When the Mares of Diomedes made the connection of who she was and began their attack only for the weird fox-tailed young man to strike back at them, Mariko saw a golden opportunity.
She ran.
She didn't even spare a glance at the younger man who decided to fight them off alone, but she was grateful for the opportunity to run.
Whether he fought them off or lost, she escaped.
"This is how it's supposed to be," thought the fleeing Mariko as she looked for a place to duck into and use her quirk. "There's too much to lose right now, not after I spent all that time to escape." she kept her eyes forward, no matter how bleak or down she looked.
This was how it was supposed to be. This was her life, her crimes.
It was time to use her quirk! But Mariko stopped short, she was being followed by a fox of all people. If his quirk was indeed a fox, that noise would be difficult to deal with, but maybe she had something on her that could help? She did steal a few things during her freedom.
She ducked into a small, narrow alley as she put her hand into position. It was time.
Right before her eyes, a small portal the size of a regular door opened before her. This was her quirk!
Pocket Cell: Mariko can open a small portal about the size of a door that opens into a pocket dimension the size of a large jail cell! It's perfect for storage and containment! However, there is only one portal for her pocket cell and she is the only one who can open or close the entrance and she can move the portal/cell by closing it and reopening it in another location.
As Mariko stepped into her pocket cell, she was greeted to the very familiar sight of her cell. The walls and ceiling of her cell were plain white in colour while the floor on the other hand was grey. On a closer look, they resembled concrete though she was never able to confirm it, but she did know that it was very, very durable. Not once did the walls of her pocket cell break or even crack.
This was her quirk.
Ironic, wasn't it. Her quirk resembled that of a jail cell long before she even committed crimes.
Perhaps this was all fate?
She wouldn't rule that out, but it was funny in a twisted way.
Though, her pocket cell provided some comfort. No matter where she went, she could always duck into her little cell, bleak as it may be. It was always the same.
Over the years, she learned a lot about her pocket cell. It was always constant, the stuff that she left within was always there, the size never changed, always the size of a large jail cell and no matter what she did, it never changed.
But that was neither here nor there.
Closing herself in her pocket cell, she began to look around her cell with all the things she had picked up. Yes, everything within this durable pocket dimension (save for a small few things) was stolen.
She had a little bit of everything for day to day existence.
Ever since her escape, she collected a fair amount of stuff, at least stuff that wasn't pawned off. Risky as that was.
It was mostly stuff she had to survive.
Spare change of clothes, a sleeping bag for when she needed to spend the time in her pocket cell, a stolen wallet from a shop which she filled with stolen cash.
So far as she searched, nothing more than the survival essentials.
Ignoring that and looking around the other stolen wares she had snuck into her pocket cell, the missing inmate looked for anything she could use to throw the trail off of her.
Hokori was not to be trusted.
She was sure she picked something up in case Shi was sent after her, but where would it be? She hoped that she didn't pawn it off.
It was then that her eyes landed on something in the corner of the cell.
Over in the corner was that of a green prison jumpsuit, something she couldn't really get rid of without bringing suspicion, confirmation or a trail on her.
It was a constant reminder.
A constant reminder of Styx and her crimes.
Tsujihara.
A prestigious, wealthy and well known family located in Yokohama, Japan.
Within this very and I mean very prestigious family was a little black sheep, a black sheep named Mariko. Born as the third child of Goro Tsujihara, a doctor and his wife Chiyo Tsujihara, a well-known prosecutor.
Mariko's early childhood was peaceful, but being the third out of four children, there were times she often felt like the family's black sheep. It didn't help that she was often in the shadow of her siblings.
Her two older siblings, Haruki who was three years older than her and Reina who was only one year older than her. These two were the all-stars of the family. It wasn't only limited to older siblings, but her younger sibling too. Her younger sister, Momoka, who was two years younger than her was doted on a lot by her parents.
It didn't help the black sheep comparison she started to see herself as. Now that wasn't to say that she was neglected by her parents, but it was hard to see it any other way. The relationship had issues in the earliest stages.
Goro and Chiyo slightly favoured her siblings in subtle ways, ways that made a young child question. Her older siblings had already done stuff she had yet to do, they were more likely to discover new things that would already be old by the time she were to do it.
The third child to finally do the same things her older brother and sister already did, it didn't get more exciting. A real 'been there, done that' experience. Like Mariko was late to the bandwagon. Meanwhile her doted-on sister Momoka reignited that same, overdone experience simply because she was the baby of the family.
In the end, it just reinforced the idea. Mariko knew for sure. She was the black sheep of the Tsujihara family.
When she was six years old, she started going to school and she proved to be a wonderful and diligent student. One of the best that school had ever seen, but she was a very shy girl who had trouble making friends. Even when she did make some friends and got more social around them, it didn't help her reclusive nature. Especially when she had manifested her quirk.
The first time she ever used her quirk, she fled to hide within it. She vanished off the face of the earth for a good ten minutes. Despite her parent's constant discouragement of using her quirk, she kept doing it.
It started to worry people.
"Where's Mariko?"
"Oh no. What if she got lost."
Despite their panic, she was in her little safe haven.
It was hard not to use it. No matter what situation she found herself in, difficult or stressful, she was always able to run away into her private pocket cell, her own personal bubble of safety.
Stressed when having trouble with tests, anxiety when meeting new people for the first time. Always back into the cell. While her cell found itself being used time and time again over the years, it gradually found itself being customised over time as well, eventually becoming more homely than well, her home.
When middle school came around, the good friends she managed to befriend became distant with different schools, and it didn't really help her as her shyness worsened.
Mariko began to retreat more and more, becoming more and more lonely in the process. During this tough time, the only thing that didn't decrease was her grades. Her grades improved a lot despite the loneliness and no matter how well she actually did...
It might as well have been dust in the wind for her parents.
Even though she was one of the higher grades in middle school, it all paled in comparison with her all-star older siblings. Haruki and Reina were practically A+ perfect stars and the expectation of success from her own parents, it weighed heavily on her shoulders.
A weight she couldn't hold up.
"Really?" her mother looked at her grades from a recent test. "You've been slacking Mariko. Why can't you be more like your siblings with their grades? Go and study, now."
"This is your best attempt? Did you put any real effort into it?" her father asked for something completely different. "Momoka, you did amazing on your test! A wonderful job."
No matter how hard she tried, she failed to meet their standards and the image of her black sheep got more and more obvious. Nothing she did was good enough for them, no matter how hard she put the effort in, it would be better to do nothing. It gave the same results.
Her already rocky relationship with her parents began to deteriorate. From the slight favouritism of her older and younger siblings and the fact she couldn't meet their standards, she got into fights. It was a sad, stressful time for her, something unseen by her parents. It was a dark period of her life, and one day in the distant future, it got darker.
When high school rolled around, things got a little better. It wasn't great by any means, but it was a start. She started to improve herself! Young Mariko Tsujihara started forcing herself to get out more and make new friends as well as get more involved in a lot of extracurriculars. Though, it was more an excuse to get away from her parents.
It didn't change her from a shy, awkward girl, but she got heaps of practice talking to other people and got used to it to an extent. Mariko was not a social butterfly, but she tried. Her grades weren't the best but she tried to make up for it with extracurriculars.
She found herself participating on both the school's volleyball team and as the secretary for the student council.
She had managed to prove to be great at both! She was still nervous, a lot, but she got through it thanks to some new friends. The fact she was both on the student council and a member of the volleyball team definitely put some spotlight on her.
Compared to middle school, this was much better than before.
"Nice one, Mariko!" one of the students on the volleyball team cheered out as the student council's secretary scored a point for the team.
It was just practice, but still.
Another member of the volleyball team with short black hair handed her a towel as the practice match was soon coming to a close. "Good work out there, Tsujihara."
As the secretary picked up a water bottle with a towel around her neck, decked out in the volleyball team's school uniform, she smiled back. "The same to you! You really shined out there!"
A light slap on the back from one of the other girls, one with a pair of lower noticeable fangs. "Hehe. We got nationals in the bag!" her eyes widened in realisation. "Oh yeah, you still got the student council business today, don't you?"
"Ah, I do."
The first girl started to push her. "You better get moving then!"
"Sorry, I'll be off then!" with a quick wave, she headed off towards the student council room.
These were just two of the friends she had made in her little attempts to improve herself. Work on the student council and with the volleyball team did put some work on her plate and usually made her a bit late when it came to going home compared to others, but if it meant more time away from her folks, then it was fine by her.
By the time she graduated, she really grew. The biggest improvement though was the simple fact she didn't rely on her pocket cell as much as she used to in the past.
It did leave her with one thought about her quirk in her growth. "I wonder if I can ever make any great use of it?"
Her quirk was practically a safe room to hide away in or store away stuff, but was there anything else to use it asides from that? Maybe, maybe not.
But, graduating high school wasn't without its own set of problems. Her parents, her teachers and even her friends. Whether intentional or not, the pressure of going to college was pushed onto her.
On the volleyball court, one of her friends with the lower fangs asked while they were on the bench, "hey, Mari. Do you have any ideas for where you want to go or do for college? Maybe we can look at some together! I heard it can be really fun, you should definitely go! If anyone should go to college, it's you!"
Mariko had no idea what to do, was college even the right thing to do? While her friend didn't mean anything by it, but still.
What was she going to do with herself?
A teacher a month before graduating was a thing, addressed the class. "You'll all be graduating next month so make sure to study for your college entrance exams for your career choices. Today's lesson will be replaced with a mock entrance exam for college."
"..." she looked down at the mock entrance exam. She wasn't ready.
"We will also go over the types of questions they have too, so pay attention." later on that same teacher would tell her, "it'll be a waste for you to not go to college, take some time to think over the one to want to go to, Tsujihara."
If you asked her what she wanted to do, she'd keep her head down, avoid the question, but she would have shrugged at that. She knew one thing: she wasn't ready. She was not ready at all.
But, the most pressure she ever got from, was her family.
And unlike her friends who didn't mean it or the teachers that just wanted to look out for her, her parents didn't pull any punches.
Back at home, at dinner time, she was faced with her parents who didn't even bother to look up from their table.
"Congratulations on graduating, Mari." her older brother Haruki smiled at her. "Welcome to the club!"
Reina looked up from the table and nodded along. "Especially when working on the student council and volleyball team, that must have been tough. Not even we did that."
Haruki followed up, "you really worked hard out there, sis."
If there was just one thing she was grateful for, it was that her siblings weren't like what she saw in those shows or movies. Though, even then, she couldn't bring herself to make eye contact with the all-stars. Her parents on the other hand.
"That's nothing special to be of note," her father Goro added to the conversation, finishing his dinner and standing up. "You could have easily done it, if it wasn't a major waste of time. Volleyball won't get you anywhere and the student council from experience is just pretending to be an adult."
Haruki's smile faltered for a second. "Dad-"
Their father stood after checking his phone. "I need to go to the hospital now," but before he left, a serious look was sent Mariko's way. "Your mother and I have talked about your university choice."
"You can't just-" Mariko was silenced as her mother chimed in.
"This isn't up for discussion," Chiyo nodded. "Haruki and Reina have already chosen their careers and little Momo already knows what she wants to do with herself. You're the only one who has yet to choose. We picked out a prestigious university for you to study at, so think quickly before the entrance exams come around."
"Don't I get a choice in the-"
Chiyo gave the middle child a look. "This isn't up for discussion, Mariko. We have a reputation to uphold. We can't afford you to pick a lowly job or a lower ranked university."
As she droned on, Goro walked past and ruffled Momoka's hair. "Do I have to go to that college too? What if I change my mind?" she asked with an unsure look in her career path, but Mariko felt like slamming her head into the table when her father shook his head.
"Not if you don't want to." after saying that bullshit and ruffling her hair again, he was gone.
Mariko really wanted to say that it was bullshit or unfair, but she left the table instead, there and then. Of course Momoka would be the one to be given freedom like that for some bloody reason.
The only thing she had on her, as awful as it sounded, was that she was more recognized for her accomplishments than her sister...but it never registered for their parents.
Storming out, it left the four remaining family members at the table.
"Mother!" Haruki called out, his smile barely holding on suddenly vanished as Reina leaned deeper into her chair while Momoka just went unfazed by it all.
"Yes?" she was completely unfazed and for the first time in a long while, Mariko retreated to her pocket cell.
In the end, she started college. She ended up in a rather prestigious university. What was her career path you might be wondering? She was studying in the footsteps of her mother. She was going to become a lawyer.
However, there was something shocking in this shy, awkward young woman.
She was a party animal!
Unlike middle school and high school, there was no parental pressure. She was free! Free to let loose!
There was no need to worry about what her parents thought, there was no need to worry about constantly being compared to the all-star siblings, Mariko could just let it out.
"Yeah!" she laid on her lounge, not caring about the state of the room after coming back from another party. She didn't really need her own place with her quirk, but hey. At least she wouldn't get arrested for it. "Maybe I'll go to that party on Saturday?" As far as she was aware, there was a family event on that day, but they'd just forget about her anyway or not focus on her, like always.
Raising a hand into the air, she formed it into a fist. "Yes. Gotta live a little." In the end, she never turned up for that family event.
It wasn't her fault if they suddenly got grumpy about it.
As time in college continued, a few problems frequently arose, but the young woman had managed to make it through college and gain admittance to a law school despite a lot of troubles. The party nature continued and it only made her parent's more and more frustrated.
"Why can't you be more like Haruki? Or Reina? At least they're not living in pig pens," the annoying tone of her mother stabbed into her. "Can you at least take it seriously? Momoka is taking her future career path seriously, why can't you?"
Haruki this, Reina that, Momoka all the damn time.
Just because her siblings were all more successful than her both academically and in their dream careers. She tried to ignore them, but it kept on stabbing her, again and again.
It was really annoying.
"How about you stop comparing me to them for once in your life and leave me alone," she shot back at her mother, who stumbled over her words for a good solid ten seconds.
"Wha- wait until your father hears about your cheek!" that was the last she heard of her for a while, thankfully.
It didn't matter, never did. If anyone were to ask her about her family she knew what to say: that she was the black sheep.
Mariko was twenty-two when she graduated college and started studying law at Kyushu University. She did okay initially, but things started to go down hill.
It felt like she was reverting.
It didn't help that the relationship with her parents were increasingly getting more and more strained, fights being more and more common.
"I know you favour Haruki, Reina and Momoka more. I know I'm the black sheep. So don't pretend like you don't favour them and leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you."
"Don't you dare talk to your mother and I like that-" Goro was cut off by his own daughter.
Giving them a dirty look, Mari let out some of the emotions out, not all, but some. Nasty naming calling words left her mouth as she pointed out her pain, but to no avail. Haruki and Reina stayed by her side despite not saying a word and Momoka...
"You made Momoka cry!"
"...do I look like I care? That's not my problem. Now go away, I never want to see you again."
That was only just one of many fights that continued between them...
Her parents just huffed, took it as a late stage of angst that had yet to pop up. No matter what methods she used. If the family relationship was waning, her studies were starting to slide off the edge as well.
The pressure of the program was staggering, stressful and that mixed with her anxiety issues, that she refused to see anyone about it or even acknowledge it herself, led her to have a nervous breakdown in the third year of law school, right before taking the bar.
It was also the same day, she went missing.
In reality, Mariko had dropped out and ran away.
She let no one know where she was going. She just kept running and hiding from the world, ashamed of herself and her failure. No one could find her and she was officially reported missing and wasn't found for years.
Curled up in a ball, Mariko was in a very familiar room that resembled a concrete jail cell. Her long, silver hair was all over the place as the recent trail of tears could be seen on her pale face.
It was a long time coming, years of pent up emotions just waiting to be unleashed. "..." she couldn't even voice her own thoughts, silently curled up on the floor.
She couldn't bring herself to leave just yet, so she stayed in her cell for a while longer.
...
Mariko was getting by during the days she was a missing person, though this was mainly by stealing food and other needed supplies from gas stations and other areas. She was good, clever and careful.
Unknown to her as she was doing this to survive, she had a talent. A talent much brighter than anything she could have done in that career of hers, anything that her parents could ever hope to muster.
A talent that put her pocket cell to good use.
Mariko looked down as her eyes spied a camera in the corner of the store. Perfect. Picking up the small packed meal and giving it a look over and with a quick scan that wasn't too suspicious for anyone around her, she tossed it into her pocket cell.
It was a good thing she was in the camera's blind spot.
Out of the view of cameras, this is where she really shined with her pocket cell and her latent talent. Mariko was very careful, never taking too much of any one thing while avoiding the cameras. What she stole was very light, a small handful of items that would have qualified for the twelve items or less lane.
As she left the store empty handed, she smirked. "Too easy."
It wasn't just the essentials she stole. It was anything that she could sell.
Acting like carrying a bag of old stuff from her home into a pawn shop, she had pulled out a nice silver watch, bits of jewellery and some other valuables she managed to swipe from various stores. Big or local. All stolen goods. It made things easier when villains attacked as well, but for now, she was just pawning off her wares.
The man after checking all the stuff she put on the table, gave her a nod, already paying her with cash. Now with a lot of money in her pocket, she returned the nod.
Now with a handful of dollars, well more than that obviously, she managed to get enough to eat and drink which helped her shoplift even more. Hiding more items she stole from shops as she entered the checkout to pay for the bare essentials.
She even had enough to clean her clothes, seeing as she had nowhere to go. She was practically homeless!
"That was nerve-racking..." she huffed as she gave the pawn shop from before a look. She could have sworn that she would be questioned, something she would have stumbled over.
She paused to look down at the cash she got from the pawn shop, the remaining that wasn't spent on cleaning or food and drink. After time and time again, carefully stealing and selling for that entire year, she noted. "I'm getting really good at this."
As time went on, Mariko found herself being recruited. Recruited by a group of smugglers into their smuggling ring after seeing her talent at hiding things with her quirk and all that potential she shined within her.
"You have potential," the ringleader smirked, "your quirk, your talent. How about you put it to go use?"
She gave the new arrival a look. A cautious one. Her silence caused the ringleader to continue.
"From the look of things, you don't seem to have anywhere else to go, right?" the ringleader crossed their arms. "Are you really going to let that talent go to waste, join us. We can make it worthwhile!"
Mariko Tusjihara had nothing else to lose. Her talent for thievery was what kept her going, so she joined up with the smugglers.
Since then, she smuggled many kinds of illegal goods and proved to be really talented at it, becoming one of the best smugglers within the group.
She found it odd with all the stealing and smuggling she did, guilt for watching herself fall deeper and deeper into her crimes, the illegal goods she smuggled becoming increasingly more dangerous if she was caught. Drugs, guns, and more. But despite all the guilt, she had a smile on her face, she felt powerful. Accomplished. Confident.
Mariko walked down the street, heading to her destination. It was an easy job, just like every other smuggling job she did before. When it came to other jobs, she easily bypassed security thanks to her quirk, but this job? Much easier. The heroes didn't even realise. Not even airport security.
A hooded man sat outside on a chair as he then looked up upon seeing the silver haired woman approach. "Delivery? I didn't order anything." he blinked twice.
"Black Sheep." she responded, blinking once.
"You got the wrong address." they huffed, looking away before whispering. "How much?"
"Three bags full."
The man looked around and gave her a nod, his scaled hands invited her inside. "Just put the stuff there and here's your pay."
Dumping bags and bags of drugs onto the counter, she picked up the small briefcase of cash.
"Pleasure doing business with ya."
Later on after she returned back on a return trip, a group of villains would eventually destroy a nearby hero office, all enhanced on some drug that was smuggled in.
Yet all Mariko could think was: how easy it was to smuggle something as dangerous as the drugs she dropped on the counter. No one even noticed a thing. She could truly get away with anything.
For once in her life, under all the pressure, stress and comparison, Mariko truly felt strong and accomplished for once in her entire life.
She felt really confident!
The black sheep had finally found its purpose in life.
However, all good and bad things come to an end.
Whether it was the growing nature that came hand in hand with the feeling of accomplishment or her own odd guilt and shame in herself, Mariko was caught by the police.
She had no idea if it was because of her thievery, smuggling or if it was because she was still listed as a missing person. As soon as she caught, that old familiar feeling came back full force.
Seated within a room with a clearly one-way viewing window, Mariko glanced up at the camera in the room from the corner of her eye as the officer before her sorted through some of her own papers.
The feeling of retreating into her pocket cell grew.
The police, on the other hand, couldn't get anything on her. They were empty handed, there was nothing to truly link her asides from nearby sightings, but thankfully for them, they didn't have too. There was still the missing person's report, but they barely had time to even address it.
"Now," the officer began as she looked up to see a tearful Mariko lay her head against the table. "Um, are you alright?"
"I did it, I was a part of it." she blurted out. Now arrested and forced to confront her actions, Mariko...broke down. Confessing everything. "A part of that smuggling-"
As she confessed her involvement, she began to sell out several others in the process. Those she worked with, customers, employers, recruiters, locations of major smuggling rings she witnessed and so much more.
She didn't even realise that the cop dropped her pen as she just listened to everything.
The following court trials were quick and she was sentenced to five years in prison with many people she had been working with being imprisoned for much, much longer. To say people were suspicious they had been sold out was an understatement. Suddenly raided by police and pro-heroes, pinned to the ground as their years-long smuggling operations came to an abrupt end.
As she stood in court, an elderly looking man looked at her, the defence and the prosecution.
Mariko had thought that her mother would be the one prosecuting her, but she did not show, at least not first. It was only when her name (Mariko's) came up did her mother take to the trial.
The young woman knew better though, this was all to save face, save their reputation. Their families' reputation was up on the line after all. The Tsujihara family was a prestigious and wealthy one.
"Your honour, it's clear that once the defendant has been forced into this position because of her quirk," Chiyo began, "I won't deny that she committed these crimes, but as she went missing more than a year ago only to turn up deep in criminal activity, the defendant must have been kidnapped and forced into committing crimes with the smuggling ring."
Mariko wanted to roll her eyes. As expected of her mother.
"It was never about saving me. Just yourself." she never said this out loud though, just quietly kept it to herself.
Then the judge asked.
"Is this true?" he asked, eyeing the silver haired woman.
Mariko didn't even need to look at her mother to tell what she wanted her to do. Just say yes and hopefully get away with minor charges at best.
And that would mean going straight back to being constantly barraged by her mother and father. The comparison of her not being great like her siblings, the constant reminded that she wasn't living up to their standards. Without pausing, she gave the judge three words.
"No, your honour."
Her amber eyes were glued on the judge as he was rather looking at the woman glaring daggers into her daughter. Mariko could feel the look her mother shot her way.
"After everything we did for you, you-"
The slam of the gavel rang out. "Chiyo Tsujihara! Quiet in the court, you of all people should know this!" the judge's voice echoed out. Taking a second to shake his head in disappointment, the judge gave a nod to the young woman on trial. "Mariko Tsujihara, you will be sentenced to five years at Styx."
The trial soon came to an end not long after that.
She had no idea what happened after seeing as the judge wanted her mother to stay behind, but on her way to Styx, she was told all about it. It filled her with both dread and relief. Dreadful at what the guards could do to her if she actively put up a fuss and relief at knowing that compared to the other smaller prisons a large majority of those connected to the smuggling operations were sent to, Styx was safer.
Mariko had felt confident as a criminal, but when it came to coping with that life in the long term, there was a lot of trouble. Confidence mixed with guilt and shame. An odd combination that tore her both ways.
When her quick trial came to an end, she was forced to empty all the contents in her Pocket Cell and was then sent to the prison known as Styx.
You might think that she would have had a decent time in prison, but that was further from the truth. It was terrible.
After the arrest of many people tied to the smuggling operations, rings and more, people were suspicious of the sudden arrest and raids. Although no one could prove it, there was a thought of them being sold out. A few other people were suspected of being informants and sell-outs and because of that, violence followed.
Mariko was one of those who got confronted and threatened a lot. There were even attempts on her life.
"Mariko you bitch!" one of her former allies lunged out with her, armed with a sharp makeshift shiv. "YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD! DEAD!" She got real close, only for the inmate to get kicked into the dirt by a guard.
Mariko couldn't even utter a word as the guard picked up the kicked woman who flailed, trying to get her hands around Tsujihara's neck. Only for the guard to punch her in the gut. "Tch." they huffed, hauling the inmate away.
Another former ally of hers shot her a dirty look. "Don't you fucking forget this. If we find out that it was you, your fucking dead bitch." Stepping forward to give her a nice little warning, Mariko vanished instantly.
With the outbreak of violence among those who were connected to the smuggling ring, a few people did in fact die in prison. While not all those connected criminals were sent to Styx, only the bigger names and Mariko were sent to Styx, all the countless others were sent to smaller, minor prisons across Japan.
As Mariko hid in her pocket cell, no one could get her and she stayed there as long as she could, for days at a time no less.
One of the guards picked up yet another member of the smuggling operation. "Do you idiots really want to die? Keep it up and you'll be nothing more than cinders!" the blonde guard gripped a bit too hard on the back of the inmate's neck, uncaring at the pain they were causing.
Another guard with a pair of wings like a harpy looked around. "Tsujihara is gone again..." the small harpy mentioned as the red eyed guard looked up.
"It's fine," he shrugged, an odd action from him. "Unlike all these other ingrates, she knows her place."
A third arrival on the scene all in white huffed. "It's not like she can get far anyway."
Still the harpy hummed, tapping her bottom lip with her talons. "..."
This worried the guards to no end. Every time she dipped into her Pocket Cell, the guards had no real way to keep track of her at the time.
Mariko had no friends in prison and kept to herself. The majority of the time in prison consisted of reading and retreating to her safe haven when anything happened. She tried her best to stay out of trouble and the guards were pretty nice to her (though they did keep an eye on her due to her quirk), she proved to be a model prisoner in a way and quickly gained access to the co-ed ward which really gave her a safe haven away from her former allies and business partners.
To Mariko, she was in a deep pit she couldn't get out of, slowly sinking deeper and deeper. She wanted to get out, but she had no idea how. She couldn't, it was impossible.
Yet, despite the odds, she managed it. She did the impossible. She managed to break Styx, unknowingly humbling them in the process. The first in history.
She escaped.
She was the first inmate to ever escape the prison Styx.
Right now, that was a story for another time.
Mariko suddenly shook her head, it was like her entire life just flashed right before her amber eyes on fast forward as soon as she picked up the green prison jumpsuit.
Quickly dropping it, she remembered just what she had to do. "There's no use wallowing in my shame." she gave herself a little pep talk as she searched around her pocket cell. There had to be something here to help cover her trail.
Hokori looked around, frantically for the missing woman that he was just with. No matter where he looked, she was gone.
When Dion asked for Tomari, er Mariko, Hokori came up empty. "Uh..."
A sudden stomp from the disguised prison officer made Hokori jump a little. "Damn it, she got away huh. Probably due to those bastards of Diomedes."
Gulping, the rookie had to ask, "what do we do now?"
"It's simple, Hokori." Shuten huffed, making sure his red wig was still good to go. "Sniff her out."
"Sniff her out?" Hokori blinked as Dion grabbed his shoulders out of nowhere.
With a small smile, the undercover guard redirected the young guard's eyes to the ground. "Your quirk grants you the abilities of a fox, right? That means you have a more advanced sniffer compared to regular people's noses, right? So start sniffing."
"Oh, I guess I can try, but Sagimaru's boost wore off-"
A wave of the hand. "Eh, it doesn't matter. She wouldn't have gotten far, the boost was more to help us narrow her down. Now that we found her, we just need to hunt her down. Now get to work, kid."
As the rookie was released, he stopped to give his senior a look. "So Di- er Shuten, what are you going to do?"
The bottle holding guard pointed down to where the battle with the recon group of the Mares took place. "Those cowboys look like they're not going to give up anytime soon, so I'm going to fight them off for a while. It'll be problematic if the whole group comes together, so I'll prevent that."
"Oh yeah, earlier when I was fighting them, they mentioned that they wanted her and they seemed to make the connection of who she is as well! At least from what they claimed..."
"Shit, then you better find her now." The change in Meade's tone made Arashi shudder for a moment, but his senior had one more thing to say. "Remember, if the trail goes cold, it could be her quirk in play."
"Pocket Cell, right?"
Dion nodded as he began to head down, it was almost time to part ways for now. "Her quirk makes it possible to store stuff and hide in her pocket dimension. Really good for smuggling, but remember this," he turned back, lowering his aviators a tad. "When hiding in her pocket cell, she can't move it."
The young man quickly followed as soon they were about to go their separate ways. "When you find a dead end-"
"Hang around for a while." Hokori finished, giving a nod to the older guard. "Good luck, Shuten."
As Hokori wiggled his nose, prepared to sniff out the missing inmate, Dion Meade took out another bottle with a funny looking logo. In the distance he could hear the small recon party of the Mares of Diomedes searching for their latest targets.
"Heh. Guess I have to put in some work for once, eh?"
He walked back into the frying pan.
Hokori on the other hand, quickly got to searching for the missing person who claimed to be Tomari.
It would look weird if he got down low, but if it was to help find a missing inmate, then that's what he had to do.
"She didn't really look like an inmate...but, maybe I'm just overthinking things?" Hokori sniffed around as soon as he parted ways with the more experienced Styx guard.
Tomari, as he will call her until he got proper confirmation from Dion and co, didn't really act like most of the inmates he met within Styx.
He witnessed prisoners that were unhinged, hedonistic and many more. Witnessing Rin go crazy for the fresh scent of blood, Vito's rampage solely for a good time, inmates that tried to take advantage of the chaos.
But he also saw some inmates who...weren't as he expected.
Inmates who just wanted their sentence to carry out without a fuss, inmates that didn't cause problems. The woman calling herself Tomari, if she was Mariko, why did she break out? She didn't look to be the type to do that, even the stories he heard didn't match the description of the escaped convict.
"Why would a model inmate like Tsujihara break out of prison suddenly? From what I've heard, it just makes no sense. Did something happen?" he stopped in his tracks as the familiar scent tickled his nose.
Thankfully it wasn't the booze that lingered around Dion.
He blinked when he realised how weird this would have been if he wasn't tracking an inmate, but less thinking, more working!
The scent was the same as the one he hanged near Tomari, at least this proved to be some sort of lead to hunt her down. Breaking into a sprint, Hokori did his best to follow Tomari's trail.
"This way," he took a sharp turn, running through the city. Jumping over a fallen trash can, he took a second to re-sniff, just to double check.
While he was hunting down the trail, wondering just how far the silver haired woman ran, a vibration in his pocket caught his attention. Stopping to have a look, it was from the search party bus, more specifically, Suimin.
The text said: 'Hey! I'm on my way!'
It seemed to be done via speech to text, but he was glad to have backup now as he was suddenly reminded from the text message that he was sent Mariko's picture when they first left the prison.
When he checked, he scanned the portrait of the woman he was following. A sigh escaped his lips as he put his smartphone away.
From what he can recall, Tomari's face was the same as Mariko's, save for the longer hair that she had when she was in prison.
Following the trail, Hokori followed the inmate and could only hope that he could talk her out of running away and convince her to stand down.
The job was simple. Keep these wanna cowboys off of the missing inmate and his fellow guard for a short amount of time, even if that meant beating them until they blacked out or couldn't stand anymore.
If the hero's sidekick was done with that giant moray eel man, then he should be getting some assistance soon, so he sent a text to both his fellow guards in the bus and the pro-hero right before confronting the group.
For now, it was time to let loose a bit.
"Let me tell you guys something, I'm a master of the drunken-sober style. You can go home if you want." it was rather playful as he stood against the remaining Mares that could still stand after being splashed with boiling water.
"Drunken-sober style? That makes no sense!" one of the mares shouted at him.
There weren't that many people to knock around, but who knows what quirks that might have up their sleeves if they had the chance to use them.
So he gulped down a bottle of the good shit.
"Just take care of that drunk and let's get out of here," huffed another mare, but Dion just raised a finger.
"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm extremely sober right now."
Now armed with an empty bottle, he smashed it against the face of the first mare that tried to get rid of the 'drunk' that stood in their way.
As the mare fell to the ground, out of Dion's mouth came a wave of differently sized black bubbles. "Come on you cowboys! It's time for the first howdy!"
"Don't you mock us," the woman who drank the vial of boost dashed forward, making sure to avoid the bubbles as best she could. "You'll pay for that trick back there."
Dion had avoided the fast swing of the mare as he dug his hand into his pocket, searching for something. For now he was on the defensive as his bubbles cut off the other cowboys and cowgirls.
They had no idea what the bubbles could do after all.
He had to admit, they were good when they weren't taken down by boiling water. Pulling out a match from his pocket, his knee connected with the attacking woman's own knee.
"Back off!" he managed to kick the woman away with some quick reflexes, but she wouldn't be knocked back for long from the looks of it. Striking the match on the bottom of his wooden sandals that he just kicked with, he managed to ignite the match after a few strikes.
He glanced at the broken bottle in his hand. Not a weapon he wanted to resort to, so he smashed it on the ground, shattering the remains to tinier pieces.
"What's he doing with that match?"
"Quick! Get down-"
Dion tossed the match into the air with a sadistic grin. The match flew through the air, making contact with the largest, dark bubble and when it popped, a sea of flames engulfed the improv battlefield.
The dark bubble filled with oil popped, ignited and caused the other bubbles to pop and in turn, cause more and more flames to spread out. Some of the mares got hit in the crossfire, immediately dropping to the ground as some others tried to help them.
Dion in the meanwhile took a swig of water from a bottle, put his hands together and released as many large bubbles as he could into the air, higher than the flames.
They'll pop on their own, but it didn't hurt to pop them himself-
"Shi-urgh!" Dion was tackled by the lady he kicked away before. "Oi! Get off!" he kneed the woman, trying to get her off him, but it was to no avail.
Hands coiled around his neck as he was greeted by a nasty look. "I'll kill you for this!"
Another knee to no real effect. "You're...letting them...burn..."
All he got in response was a growl.
Thankfully, the heavy bubbles popped on their own as waves of water rained down, dousing the flames and the Mares of Diomedes below.
Now, this didn't stop the problem on top of Dion. He needed her to get off before he started seeing the pearly gates...or dark pits below the earth. "Come on, at least...put some effort into it..."
The pressure increased as he was suddenly wacked in the head. He did not see the headbutt coming. Wrong words maybe.
"Come on...harder..."
Waiting for a change in expression, he shifted his strength into kicking the woman off now that he could breathe again. Shooting out a few bubbles to cloud her vision, Dion had managed to kick the boosted criminal off.
Yet there were still more to fight off. More work to do.
Not wasting any more time, he made sure to kick any standing mare back down into the ground.
"Fuck, it's wearing off!" that woman who was choking him previously cursed out.
"Then maybe you shouldn't have drank all of it-" the other outlaw was silenced as Shuten's fist crashed into their face.
The red wig wearing man had a look into their pocket. "If you all surrender yourselves, I'll treat your wounds."
Having a bottle of medicine, crafted at Styx for any medical use with his quirk, Dion prepared for their answer.
"Like hell. Not after everything you've done!" one by one, only a few mares started to rise off the ground.
Seems they still had some fight in them.
"Screw this," another mare grunted, causing Dion to prepare himself for another short brawl.
As long as they didn't call for help from the main group.
Suddenly one of the mares whistled out. "MORAY!"
Following the loud whistle, probably a quirk from that member, a loud screech over many buildings ran out as the earth seemed to vibrate underfoot.
Quickly as the rumbling began, silence soon fell on the city. The vibrations stopped and a figure was seen in the air, hidden by the glare of the midday sun.
The figure rocketed down with their foot stretched right out, slamming into that one member of the motorhorse cowboy gang.
With the light gone, the figure that slammed into the outlaw came full into view.
"Ah, glad it's you." huffed the prison guard as the hero sidekick made herself known.
She smirked, "you seemed to have your hands full. Seems I wasn't really needed, but I'll lend a hand."
Another mare who struggled to her feet glared daggers at the arrival of the hero, "what happened...to Moray...?"
The hero waved her hand as she picked up the unconscious mare she kicked into next week. "Just like this guy, unconscious." giving a look back to the scene she came from, she added, "he put up a bit of a fuss when we heard that whistling, but nothing a good kick into the concrete didn't fix."
"Damn it," a completely different mare used the wall to stand. "You'll pay for that. That thing was a gift."
Dion pulled out a new bottle unfazed, giving the label a once over as he witnessed one of the criminals prepare themselves for combat, they all did.
"Resilience. Nice." A quick drink was shortly followed by a bunch of bubbles. "Very well, come on then!"
The hero sidekick beside him already jumped into action, kicking the goons around. Having no choice but to join in, Dion slammed a grunt into the wall.
"It'll be over in a matter of minutes."
Elsewhere, a group of four lurked in the shadows, ready to strike.
"Fuck this," one of the four figures huffed, his red eyes glaring below. "Are we really trusting this to Micah?"
Another man with trimmed yet messy dark purple hair sighed. "Please calm down, he came to you with this for some reason after all." waving his hand around while a third figure hanged back, he continued talking to the first. "Just give Arthur a chance, there had to be some other reason you agreed to this."
"If he was lying, then he'd be punished," the blonde retorted. "Seems like not all prisoners are liars." his tone was still chilling as usual as he headed off in some other way.
The fourth, a woman with a jackal's head, growled. "Silence." she hissed out as quietly as they could, being the only one keeping an serious eye out of the bunch.
Time passed and passed until she jumped down without warning. It was time to act.