Disclaimer: The intellectual property rights to Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 belong to Atlus and its respective creative directors, as does the My Hero Academia series, with Kohei Horikoshi.
Author's Notes: Updates will be sporadic at best from here on out. Sorry.
0.0
"Excuse us," Itsuka murmured, bowing as she crossed the threshold to his former apartment.
When Yu hadn't shown up at the time she had promised them, Arisato Minato couldn't hide a frown. When she didn't respond to neither his texts nor his calls, he couldn't sit still. When she opened the front door to their apartment, looking dead on her feet, he couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or…
Minato heaved a quiet sigh of relief as he followed after Itsuka.
"Your calls went straight to voice-mail," he told Yu. "Do you know what time it is?"
The woman palmed a hand over her eyes, looking up at him blearily. "I'm guessing there's still light out?" She yawned, hanging her head forward as she mumbled, "Sorry, I got held up at HQ this morning. I barely got home a few hours ago. Guess I forgot to charge the damn thing."
Minato shook his head. "Maybe we should rethink today's patrol," he said. "You're exhausted."
The past few days had not been kind on Yu and it showed. In between her reassigned night-time patrols and her liaison role in the 'Hero Killer' investigation, she barely had time for herself, much less them.
The state of the apartment mirrored that.
His hand inched towards his modest dining table, cluttered as it was with hand-written notes and police missives, and swiped the surface with a forefinger. He held up the dust-coated finger to her.
Yu swatted at him.
"It's fine—I'm fine, Minato. However bad you think this is, I've slogged through worse." She clasped Itsuka by her shoulders, and dragged the younger girl between them. "Besides, Itsuka only has a few more days with us. God only knows that I've been a terrible mentor."
The girl in question looked uncomfortable. "You're not," she said. "But could you maybe not use me as a meat shield?"
Yu was nonplussed. "C'mon!" She shook Itsuka lightly. "We owe it to her, Minato. We owe it to the next generation of heroes! To teach them what it truly takes to become one!"
"You're delirious," Minato said.
"Nuh-uh! I'm all fired—" a sudden yawn overcame the woman, "—up…"
"Uhm," Itsuka started. "I'm not gonna lie and say that I haven't been looking forward to the patrol." She turned to Yu, saying, "But you've been really busy with work. I get that. I'm not going to blame you for wanting some time for yourself to rest."
"Aww, you're such a sweetheart."
"Plus, I've been learning a lot from sparring with Minato-senpai. He's really good. Half the stuff he does with that sword of his is—"
"Oh God!" Yu pushed Itsuka away, covering her eyes in mock dismay. "I don't need to hear what my hot-blooded interns get up to when I'm not around to supervise them!"
Itsuka was naive enough to be embarrassed, but Minato saw it for what it was—a clever attempt at deflection. He frowned at Yu.
"I don't like it," he told her. "Your judgement will be impaired. I've seen it happen enough."
He was speaking from experience.
Juggling the triple-threat of his studies, a social life, and his extracurricular activities with SEES had consumed every waking minute of his old life. He had no idea how he had accomplished as much as he had without being utterly sleep-deprived.
"Honestly, I appreciate that you're looking out for me," Yu said. "But I can work through this, Minato. It's just for today. I already swapped my schedule so I could have this with the two of you. Besides, this means that I'm freed up for the whole day tomorrow." She sidled next to him, nudging him with an elbow. "Itsuka can't keep having you for herself. Maybe it's time you show me how good you are with that big sword of yours, huh?"
"I never said it was big!"
Mechanically, they turned towards their youngest charge; Yu, with a widening grin, and him, with a raised eyebrow. Itsuka, for her part, lifelessly slumped down onto the couch. She clenched her eyes shut, and mimed a 'T' with her hands.
"You okay, Itsuka?" Yu asked. "You made it a little too easy there—like shooting fish in a barrel."
The girl kept quiet but gestured with her hands, re-emphasising the 'T'.
Unwilling to prolong his underclassman's torment, Minato pointed Yu towards the en-suite bathroom. "Go and wash up. We're due for patrol soon."
"Why are you so eager to get me out of the room all of a sudden?" Yu wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
"We're running late," he said. "And you're not helping."
"And you're no fun." Yu stuck her tongue out at him. "Fine, fine. Just let me go grab my things."
The woman scampered around the apartment, collecting her clothes and toiletries, before she sequestered herself in the bathroom; not before leaving them a few choice words, much to Itsuka's chagrin.
Itsuka slung an arm over her face and groaned at the ceiling. "Is this why you're so… reserved, senpai? To stop her from baiting you?"
Minato blinked.
"No," he said, after a pause. "But it helps."
0.0
It was one thing for Arisato Minato to wear his costume in school during lessons, but to wear it out in public so openly? That didn't sit well with him. Even if his costume was more practical than flashy, it didn't mean that he didn't get self-conscious.
Especially now…
"Three, two, one, and… cheese~~!"
Yu had pulled both him and Itsuka close, her phone held out at an arm's length, as she tried to take a wide-angle selfie. Thankfully, they were in a deserted corridor of the local district police station in Odaiba; after Yu had done the necessary check-ins prior to the start of their patrol. The older woman frowned when she checked her phone.
"Would it honestly kill you to smile?" she asked Minato. "It's our first patrol together, and it's the first time my interns are decked out in their cute little costumes. I wanna frame it up and put it in the office."
"You said the same when we had dinner the other night."
"I'm a sentimental idiot," Yu grumbled. "What's your excuse?"
When he tried to walk away, she grabbed ahold of his scarf and refused to let go, even as he swatted at her hands; it was a fatal flaw in an otherwise well-meaning gift. Yu gave him the deadest of stares. Minato couldn't hold out for much longer and gave in to a second take.
"It's funny," Yu said, blithely. "This is probably the first picture I have of you where you're not openly scowling at the camera. I know you got the quiet bad boy thing going on, but girls appreciate a little honey now and then—just to know that guys have a different side to 'em. Ain't that right, Battle Fist?"
Itsuka, dressed in a figure-hugging blue qipao, held her hands up and shook her head, her expression serene.
"Still going at that vow of silence, huh?"
The girl nodded plainly.
"I got twelve hours before my shift ends. And you two are going to spend the next six with me. Let's see how far I can take it before you crack."
Itsuka sighed, deflating. "Please don't…"
Time idled away as they settled into an easy rhythm patrolling the bustling waterfront district of Odaiba. The area reminded him of Tatsumi Port Island, with its retail malls and leisure attractions. The only downside was that they weren't there to have fun. Any kind of enthusiasm Itsuka had shown had quickly been tempered once the stark reality of what a patrol entailed sunk in.
"Go… right," Yu explained in halting English to a tourist, gesturing to the map on the man's phone. "Down subway. Take Rinkai-sen. Stop Ebisu-eki." She wiggled her fore and middle fingers. "Take Hibiya-sen. Then stop Roppongi-eki!"
Her subsequent smile was like a child figuring out a shape-sorter toy.
Minato and Itsuka could only hang back and watch from a distance, but his underclassman's disappointment was as plain as day.
"I feel like my precious childhood memories are being crushed right before my eyes," Itsuka mumbled next to him. "I mean, when you were growing up and you'd see all these amazing Pro Heroes, you'd never expect the other side to be so…"
"Dull?" Minato added.
Itsuka nodded wearily. "This is like the third time we've been stopped by tourists asking for directions and—" she shuddered, "—that."
"Never met a foreign cape before. Are you famous here in Japan?" the tourist, a man with auburn hair, asked Yu in English. "Honestly, you're something else. Mind if I take a picture with you and that Chinese ninja girl?"
"The two of you are surprisingly popular," Minato conceded.
"So he's talking about me then?" Itsuka's smile was strained. "It's almost inevitable at this point."
In contrast, Yu's smile was more genial, if a little too polished. "No selfie now," she replied in English. "Sorry. Hero business."
To the man's obvious disappointment, Yu chose that moment to walk away and signalled them to follow along. "Pro tip number one, boys and girls: if you're not wearing a full-face mask, you gotta learn how to control your emotions, especially in public." She pinched Itsuka on her cheek lightly. "Practise in front of a mirror. It helps."
Itsuka bowed in apology. "Sorry, it's a lot to take in."
"Does that happen often?" Minato asked.
"Guys being creeps? Yeah, sorta." Yu took a finger to her chin, then added, "Usually it's the foreigners who don't know who you are that will try something. If your costume is even remotely flattering, then you're practically a walking pair of legs-slash-help desk."
Itsuka made a face, laughing weakly. "It can't be that bad, right? At least it's just the tourists?"
"Hate to break it to you," Yu said, deadpan. "Pro tip number two: if you ever come across your name online, do not read the comments. I've been down that rabbit hole more than once. Even if it starts off nice and innocent, it's almost always guaranteed to get worse."
Itsuka paled beneath her mask. "Oh…"
"It's the reality you have to face. And unless All Might suddenly professes that he's been wearing a skirt underneath his spandex tights all along, there's only so much you can do on your own to change things."
"But that doesn't mean that it won't," Minato said. "Changing that perception doesn't come overnight."
"Yeah…" Yu shook her head, saying, "Yeah, exactly. I've always seen it as a well-intentioned pyramid scheme." She smiled and clasped the two of them by the shoulder. "I reach out to the two of you, and you two do the same to two others, and those four each get two of their own, and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to advocate for womankind by becoming a Pro Hero. I know there are issues out there that are just as important, if not more so." Yu scratched at her temple, sheepish. "But I have made a few missteps early on in my career that I regret now. I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did—either of you."
Minato gave her an odd look at being mentioned.
"Some things are above gender inequality," she told him.
Itsuka, who had her head bowed, nodded slowly. "You know," she said. "They don't teach you stuff like this at UA. It's enlightening to hear insight from a pro out in the field—enlightening but… depressing at the same time."
"That's the life you chose." Yu shrugged. "A rose is a rose, but you can't overlook the fact that it's sitting in a pile of cow poo. It's the same with hero work. It can be a dirty, thankless job, but it has its way of rewarding you."
Itsuka blinked. "Wow… That's actually kind of deep."
"I'm surprised it made sense," Minato said.
Yu made the motion to grab ahold of his scarf again, but he leaned well out of her reach. "You, of all people, should be well aware of my genius by now," she said, huffing. "Now, come back here and accept your punishment like a man."
He didn't budge an inch. "I think we gave you too much coffee back at the station."
Yu failed to smother a smile. "Oh, yeah? How about I—" Sadly, it was short-lived. "Shoot. Wait a sec, I got a call coming in." She shushed them with a finger and tapped at her ear. "Mount Lady here… That's right. I'm in Sector-4A with—"
That was all he heard before she walked away out of earshot.
"What do you think that's about?" Itsuka asked him.
"Your guess is as good as mine."
Thankfully, her call didn't last for much longer. Yu returned to them, frowning. "Okay, HN-Despatch just told me that we'll be on standby. The police are running a sting operation in the area and they need us for crowd control if things get hinky."
Itsuka winced. "Is it the Hero Killer?"
"No, it's Trigger-related." Even as Yu smiled, Minato could see how brittle it was. "Relax, it'll be fine—Slugger's there. He's running point alongside the police." She slung an arm around Itsuka, saying, "How about that, huh? You two might actually get to see some action on your first day out."
"So it's just crowd control?" Minato asked. "Nothing more than that?"
Yu rolled her eyes at him. "We're expecting quite a bit of foot traffic in the area, so we'll likely end up observing from afar. It's not as if you two have your provisional licences. You can't imagine the amount of paperwork I'd have to go through if shit hits the fan."
"Uhm, you're kind of throwing red flags everywhere," Itsuka said.
" Pffft … No way! My luck can't be that bad!"
0.0
StarJK69 (You): Are we still on? You didn't forget rite?
BigDaddy_Kugs: Location pinned.
BigDaddy_Kugs: Bring the agreed amount.
Hachisuka Kuin hummed idly under her breath.
Shady 'under-the-table' dealings in a secluded alley were such a cliché, she realised. Still, there was just no looking past the sheer convenience of it. With the way Tokyo was built up as a metropolis, it was easy to find a hiding hole in one of its many nooks and crannies.
Kuin stuffed her phone back into her jacket and walked towards the mouth of the alley, but quickly paused in her steps. Given how tall the surrounding buildings were, parts of the alley were mired in barely-lit darkness.
She wasn't unprepared, however.
Although her Quirk wasn't the most effective in a direct fight, she was not without a means to bust her way out of trouble. Her little bees had been outfitted to carry doses of Trigger and liquid explosives; their mutation having allowed them to house toxins in their specialised stingers. It wasn't without its drawbacks, however; using them usually led to their deaths, which in turn took a toll on her health.
Surreptitiously, Kuin directed one of her carrier bees at the slowly approaching figure.
"S-StarJK69?"
Kugutsu was a timid-looking man. Dressed in a well-worn and ill-fitting suit, he had his shoulders hunched and head bowed, as he cradled a suitcase flush against his chest. His eyes, narrowed to the point that they were almost slits, shifted uncomfortably, as if they were looking at something past her.
"Ehhh~~?" Her voice was lighter—airier—as she blinked slowly. "What'cha talking about, mister?"
"You're the one who messaged me, right? StarJK69? I'm BigDaddy. You asked me about the… about the drugs—Trigger?" he added in a low whisper. "I have what you want."
He fumbled for his suitcase, undoing the latch. In doing so, it slipped out of his grasp, spilling its contents on the ground. They were toys—figurines of famous Pro Heroes; she spied All Might, the familiar red, blue and yellow, among them.
"A-Ah, shit!"
Kugutsu scrambled to retrieve his figurines, sinking to his hands and knees as he hastily dumped them back into his suitcase. Once more, his nerves betrayed him, and his eyes strayed past her.
It was almost sad how bad it was.
No rival faction worth their salt would succumb to… this, unless it was a next-level attempt at misdirection. It could only mean that Kugutsu had been turned to work as an informant for either the police or the Pro Heroes—more likely both. The knowledge did bring her some measure of relief. When one side had to abide by self-imposed rules, that made her life comparably easier.
She didn't have to turn around; to do so would give her away. Instead, she directed more bees to latch onto nearby civilians. It gave her a limited form of awareness, forming a mental map of all the moving bodies in her vicinity. As a group of five individuals made a literal beeline for her location, she started to slowly back out of the alley.
"You're like, seriously freaking me out, mister," Kuin said.
"W-Wait, you reached out to me! No one else knows that I'm in Tokyo!" Kugutsu staggered forward, holding his hands out, as if ready to physically stop her from escaping. "Y-You must work for them, right? H-Help me! I can still be use—"
That was enough.
"Pervert!" she screamed. "Molester! Help! Someone, please help!"
Cue exit stage left.
Kuin didn't get far before she was accosted by a team of four non-uniformed officers and a Pro Hero leading the way.
The Pro Hero, a man, was tall and skinny. He had gravity-defying orange hair, and wore a slitted face mask that broke vertically across his face. His costume was a loose pinstripe baseball uniform bastardised with protective padding over his shoulders and joints.
"The pervert is in there!" Kuin shouted. "He tried to grope me, Pro Hero-san!"
Kuin clenched her eyes shut and crashed into the Pro Hero in mock distress, clinging onto the front of his uniform. The small act of misdirection allowed a carrier bee to latch onto the folds of his costume.
She was pushed away forcibly.
The man lowered his weapon, a grey metal bat with a black handle, but not his guard. The officers backing him up started to surround her from all sides, at a distance. "Pro Hero: Slugger," he introduced himself. "What were you doing in that alley, miss?"
Kugutsu chose that moment to stumble out of the alley.
"He's right there!"
Slugger visibly tensed. "Miss, you haven't answered my question: what were you doing in there?"
Kuin feigned confusion and spared a look at those around her—at the civilian passers-by and the officers—but didn't quite meet the eyes of the Pro Hero. She tried to project herself to appear smaller by withdrawing her body into herself.
In another life, she could have seen herself as an actress.
"I s-saw something moving," she answered. "And I thought it was a hungry kitty… But it turned out to be that man and he was really weird and he asked me if I was a high school girl who liked to 'sixty-nine' a-and—" she trailed off and pressed her face into her hands, heaving quietly.
The crowd grew with each passing moment, as did their incomprehensible murmurs and pointed stares. No one dared to intervene, but plenty had started to record with their phones.
One of the officers broke rank and sidled next to Slugger, whispering lowly into his ear. He turned back to Kuin. "Miss, I need you to follow my instructions to the letter, do you understand?"
Shakily, Kuin nodded.
"Good. The police will escort you back to the station to be vetted, and they'll call in your parents to sort things out. Right now, I need you to surrender everything you have on your person so that it can be submitted for an examination." Slugger motioned to an officer; a brown-haired woman with an unremarkable face. "This is Sergeant Hanakawa. You will pass her your belongings and she will search your person thereafter. Is that clear?"
Kuin shook her head. "W-Why am I being punished when I didn't do anything wrong?"
"Miss, you walked into an active police investigation. We need to take every precaution necessary to ensure the public's safety. Just to be clear, you were never in any danger, and if everything checks out, all of this will be cleared up in the next few hours."
Kuin looked around.
The on-going commotion had drawn an even bigger crowd. More patrol cars had arrived on scene, accompanied by the wailing cries of police sirens. They were ably supported by a trio of Pro Heroes, working in tandem, to corral the masses away.
She couldn't delay her escape; her best means to do so was to lose the police in the crowd. Thankfully, she knew exactly what to do.
An overdose of Trigger, concentrated thrice over, would cause an immediate reaction, weakening the user's sense of self and reason, and drastically boosting their Quirk capabilities. Of the handful she had with her, Kuin sent out the remaining carrier bees over the area, into the now dispersing crowd.
Kuin primed her carrier bees.
"Ah, I understand, Pro Hero-san," she said quietly. "I guess there's no other way…"
And ordered them to attack.
"Bu—Arrrgh!"
Slugger fell to his knees, screaming his throat raw, as his body bulged and distended unnaturally. His frame grew bulkier, almost top heavy, as he filled out his once loose uniform entirely; Kuin spied thick, wiry veins protruding through the fabric of his uniform.
"Slugger!"
The Pro Hero turned towards the officers fully, all of whom had their weapons drawn on him. He tilted his head up, as if tasting the air, and the faintest wisp of orange smoke escaped through the mouth slit in his mask. Quick as a whip, Slugger hefted his metal bat sideways and mimed the act of slamming it into the mid-section of Sergeant Hanakawa. There was no contact, but a second later, the female officer folded into the blow and was thrown bodily across the street, into a display window of a family restaurant.
"Hanakawa's down! Hanakawa's down!" one of the officers shouted. "Watch out for Kugutsu!"
Kugutsu had his hands pressed against his face as he slammed his head into a concrete wall—again, and again, and again. Her target laughed incomprehensibly as thick coagulated blood trickled from his wounded forehead. It quickly assimilated into his skin, and the scarlet tar-like substance stretched and swelled to knit flesh and muscle over his person. He grew not just in size, but an extra pair of arms, and did not stop until he towered over the waterfront district.
"Scenario A! Scenario A! Trigger victims are attacking the crowd! Call up a Disaster Level: ORANGE!"
"Someone call for backup!"
Shots reverberated around her as the quick hiss and snap of pistol fire flew over her head—at the colossal being now gleefully taking its first steps away from the scene. Kuin thanked her lucky stars and did the same, slipping inside the crowd and disappearing into the ensuing chaos.
0.0
The fear in the air was tangible.
'Listen to me…' Yu's voice had been soft, encouraging, 'I trust you, Minato. I trust your judgement. And I trust that, above all else, you'll do everything within your power to do what's right.'
Arisato Minato could see it on the faces of the fleeing civilians, could hear their anguished screams meld together—only before the thunderous roar of an explosion rippled through the streets. Somewhere behind them, where the civilians were escaping towards, he spied thick billowing smoke, the strong acrid smell soon reaching his senses. He glimpsed forward, just as Yu activated her Quirk to engage the colossal being that was weaving in and around the surrounding buildings, wreaking havoc on the streets.
'You're a hero. A natural-born leader. I can see it. So help these people, Minato. Save them.'
Itsuka was standing next to him.
She tried to look the part, but her eyes gave her away. He could tell. Her emotions flickered like a broken kaleidoscope—fear, anticipation, anger. Still, the girl tried to hide the quiver in her hands by clenching her fists tight.
"Leader," she called out softly. "What do we do?"
Being called a leader had brought him back, even if it wasn't their voices calling out for him. He could imagine it, however. That feeling of déjà vu was pervasive. It was the same now as it was then. He could see himself standing on that rooftop alone with Yukari, as a massive shadow bore down upon them.
Yet, it wasn't.
Here, Itsuka was waiting for him. And she wasn't the only one.
In that all-encompassing darkness in which he was the centre, the light that shone down upon him grew stronger, pulsating like a fervent heartbeat. A winged messenger descended from the heavens, his very being bathing Minato's subconscious in his light and purifying the inky darkness as if it were a mere stain.
Uriel.
The Flame of God.
His veneration may have come as an afterthought, but for as long as the embers of humanity had burned, there were plenty that spoke of his great deeds. His, after all, was a God-given purpose—to carry the word of God down upon the realm of mortals. It so rarely ended there. Battles had been waged in God's name, and in the same breadth, they had been won.
His words carried weight so that the light did not break.
His words carried strength so that the light would not yield.
And as the light gained purchase, his spirit was lifted and a purpose was made clear.
"Mahamaon."
A brilliant veil of light shimmered beneath his feet, and his stride grew more assured, lighter, as the very ground he walked on became hallowed. He felt power surge through him, that all-too-familiar strength swelling in his core.
Itsuka looked at him in awe. "Why are we glowing?" the girl asked; gone were the nerves. She tested the strength in her hands, clenching and unclenching her fists. "God, I feel like I could punch through a truck."
The being inside him compelled Minato to punish her for taking His name in vain; others have died for less. Minato shrugged it off. Instead, he gestured at Itsuka to follow him, at a sprint. "We circle around. Save the civilians. Then come back to help Mount Lady," he said. "Don't stray too far. The effects will get weaker."
As they pushed forward, there were plenty that flocked to him. Being a literal beacon of light, people sought safety and comfort under his aegis, but they directed the now sandwiched crowd to fall back. Most funnelled into smaller intersections, away from the battle, and others barricaded themselves inside businesses in the area.
Further ahead, where the blanketing fumes were thickest, bodies littered the street. Even from afar, he could tell that some of those unfortunate souls had passed.
Itsuka gasped.
"Hey, look at me," he told her gently, blocking her view of the massacre. Cerulean blue eyes burrowed into his. "We need to clear the area first. There's still people we can save."
Something shot out from within the smoke—a woman, who was more of a contorting mess of limbs and flesh than an actual person. She was fast, almost a blur, as she latched onto a nearby building, digging her bladed hands and feet into concrete and scaling up its side. Minato could hear the sounds of ligaments cracking and popping, as her head twisted and was lowered to rest flat against her back. She let loose a warbled cry, as if resonating her anguish, and skittered around the surrounding buildings like a spider, using the thick smog as cover.
Like a switch, Itsuka was all-business.
"She's fast," the girl noted. "We can't fight on her terms. It'd take forever to whittle her down if she keeps jumping around like that. We need to draw her in and hit her hard."
"Can you hold her down if you get an opening?"
His underclassman gave him the faintest of nods. "I can bait her."
"Do it."
When Itsuka activated her Quirk, he was reminded again of how scarred and calloused her hands were. "Let's get this out of the way first," she said. With her enlarged hands, Itsuka waved her arms forward, generating a gust of wind that dissipated the smoke in the immediate area.
A high-pitched screech reached his ears and Minato caught sight of the woman.
"Hey! Lady! Over here!" Itsuka clapped her hands, the meaty smack of flesh against flesh resounding like a mini-thunderclap. "Come on! You wanna fight? Try me for a change!"
With a clumsy but forceful leap, the woman threw herself off the side of a building and landed roughly on the streets before them, her ungainly limbs digging footholds into the asphalt to gain purchase. She reared on her feet, raising one of her bladed hands aloft, and jerkily twisted her arm at the elbow, as if it was a spring to be wound. The flesh grew taut, tightening to the point that her skin ripped apart like a sheet of cloth, exposing the raw muscle coiled underneath.
The limb started whirring like a drill.
"We can save her, right?" Itsuka murmured. "You have a plan?"
"Yes," he said. "Mind your feet."
The woman charged at them, head on.
Minato readied himself. There was a knack to the timing. Too early and the woman might veer away from his trap; leave it too late and Itsuka would suffer for his mistake.
Fire came to him easily, as if it had a mind of its own. Even at a portion of its actual strength, the zealousness of the fire mirrored his persona's. He knelt down and pressed his hands flat against the asphalt. With a palm held out, Minato didn't draw upon the flames. Instead, he directed the heat to sink into the road, the superheated surface melting and turning into blackened slurry.
Screeching, the woman's bladed limbs sunk into the blistering viscous asphalt, and it slowed her down just within reach of Itsuka's enlarged hands.
"Now!"
His underclassman scooped the woman up, pulling her away from his trap, and through grit teeth, slammed her down onto the concrete pavement hard enough to jostle her in a momentary daze. Scurrying on her feet, Itsuka re-positioned herself to gain leverage, pinning the now flailing woman flat on the ground.
Minato reacted before Itsuka could even muster a word in reply. Another persona came to the fore, and he reached forward, clasping the woman's head between his hands. The soft, translucent glow of Amrita washed over her temples. The effects dawned on the woman slowly. Beneath the curtain of black hair that hung over her face like a veil, he could see a spark of clarity reach her red-rimmed eyes. Her features then twisted into an ugly grimace.
"Let her go," he said.
Itsuka released her slowly, deactivating her Quirk as she did.
"W-What—What did I do?" the woman cried, hoarse. She looked at her bloodied and tarred hands, the bladed appendages retracting back into her skin. "Oh God… What did I do?" The terrible realisation must have hit her then, as her eyes surveyed her surroundings. She curled into a ball and sobbed into the crook of her uninjured arm.
Her grief was vulnerable, raw.
Itsuka shared a look with him, and knelt down to whisper lowly into the woman's ear.
This wasn't something he could waive away with his abilities. Even if it was only a temporary reprieve, doing anything more would be to paper over the cracks of a growing chasm. Altering her state of mind, only to allow her to fall back into despair… It wasn't a fate he would wish upon—
Screams pierced the air.
The ground shook. Like a geyser teeming with pent-up pressure, a spurt, an explosion—a combination of both—erupted on the streets, sending massive chunks of fiery rocks to rain down upon the area.
Itsuka's eyes shot up, widening. "Heads up!"
He needed ice.
And a king greeted him in his mind's eye, its wide empty smile large enough to swallow him whole. Minato looked away and drew upon its power. To peer any deeper into that unending black pit was to invite madness, for the mindless chatter of its subjects echoed inside that maw like a delirious frenzied chant.
Hee-ho.
Hoarfrost chilled in his veins.
"Mabufula."
Ice willed into existence with a swipe of his hand, coating the fiery rocks in a dense layer of permafrost. The extreme heat of the rocks cooled upon contact with the frigid temperatures of his attack. The smaller pieces broke apart almost immediately, but the larger ones remained; the biggest, its size comparable to that of a small truck, was still on its collision course, unimpeded.
"I can hit it!" Itsuka told him hurriedly. "Give me a boost!"
He needed strength.
And a hulking monstrosity lumbered towards him in his mind's eye, its features grotesque and skin red. Minato felt its unnatural strength imbibe his being, its bloodlust slowly staining his thoughts…
He clamped it down forcibly and gestured Itsuka forward.
As his underclassman ran at him, he lowered his bokken down at an angle and used it as a platform to launch her into the air—at the most imminent threat.
Aided by the radiance of his light, Itsuka drew her arm back by her side and thrust it forward; there was technique, finesse, in her short but sharp movement. The sudden expansion of her hands at the point of contact pulverised the chilled meteor on impact, turning up chunks that were no bigger than a granola.
Minato was on hand to keep the worst of what remained from harming the civilians.
Itsuka landed nimbly, using a combination of her Quirk and smart thinking to ease the momentum of her landing. With a strangled breath, she straightened herself.
"I didn't know I could do that," she said, looking down at her hands. The girl turned to him. "I didn't know you could do that. How did we do that?"
"Battle Fist," he called out.
Minato nodded at the person lumbering towards them. The man was large and shirtless, with scraggly bits of rock fragments poking out from his dark skin. Flames licked the upper half of his torso, melting the cluster of regenerating rocks to fuse into a piecemeal armour of sorts.
It was strange.
There was no way either of them wouldn't have noticed another Trigger victim earlier, much less someone with his imposing stature. That could only mean the man had recently triggered, which meant…
"Watch yourself," he told Itsuka. "Look out for any bees."
Itsuka understood the implications and sent a wary look at her surroundings, her features guarded. "Yeah, sure." She faced forward. "How do you want to handle this? Same as before? I'm leaving it to you to call the shots, leader."
No…
He needed to end this.
And his personas bent to his will.
0.0
For Takeyama Yu, it was a rarity to come up short.
A full head shorter, to be exact.
Her adversary, Kugutsu, had a face that was like a blank mask—two round holes for eyes and a wide, empty smile that bordered on manic. It seemed he only had two expressions; a happy mask and a sad mask.
He bore down upon her, throwing down rousing haymakers and elbows against her guard that went unanswered. With a longer reach and added limbs, it would have been foolhardy to meet him in a stand-up fight, but Yu endured through it all, even if she had to take a few blows on her chin, for the sake of those around her.
She was buying them time to escape.
"Get out of the area!" Yu warned, her voice loud and commanding; she didn't mince her words. "If you stay in the buildings, you will get crushed!"
Fighting in urban landscapes was always going to spell trouble for any Pro Hero with a destructive power-set, much less a Quirk like hers. Statistically, it was uncommon to possess a gigantification-type Quirk, especially a full-body transformation. It wasn't so much winning the genetic lottery and more like getting a third-place prize in a raffle. The prejudice that came with her Quirk was not unfounded, however; neither was the systemic discrimination she faced growing up.
It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For every villain with a gigantification Quirk that made the headlines, the more it engendered the narrative that it was a villainous Quirk—the death knell for any burgeoning hero hopeful.
But she found a way, even when life had knocked her down, to stand where she was now. Despite her regrettable and well-publicised mistakes, Yu wouldn't let that prophecy come full circle for her. She had to be the one to take a stand, even if it took her whole life to win those hearts and minds.
Minato was right.
'Changing that perspective won't come overnight.'
It started here—with her.
So Yu kneed the fucker in the groin. Hard.
His happy smile morphed into a sad sneer and the ground shook as Kugutsu crumpled to his knees; this despite the fact that he had no dangly bits hanging between his legs. She would have felt bad if he was a civilian, but knowing that Kugutsu was a mid-level Trigger dealer turned police informant kinda softened the blow.
He probably deserved it anyway…
She seized the opportunity to grasp Kugutsu by the back of his head, intent on driving her knee into his nose, but could only manage a weak attempt when an invisible pressure drove into her left eye.
"M-Motherfu—arghhh!"
Yu staggered back on uneven footing as she clutched at her eye; no amount of blinking would relieve the agony burning her cornea. Through the pain, she slowly forced her eyes open. Half of her vision grew cloudy, out-of-focus, and stained in red.
Kugutsu suddenly grabbed at the front of her costume with one of his hands, but with well-practised movements, she broke the weak hold, twisting his thumb back. His mask contorted, as if to let out a scream, but it was cut short when she slammed her knee into the underside of his chin.
Just beyond Kugutsu, at the far end of the street, she spied Slugger run rampant amidst the wounded and dead; the non-uniformed officers, who were valiantly keeping him busy, among them. Slugger was attacking anyone and anything in his way, his anger aimless, but never his attacks—they were dead to rights.
Slugger was vaunted as an up-and-coming Pro Hero for good reason, having climbed his way steadily into the upper echelons of the profession in the last two years.
His Quirk, while not the most versatile, had incredible range and application; he had the ability to compress all the force he could generate in his body into a colourless baseball-sized sphere and launch it with a swing of his bat. In his triggered state, with his increased strength and staying power, there were few who could get in close.
And Slugger was now turning his attention towards them—huge and immobile targets with equally big and squishy vulnerable points; her ruined eye could attest to that. It seemed he still had some sense in his rage-induced mania.
Yu shielded her face as Slugger rained down an invisible onslaught upon her, with some landing against the back of Kugutsu's head.
Even in this form, they hurt, not enough to stagger her in a single shot, but enough to make her think twice; she didn't want to imagine what it was like for those civilians caught in his path.
"Slugger!" she shouted. "Snap out of it! Don't make me do this!"
A hint of hesitation welled up inside her, but she crushed it.
Had it been her in his shoes, she would have begged to be stopped before she could do more harm. God only knows what was going to happen to his career after this…
With an arm slung over her eyes, she ducked her head down and slipped past Kugutsu, charging the short distance to Slugger. The man switched his focus and zoned his attacks on her legs, but Yu grit her teeth through it, hobbling the last few steps to get at her ally-turned-adversary.
There was no finesse to her actions.
Yu fell to her knees and groped blindly for the other Pro Hero. She scooped him up with her free hand, squeezing Slugger's squirming form, and lobbed him in an underhand throw—in the direction of Tokyo Bay. Slugger must have cleared a good kilometre or so, before he splashed bodily into the surface of the water.
Small mercies they were near the waterfront…
Breathing hard, Yu exhaled through her mouth, slowly trying to get her breath back. It was like turning on a switch. All at once, her wounds throbbed and ached. The pain was sharper now, made worse by the accumulated exhaustion her body had built up since she took on that stupid assignment. As the lethargy set in, the adrenaline that had coursed through her veins dribbled away until it was spent.
Yu made to stand up.
She was tired. Her mind was tired.
That was why she missed it.
Yu finally realised that the ground beneath her was quaking under the stress of rushed footsteps. Her good eye widened imperceptibly. She didn't even get to turn around before something heavy knocked into the back of her head.
0.0
"Amrita…"
Kneeling across from her upperclassman, Kendo Itsuka watched as he pressed his hands into the struggling man's temple. Minato-senpai had his eyes clenched shut in apparent concentration.
She had tried, more than once, to needle him about his Quirk. He didn't brush her off, per se, but explained that his powers were situational. The little demonstrations he had shown both her and Yu before were… underwhelming, like an amateur magician performing with cheap store-bought tricks. Given what she had seen today, the difference was night and day.
No wonder UA bent over backwards to have him in their Heroics programme…
Slowly, she could see the murkiness fade from the large man's eyes, and like the man lying supine before them, she could only stare at Minato, blinking. There were no visible changes to the victim's physical state; he was as imposing as ever, with his Quirk having been boosted by Trigger. However, it was clear that his rage-induced mania had passed.
The shirtless trigger victim tried to sit up, but could only manage to lift his head. A war hammer, no longer than her forearm, was laid flat on the man's chest. The weapon had, by its own weight, pinned a flailing unstoppable juggernaut of a man just moments ago.
She tried poking the damn thing earlier and it didn't even budge. It had to be some kind of density effect, maybe? But it didn't explain how he was able to transform his bokken into that.
Or the lightning… The ice too.
Or the fire and that weird glowing thing.
Even this…
"What… What happened to me?" The man squinted his eyes as he looked down at his body, trying to pull the weapon off him, to no avail. "W-What is this?"
Minato plucked the weapon off the larger man's chest, making it look effortless. "Sorry," he said.
It didn't make sense. It really didn't.
Itsuka shook her head and took that as a cue to help the man up to a seated position. "Sir, you might be in shock." She placed her hand on his shoulder, the skin that wasn't covered in rocks, and squeezed gently. "Could you tell me your name?"
She tried to coax a bit more out of the man, but when the tremors below them grew stronger, and the sounds of battle grew faint, her upperclassman got to his feet, almost gingerly. He tried to catch sight of Yu beyond the buildings that stood between them; over the course of their battle, they had lost sight of the Pro Hero entirely.
"Something's wrong," Minato said, his lips thinning into a line. Itsuka could see his grip tighten around the haft of his hammer. "I can't hear her anymore."
"Go," she said, without preamble. "I'll catch up."
It looked for a moment like Minato was about to rebuff her suggestion, but slowly, he nodded. "Let's stay within eyesight. If I'm engaging, back off unless I call you in." He gestured with his weapon. "It might get messy—like just now."
Itsuka blanched. She peered at the now ruined streets, the asphalt gouged and rent by the arcs of lightning her upperclassman had discharged from his hammer.
Right…
She didn't doubt that.
0.0
It hurt.
It hurt so much that Takeyama Yu didn't have a frame of reference to compare it to.
The sheer force of the blow exploded her senses in a flash of white. Her legs were the first to go, her strength leaving her entirely as it did. Reflex kicked in, and her hands flailed out to find purchase, at the roof of a small building; it stopped her from slumping lifelessly to the ground.
A hand dug into the folds of her hair, gripping it tight at the root, and slammed her face forward, into the building that had cushioned her fall. The impact rattled her brain, metal and glass cutting into her skin as her face was ground into it.
It was enough for her to lapse into unconsciousness for all but a second. However, that blissful relief did not come for her. Instead, she clung onto consciousness.
The blows didn't end.
Once. Twice. The hammering shots battered down upon her. She moaned in her throat and struggled to find her breath.
Stop.
One missed completely, catching her shoulders instead.
Stop.
As if angered by the miss, the next caught her flush on her injured eye. Fresh pain rippled behind it, the blinding agony freezing her features stiff in anguish.
Stop.
It felt like an eternity before it finally did.
Yu would have cried, just out of sheer relief, but she had no tears to give.
Regret filled her then and there.
She should have worked smarter. She should have done better. She… She couldn't let it end here.
She didn't want to die flat on her back.
Yu felt herself being dragged by her hair. Through the tiny slit in her good eye, swollen as it was, she saw Kugutsu's broad back pulling her forward like a disobedient dog on a leash. Yu grit her teeth. Weakly, she mustered what remained of her strength and stretched her hand out at Kugutsu—wrapping it around his ankle.
He tried to shrug her off.
Her focus grew dim, narrowing, until it shifted at something far above her—at the darkening overcast clouds that loomed over the city; it hung in the air like a depressing veil.
A stray thought passed in her pain-addled mind.
The skies were clear not moments ago.
Kugutsu dominated her vision then as he turned to face her, his happy smile curling into a sad sneer. He raised one of his upper arms, where the mangled scraps of a bus was lodged firmly in his grip. He made the motion of bringing down upon her head, but something made him stop—a tiny figure walking towards them.
No…
"D-Dummy," she cried. "Run—a'way…"
The last thing she heard before the darkness enveloped her was the meaty 'clang' of metal striking flesh.
0.0
He would save her.
Death would not come for her; Arisato Minato wouldn't allow it to.
His heart caught in his throat, but he swallowed that bitter lump, the muscles in his throat burning as he did. Minato tore his eyes away from Yu's broken form and narrowed them at the blood-red jötunn that towered over him. There was no malice in his heart for his adversary; it just needed to be stopped.
Minato braced his right shoulder with his hand, and held his arm out, calling the weapon back to him. It zipped back into his awaiting hand with a 'snap'.
The jötunn had staggered wildly on its feet, not quite falling, but his attack had served its purpose. It had now turned its attention towards him and took its first steps forward, away from Yu. Its smile regressed into mock anguish.
So it wasn't enough.
More power then.
Subconsciously, his finger traced the grooves marked in the short haft.
Only those who were worthy could wield its power, but it came at a price. His body was never meant to act as a vessel for their powers. There was a strain, both mentally and physically, that came with its use, and it was more keenly felt now in his current state than it ever had in his previous life.
Minato wouldn't shy away from it, however.
He had asked for the power to end this battle, and Thor had gifted him his weapon willingly. The longer he wielded the legendary hammer, the more its power bled into the surroundings, charging the still air with a muted hum.
Mjölnir.
Forged in the heart of a dying star.
The hammer of the gods.
The bringer of lightning and fury.
A damaged bus, with its front dented in and stained with blood, hurtled towards him. Just beyond it, Minato spied the jötunn's face split into a happy grin.
He didn't even blink.
More.
With Mjölnir in hand, Minato loosened his hold over the haft and hooked his fingers around the leather band, spinning it like a yo-yo. He built up the speed, the lightweight hammer becoming nothing more than a blur, and slung it forward.
The two objects collided.
Mjölnir punched through the lesser steel, arresting the bus' momentum entirely as it fell to the earth. The hammer continued unimpeded. It caught the jötunn by surprise. Two of its arms, one seemingly broken at the wrist, were raised over its abdomen, and it caught the attack on its hastily-guarded mid-section. It doubled over, but refused to fall to its knees.
More.
Minato called his weapon back to him. He drew upon the lightning surging in his veins, the skin of his palm searing as his grip tightened painfully around the haft. As he threw the weapon forward once more, lightning arced from its wide metal head, gouging the asphalt beneath as it soared to connect against the giant's knee.
The jötunn swatted at Mjölnir, but all it did was shatter the bones. It let loose a silent howl as it cradled its now useless hand. Its anger didn't abate. That silent howl grew enraged. It reached for anything and everything in its path, and thrashed its surroundings with reckless abandon.
Minato did what he could to mitigate the damage.
More.
He laboured in his breaths. His right arm was trembling, his skin burnt raw and blistered. Still, that enormous power beckoned—lying just beyond his reach. Mjölnir thrummed in his hand, as if begging for release.
And he allowed it.
The power took on a life of its own.
The wind picked up, whistling in his ears. Far above him, the clouds rumbled, the dark shrouds coiling and writhing as faint flashes of lightning streaked across its impossible depths. There was no rain. Despite it, the clean smell of ozone lingered in his senses.
Minato raised Mjölnir aloft.
The build-up of power reached its zenith. Then, for a split second, everything stilled.
Before him, his enemy had been judged, the gavel raised to deliver its final sentence. He brought it down.
"Thunder Reign."
His vision exploded in white hot lightning.
0.0
Even as a brisk breeze blew in from the nearby bay, the smell of burnt flesh hung in the air like an ominous omen. Kendo Itsuka buried her nose in the crook of her arm, but it did little to deter the acrid stench from assaulting her senses.
However, nothing was worse than having to stumble upon the still smouldering remains; it wasn't exactly hard to miss given how large it was. Her upperclassman's attack earlier had been cataclysmic, in every sense of the word. She had been nearly blinded by the almighty flash that preceded its sheer destructive force, even at a distance. Hell, the ringing in her ears hadn't gone away, and it had been minutes since it happened.
But it certainly showed on its intended recipient.
"Oh God," she gagged.
Her steps were brisk as she walked around its still twitching mass. The burns across its body were deep, charring the blood red flesh black—almost like it were leather instead of skin. Whether he was alive or dead, she wasn't sure, but that wasn't why she was here.
Beyond it, she spied two familiar figures huddled close together. Throwing any sort of heroic pretence to the wind, she scrambled forward on uneven footing. Her throat was tight. Unbidden tears welled up in her eyes, and she tried, in vain, to keep her wits about her. That was the last thing they needed. Her voice came out as nothing but a whisper:
"S-Senpai? Yu?"
Yu was laid flat on her back, her broken body listless and unresponsive. The woman was cradled in the arms of her upperclassman. One of those arms, Itsuka noticed, was nothing more than a blackened husk dangling limply by his side. A faint glow seemed to envelop the other as it was pressed against Yu's forehead.
Head bowed, Minato was similarly unresponsive. Although, she could see that his breathing was visibly laboured.
Itsuka sank to her knees before them. She reached a hand out, but stopped herself. She couldn't help it; even the slightest touch seemed lethal given how fragile they looked.
"Senpai?"
Dull blue eyes peered up at her beneath his now unkempt fringe. Minato brought his head up and blinked a few times.
"Senpai?!" she repeated. "Are you alright?"
He motioned to his ear with a nudge of shoulder. "I can't hear that well," he said, his breaths coming out short and sharp. "She's stable, but we can't take any chances. Go flag down the responders."
Itsuka could only nod dumbly to his request, unintentionally tittering at the sheer absurdity of having her emotions spring back and forth like a yo-yo. She rubbed at her eyes as she stood up. "Y-Yeah." This time she shouted, more for his benefit, "Hold on! I'll be right back!"
As Itsuka set about trying to get the attention of the emergency responders, she inwardly wondered if the rest of the third-year students in UA were anything like her upperclassman.
She shuddered.
That… was a scary thought.
0.0
It was a strange thing, Hachisuka Kuin realised.
Could a door be a cliché?
Well, whatever… This one was.
Tall and imposing, the stainless steel door that stood before her was bare save for a rectangular slot at eye-level. It was even situated at the end of a long, winding alley—complete with those miserable little steps that were supposed to lead down to a basement, but was only three steps tall.
Kuin didn't even have to knock. The eye slot slid open the moment she arrived, revealing the shadowed, bespectacled eyes of Giran—her information broker. The man was a serial over-achiever, having gained some serious clout despite working alone, without any backing, since his first foray into the underworld.
If there ever was a person that was married to his job, it'd be Giran; it was one of the few things she admired about him.
"You look like shit, kid," Giran told her. "Whadd'ya want?"
"Shelter." Kuin shrugged. "Supplies. Usual stuff."
His beady eyes narrowed down at her. "Not a smart move to come here," he said. "I've seen the news. I've read the reports. The wrong people will be looking for you. There's some pretty serious heat on your back after that stunt you pulled."
Kuin smiled lightly. "Don't let your paranoia get in the way of business, Giran. You talk as if they have my face plastered out there for the whole country to see." Her smile tightened. "They don't. Even then, I find it highly unlikely that they could tie any of what happened today to me. It's circumstantial, at best."
"The noose is tightening. Why else would you see a need to come to me right now? You're out of options, Queen."
"Out of options? Hardly," she said, scoffing. "I merely went to the best one."
Even with the door in the way, Kuin could sense the smug smile stretching across his features; it was one she mirrored.
"Honestly forgot about that mouth of yours," Giran said. "Could probably charm the pants off a—"
"What'cha doing?"
The voice she heard was muffled, but it did little to detract from just how young the voice at the other side of the door sounded.
Giran looked away for a moment. "Not right now. Just taking care of something. Go back to the hall."
"Who are ya talking to? Lemme see!"
Giran moved away from his post. There was some minor scuffling in the background, and more hushed whispers courtesy of Giran. The other voice however, one Giran had let slip as 'Toga', wasn't as amenable.
Kuin heard a very loud gasp. "There's someone new?"
"You know, Giran," Kuin called out. "No judgement from me if you're keeping some drug-addled JK sex slave in your uh, pleasure dungeon. It's not my style to shame people for their kinks—no matter how disgusting it is!"
"It ain't like that!"
The other voice laughed brightly. "You're funny!"
It was then Kuin caught her first peek at the speaker. Through the narrow slot, she saw a mess of ash blonde hair tied into two messy buns. Her eyes, yellow and slitted, then came into view. The girl smiled, widening to the point that it was almost unnatural, predatory even, considering her pronounced canines.
"Hey! My name is Toga Himiko! Will you be my friend?"
Minor Arcana: Ace of Swords…
Side Note(s): I'd like to thank NonBenevolentPotato for his help in this chapter. Props to him for being kind enough to help with the story. Be nice and slide some appreciation his way.
I've taken some creative liberties to de-gamefy aspects of the Persona skills to try and keep it more grounded in the MHA-verse. Essentially, I've removed the buff/debuff skill tree, and like what you've read in this chapter, these are being shifted to replace the instant-kill mechanics of both the Light and Dark skill tree.
Extra (A): And now, a Fuji-Q News Breaking Bulletin…
"Rina! Twenty seconds to air!" a stage crew shouted.
Kadokawa Rina, dressed sharply in a form-fitting dress, stood before a large monitor; a display graphic, showing the network's logo, dominated the screen. She smoothed the front of her dress and took a deep breath. Quietly, to herself, Rina practised enunciating her words.
"Five! Four! Three!" The stage crew then mimed silently with his fingers.
Two.
One.
The woman bowed.
"For those joining us now, a Mass Trigger Incident in Odaiba has left dozens wounded and at least three dead. The NPA has not released an official statement, but sources have indicated that a police investigation was being conducted in the area prior to the incident. It is not yet known if the mastermind behind this string of Trigger-related incidents has been arrested. However, footage has shown uniformed personnel escorting this individual—"
The monitor behind her then showed a close-up photo of Kugutsu Mario.
"—Kugutsu Mario, into custody. Kugutsu is a known element within the Trigger distribution ring, and was reportedly the gigantified 'forced-villain' who terrorised the waterfront district earlier today. In a Fuji-Q News exclusive, we have obtained on-looker footage of the devastating battle that occurred between Kugutsu and the Pro Hero, Mount Lady, as well as members from her agency. We must warn you that the footage is graphic in nature. Viewer discretion is advised."
Rina held her gaze at the camera for a few more seconds before the all-clear sign was given. She slowly let out a breath.
"Two minutes until we return!"
"Tanaka!" She motioned to one of the newer associate producers. "Any leads on Mount Lady's condition? That footage was rough; it's possible she may not make it through. We need to stay ahead of this."
"The Pro Hero Gazette is reporting that she died during surgery," the man said, shaking his head. "It's a shit-rag e-news outlet that barely has any presence, so their credibility is suspect. So far, none of the other networks are biting, but one of them might go for it."
"Which hospital?" she asked. "The nearest one in Odaiba would be Hosu General, right? Isn't Shigeo's wife a radiologist there? Call him in and push him for an update. We need to be the first network to report it live if she does bite the bullet. Tell the graphics team to prepare Mount Lady's obituary first. It doesn't have to be sombre; maybe something controversial to whet the appetite. She doesn't have the best image, so play along that line."
"They already preloaded a highlight reel of her… 'less-than-stellar' moments. We could run it within twenty once we get approval from the higher-ups." Tanaka was hesitant, quietly wringing his hands. "This could get seriously vetoed. That woman saved a lot of lives doing what she did. It's not right to tarnish her bravery."
Rina shook her head. "You're new. You're idealistic. I get that. I was once like you. But Mount Lady's a Pro Hero; it's her job to save lives. It's ours to frame the narrative. Drama sells better because it stays long in the memory. An inspirational piece is fluffy and light; it's nice but no one remembers nice. That stuff gets shot out the window the next time All Might so much as farts out a rainbow.
"I don't wish her any ill-will, Tanaka, but it is how it is. I didn't write the rules, but I will bend them to get ahead. So if we want to be the number one television news broadcast in the country, then you better get on that phone and get me some goddamn confirmation!"
"O-Okay!" Tanaka said, scurrying towards the exit.
"Rina! Another twenty seconds to air!"
Rina snapped her fingers at Tanaka, signalling him back. "And another thing! Get me the hero name of the crazy kid with the lightning Quirk! You know, the one with the hammer! He could be huge for us! We can run a parallel—a phoenix rising from the ashes of his mentor's death! People will eat that up!"
"We already know his hero name! It's—"
His reply was drowned out by one of the stage crew. "Five! Four! Three!"
"How juvenile…" Rina rolled her eyes and quickly forced her features neutral just as they returned to air. "What an absolutely horrendous thing to witness on what would have been the the platinum jubilee celebration since the groundbreaking of the Odaiba Island reclamation project. And now, we are joined by our special correspondent…"
Extra (B): And so, Yaoyorozu Momo tries to master her puppets…
"Jeez, you're such a baby…"
As the thunderous wail of guitar riffs and rhythmic drum beats resounded around her, Yaoyorozu Momo, laid flat on her stomach atop Jiro's bed, scrunched her nose. "Why do they always have such violent lyrics?" she asked. "It's needlessly graphic—singing about pushing fingers into eyes… Who even does that?"
Jiro stood up from her chair, not missing a beat as her deft fingers plucked lightly at her bass guitar; the girl rocked on the balls of her feet as she ambled around the room, like a performer on stage. "It's cathartic," she said, almost like an afterthought. "Heavy metal doesn't shy away from talking about the darker, more depressing things in life. It's primal. It's universal. It's also wish-fulfilment. You're right… No one in their right mind would ever do that, but it allows people to find an escape and process those negative emotions in a healthier way." She shrugged her shoulders. "At least, that's what I think."
"That is a very well thought-out and insightful answer, Kyoka-chan."
Jiro mimed sipping tea with a pinky held out. "Thank you, ojou-sama," she said, with an exaggerated accent.
Momo reddened and buried the lower-half of her face into her pillow. "I-I'll work on that."
"Oh, man! I wish I got that on video!" Jiro bellowed a hearty laugh and wiped a tear from her eye. "Don't ever change, Yaomomo. All of that is what makes you you. Heck, half the guys in our year would probably kill me if that ever happened."
Momo blinked. "Excuse me?"
Jiro waved her away. "Nothing~~" she said, in that tone that meant exactly the opposite. "Oh, oh, listen to this part right here! The lead singer absolutely slays it!"
The girl nodded along to the beat and sang lowly under her breath. Momo found herself doing the same, minus the singing.
"I must admit that his vocal colour and range is nothing short of extraordinary."
"People think that just because it's heavy metal, it's a butt-load of screaming and growling, but that's such a bad stereotype. These singers are legit at the top rung of the ladder in terms of talent." Jiro rolled her eyes, adding, "They're nothing like those mainstream 'Top Forty Hits' crowd."
"Is that so?"
"Lend me your phone," Jiro said. "You should see them do a live-set. There's a bunch of videos of them on UwUTube. If you think their music is wild, wait till you see how they're like in real life. They wear these really ghoulish villain get-ups and just go nuts on stage. It's intense."
Unconsciously, Momo's grip on her phone tightened and she clutched it against her chest. "Why can't you use yours?" she asked, with narrowed eyes.
"Because it's still charging?" Jiro motioned to the power outlet all the way at the other end of the room. "My cable isn't that long. Would you rather the two of us go over there and watch it on my phone?" She quirked an eyebrow at Momo. "Does that somehow make more sense to you?"
"N-No…"
Reluctantly, Momo unlocked her phone and passed it to Jiro.
It was then she heard a knock on Jiro's door, followed by a muffled voice, "Oi, Kyoka~~ I can hear your terrible music from upstairs. Is Yaomomo in there with you? I can't find her anywhere."
"We're in here!" Jiro said lazily, her eyes glued on the phone. "Come in!"
Ashido popped her head in, but she faced the ceiling to prevent her facial sheet mask from drooping down her face. Dressed simply in her casual nightwear, Ashido threw a slim white foil pouch at the two of them before squeezing herself on the bed next to Momo, lifeless.
Momo flipped it to the front cover. It was a branded facial sheet mask; the same one Ashido was using.
"Thank you, Ashido," Momo said.
"Remember that Pinky giveth, but Pinky can also taketh away." Ashido groaned aloud. "Ughhh, it's so boring without the other girls here. What have you two been up to?"
"Corrupting Yaomomo with devil music," Jiro said.
"This is hardly corrupting," Momo said. "I was merely trying to broaden my musical palette."
Momo was summarily ignored as Ashido shook her head. "Devil music sucks. Put on something new, will you? Corrupt her with some EDM or R&B instead. We can have a mini-party in this hizzouse."
"If you keep throwing dumb acronyms at me," Jiro said. "I'll kick you out of my room."
"Ass!" Ashido growled, "Pinky taketh away!"
Momo yelped as Ashido rolled on top of her to lunge for the facial mask she had given Jiro. She couldn't see much on account of having her face smushed into her pillow, but part-way through, Ashido seemed content with her position atop her. Instead, the girl started tickling her sides.
Giggling uncontrollably, Momo shrieked, "A-Ashido! Get off me t-this instant!"
"Gah! My face mask!"
Ashido's water-based mask peeled off from all the rough-housing and flopped uselessly to the ground with a wet 'splat'. When she reached over the bed to get it, Momo was able to leverage her position to trap Ashido's shoulder joint under her body with some careful manoeuvring. Momo returned the favour.
"Gah! Ref! Ref!" Ashido yelled at Jiro, laughing. "I can't tap! I'm out! I'm out!"
Jiro grinned down at Ashido. "You're nothing without the brain, huh Pinky?" She snorted at her own joke. "Then again, isn't it—" Momo's phone beeped a fanciful tune, and Jiro's look of surprise morphed into a devilish one.
Momo abandoned her advantage and threw her hands out at Jiro. "Give that back!"
Jiro stepped out of reach, putting the phone above her head. "Oh~~ What's this?" she drew her words slyly. "A text? From Minato-senpai?"
Ashido gasped loudly. "Snap! She's messaging the Todoroki-clone?! Lemme see!" Untangling herself from Momo, she jumped to her feet and hovered behind Jiro, trying to peek at the screen over her shoulder.
"Kyoka-chan! Ashido! That's private!"
Jiro had the decency to look ashamed. She locked the phone and handed it back to Momo. "Sorry, Yaomomo. I didn't read it or anything; was just messing around." She nudged Ashido away and motioned pointedly to Momo with her eyes.
"Uh, yeah," Ashido said. "Sorry, Yaomomo. Got real curious, is'all. I mean, did you see the viral videos about him in that fight at Odaiba? Can't believe he's the same guy who had remedial training with us."
"It's fine," Momo said. "Thank you for respecting my privacy, you two."
She sighed and checked her unread messages.
Minato-senpai: Location pinned: Hosu General Hospital
Minato-senpai: Mount Lady's fine.
Minato-senpai: Injured my arm, but nothing to worry about.
You: What a coincidence!
You: Nejire-senpai and I will be at Hosu General tomorrow. It's part of Ryukyu-sama's community outreach programme.
Minato-senpai: Is that so?
Minato-senpai: If you can spare the time, you should come visit.
Minato-senpai: Building C, Ward 57.
Minato-senpai: Hope to see you tomorrow.
You: 'Typing… '
Her phone was slapped out of her hands. Momo looked up at the culprit, a certain pink-haired classmate, mortified.
"Ashido!"
"Ah, sorry, sorry, Yaomomo." Ashido ducked her head down and clapped her hands together, pleading for her forgiveness. "I know we're respecting your privacy and everything, but I couldn't let you make such a rookie mistake. If you send the last text in a convo, he's gonna win. Besides, you gotta make it look like you're not just waiting around for his texts." She huffed lightly, "It makes you seem desperate. It doesn't help your image. What with the rumours and—"
Momo did a double-take. "Wait, rumours?" she cut in. "What rumours?"
"Oh, snap," Ashido chuckled weakly, rubbing her arm, "I can't believe you haven't heard about it. Here I was thinking you were just ignoring the haters."
Momo narrowed her eyes at the girl. "Ashido… What," she bit out forcefully, "rumours? "
"W-Well apparently, people are saying you got caught making out with one of the seniors during the Sports Festival—like a heavy, full-on make-out sesh. I tried telling a few people that it was bullshit, but you know how these rumour mills tend to go. Once it starts…" Ashido made a motion with her hands.
Momo slapped her hands down on the bed, her face colouring at the memory. "It was CPR! I was trying to administer CPR!" she half-shouted. "I-I can't believe people are spreading such baseless rumours without even checking the facts!" She did her best imitation of a fish out of water, turning to Jiro. "This… This is your fault!"
Jiro held her hands up in surrender. "I know what I heard," she said, pointing to her earphone jacks for good measure. "His heart wasn't beating."
Momo floundered. "I did one round of chest compressions, and o-our lips b-barely touched! He stirred awake immediately after! There's no way his heart wasn't beating!"
"Maybe that's all he needed?" Jiro idly toyed with her earphone jack, looking down at her lap. "Sorry, Yaomomo. I wasn't trying anything funny, I swear. I mean, you checked it yourself, right? He didn't have a pulse? Or it was like super weak?"
It was. At least, that was what she believed then.
"I… I could have been mistaken."
"Mah… Chill, Princess Charming," Ashido said. "Maybe these rumours could be a good thing. It might open his eyes to the possibility of the two of you," she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, "you know… practising more CPR on each other?"
"Awawawa! I already told you that Minato-senpai and I are just friends! We're not interested in each other that way!"
Ashido and Jiro shared a look.
"You got it bad, girl," Jiro said.
"Yeah, you're not really fooling anyone here, Yaomomo," Ashido said. "I mean, the two of us will do what we can to help, but most of it is on you. The best part of all of this is that a '1v1' hospital visit will net you a lot of points! If shōjo manga has taught me anything, what you need is a really, really great gift; one that's personal and—"
"You two are clearly delusional!" With a huff, Momo stood up, shaking her head. "Excuse me," she said. "I'm retiring to my quarters.""Yaomomo! Don't be stupid! I'm a goldmine of knowledge when it comes to love! Yaomomo?! Yaomomo! Don't ignore me, dammit!"