Daiyu
Just because your former friend happens to be a convicted murderer who only recently escaped prison does not mean that you get the day off.
Koushi wasn't the only criminal on the streets, after all, and Tokyo was a busy city. There was no sense in leaving civilians defenseless to try and find one man, so Daiyu decided to continue with her work as per usual. Or, maybe not quite so conventional – this interaction was a bit... peculiar. Not only did she most often work at night, but the criminal in question was not something that she was used to handling, either.
"A... A scorpion?" she questioned, brows knit, and lips pursed as she glanced up at the civilian. He looked distraught, eyes swiveling every which way and face pale; panicked, searching. Perhaps the bureau she occasionally worked alongside called her in for this specifically because they were both arachnids?
"Yes! A big one," he erupted. "Like... huge. Bigger than you by a lot! It was crawlin' through this alley right here." He pointed with an aggressive, shaking finger down the narrow pathway. It was empty now and mostly illuminated by the midday sun. Though it was difficult to imagine a scorpion bigger than she was in there, anything was possible, Daiyu guessed.
"But it didn't hurt you," the young hero clarified. That was important to ask, so she knew how urgent the request was.
The man shook his head. "No, but you don't understand – it was the biggest scorpion I've ever seen in my life!"
Daiyu offered him a smile, soft and agreeable. "Okay, sir, well... we'll be sure to investigate," she assured him. "Please make sure you stay away from this area for a while until we understand what's going on."
"I... but-" he started, stammering, before cutting himself short with a sigh. "Yeah, yes. O-Of course. Thank you, Arachne."
She collected his information and entered it into the system on her phone – standard protocol – before finally going their separate ways. Perfect timing, too, because it was time for Daiyu's lunch break, and she had plans.
At precisely one o'clock her phone rang – a loud, obnoxious jingle from a popular new anime – and Daiyu picked it up.
"Heyyyyy!" Ari drawled immediately, chipper and excited as always. "We still on for that little cafe that just opened on the corner? Ya' know, the one next to that karaoke place."
"Of course!" Daiyu responded, expression bright as the smile crossing her lips. "I just got done talking to this guy about some kind of scorpion? Apparently, it was way bigger than me. Dunno, though– he looked real freaked out." Though she guessed she'd be scared, too, if a scorpion of that size showed up in front of her.
Ari made a knowing sound on the other line. "Ohhh. I think they've got scorpions like that in Australia. Maybe it came over on, like, some fruit or something?"
"Ah, yeah that makes sense," she agreed, making a quick stop by Mercy's agency to change into her civilian clothes. A red turtleneck and some black leggings would do for now – she was in a bit of a rush – and twisted her hair into a half-bun, pinned in place with a simple fazan. "I wonder why he didn't just call the exterminator, though. I feel like that's more their department, right?"
"Yeah, you'd think so. Maybe we can just keep an eye out," Ari hummed. "I got us a table, by the way!"
"Couldn't hurt," she agreed, then perked up as the café came into view and walked a little faster. "I'm almost there!"
Daiyu turned the corner and immediately spotted her roommate sitting by the window with gaze lingering out of its wide expanse, people watching. It took only a moment before they locked eyes and Ari stood from her seat, dropped her phone on the table, and pressed herself up against the glass with a huge grin on her face. The excitement was contagious, and Daiyu laughed, thrilled as she hurried inside and allowed herself to be swept off her feet and into an overjoyed embrace.
After a few minutes of shuffling, the two settled into seats across from each other and ordered their respective lunches, and Daiyu was promptly reminded that this was not a typical meetup.
"So, I couldn't get in touch with Otoba, but I've been talking to Wakana and Akito while you were at work," Ari began, green eyes piercing and concentrated intensely on Daiyu's own. She'd attempted to call each of their old classmates to get an indirect approximation of where they were at and what they planned on doing regarding Koushi. "Apparently Akito's been working with that Haze person on the Koushi case. I didn't tell him anything about what we've got planned, but he seems pretty set on capturing him and taking him back to prison."
"Makes sense. Akito has always been a lawful kinda' guy." Daiyu never expected anything different from him, after all, and it was unrealistic to think everyone felt similarly to the way they had on the subject. Still, it would have been nice to have him on their side. "What about Wakana?"
Ari shook her head. "Couldn't get a good enough read on her. It'd suck real bad if she wanted to, like, kill him or something."
Telling anyone prematurely and having them blow their plans out of the water would be the absolute worst outcome, so they had to be careful. It was a... sensitive topic, at the very least. Koushi hadn't been the most popular with everyone, so there were no doubt people looking to make him pay for what he'd done.
The whole situation just didn't sit well with Daiyu. Sure, Koushi had been a little bit of a troublemaker in school, and they didn't always get along, but toward the end she considered him a friend. He didn't seem like the type of person who could do something like... that.
She knew Ari felt similarly.
"Marin and Leon are talking about stuff," Ari continued, folding her napkin absently. "They wanna meet up later today and get our opinions on what to do."
It was a time-sensitive issue, and while they couldn't just drop everything and rush down to Kobe, someone had to look for him without giving themselves away. They needed to discuss everything – including what they would do if they did get caught, or if they found themselves in a confrontation with another Pro Hero; there were far more heroes who wanted to catch or kill Koushi than help him.
"Good idea. My shift ends at four, so maybe we can meet up at the apartment afterward?" Daiyu offered. Their apartment was much less conspicuous than the couple's condo, so it made more sense.
Ari nodded her head, beaming. "I can pick up some pizza before everybody gets there," she proclaimed. It would be better to discuss things at home where they didn't have to worry so much about prying eyes and ears, nor the surveillance the paparazzi hounded them with. The thirteen former Chikara students were under harsh scrutiny now, so it was critical to the mission to behave as normally as possible in public – hence the usual shifts and lunch dates. It was best to cover their tracks where they were able.
"That sounds great!" Daiyu chirped, whipping out her phone to shoot a quick text to Marin.
Pizza at our place! 4:30?
The response came just a few seconds later:
Hell yeah! C U there.
There was a string of emojis following the brief message – hearts and kissy faces, mostly, and Daiyu giggled before showing the phone screen to her companion.
"It's a date!" Ari announced with a clap of her hands, and that was the end of the conversation. The waiter brought out their pastries and boba and the two women were briefly content to bask in the food and the others company. There would be more time to talk everything through later.
But for now, this tea was amazing.
Akito
This situation was... not ideal. Prior to the breakout incident, Akito would have been willing to give Koushi the benefit of the doubt in the whole Kinetic case, but now... now, he wasn't so sure.
Previously, he couldn't have imagined Koushi killing anyone. Initially, in school, he'd been skeptical about the redhead, to say the least. To Akito, he was brash, hyperactive, mischievous, and an all-around nuisance. Over time, however, he got to know the other boy. Quite well, in fact, alluding to their somewhat brief romance during their third year. In his mind, there had been no way that Koushi would have ever stuck that knife in Kinetic's back – footage or no.
But now, with the escape – working with other villains, and even one who'd killed another Pro Hero...
He needed to be brought back to prison, to justice. That's all there was to it.
Mirei left earlier than Akito would have preferred. The younger hero had been run absolutely ragged when they dropped in the night before – brimming with too much energy and no outlet to rid themself of it. At the very least, they ate leftovers and passed out on Akito's couch for a while. He didn't know when they left exactly, but they left him a note on the kitchen counter alongside their snowflake mug, filled to the brim with long-since cold tea.
Thank you for letting me stay the night! I feel much better now.
Stay safe out there! Call if you need anything.
-Mir
Their print was messy and rushed, with a smiley face hastily drawn at the end. Mirei's tea was as good as their handwriting, but Akito drank it anyway.
He was only awake for around fifteen or twenty minutes before Ari called to check in with him. This normally wouldn't be an issue, because he loved her dearly, but there was so much going on that, overwhelmed, it had Akito cutting the call short. He couldn't go into detail on what his plans were about the situation, anyway, so there was little he could tell her except for his personal feelings.
Or, as much as he could share, anyway. Akito wasn't sure how to feel, but he was sure of what he needed to do. He was a hero, after all, and heroes brought villains to justice.
Both he and Mirei were on the same page in that regard. It was admirable that the younger hero offered to take the lead on the case, especially considering how many heroes young and old were personally affected by Koushi's betrayal and Kinetic's death. None of the former class were able to do it, and many older Pros had too much of a personal vendetta to be involved as more than backup.
Just because Akito was too intimately invested to lead the case didn't mean he couldn't help. He'd donned his hero costume – layered white robes with red accents and a singular red robe over the top of it, flowy and easy to move in – and hurried down to Kobe to look around.
There was no sense in concealing his identity, of course. His father was the chief of police, working hands-on with the case, so it was only natural for him to be involved. Besides, Mirei had requested Akito's assistance with the investigation, trusting that he could keep his emotions in check enough to keep a level head and do the right thing, which felt... nice, to have someone place such faith in him. Especially in such a volatile situation.
He had been in Kobe for most of the day, and it was... oddly normal. Or as normal as it could be, with police crawling the streets and the roads to the prison blocked off entirely. People bustled around and went about their daily lives, a few Pros here and there intermingled with the locals. Akito even spotted Jetstream flying overhead a few times, though he didn't think the older man had landed at any point.
There was no hint of criminal activity, though it would be foolish for any villain to attempt anything, especially here, so Akito wasn't expecting that. It was just odd – anticlimactic, even - for it to be such a beautiful, sunny day, with so many people behaving in an unbothered fashion, even with the threat of a murderer lingering among them.
After about six hours of combing the streets, greeting people who recognized him in his hero outfit, and coming up with absolutely no clues as to where Hado could have gone, Akito was nearly ready to call it quits for now, or maybe start up search in a neighboring city, when something caught his eye.
A familiar head of black-and-blond spikes advanced through a small crowd of people and made their way down an alley.
Naturally, Akito followed. There was no being stealthy in his flashy hero outfit, so instead of sneaking up on the person, he decided to address them directly.
"Otoba?" he called, and the shorter man spun around, green eyes flashing wide for a moment before he fell into an easy grin.
"Akito!" he greeted in return, shoving his hands into the pockets of the hoodie he was wearing. "Thought I saw ya hangin' around out there. How've ya been?"
He sounded remarkably casual for how bizarre this encounter was. Akito was not close with Otoba – hadn't seen him in months, really, apart from on the news here and when the other took out a villain. Yet, from what Akito understood, Otoba only handled small, localized cases. Nothing too grand.
Although… he had been good friends with Koushi, hadn't he? The two spent plenty of time together in school. Perhaps he was here for more personal reasons.
"I am... alright," Akito responded carefully, standing up a straighter and training his face into a gentle smile. "How have you been?"
Otoba, in contrast, relaxed and offered him a lopsided grin. "Ah, ya know. The usual," he said, tone breezy and calm. "Kana and I played some tunes at my club last week. Donated the proceeds t' one of those charities she partners with. Was a blast, really – ya should stop by sometime if ya can."
Akito really would rather not stop by a nightclub, of all places. Otoba had always been discordant, in his memory, and Wakana was rough around the edges. They weren't bad people, by any means, but they were quite different from Akito, and he only knew about them through third-party sources like Koushi (Hado) and Ari.
It was nice that the two of them still spent time together, though. Akito remembered Hado complaining on several occasions about Otoba's "huge, insufferable heart boner," for Wakana – perhaps they'd figured out those feelings.
He pulled a fan out of his pocket and lifted it over his mouth to hide the more genuine smile that spread across his face at the thought. He wasn't close to either of them, but it was nice to think that they might have connected in such an intimate way. Hado had been delighted about the prospect of that potential relationship, and so Akito had, in a way, become a bit invested in them, himself.
"I will consider it," he assured, and his smile vanished. They weren't here to catch up. "Would you mind if I ask why you're here?"
Otoba's own expression faltered a bit before he shifted his weight and took a deep breath. "Ah, well... same reason you are, I suppose." Akito highly doubted that if he were being completely honest.
"Are you here to capture Hado as well?" Akito questioned. Better to be direct about it than to beat around the bush.
The shorter man's brows furrowed together at that, and the grin disappeared from his face. "Hado?" he asked incredulously, narrowing his eyes. "Ya were friends with the guy for how long? I caught th' two of ya suckin' face multiple times – the guy wouldn't shut th' fuck up about ya for months, and he's Hado now?"
Akito felt his cheeks threaten to heat up despite the fact it had been nearly five years since anything like that had occurred. Four, if he counted that one time after graduation...
"He is a criminal," he defended, tightening his grip on his fan. The thin wood creaked beneath the strength of his fingers. "It is my job to bring him back to prison."
Otoba stared at him for a moment, unreadable, before speaking again. "Maybe th' two of us ain't here for the same thing," he said. It was likely that he was being vague on purpose, so that Akito had nothing to go off of legally and couldn't investigate him further. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go," he stated thereafter, squaring his shoulders, and moving to brush past Akito and return to the street.
It took an incredible feat of self-control not to reach out and grab Otoba's shoulder to halt him in his tracks, so they could speak face to face instead of having to do so like this. "Then why are you here, exactly?" he blurted, feeling his own eyes narrow in dissatisfaction, irritation fizzling beneath the surface of his skin. This conversation was... frustrating, to say the least.
"Like I'd tell ya now, ya fuckin' stick-in-the-mud," Otoba stated, his tone much less angry than his words might suggest. Briefly, he glanced over his shoulder and offered Akito a challenging smirk. "Good luck with your job. Hope upholdin' the law, or whatever, works out real well for ya."
Then, he turned the corner and vanished from view, leaving Akito feeling... unsettled, to put it mildly. It hadn't really occurred to him that anyone would be so opposed to what seemed to be the correct thing to do.
To what was the correct thing to do, he reminded himself.
He was a hero. He took dangerous criminals off the streets and kept the public safe. Hado Koushi was one of those dangerous criminals.
As much as he might wish otherwise.
Leon
It was smart move to have this discussion at Daiyu and Ari's apartment. The mood was much more relaxed than he expected originally, what with the jailbreak the day before and all. That certainly threw a rather large wrench into their plans, but they were... handling it.
Sort of.
Leon was perched at the corner of the girls' pale pink couch, wrapped up in a silk duvet that Daiyu had no-doubt made at some point this year. Marin was settled beside him, resting against his legs -they both had paper plates laden with slices of pizza on top. Ari ordered too much, because of course she did, but it was probably a good thing considering that none of them ate much in the last twenty-four hours.
"So, the situation isn't ideal," Marin said carefully, having finished her first piece of pizza. "But I think we could work with this."
"We have to," Leon stated. "Besides, we weren't really getting anywhere before, anyway. It may be easier now that we might have the chance to talk to him." They'd been trying to gather information – in Marin, Ari, and Daiyu's case, for years – and had little to no success. Leon was torn over it at first, closing himself off from everyone out of suspicion and hurt, but after reconnecting with Marin earlier in the year, he had a change of heart. The whole situation didn't make much sense, and he joined the three girls in their search to find out why.
The lack of details on the case had been frustrating, ultimately, and did little except for reaffirm that their suspicions were on the right track. This wasn't normal, and they had to get to the bottom of it.
"The most important thing is finding him, right?" Daiyu asked from where she was curled up with Ari on the loveseat. The two of them were closer than Leon and Marin were presently, legs intertwined and sharing a plate of pizza.
Leon asked Marin if the other women were dating when he first met them and received only a long-suffering sigh in response. Apparently, the duo was completely oblivious to their own feelings for each other, and Marin forbade any intervention on Leon's part – not that he was planning on saying anything. He could see how watching them dance around such obvious affection would be frustrating after so long, though.
However, the two of them seemed happy and that was all that mattered, he supposed.
"Yeah, I think we need to find him before anyone else does," Ari responded through a mouthful of pepperoni. "But maybe we should be careful? I mean, I don't think Koushi would, like, do anything to any of us, but just to be safe, you know?"
"You? Playing it safe?" Leon questioned, skeptical. It drew a charming laugh out of the watermelon-haired girl, and she leaned further into Daiyu's shoulder.
"Hey! I'm doin' my best," she complained playfully in return.
Daiyu pat her shoulder placatingly. "It's good not to just rush in," she told her, and Ari offered the spider girl a smile that was far too fond to come from a "bestie."
"Maybe we should approach him in a public setting, if possible?" Marin pitched in, ever the strategist. If this weren't such a serious situation, Leon might've thought more on how cute she looked, so deep in thought. "We wouldn't want him to feel cornered or trapped, so a more casual approach might be best? Remember, we're just looking for information. We don't want to drag him with us kicking and screaming."
"Rules out you or Ari being the ones to find him," Leon pointed out. "You two are too popular to be able to go out without being noticed, so it would probably be best for Daiyu or me to go looking for him, instead."
Being underground heroes, the public wasn't aware of their full names, or even of who they were when they took off the costumes. They had distinctive appearances, sure, but so did Ari and Marin, and the other two were much more likely to get swarmed in a public setting. If he and Daiyu wore concealing clothing, they'd be alright.
"Sounds good to me," Daiyu agreed quickly. "It's safest that way for all of us, isn't it?"
Both Marin and Ari looked uncomfortable with the idea, concerned on their respective partner's behalf, but they were heroes- they knew the risks.
"Alright," Marin acquiesced, taking a deep breath through her nose. "So, Ari and I will continue work as usual, and you two will go to Kobe and the surrounding towns to look for Koushi."
"What if they encounter another Pro? Like if they have different plans for Koushi, and wanna throw him back in prison or something?" Ari piped up.
Marin narrowed her eyes a bit. "Do not engage. It's important that we find him, but not important enough to risk your lives in a pointless fight," she said. "And if you get caught, deny everything - Ari and I will figure out a way to help you." It wasn't exactly the most foolproof of plans, but it wasn't like they had any better options.
Leon nodded in agreement. "Heading out sooner rather than later would be for the best," he stated, aiming an apologetic look toward his girlfriend. "Daiyu, if you're good with it, we can leave by nightfall?"
"Yeah, I can go grab some stuff after we eat and we can head out," Daiyu responded, glancing over to her roommate for confirmation.
Ari nudged Daiyu's shoulder with a small smirk. "Be safe out there," was all she said, but Leon didn't think he was imagining the way she reached over to squeeze the other girl's hand.
He did the same with Marin and pressed a kiss to her cheek. This would likely be the longest he'd been apart from Marin since they reconnected. It felt strange and awful, preparing to leave the best thing that had ever happened to him – even if it wasn't permanent. It would probably be a while before the four of them would see each other again, and it wasn't like this was the safest thing they'd ever done.
But it was Koushi. It was their friend that they were talking about.
It couldn't possibly be that bad, could it?
An -
Hi again! I'm in a writing mood now - Yu and I are having a ton of fun with this story, and it's kind of taken our minds off of real life stuff, so it's been an amazing escape lately. Thank you again for reading, reviewing, and being so kind in the discord. We're having a blast, and we hope everyone is enjoying this journey as much as we are.
-Van
