… verification, or something; some sort of sign that I really was cut out for this sort of work.
Instead, I saw a sign on a door up ahead, a door which had a bright red light hanging over it. 'No entrance while cameras are rolling,' it said. Looking at it and sighing, Cyberpunch reached into her pocket for her phone. "Looks like it'll be a minute or two before we can check out the majority of the building," she said. "I'm gonna, uh, step outside and make a few calls," she said. "See if there's any criminal door-crackers for hire who've been active in the Hosu area lately, that sort of thing." With amusement, I noticed that while Cyberpunch's right hand was waving her phone around in plain sight, her other hand was buried in the pocket of her trenchcoat, cupped protectively around her pack of cigarettes. "You guys wait here," she said, "I'll be back in a little bit."
"Are you sure you don't want us coming with you?" Todoroki asked, causing Cyberpunch to flinch minutely. "Hearing what questions you ask could potentially be valuable, even if we can't hear the other side of the conversation."
Cyberpunch laughed awkwardly. "No, no, it's fine, it's fine. You guys could probably use a break anyways. Use the restrooms over there, check your email, whatever you guys want; I'll only be a few minutes."
And with that, she left, leaving me alone with Todoroki, Yukinoshita, and Yukinoshita's horrible sis-con outfit. Again, objectively speaking, it wasn't that bad. It even looked cute. The lavender shawl helped conceal the fact that Yukino didn't fill out her toga nearly as well as her older sister did, and from the way it shimmered slightly I would bet heavily on it being waterproofed and usable as a shield against tricks like the one I'd played on her during our first Battle Training. Despite the objective attractiveness and the practicality of it, however, my fascination with Yukinoshita Yukino, my inability to take my eyes away from her, was much more closely related to the rubbernecking of a commuter passing a five-car pileup. I just couldn't reconcile the peppy, approachable, publicly friendly image of the girl in front of me with Yukinoshita Yukino at all.
My disbelief must have shown on my face, because suddenly, rather than staring at her outfit, I found myself staring into Yukinoshita's ice-blue eyes. They looked… oddly vulnerable for a second, before narrowing into irritated slits. "If you're going to keep staring, you might as well just say it," she said defensively.
"Say what, exactly?" I said, gesturing at her costume with disbelief. "I have no idea how to respond to… whatever the hell this is."
"Unsurprising, given your total lack of manners, shame, courtesy, and eloquence," Yukinoshita said. "However, if you have nothing worthwhile to say, I'm going to have to ask you to quit leering at me with such a disreputable gaze."
Honestly, I hadn't been going to say anything. If she wanted to look like an idiot, it wasn't any of my business. But if she was going to start taking cheap shots at me, I couldn't help but fire back. Even Todoroki looked somewhat shocked at Yukinoshita's unprovoked vehemence. "At least I have enough common sense not to go around looking like my sister dresses me," I said, raising my eyebrows at Yukinoshita significantly. "I never pictured you as the sort of person who would be into 'sidekick cosplay'," I sneered.
Yukinoshita flushed, but gamely rallied. "I've met your sister," she said, "and unlike you, she actually seems to have a fashion sense worth mentioning. You looking like she dressed you would be an improvement."
Abruptly, Todoroki - who was looking more and more uncomfortable at our increasingly acrimonious bickering - opened his mouth. "I get a lot of fashion tips from my brother Natsuo," he offered. "Coordinating outfits with my hair is kind of tricky."
I closed my mouth, which had been ready to retort, until Todoroki's non sequitur completely derailed the conversation. "Oh, I, uh… never thought about that," I said awkwardly. "That must be tough. Do you, uh, wear a lot of solid colors and stuff?"
"Yeah," Todoroki said.
I waited a few seconds for him to expand on that, but no. That was it. "Oh, uh, cool," I said lamely.
The awkward silence stretched. And stretched. I opened my mouth, trying to come up with something to say to break the silence, but eventually just closed it again. So when the lightbulb forbidding entry to the door we were standing in front of turned off with a soft 'plok', I couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief. "So, should we check out the rest of the building instead of just standing around here?" I suggested.
"Didn't Cyberpunch request that we wait here for her?" Todoroki said.
"Good point, wouldn't want to worry her," I said - but I was already sick of standing around awkwardly, so I pulled out my phone and texted her. 'Door's open. Want us to keep waiting here? Or meet you on the other side of the studio?'
A few seconds later, my phone buzzed. 'Sorry, this call might take a while,' she said. Huh, funny, and here I had been thinking that it was just an excuse to smoke. Maybe dealing with Campestris was making this more of a two-cigarette break? 'Go ahead to the other side if you'd like, but don't go investigating without supervision. Find Haruno and watch her film or something; no getting into trouble.'
I turned my phone around to show it to Todoroki and Yukinoshita. "See? She's fine with it. And I dunno about you two, but personally I've seen just about as much of this corner of this warehouse as I can -" As I reached out to open the door to the other half of the studio, the handle turned under my fingers. Hurriedly I stepped back out of the way of whoever was coming through.
And as the door opened, I kept stepping back further. Danger. Every nerve, every instinct in my body was suddenly on edge. The figure who stepped through the door loomed imposingly over me, taller than me by what was probably 'only' twenty centimeters, but felt like two hundred. His long, tattered black coat flapped ominously as he stalked forwards, and each step of his heavy black boots echoed in the cavernous warehouses. The fact that his face was as tattered and ragged as his cloak, that he seemed to be covered in dripping blood - after a few moments of panic (during which I did not squawk like a chicken, no matter what Yukinoshita said about it later), I realized that those were fake, just stage makeup. But the look in his eyes? The total disregard for anyone other than himself? The reptilian stare he gave me, as if evaluating how easy I would be to kill? That, at least, had nothing to do with makeup.
"Onii-chan!" A plaintive voice suddenly cried. "Slow down already! Jeez, you always run away from the set so fast when shooting is done!"
He didn't. Not for the voice calling from behind, and not for me, either. He just kept walking in a straight line like he was assuming I would step either step out of the way in time, or be run over. I didn't mean to brush up against him as he blew past me, honestly. But when I did, a lifetime's worth of habit kicked in, and sure enough - I had his quirk. As he disappeared into the shadows of the studio, a second figure followed. Rather than horror movie makeup, she had pink-accented platinum blonde hair, heavy eyeshadow, and black lipstick, making her look almost like she just walked off of a visual kei album cover. She had an outfit to match, her pants, boots, and jacket all made from black leather, while her undershirt didn't bother covering practically anything between her hips and her ribcage. Finally, a lip ring, connected by a silver chain to her earrings, and a spiked collar around her neck that matched her spiked belt, took the outfit from looking like some sort of costume to an over-the-top statement. I wasn't sure what statement it was meant to be making - 'I have daddy issues', maybe - but whatever it was, it was saying it loudly. In any case she blew past us as quickly as her brother had, following in his footsteps towards the actors' trailers, although unlike him she at least had the basic social competence not to literally run me over.
For a second I just sat there, staring after the two people who had nearly given me a heart attack. "In case you hadn't gathered," Yukinoshita said wryly, snapping out of my stupor and causing me to jerk my head towards her, "that was Hiru Cain and Hiru Setsuna."
"I can see why you thought he might be suspicious," I said quietly, my heart still feeling like it was going to beat its way out of my chest. "What kind of lunatic just walks into people like that?"
"Were you able to -" Todoroki asked, and I nodded.
"We probably shouldn't talk about it here, though," I said, looking nervously over my shoulder in case either of the Hiru siblings came back. "Let's go find somewhere a little less..." I looked around at the small access corridor. "A little less here."
As we got to the stage side of the warehouse, we were met with controlled chaos. Lighting technicians and stagehands swarmed over the set, which was currently depicting a rainy city street. The actors and actresses who were in the scene - or who would be in the next scene, possibly? It seemed like there was quite a bit of activity going on with the set - were mostly sitting in a loose cluster of chairs and benches, having their lunches and waiting on standby for whenever they would be needed next. Director Konoe was busier than anyone, calling people over singly and in pairs, having brief discussions with them before yelling for the next person he needed.
Awkwardly, we found spots at an empty table near the stage, probably one that had been set up for lunchtime. Todoroki and Yukinoshita were technically extras, so it wasn't even like we were intruding somewhere we weren't supposed to be, but I still couldn't help but cringe a little as I sat, feeling like I was intruding. "Longevity," I whispered to the two of them as soon as they settled down at the table with me, Yukinoshita next to me and Todoroki across the table. "Or, youthfulness, maybe? I don't think I've ever come across anything similar before, so it's a little harder to say exactly what it does, but it feels like really low-level but really pervasive regeneration, and it's focused most on skin and connective tissues, so I'm gonna say it's an 'always look young' sort of thing."
"It must be a rare quirk, if you aren't immediately willing to offer an opinion on exactly how it works," Yukinoshita said sarcastically.
"Longevity. Does that mean he isn't a Villain, after all?" Todoroki said. "It's a useful quirk, but... it doesn't sound very dangerous."
"Depends on how old he is," I said. "With a hundred years of training, I'm willing to bet that even a physically baseline human could be a threat to just about anyone."
"Hmmm," Yukinoshita hummed thoughtfully. "While that is true, there is another possibility. A quirk like that would be exceptionally valuable to an actor."
I nodded thoughtfully. "You're right. It's not like the person sending those letters to your sister is necessarily an established criminal, and we can't forget that there are other potential culprits other than Hiru-san as well." Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind. "Actually, now that you mention it - doesn't Hizuri Kuu supposedly have a 'youthfulness' quirk? Not that there's any way a famous Hollywood actor would be involved with a tiny movie like this, and personally I think Hizuri just has a really good plastic surgeon, but still…"
Todoroki blinked, nonplussed. "Who?"
"Uh, maybe you'd recognize the stage name he used when he was filming in Japan instead? Shuuhei Hozu?" I prompted. "He played the lead in that super famous drama about twenty years ago, Tsukigomori? That old show that the popular new show Dark Moon is a remake of."
"I see," Todoroki said, before shaking his head. "Sorry. I don't watch much television. My… father… is quite strict about activities that he considers 'wastes of time'."
I couldn't help but wince. "O-okay, well…" I stammered for a second, not really knowing what to say. "I guess… while we're waiting for Cyberpunch to come back, do you think you guys could introduce me to the other actors on the set? So far it looks like the person sending Campestris love letters hasn't done anything that would require a quirk to do, but if I meet everyone and then we come across evidence that a quirk was used, it might help narrow things down."
"Didn't Cyberpunch explicitly say that you weren't supposed to use your quirk in a way that would make more paperwork for her?" Yukinoshita said, amused. "And tell us not to investigate? I suppose that given your general level of listening comprehension, it's unsurprising that you've forgotten this soon, but going about covertly trying to shake everyone's hand doesn't exactly sound like following her instructions."
I shrugged uncomfortably. "I mean, I already accidentally bumped into Hiru-san, so… the ship's already kind of sailed there. I might as well keep going while Cyberpunch still has plausible deniability."
Todoroki exchanged a meaningful glance with Yukinoshita, then turned to me. "I don't mind," he said. "If you're sure."
"Are you certain that you won't get in trouble?" Yukinoshita said uncomfortably. "If Cyberpunch is likely to react poorly to your evading her restrictions, it might be better to wait until she gives you her permission."
Frustratingly, as usual, Yukinoshita was right. As usual. I didn't think Cyberpunch would really care that much about something minor like potentially giving her a little bit of extra paperwork to do, but it wasn't like I really knew her all that well, just yet. And If she was my ticket onto the Nomu Investigation, I really couldn't afford to jeopardize her opinion of me. Still… "Then, just go ahead and introduce me to your co-workers," I suggested. "I won't make it a priority to touch any of them, but if any of them happen to be hand-shakers or something, it'd be rude to turn them down."
Yukinoshita sighed in exasperation, but stood up and said, "I suppose that introducing you to everyone would be the socially appropriate thing to do, in any case." She paused, before her face twisted into a quick frown. "By the way, Hikigaya-san… I'd advise against getting your hopes up," she added.
My total mystification at what Yukinoshita was talking about lasted just long enough for her to introduce me to 'Mitsui-san', an elegantly dressed older woman with brown hair styled into a tight bun. She looked familiar; I couldn't place where I'd seen her before, so it was possible that it was a bit part, but it was enough to really drive home, 'oh, hey, I'm talking to famous actors.' Maybe I would have even been able to recognize where I'd seen her, if not for her supercilious sneer. "Oh, great. Another amateur who thinks they know how to act," she said scornfully. Her eyes flashed as she said it, shifting from a neutral brown to an icy blue.
"I, uh, I'm not - I mean, I'm just visiting," I stammered. "I'm not going to be acting or anything."
"Good," Mitsui said, before turning a poisonously sweet smile at Yukinoshita. "No offense meant to you of course, dear. It's just that the production already has quite a number of people who are lacking experience, and we're already experiencing shooting delays because of it."
"Of course," Yukinoshita murmured, her face impassive. "We'll let you get back to what you were doing, Mitsui-san," she said.
"It's called script-reading, dear," she said, waving a dogeared bundle of pages in our direction as if shooing all three of us away. "You should try it sometime."
As unpleasant as Mitsui had been, "Kaneko-san" wasn't much better. A middle-aged man in a salaryman costume, with glasses and slicked-back hair so shiny that it almost had to be a quirk, he barely acknowledged me before turning once more to Yukinoshita. "Wow, Yukino-chan, that costume looks fantastic on you!" He said excitedly, looking her up and down just a little too long for it to be comfortable. "Not that you don't look fantastic on stage here as well, of course, but I have to say, the Hero look really suits you!"
"Thank you," Yukinoshita said reluctantly, her hands scrunching up the fabric of her skirt, as if subconsciously trying to make it cover more skin.
"So what's it like working with Campestris?" I asked loudly, doing my best to draw his attention away from Yukinoshita.
Reluctantly, Kaneko turned back towards me, adopting a slightly greasy smile. "Oh she's great," he said. "A natural talent. She's going to go far in this industry, I guarantee it."
It was hard to gauge how sincere Kaneko's words were; I sort of got the sense that he was the kind of guy who would say whatever he needed to in order to impress someone with more than one X chromosome. Still, I didn't detect any of the hostility that Cyberpunch had read off of the 'love letter' in his voice - in that respect, Mitsui was a much better fit. In any case, I was no longer regretting my decision not to copy everyone on the cast's quirks - my best idea for managing that was faking wanting autographs for everyone, and I really didn't feel like giving this guy the satisfaction. "It was nice meeting you," I lied.
"Huh? Oh, right. You too, kid," Kaneko said dismissively, turning back to his coffee and donuts.
As we walked away from Kaneko's table, the hamster-eared actress who I had seen on our way to Haruno's dressing room lit up with a smile as she saw us heading her way. "Oh! Shoto-kun!" she called out, waving in our direction. "Have you seen Cain-san? He left before they started handing out donuts, and I'm worried he's going to miss out!"
Oi, you're worried about a guy who walks all over people while staring at them like a serial killer? As my eyebrows rose dubiously, Todoroki nodded. "Ah. He went backstage," he said.
The actress pouted, her rosy cheeks puffing out slightly in a hamster-like fashion as she did. "Already? Well, I guess he must be tired. He's always working so hard, after all. I'll bring him something later on my way back to the dressing rooms, then, so they aren't all gone by the time he comes back!"
Yukinoshita cleared her throat politely. "You may wish to bring one for Hiru Setsuna-san as well," she said dryly. "It looked like she was following him."
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure," she said. The marked difference in her level of enthusiasm was very noticeable. "Oh, yeah, that reminds me! Shoto-kun, who's your friend?" She asked, staring at me directly. Her eyes flickered up and down my body in a way that made me want to pull my cape around me for modesty. "I'm Manaka," she said brightly, extending her hand for me to shake. "I'm a newbie in the industry just like you are, so please take care of me!"
I shook it, of course - she was a mild hamster heteromorph, no surprises there - and introduced myself as "Myriad. I'm not joining the, uh, the movie, I'm just here because my mentor got invited to consult."
"Awww, that's too bad," Manaka said, once again pouting prettily. I wondered how long she practiced that face in the mirror to get it just right. "So, are you from UA like Shoto-kun, or do you go to school somewhere else? Or are you older? You look like you could be older."
"He's in our homeroom class," Yukinoshita cut in, stepping slightly in front of me as if to screen me off from her curious co-star. "Sorry, but if you'll excuse us, I wanted to introduce Hikigaya here to Murasame-san."
"Oh, Hikigaya, huh?" Manaka said, her eyes going wide and sparkling with interest. "That's a unique name! I like it, it suits you! Nice meeting you, Hikigaya-Myriad-kun!"
"Ah," I stammered awkwardly. "You too," I said. As we walked away from Manaka towards a tall, muscular actor with shoulder-length black hair who I presumed was the 'Murasame' Yukinoshita had mentioned, I noticed Todoroki letting out a small sigh of relief. "Is she like that all the time?" I asked him curiously.
"Yes." He replied, a note of exhaustion in his voice.
"My condolences," I said, prompting a smirk from Yukinoshita.
After dealing with Manaka, the haughty attitude of Murasame Taira was somewhat of a relief. "So, you're Cyberpunch's student, huh?" He asked after introductions were made, running one hand through his carefully styled hair. "Haruno-chan said you'd be stopping by. So, like what you see so far? Ready to give up the hero life for the silver screen?"
I blinked, not sure if he was joking. Sure, hero work might be dangerous, dirty, completely unsuited for me, and dangerous; but at least for all of its faults it wasn't a pit of snakes like the acting world seemed to be, if the people working on this movie were any indication. "Uh, not yet," I said eventually.
He laughed, putting on a magnetic, easy smile. "I don't blame you," he said, reaching out to clap me on the shoulder. To my surprise, he actually had a fairly useful quirk, although with any luck I would never have to use it. His quirk made him tougher and stronger the more blood he lost - I felt like Kirishima might be jealous. "I'm sure your friends already told you," he said, releasing me to gesture at Yukinoshita and Todoroki, "but I almost became a hero when I was your age."
No, actually, they barely even told me your name. It's almost like you're less important than you think you are. "Is that so?" I asked politely.
Taira smirked and flexed a little bit, showing off muscles, at least, that backed up his claim. "Well, I got into a lot of fights in school, at least," he said. "Perks of going to an all-boys' school, I guess. Luckily for me, the school also had a drama program, and with that plus my life experience I managed to land a role as an extra in a martial arts film. So after that, I was hooked, but if I hadn't caught the acting bug I'd have gone into heroics, and I'd probably be your senpai," he said - like any two-bit gangster that liked to brawl could show up and get a Hero License. Actually, hadn't Campestris mentioned that Murasame had a criminal record? I couldn't tell if he was delusional, or just creatively reinterpreting his personal history to show off in front of the new kid.
Either way, I was a little disgusted, but I did my best to keep a straight face. "Oh, I see," I said. "So what's it like working with Campestris?" I asked, as much to change the subject as for the faint hope that he would say something incriminating.
"Haruno-chan? She's terrific," he said. "She's a real pro hero, that's for sure. She's got a few things to learn about the movie business, but she's been picking it all up quickly, and I'm learning just as much from her about the hero business."
"Why, Taira-kun, I didn't know you cared!" I felt a chill go down my spine as I suddenly heard the artificially sweetened voice of Yukinoshita Haruno coming from behind me.
Surprisingly, Murasame's reaction wasn't even remotely similar to mine. I thought I actually saw a flush appear on his face for a fraction of a second before he broke out a polished, carefree smile, his teeth almost blindingly white. "Really? I thought I was doing a good job of telling you what I thought about you. Guess I'll have to try harder," he said jokingly. "And, of course, the famous Cyberpunch needs no introduction," he said, stepping forward and extending his hand for a handshake.
As I turned to follow the motion, I noticed that Cyberpunch had apparently taken her 'phone call' break to find a coffeeshop, because she was holding a cup of iced coffee and a small pastry bag in her left hand. Conveniently, this left only her metallic right hand - now conveniently ungloved - available to be shaken, and she smiled naturally as she covertly started reading Murasame's emotions. "I've heard good things about you from Campestris as well," she said. An inexperienced eye might not even have noticed how her posture was tense, how she was carefully evaluating him. Gripping tightly onto Murasame's hand before he could escape the handshake, Cyberpunch asked, "It almost makes me wonder, is there an off-stage romance happening to go along with the one on-stage?"
I almost choked at the sheer brazenness of the question, but Murasame laughed and took it in good cheer. "Only if Haruno-chan stops shooting me down," he said in a carefree fashion. "Put in a good word for me, will you?"
"Will do," Cyberpunch replied, laughing and smiling more naturally as she released his hand. "In the meantime, though, Campestris and I need to borrow those kids from you."
"Sure thing," Murasame said, once again smiling and turning away.
Yukinoshita, Todoroki, and I followed Campestris and Cyberpunch back to the office that we had been in before. "Well, it looks like you three didn't get into too much trouble while you were unsupervised," Cyberpunch said wryly. I exchanged meaningful glances with my fellow interns, but kept my mouth shut.
"See, Shizuka-chan? I told you it was fine," Campestris said, noisily sucking the dregs of her own iced coffee. "Besides, you were the one who left them with me without confirming that I was actually there to take them, so if there had been a problem, it would have been your fault."
"I never said I thought there was going to be a problem!" Cyberpunch sputtered. "Anyway, Inverna, Shoto. Did you two introduce Myriad to all of the actors?"
"Everyone who has been on set in the past several days and who would have had access to the dressing rooms," Yukinoshita said. "There are a few other people on the cast who haven't been on the schedule recently, but if the letter was delivered by one of them, they would have had to break in to do it without being spotted by the rest of the people working on the movie," she added.
"Well, that would theoretically explain why a break-in happened only now," Cyberpunch mused. "If we don't get any results after talking to the people who are here today, I might have to ask the Director to come up with an excuse to bring the stragglers in. So, Myriad," she said, rounding on me. "You've been introduced to everyone, and I haven't. What were your first impressions of the potential culprits? You don't have to worry about getting things wrong, first impressions are unreliable even when you aren't dealing with a group of professional liars. I just want to hear your reasoning." She held up the bag full of pastries, waving it in the air, then tossed it to me. "Here, some brain fuel for your thoughts."
No pressure. Right. I took a deep breath to steady myself even as I absent-mindedly checked the bag to see what was inside. Ooh, coffee cake, nice. "Where to start… uh, I guess, Hiru Cain-san was very…" 'assholish' probably wasn't a word to use in a professional setting, "standoffish? So I couldn't really get a good sense of his personality, but I would definitely say he's still a candidate. He was... antisocial, I guess? Enough to be the one behind something like intimidating letters, anyways. Not sure about his sister, though she was following him around at the time, so what Campestris said about it being hard for him to have left the message without her knowing about it does make sense." As I finished, I took a careful bite out of the coffee cake, doing my best not to get crumbs all over my hero costume.
Cyberpunch nodded impassively. "Go on," she said.
Nervously, I continued. "Uh, Mitsui-san definitely didn't seem like she liked Campestris very much. So, she would have motive to try to send a letter like that. But… I'm not sure where the, uh, romantic emotions you felt earlier would fit in. I mean, it's theoretically possible, but I didn't really get that sense from her?"
"I haven't heard any rumors that Mitsui swings both ways, or the other way," Campestris interjected. "She is theoretically 'single', which is a little unusual for women of her age in general, but is common enough in show business." She said it with a sly look at Cyberpunch, and I only caught on that it was an insult after my mentor started subtly grinding her teeth. "A lot of people in the industry keep the fact that they're dating anyone hidden until they're ready to have kids. All in all, it doesn't mean much, although I do agree with Hikigaya-kun's observation that that bitch hates me."
"I'm astonished," Cyberpunch said dryly. "Alright, we'll keep her on the short list. Who else did you talk to?" She asked me, taking another sip of her coffee.
"Well, there was Kaneko-san," I said, slowly losing my nervousness as the two professional heroines bickered at each other. "He was…"
"A lech?" Yukinoshita interrupted. "A pervert? A sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen?"
I coughed awkwardly. "One of those," I agreed. "If he took a rejection from Campestris poorly, I could see him writing a letter like that. The one person who didn't particularly seem interested in Campestris one way or the other was Manaka, who seemed, uh… very heterosexual," I said, hating myself for flushing a little. "If she was going to write a love letter like that to anyone, it would probably be Hiru Cain-san."
At Cyberpunch's evident surprise, Todoroki spoke up. "She tries to talk to Hiru-san during breaks," he volunteered. "Nobody else does."
Suddenly, I had a thought. "Uhm, sensei, that actually does give me an idea. If someone wrote a letter trying to scare off Campestris out of jealousy, because they wanted the person they liked to notice them, would that produce the same mix of emotions that you felt on the letter?"
Cyberpunch's eyebrows rose thoughtfully. "It very well could," she said. "Good thinking." She flashed me a quick smile before her face fell as she groaned. "But that means we can't rule her out, either. That's four candidates, five if you count Hiru Setsuna, plus all the actors who aren't here today, plus everyone on the set who might have plausibly had access, plus the possibility Campestris brought her own stalker from home. What a pain."
"Think about how I feel," Campestris quipped. "Although, from the way you're saying that, I'm guessing that Taira-kun's clean?"
"He has a crush on you," Cyberpunch said with a grin, "but it's pretty innocent. I think we can pretty safely rule him out," she said. "You shouldn't rule him out, though; you could do worse," she teased.
Campestris scoffed. "Fat chance. Non-heroes bore me," she said dismissively, waving her hand in the air as if brushing the idea away. "I'll think about him for the next time I want to get my parents mad at me, maybe."
Don't feel too downhearted, Murasame-san! You dodged a bullet! "So, are we going back to talk to the rest of the actors next, so Cyberpunch can start narrowing things down a little more?" I asked.
As if in response, a harsh buzzing tone echoed from a speaker somewhere in the building. "Oops, that's the scene alarm," Campestris said. "If you do want to talk to other actors, you're going to have to wait - it sounds like we'll be filming soon."
Cyberpunch sighed in irritation, but nodded. "You know what? That's fine," she said. "I've got to finish checking the rest of the building for signs of forced intrusion anyway."
And so we did. The process was made more difficult by having to move quietly around the set so as not to accidentally create noise that would be picked up by the stage mics, as well as the additional distraction of the movie being filmed and the ever-present temptation to watch what was effectively a live 'making of' documentary, but Cyberpunch was a professional, and we soon found indications that the back door had not been the only place broken into by force.
The first place we discovered - and by "we" I mean Cyberpunch - was the door to the stage's first aid center. Even though I had been looking out for telltale scratches on either side of the doorplate, Cyberpunch revealed that as an interior door, it wasn't microchipped and therefore what the three of us should have been looking for was a different set of scratch marks that suggested the use of traditional lockpicks. Because of course there were scratch marks for that, too. Luckily, there was a staffer manning the first aid station in question, so we let ourselves in and closed the door behind us so that we could talk without disrupting the shoot.
Frankly, the first aid station was a glorified closet. It managed to hold a long reclining table of the sort that you would ordinarily see covered with a paper sheet in a doctor's office, a computer desk tucked into one corner, a single chair, and two cabinets - one mounted on the upper wall, the other mounted on the lower wall - with a countertop dividing them. And that was about it. To say that adding a pro hero and three trainees to the lone nurse (a sleepy-looking man in his thirties) inside of that room was crowded would have been an understatement. "So, when you got into the medical station the day before yesterday, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?" Cyberpunch asked the nurse.
"I mean, I guess it was a little messy…" the sleepy-looking nurse said, scratching the thinning hair on his head for a second, "but I figured that Jin just left things a little bit of a mess when he left the day before. Are you sure somebody broke in? I mean, we do take inventory and so on. Nothing was missing, as far as I could tell."
"That's an excellent question," Cyberpunch said. "Here's a little test for you kids - why would someone break into a medical office, but not steal anything from it?
"A drug addiction?" I volunteered. "Just looking at this place, it doesn't seem like you'd keep prescription painkillers or anything like that in here -"
"No, definitely not," the nurse interjected.
"- but a burglar wouldn't have known that before breaking in," I finished. "So it could have been a target of opportunity."
"Possible, but drug abusers don't often show that level of restraint," Cyberpunch pointed out. "Someone willing to go to the trouble of picking their way into a room, even though it would increase their risk of being discovered by security, likely wouldn't be quite so neat and tidy in tossing it for drugs."
"Maybe they were lost, or just looking for something to sell," suggested Todoroki.
"Again, possible, but remember - we didn't see any signs of a break-in on any of the other doors we've checked so far, including the Director's office," Cyberpunch countered. "If someone was just looking for valuables, the offices near the front would seem to be more likely targets."
"If we assume that the letter-writer and the person who broke in are one and the same… what about medical records?" Yukinoshita finally said, a note of dread in her voice. "If a stalker obtained access to those, they could conceivably gain information on nee-san's home address, her emergency contacts, allergies and so on if she had any…"
Cyberpunch nodded slowly. "There's a good reason that many Pro Heroes, especially higher-ranking ones, choose to live in or adjacent to their agencies. Heroes make enemies, and it's significantly easier to make certain that you have adequate security when the Hero Commission is paying part of the bill. Of course, a lot of people say that basically living at work can lead to unhealthy habits and poor work-life balance, but let's face it - those are going to be par for the course for Heroes no matter where you live." She grimaced. "There's a reason that the majority of heroes are either single, or stuck dating other people in the industry - and it's definitely not because we couldn't find boyfriends if we wanted to." Perhaps realizing that her denial was a little too suspiciously specific, Cyberpunch coughed into her hand and turned to the nurse in charge of the medical station. "Would you mind if I checked Campestris's paperwork? I want to see if our culprit has potentially touched it and left psychic impressions."
The nurse nodded initially, but as he was moving towards the cabinets he froze, then turned back regretfully. "I'm sorry," he said, "but even though you're a hero, I really think I need Yukinoshita-san's approval before I can show you anything like that."
While she was initially startled, Cyberpunch's expression very quickly broke into an approving smile as she gave him a nod. "That's fine. We'll come back with her later."
Leaving the cramped first aid station was a relief. Unfortunately, as we left the filming was still ongoing, so we couldn't grab Campestris for access to her records immediately. Instead, we did the next-best thing, and continued our canvas of the studio. The door to equipment storage - a massive double door held together by a padlocked length of chain - also had some scrapes on the padlock, but given that the padlock looked like it got swung and battered about fairly frequently, that was less of a clue than it otherwise might have been. Of course, Cyberpunch was able to touch it with her metal hand and confirm that the person who had broken in the back door had picked the lock to equipment storage as well, which left me, Yukinoshita, and Todoroki at zero for three on noticing clues before her. It was clear that I had - that we all had - a lot to learn. Unfortunately, this third lock didn't tell us much. Given that stagehands were perpetually moving new lights and microphones and cameras and other equipment in and out of storage, it would be almost impossible for us to determine if anything had been tampered with, if anything had. Possibly Cyberpunch could have tried for psychic impressions - but given the restrictions on noise while filming was taking place, and the fact that everyone who could have let us in was already busy, it would have to wait.
And… that was pretty much all that we could do without the assistance of Haruno, or if not her then at least a stagehand familiar with the equipment storage room. Technically there were one or two things I might be able to try, like using Hound Dog Nose to see if the letter's author had left any of their personal scent on the letter, but that that was a trick I could only use for handful of seconds, and given that Cyberpunch already had a relatively foolproof method of determining whether a given person was the culprit it didn't make sense for me to waste the quirk without being asked to do so. It was just as well - I shuddered to think of Yukinoshita's reaction to my asking to smell the evidence.
Left without options for the moment, we quietly made our way back to the main film stage, where Director Konoe was walking Hiru Cain and Yukinoshita Haruno through some changes to a set of fight choreography. "No, you see - Haruno-chan, I need you to look like you're using as much strength as you physically can, but still somehow being overpowered by the hideous occult power of Black Jack. Remember, in this scene, Detective Makoto is terrified and desperate, at the end of her strength. Even though she's normally unafraid of any kind of physical altercation, there's something different about Jack. Give me some shaking arms, in the clinches. Show how hard her muscles are struggling, leave it up to the viewer's interpretation whether they're shaking from exhaustion or if there's an element of fear there."
"Okay," Haruno said, nodding determinedly. "Once again, from the top?"
Silently, Hiru-san turned his back on her, walking back to an X marked on the floor in easy-to-remove-with-CGI green tape.
Honestly, the process of filming was fascinating to watch. Partially it was the simple pleasure of watching professionals hard at work. Even with a sure-to-flop movie like this one, everyone working on the set was serious and focused, making small changes to lighting and sound at the director's behest that individually looked meaningless, but slowly altered the shadows onstage until Cain's face was cast in a dramatically sharp relief. More than just that, though, I enjoyed seeing 'behind the curtain', being able to walk to the side until I could see the unpainted sides of the facades making the set look like a dark, dank warehouse that was actually in use from the camera's point of view. (As opposed to the dark but relatively clean warehouse that it actually was, anywhere that the film crew hadn't left piles of props lying around anyways.)
Unfortunately for our investigation, it was the sort of process that took a while, and both Haruno and Director Konoe were too busy to interrupt. The film crew found us chairs, then lunches; Cyberpunch wound up leaving to make a few more phone calls, trying to use the empty time productively, but eventually just sat and relaxed. "Alright, so. This is something that every pro learns eventually: sometimes Hero work is boring."
"Shoto and I have been given jobs to help out with backstage for when we have spare time," Yukinoshita said. "Should we see if there's something that Hikigaya-kun - I mean, excuse me, Myriad-san, can help out with as well?"
Cyberpunch looked at me evaluatively, then shook her head. "Nope. The two of us aren't getting paid to do movie work; we're getting paid to solve a case." I wasn't getting paid at all, but even so I appreciated Cyberpunch's statement. I certainly wasn't going to turn down a guilt-free chance to sit and relax for a while! "You two have fun; I'm going to be teaching Myriad here how to do a stakeout."
Without going into too much detail on stakeouts - they're boring. They're so boring, that even just hearing about them is boring. You sit somewhere relatively inconspicuous, you people-watch to see if anyone is acting suspicious… and then you keep doing it. For a while. As the day stretched onwards into the afternoon and then into the evening, while I did spend some time staring at just about everyone and everything, I found myself returning again and again to watching Director Konoe, the way that your tongue can't help but repeatedly probe a sore tooth. There was no way around it - seeing Director Konoe get excited over his terrible passion project, seeing his enthusiasm infect other people into going along with it even though objectively it was probably a bad idea, it all hit a little too close to home for comfort.
It was stupid. They weren't even that similar. I was being stupid. It was just me, punishing myself. I deserved the punishment. There wasn't anything I could have done. As far as I know, because I was a terrible friend who shouldn't even miss him this much. It - why was someone yanking on my ahoge?
I spun around, startled by the sudden distraction from my internal monologue, only to see nobody standing even remotely close to me. I brushed my hand over my head, dislodging… some kind of weird fairy thing? A vaguely humanoid mass of a dark energy similar to Tokoyami's Dark Shadow, it had arms, but instead of legs just had a wispy, ghostlike 'spirit tail' that stretched out in Hiru Setsuna's direction. Surprisingly, its head didn't look much like her despite being relatively humanoid, if monochrome - it had short hair, pointed ears, and sharp, sharklike teeth. I snatched it out of the air, and walked it over towards Hiru-san. "You lost this," I told her.
She turned towards me with a cool, contemptuous sneer - and then jolted as she saw the fairy in my grip. "Oh no, I'm so sorry," she said, surprisingly politely. She even stood up straight from her half-slouch, almost looking like she was about to make a formal bow of apology. "They have a mind of their own sometimes."
I released the fairy, which flew out of my hand and hid from me in Setsuna's voluminous dyed hair. "One of my classmates' quirk is the same way," I said. "It's fine."
I started turning away, but as I did so I heard Setsuna say something. "Um… long day?" She asked. "I mean, if it's none of my business, you can say so, but… my sprites tend to be attracted to strong emotions, and you look a little upset."
I turned back and forced a smile. "I'm fine," I said. I almost turned away again, but after a second's thought decided to stay for a second. Hiru Setsuna was technically a suspect in our investigation; maybe I could get some information out of her? "Just… tired, is all," I said for politeness' sake, and then I gestured towards the stage, where Cain and Haruno were still going through the steps of the choreography under the director's enthusiastic instructions. "Your brother's pretty good," I said, trying to gradually change the subject.
Setsuna blew a stray bit of hair out of her face and leaned back into her normal slouch, smirking at me. "Obviously," she agreed. "Onii-chan's the best."
What? When did Komachi get here? I could have sworn I heard her voice just now. "Uh… has he said anything about Yukinoshita-san?" I asked Setsuna, indicating Haruno with a jerk of my chin. Almost immediately, I regretted it. Could I have been any more obvious that I was trying to interrogate her? "She's the only hero I really know who's gone into show business," I 'explained', "I'm kind of curious to know how a pro thinks she holds up."
If she noticed my clumsy attempts at interrogation, Setsuna didn't show it. "Onii-san isn't an actor," she said, a triumphant smile on her face. "He's just special. And, he doesn't really talk about other people ever. They don't really matter much, to him."
Charming. "A-ah, I see," I said. Well, I had already asked one stupid question, so it's not like I was going to get any less suspicious if I asked another one. "What about you?" I asked. "Do you think she's any good?"
Setsuna's heavily-mascaraed eyes narrowed for a second as she stared out at the two actors fighting on stage, and then she scoffed. "She's not as good as onii-san," she said with a smirk. "But nobody is, so that's okay. She can kind of keep up with him sometimes, and that's almost good enough?"
The good news was, that really didn't sound like the sort of reaction someone would have if they had left - or were 'in' on someone else leaving - creepy love notes. The bad news was that Hiru Cain, on stage, was beginning to get visibly frustrated at how long it was taking the Director to get things 'just right'. "All of this is pointless," he declared coldly. Even without any kind of amplification, his voice filled the stage and drew everyone's attention. Deep, resonant, and devoid of human emotion, it didn't just speak - it growled. "If she can't act out being overpowered, I'll just overpower her for real," he proclaimed.
Haruno's reply didn't carry the same sort of weight or presence behind it, but the set had gone quiet enough at Cain's declaration that I managed to make it out anyways. "That's a pretty bold claim, there, Hiru-san." It was funny - even though they were so different in many ways, Haruno and Yukino had the exact same posture when their pride was wounded. "I'm a Pro Hero, you know. Do you really think you can overpower me?"
Cain laughed derisively. "Without your Quirk? You're trash."
Looking rapidly from Cain to Haruno, Director Konoe clapped his hands. "You know what?" He said, walking briskly towards the camera. "I love the energy. Love it! Let's see if we can capture it on film, shall we?"
Shouts of "quiet on the set!" rang out as the crew dashed into action, dropping their last-minute adjustments of lighting rigs and microphones to take up their places behind cameras and practical effects boards.
"You two can improvise a little bit," Director Konoe called out from behind the primary camera, "but remember your lines, and try to stick to the marks while you're fighting, it'll make it easier for us to keep you in-frame." With a deep breath, he straightened up, then bent forward to peer into the camera's viewfinder. "Lights!" He called, and the stage suddenly lit up in a lambent glow, before shifting to a cool blue tone that was reminiscent of nightfall without actually being too dark to film. "Camera!" He shouted, and several cameramen stepped forward, filming Cain and Haruno from outside of the main shot's frame, ready to provide footage that the director could later cut to in post. Finally, once everything was ready, Konoe shouted "Action!"
And the scene came to life. Under the blue lights of the set, the minor flaws of the painted set faded away, transforming the tawdry stage dressing into a sinister battleground full of boxes to hide behind, jump over, and otherwise be used to make the battle between Haruno and Cain - or rather, the battle between Detective Makoto and Black Jack - more visually complex than a stand-up fight on solid ground. The scene started with Detective Makoto in hot pursuit of a fugitive, flashlight and pistol held in a two-handed grip. As she sprinted into a clearing in the middle of the warehouse's maze of boxes, however, she skidded to a stop. There, silhouetted by the full moon shining through the skylight, was a tall hooded figure, with pale skin - dripping blood that looked black by moonlight, a long length of chain held in one hand.
"You're under arrest!" She shouted. "Place your hands above your head!" Jack didn't respond. "I said, hands up!" Slowly, Jack turned, revealing his corpselike pallor, the blood dripping from his face and chest. The mad, cruel look in his eyes. As he stood and stared at the detective, her hands started to shake, sending the light dancing erratically all over his deathly form. "Get down to the ground now!" Detective Makoto shouted. "On your knees!"
Suddenly, Jack laughed, a hoarse, creepy sound that echoed throughout the warehouse. "You have no idea what you're dealing with, do you?" He asked, the links of the chain he held rattling. "This will be fun."
As he suddenly stepped forward, the detective's gun barked, the sharp report of the shot echoing throughout the warehouse. She managed two shots, splashes of blood appearing around Black Jack's center of mass, before Jack's arm lashed out, sending the length of iron chain striking out like a serpent to knock the gun out of her hands. I stifled a hiss of surprise and looked incredulously at Hiru Setsuna. Had her brother really just done that stunt for real? Without breaking Haruno's fingers?
Even as Setsuna caught the motion in the corner of her eyes and turned to give me a grin and a shrug, on stage Haruno was falling back, getting into a martial arts posture. "I don't know what kind of quirk you have that makes you immune to bullets," she said, "but you messed with the wrong cop. Even without a gun, I'll take you down!"
"You think a quirk can stop me, when magic couldn't?" Black Jack asked, contemptuously casting his length of chain aside. "Show me," he taunted, taking up a loose martial arts posture of his own.
As Detective Makoto rushed forward, engaging Black Jack, I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows. I didn't know a lot about martial arts, but even I could tell that the moves Haruno was using were straight out of the Cyberpunch Dojo playbook. Out of curiosity, I tore my eyes away from the spectacle being filmed to look for my mentor. Sure enough, Shizuka-sensei was standing rigidly as she watched the filming. Her non-metallic hand had convulsed around her empty coffee cup, crumpling it in her white-knuckle grip. That settled it, then - Haruno was definitely using Mandalore.
Wondering whether Cyberpunch was angrier about having her style made famous on the silver screen by someone other than herself, or about Haruno using her moves and potentially not doing them 'right', I turned back towards the fight only to see that the battle had progressed to the climactic clinch. Slowly but surely, Black Jack forced back even the Quirk-enhanced arms of the plucky detective. Haruno's eyes shone with false despair and real frustration as her trembling arms were forced down, a knife that had somehow made its way to Jack's hand while I wasn't looking proceeding closer and closer to Haruno's unprotected eyes.
"Makoto-san!" A masculine voice cried out in shock. From stage right, Murasame Taira appeared, waving a prop that looked like a talisman of some sort dynamically in the air. "Get away from her, you monster!" He shouted, brandishing the 'holy' tool. With a noise of disgust, Jack hurled the Detective back. She went flying across the stage in what looked very convincingly like the result of Jack using super strength - but since I knew he had a Longevity quirk, must have been the result of Haruno using her directional force manipulation to propel herself backwards. She hit a tall tower of shipping crates in a way that probably would have been concerning, had I not known that she could armor herself with kinetic energy just like her sister could.
As that tower of boxes started tipping, then fell forwards towards the stage, for a second I thought it was part of the shoot. Then I saw the very expensive, very heavy-looking bit of professional lighting equipment coming down with it, saw the sparks as wires pulled free, and heard the screams and shouts of alarm as it all started coming down. Loudest of all was the panicked cry of "ONII-SAN!" that came from the young woman next to me. Dozens of sprite-shaped black masses of energy rocketed forwards from Setsuna, attempting futilely to brace the collapsing set and slow its fall. As most of the people on the set froze in panic, I abortively started to rush forwards to try to do something to help… but skidded to a stop a few steps later. I didn't have my license. If I did something, I could get arrested. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Todoroki and Yukino coming to the same realization, flakes of snow condensing out of the air near them as they restrained their first impulses to help.
Of course, if we'd really been necessary, we would have acted… but Campestris and Cyberpunch had things totally under control. Faster than she'd flown into the collapsing set, Campestris bounced back out, catching Hiru Cain in a skating tackle that carried him clear of danger. Meanwhile, Cyberpunch had made it to Murasame Taira before the falling stage light was halfway to the ground, running so fast that she was an actual blur. She grabbed him around the armpits, putting one head up against the back of his neck to keep him from getting whiplash as she abruptly reversed course, accelerating backwards and just barely outpacing the splinters and shards of glass as multi-million-yen studio equipment turned into dangerous shrapnel.
The wires that had been powering the lighting equipment hissed and spat sparks for a few seconds before some quick-thinking electrical grip cut the power to the breakers and plunged the entire set into darkness. As the red emergency lights powered on, bathing the chaos in a dim red glow, people slowly recovered from their stunned stupor, beginning to shout and cry. I didn't hear any actual sounds of pain, which was a good sign, but almost immediately I got Ooze-Mime set up and attuned two copies of Miura's quirk; not so I could shoot arrows, but so I could create a light source that would help me check to see if anyone was hurt and just keeping quiet. (My other options for light sources were Endeavor's Hellfire or maybe Megawatt Smile, but I didn't feel like setting off the sprinklers to add to the chaos, and smiling right now just felt wrong.) I held up an 'arrow' over my head without firing it, letting the stray light it gave off illuminate the surroundings. "Is everyone all right?" I asked, doing my best to make myself heard.
After a second or two, one or two other people with light-producing quirks started applying their own efforts to trying to see what was going on, people without said quirks brought their phones out and turned on their built-in flashlights, and the cries of surprise and panic slowly gave way to calls for order and status checks. Most of the lights were pointed at the stage, naturally; both to examine the fallen equipment and to check on the people who had been closest to the blast radius. My heart rate slowed to a mere panic as I saw that Cyberpunch, and everyone else who had been close to the impact zone, looked uninjured; Cyberpunch had already set Taira aside and had gone back to the rubble, poking at it with her metallic hand. A gaggle of actors and stagehands - Yukino and Todoroki among them - soon rushed forward to fuss over Haruno and Taira, while Hiru Setsuna was crouching over her still-stunned brother, checking him from head to toe to make sure that he was okay. For my own part, I just stood there with my hand over my head like a lamp-post, trying to give everyone enough light to see and to stay out of Cyberpunch's way.
In the distance, a siren blared, and I mentally commended whoever had been quick-thinking enough to call 110 right away. "Everyone, listen to me," Cyberpunch said, standing up from her crouch among the rubble. Her mirrorshades were over her eyes, dots of light dancing over their reflective surface as quirks and flashlights moved around the room. "I said, listen to me!" She pulled out her hero ID, brandishing it at the surroundings. "First things first - is anyone hurt?"
"Check your arms and legs if you were anywhere close to the floodlights when they fell," Campestris interjected, having apparently caught her breath enough to start competing with her fellow hero for attention - or maybe that was me being uncharitable. Right now, even though Haruno was still in her police officer's costume rather than her hero outfit, she was standing with all of the poise and bearing of a hero, smiling confidently as if to show that she was unhurt. "Sometimes adrenaline can mask the signs of pain."
Reports of injuries failing to materialize after several seconds, Cyberpunch spoke again. "Secondly - as of right now, anyone leaving this location will be detained under suspicion of … probably assault at the very least." A second siren outside joined the first, as if to punctuate her statement. "Director Konoe brought me in to covertly investigate some concerns that he had, and it seems like they were justified. Director," she called out, turning to the stricken Director Konoe, "I know you said that you wanted me to keep this investigation quiet, but now that an actual crime has been committed, I think it's best that we take care of things promptly before they escalate any further."
The Director stood up, mopping his brow. "Of course," he said. "Everyone, please listen to Cyberpunch-san and Campestris-san. I'm sure we can get through this quickly and prevent any further incidents." Even more sirens joined the chorus outside, heralding the fact that the police would doubtless soon be arriving to make the situation even more of a mess. The Director walked closer to Cyberpunch, pitching his voice at more of a conversational tone as he did so, though not so quietly that I couldn't overhear. "You're certain that it wasn't just an accident?" He said. "Some of the lighting techs had said they were concerned about the placement of that light for a while, that it was a little unstable. It could have just been the fight taking an unexpected turn-"
Cyberpunch shook her head at his suggestion. "The debris has the almost the same emotional imprint as the letter that was in Haruno's safe," she said, her voice absolutely certain. "It's absolutely the same person. With your permission, I'd like to start -"
Suddenly, Cyberpunch was cut off by her phone ringing. It was a high-pitched, strident beep, nothing like the calm professional ringtone I typically heard. Then, I heard it echoed, coming from Campestris. Then my own phone started buzzing and shaking, and a few more echoes came from around the studio - not many, but it seemed like most people on set had put their phones away so as to avoid potential accidental noise. Even as Cyberpunch's face flattened into a mask of determination, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check it. My heart fell into my stomach as I read the message popping up on my screen. 'ALERT: Major Villain Terror Attack near downtown Hosu City,' it read. 'All citizens advised to evacuate and seek shelter.'
Dully, I heard the sound of an explosion. "Campestris, go grab your hero gear," Cyberpunch shouted, frustration coloring her voice. "Inverna, Shoto, stay with her. Everyone else, never mind staying here. Get yourselves organized, and prepare to travel in a group. This area has received an evacuation order. If you have fire wardens or other people who have put together evacuation plans, follow those, we're evacuating as a group and no-one is getting left behind."
As people began to run around in a near-panic, grabbing what essentials they could manage, I couldn't help but feel a chill go up my spine. The timing of this villain attack was all too convenient. I strode forwards, moving next to Cyberpunch even as I kept holding my light arrow high to provide as much illumination as I could. "Sensei," I whispered to her, even as I tried not to show my panic on my face. "Could this have been planned?"
Her eyes were unreadable behind the mirrorshades, but if she felt any nervousness, it didn't come through in her voice. "It could have," she said matter-of-factly. "But if people start thinking about it, they'll panic even more than they have already. For now, just keep calm and keep a sharp eye out. As far as the civilians are concerned, the most important thing we can do is to look like we have everything under control."
Naturally, that was when the winged bulk of a hideous humanoid creature with an exposed brain and too many eyes, instantly recognizable as a Nomu, suddenly crashed through the ceiling.