Chapter 16 - Job Shadowing
The hotel in Hosu where they were staying for the week was pretty well kept. Honestly, Josuke was surprised at how nice it was, but it seemed that the Higashikatas and Fugo had a decent amount of money. Yasuho had also been pretty impressed when they first saw their rooms.
Thick carpets, plush beds, and rather ornate chairs. It clearly wasn't cheap. Josuke was sitting in one of those chairs now, but in Norisuke's room. The older man had taken a seat of his own, and it was just the two of them.
"Well, now that the story everyone else is getting is out there, it's time for the two of us to get down to business." Norisuke said, languidly swirling some dark drink in a shotglass gripped between two fingers.
"The story?" Josuke had no idea what he was talking about.
"Yeah. About working with Haato and the Italian to take down Stain. How I said that you students wouldn't be allowed to join the fight. It's a load of crap." Norisuke finished swirling the drink, and knocked it back in one gulp.
"Oh? So what's the truth then? Are we not here for Stain?" Josuke was a little confused. He figured the villain would be just the type of lead they were looking for.
"Oh we are. But it's going to be you and me taking him down. We're in this together." Norisuke said. "He suddenly developed a Stand, so we know he's in league with Whitesnake. As of right now, he may be our best lead, but you already know we can't let the others be involved."
Josuke understood. The others couldn't be involved because Norisuke and he were planning to go after Whitesnake and get their hands on Crazy Diamond. It wasn't even mildly legal for a student like him to be fighting, or for them to keep the Stand for themselves, so it was necessary to exclude everyone else.
Norisuke had already mentioned not wanting his children involved as well.
But maybe that thought he'd been sitting on for a while would hold merit.
"What about Yasuho?" He took the plunge and asked.
"Joshu's girlfriend?" The older man raised his eyebrow.
"She's not his girlfriend." Josuke bit out, a touch harsher than he'd intended. Norisuke clearly caught it, because he leaned back slightly.
"Okay, fine. I admit, I don't really pay much attention to her." The man held up a hand in placating gesture. "So that's why I don't understand your question. What about her?"
"Her Stand is possibly the best tracking Stand around. It doesn't even need a scent." Josuke said. "If we bring her into the plot, we could probably go straight to Crazy Diamond. And it would help having another Stand user as back up."
Norisuke hummed, and stood up. He made his way over to a counter, and poured himself another glass, making to drink it, before pausing a moment. He turned to Josuke.
"Want one? Just one, mind."
Josuke nearly replied 'but I'm underaged', before remembering they were in the midst of discussing far more egregious criminal plans.
"Might as well try it."
Norisuke poured him one, and brought it over. Handing it to Josuke, he sat back in his chair, before raising his own glass in a toast.
"To the health of Tsurugi, and Kira Holly." He said.
The drink burned in Josuke's throat, and he spluttered a bit, as Norisuke laughed.
"That tasted terrible." He said.
"God, it certainly does, doesn't it?" The older man chuckled a little more, before looking into his glass with a contemplative expression. "Back to your idea...
"I follow your logic. She would be useful, but I'm still a little concerned. I don't know her character too well, truthfully. What if we bring this to her attention, and she alerts the authorities? What we're doing is illegal."
"I can vouch for her. I believe in her." Josuke responded.
"I'll consider it then. Maybe we can use the hunt for Stain to gauge her potential. We have time, for now." The older man said.
Josuke let his eyes drop, conceding for the moment. But I will bring it back up later. He promised.
"So how are we going to do that? Hunt for Stain, that is."
"By breaking away from the others, of course. It'll happen every now and then, and when it does, we'll have our opportunity. I'll use King Nothing to track him down, and then we beat him up, squeeze him for info, and kill him. I'll tell the others that he wouldn't talk, and I had no choice but to kill him. They'll buy it easy enough."
"Yeah. That's how most Stand battles end, after all."
"Exactly. And that let's us get rid of evidence without drawing any suspicion."
"I can't capture Stain on my own, and it would be illegal for me to allow Born This Way or Paisley Park to help me. I really don't like this idea."
"We'll only be able to cover the necessary amount of ground by splitting up. We have the Hero Network, we can simply inform each other if we find him. It's hardly as though we'll be cut off from one another." Norisuke was nothing if not persistent. But Josuke understood. It was a needed deception.
"Sure, but in the time it would take to catch up to each other, anything could happen. Stain could kill the party he met, and be gone." Fugo didn't seem to like Norisuke's suggestion, and he was proving surprisingly intractable.
"But isn't that, like, always a risk? Anything could happen, sure. That's the job, though. I gotta be honest, I'm with my old man on this one." Haato said.
Fugo sighed.
"Besides." Norisuke said, pressing his advantage. "This gives us the opportunity to train our specific students, without the clutter of this big group. Face it Purple Haze, you knew something like this was inevitable."
"Fine. Fine!" Fugo said, throwing up his hands when Norisuke made to respond. "But let it be noted for when I'm inevitably proven right, I was opposed to this idea."
"Very well, your objection is noted. Now, Walking Heart. You take the east side. Purple Haze, the west. I'll take the centre."
"Gotcha!" Haato jogged off, Joshu following behind her.
Fugo didn't say anything, he simply walked off. Kyo followed his example, though likely more out of her own general stoicism than any strong agreement she may have had with the man.
"I'll see you later, Josuke! Remember, we gotta go try some local place for dinner while we're here!" Yasuho called out as she walked off with Fugo and Kira.
"I'm looking forward to it!" He replied.
When all the others were finally out of both view and earshot, Norisuke summoned his Stand.
"Well, let's get started looking for this guy. Come on, into the alleys."
King Nothing didn't have a scent for Stain, so for now they were travelling just as blind as the others. But what it did have was the ability to track blood. That was Norisuke's plan. They'd go along, waiting for Stain to attack a hero, and then they'd find the fight.
They'd defeat Stain, pump him for info, and then kill him. After that, they'd call the others on the Hero Network, and pretend to have just now located Stain. They'd claim they just managed to kill him perhaps a minute before the others arrived. Of course, they'd need to be quick. If there were too many signs of a struggle left behind, the others might realise the fight had lasted longer than they claimed. They'd also need to get Stain's victim out of the way, so that they couldn't act as a witness, and disprove their lie.
And there likely would be a victim, seeing as that's how they planned to track Stain in the first place.
That was something they'd have to play by ear. They wouldn't kill the victim of course. They had other ways of preventing them from witnessing the events in their totality. Josuke could use Soft and Wet to take away their hearing. This way, they wouldn't know anything Stain said. Maybe they even sell the lie by pretending to bring out a phone, and pretending to talk into it, thus convincing the victim the alert on the Hero Network had taken place when they would claim it did.
The problems with that was if the fight took too long, and the backup arrived quickly after they made the alert. The victim might end up mentioning the lengthy response time, and thereby trigger the suspicions of the others.
They could also simply try to corral Stain into a different alleyway, or send the victim running if they weren't paralysed. The threat there was that the victim would certainly be a hero, and have access to the Hero Network. Even if if paralysed, the paralysis could wear off while the fight went on. They might send an alert, far too early for Norisuke and Josuke. That would completely disrupt their plans.
They were really lucky Josuke had been told the Fugo's Quirk in class the previous day, as Norisuke hadn't had any idea. Overall, that Quirk was by far the biggest threat. If any evidence which could cast the slightest bit of suspicion onto their story appeared, Fugo was certain to see it. From there, he might unravel their entire plot.
It was definitely a conundrum. Everything had to go perfectly
"Josuke!" He looked behind him, from where his mentor's voice had come.
Josuke had been so caught up in his thoughts, he hadn't realised it when he was no longer next to Norisuke. The other man was several feet back in the alley, kneeling down on one knee. King Nothing was out, standing next to him. His face was pulled into a deep frown.
"Did you find something down there?"
"No! Something's wrong. I didn't mean to get in this position, my knee just gave out suddenly!" Norisuke's voice was steady, but he delivered his words in an urgent tone.
That familiar sensation of slickness, like oil filling his gut, came to him as Soft and Wet immediately materialised. Josuke whipped his head from side to side, searching for any threat. No one was in the alley.
"Can you move?" This could be Stain. He thought to himself.
"Yes. The rest of me is fine." Norisuke said, flexing his fingers. "It's just my damn knee. I don't think it's Stain."
At that moment Josuke's eyelids fell down, without his intent. He couldn't see anything around him, and a warm liquid fell down his face.
"Shit! Josuke, you're bleeding!" Norisuke said, before barking out a tense laugh. "It's definitely an attack. I knew I wasn't so old that my joints would give out."
"Yeah." Josuke said. He reached out, feeling around for the wall, and felt himself sway nearly off balance as he moved. When he found it, he placed his hand on the wall to steady himself.
"We're under attack, to be sure. But who's attacking us?"
"Oh shut up! You're so damn annoying!" It hadn't been ten minutes since they'd all split up, and Joshu was already so tired of Haato's bullshit.
"Yup! It's an older sister's job to be annoying. And don't think you're wriggling your way out of this. You have to spill." She giggled a bit to herself.
They were walking through they alleys, towards their assigned section of Hosu. Bar a few jokes about his spandex outfit, and the belt she had mistaken for a fanny pack, Haato had been mercifully professional as they were starting out.
She'd been talking about the mission, to begin with. She then transitioned to explaining a few aspects of the hero job, such as the Hero Network, or how Stand using heroes can get commissioned for work by the federal government if a villain was suspected to have a Stand, in a bit more detail.
It had felt like an actual job shadowing experience to Joshu. Well, up until she'd gotten onto this tangent.
"Come on, you already know I'm just gonna keep asking. The only way to get through this is to tell me everything."
The worst part was that he did know from experience that was the only way. Whenever Haato caught the scent on a bit of gossip, she was unstoppable. This wasn't quite the same, but the principle was similar. It was Joshu's greatest nightmare.
His sister was determined to hear all about his time at UA and his classmates. It was so embarrasing.
"Ugh. Fine. I'll tell you, but just a little." He rubbed his forehead, wishing Stain would hurry up and attack them so he could be spared the interrogation.
"Yes!" She let out a shout of victory, pumping her fist at the same time. "How are you doing in class? If you aren't kicking ass, we'll probably disown you." Haato teased.
"Well, I'm doing okay in math, but histor-"
"Boring!" She interrupted as quick as she could. He grinned a bit despite himself. He knew she wouldn't want to hear about academics, so of course he opened with that.
"Who cares about that, tell me about the fights!" Haato brought her arms up and punched her palm for emphasis.
"Well, I dominated the 2v2s, of course! I had a whole fight with one of my classmates, and beat her hard. Honestly, my partner was kinda dead weight, but I cinched the victory for us." Joshu bragged. It was true too, he knew. Sure, Bakugou might've beaten the big guy, but who cares about him. Earphone chick was way more trouble. "Yeah, I'm pretty much leading the class."
"Nice!" The look on her face was at odds with her praise though. She had an eyebrow raised, and a slight smirk played across her mouth. She didn't believe him for some reason.
"It's true!"
"Didn't say it wasn't." Haato laughed.
"But that's not juicy enough. Tell me about your classmates. Not the ones with us, but the others. Any cute girls?" She asked, grinning. Then she took a quick look at his spandex costume. "Or boys?"
"I actually fucking hate you." He groaned. The class was filled with some smokin' babes, but there was no way in hell he'd tell her about that. The teasing he endured now would pale in comparison, should she catch wind of any possible new interests of his. She'd be relentless. "You know I only have eyes for Yasuho."
"Ugh, fiiiiine." She crinkled her nose. "I'll lay off the romance talk. Do you have any new little friends?"
Joshu rubbed his chin for a moment, thinking it over. Did he? Most of the others were a little intimidated by him. He didn't blame them, honestly. He knew it could be hard to approach him.
He was just too cool. Everyone was naturally awestruck.
It was blessedly quiet while he was thinking. Haato wasn't totally silent, she hummed while she walked, but it was better than the chatter. At least this way he could hear the cars and general background noise from the busy streets outside.
"Earth to Joshu? I asked if you have any friends?" But all nice things must come to an end.
"Yeah, a few. It's only been a few weeks, so I dunno if they classify as friends, but I get along with most people. There is one guy I've been hanging out with more recently, he's pretty cool." Joshu said.
"What's his Quirk?" Haato pressed as they passed underneath two connected buildings. The darkness went on for a while.
"Well, that isn't very cool. He can make these sticky balls on his head and pop 'em off. Honestly, it's sorta lame, but apa-" He was cut off when she put her arm out in front of him.
"Hey, what're- wait, what the hell?"
He hadn't seen it in the darkness, distracted as he was by the conversation. Now that he'd been stopped, he noticed it for the first time. She'd been preventing him from falling into a massive pothole. It was bizarrely large, big enough to swallow an elephant whole.
"The city council must be going to the dogs if they can't fix something this dangerous." He muttered to himself.
"This is definitely weird." Haato mused. "Could it be the result of a Quirk? Might be recent. We may be the first to notice it."
She knelt down, and hummed to herself as if in thought.
"I can hear something inside..."
"What? Don't be ridiculous, it's just a pothole." Joshu said.
"Maybe not. It could lead somewhere else." Haato tapped the side of her jaw with a finger. "It could be the entrance to Stain's secret base! Well, probably not, but we won't know until we go in, right?"
"What? You wanna go in it?" Joshu stared at her with raised eyebrows and a wide mouth. "You have got to be joking."
"Nope! Investigating weird shit is a hero's job!" She elbowed him, and he swore to himself that she didn't almost knock him over.
"So come on, you little wuss." She flashed a toothy grin at him, excitement dancing in her eyes. Then she held her nose like a scuba diver, and jumped in backwards.
"Ugh. Dammit…" Not to be outdone, Joshu followed after his sister, but without any of her theatrics.
"Uh, Mister Purple Haze, are you sure? It'd make everything way easier." Yasuho asked, as they stopped at the crossing. Fugo had made a number of decisions she found somewhat questionable, such as taking the streets instead of the alleys, but this was probably the decision that confused her the most.
"I'm certain. Look, you don't have your Stand license, so you shouldn't be using it. The Japanese government has me on a bit of a tight leash. I'm a bit of an unknown quantity to them, and they're wary about that." Fugo sighed and carded a hand through his hair, before he pressed the pedestrian button.
"But they asked for you, right? Why would they request you if they're suspicious of you?" She scratched at her cheek. Yasuho really didn't get his reasoning. How could the government even find out he'd let her use Paisley Park?
"They didn't request me, specifically. They made a request to the Italian government. The Italian Federal Bureau of Superpower Management, to be precise. The Bureau got in touch with the… agency I work at, and my boss picked me." The light turned, and the three of them made their way across the street.
That makes sense, I guess. She thought to herself. They kept walking in silence for a minute.
People looked at them curiously as they walked around. Heroes typically drew attention, but it was increased heavily by Fugo's clearly foreign appearance. A few people were outright staring.
No one acknowledged them, in spite of the looks. They all seemed a little intimidated. The looks certainly held hints of trepidation. Kira's perpetual glower seemed to add to it. Yasuho tried to smile at the people they walked by to assuage their apparent misgivings. She took heart in the fact that it seemed to work a little. Most of the people seemed to relax, a few even returned her smile.
"You said your boss is half-Japanese, right? Why didn't he come?" Yasuho wondered. The looks all the people had been directing towards Fugo had her thinking on that.
"He's actually banned from entering Japan." The man admitted.
"Wait, what?" Yasuho definitely hadn't been expecting that. "Why? He's a hero, right?"
"Being a hero in Japan is different from being a hero in Italy. He did some things here that would have been perfectly legal in Italy, but most assuredly weren't here." Fugo rubbed the back of his head. "He's not a bad guy though, I promise. Just a little overzealous. All Might even tried to get the ban repealed for a bit, saying he'd done him a huge favour he couldn't repay, or something. But, the Japanese government was adamant."
If that's the case, then whatever Fugo's boss did probably wasn't that bad. Yasuho was content to let it drop, but the other girl seemed to have her own thoughts.
"Your 'agency' is Passione, isn't it?" Kira spoke up, putting a strange emphasis on the word agency. Yasuho dropped her smile a bit in surprise.
She hadn't expected the other girl to start talking. Kira hadn't said a word since they went on patrol.
"…Have you looked me up, then?" Fugo asked, not looking at either of them. His voice was oddly grim, she felt.
"No. It just made sense. You wouldn't be here hunting Stain if you didn't have a Stand." Kira's tone seemed sorta heavy to Yasuho in spite of the quiet monotone she used. "I try to pay attention to other Stand users, even foreign ones. My brothers taught me it was necessary. Stand users attract one another, after all. That's why I've heard of Passione before, though the hero wiki didn't list you as a member at the time."
"I've… had a tumultuous employment record with them. I left before, but then rejoined, after the new boss tracked me down. Well, not like I had much of a choice." He heaved a bitter laugh.
"Uh, sorry, I'm a little lost. Why wouldn't you have a choice?" Yasuho didn't ask the other question nagging at her. Why were they talking about the agency so… weirdly?
"It's complicated." He said.
"Not really. Passione used to be a designated villain organisation." Kira said in a blithe tone, as if she were remarking on the weather.
"What?!" Yasuho shrieked. Heads turned all round them to look at her, and she could feel the blood rush to her face. "Uh, sorry."
They walked on in silence, while Yasuho plastered a strained, nervous smile to her face, chiding herself for the embarrassing outburst for a minute. They passed through a plaza with a bronze monument in the centre. 'In memory of those who lost their lives to the rampaging villain, Blue Vengeance' was inscribed at the top, with a list of names underneath.
The plaza was crowded, and Yasuho didn't feel comfortable continuing the conversation with so many people around. The others seemed to have the same idea, since they continued on in silence, crossing the plaza. Once the crowds had thinned a little, and they had less attention on them, she spoke again in a harsh but low voice.
"What do you mean it was a villain organisation? Mister Purple Haze is supposed to be a hero, right?" She asked Kira.
"I am now. But..." He trailed off.
They stopped at another crossing, and Yasuho's thoughts were running at a thousand miles an hour. Was Fugo a villain? Did UA know? They had to, there's no way they hired someone without vetting them at least a little! Should they still be following him around the city?!
"Most gangs and mafias and such went the same way as the yakuza here in Japan, once superpowers became well established in society." Kira seemed to ignore Yasuho's panicked confusion as she spoke. "Quirks meant that a single villain who had lucked out in the genetic lottery would be able to get much further in the underground than entire groups of organised criminals. The organisations which once ruled the underworld became obsolete."
The light changed, and they walked across the road. Yasuho was thankful they weren't in too big a crowd now, considering the turn the conversation had taken. There were only a couple of others around them. The only one close enough to overhear them was a strange looking person with some sort of stick figure mutation Quirk. They didn't seem to be reacting to the conversation, but with no facial features, it was hard to tell. Maybe she was just being paranoid.
"Passione was different from the other criminal groups." Fugo took over the explanation, jolting Yasuho from her thoughts. "The boss had an arrow. The same kind that stabbed you, Paisley Park. With it, he bred Stands into his followers, and with that power, he conquered the Italian underworld. My own Stand was a product of that arrow, in fact."
"Bred Stands?" Kira asked, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic sharpness. It stood out, when compared to her normal lax tone. "What, like DIO?"
"Exactly like DIO. Relax, the old boss is dead now, he's no threat to anyone." Fugo's words didn't seem to help settle Kira. She still wore an uncertain frown.
"But you said Hirose got stabbed." Kira turned her attention to Yasuho. "Is that really how you gained your Stand? If there's an arrow out there somewhere, we're in a very bad situation."
"Y-yeah, that's where my Stand comes from… but I didn't expect Mister Purple Haze to know about that." She felt a little awkward. Of course he knew, she'd told the school when she sent along the details of her abilities.
She wasn't sure why she felt like she didn't want people to know. It was hardly as though it somehow made her less of a Stand user than those born with theirs.
"But more importantly, can we get back on topic? I'm pretty concerned about this whole villain thing!" Yasuho had the presence of mind to keep her voice low as she shouted this time. The result was her sentence coming out as a heated whisper.
She probably didn't need to, a lot of the attention which had been on them earlier seemed to have waned. Most people were gawking at a few cosplayers, who'd donned very lifelike costumes of popular anime characters.
"Yes, the 'whole villain thing' is also important." Kira admitted. "I thought you might be a late addition, but you said you'd been in Passione prior to the new boss' rise to power. If you were, you must have been a villain. How did you escape jail time? Is that what you meant when you said you had no choice?"
"No. The justice system over there was pretty corrupt at the time, so going to jail wasn't much of a risk. My crimes weren't that egregious either, mostly just protection racket shit, and there wasn't really a large amount of evidence against me. Overall, I'd basically gotten away with everything." Fugo pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
"No, the reason I had no choice but to rejoin Passione was because I was afraid the new boss would kill me."
Yasuho's jaw dropped, for what felt like the hundredth time since the conversation had taken this turn.
"But, he's a hero, right? Why would he kill you?" So many things about this just weren't adding up.
"You have to understand. Most Stand battles result in death. This has already been explained to you, am I right?" Yasuho nodded slowly, acknowledging the point. "Things are even more… intense in Italy. The courts weren't very strong, even more so back then. Even Quirk fights ran a serious chance of resulting in death.
"In a way, you've all been… spoiled, I suppose, by living in the country protected by All Might." Fugo said. "It used to be much worse in Japan. People feared villains, truly feared them in a way they're only now starting to remember.
"In most parts of the world, that fear never really went away. America got away from the worst of it, I guess. All Might went there for a while, and sleazy as he was, Captain Celebrity helped out too. But that's it. Even though Star Platinum went through Hong Kong, Singapore, Western Asia, and Egypt, he mostly only fought Stand-using villains. And that accounts for the top three heroes worldwide. Most of the world had to fend for itself, and that left certain parts a bit more brutal than the others."
"And Italy was one such place?" Yasuho asked, quietly. She already knew what he'd say. Some part of her heart hurt. She'd always known how the onset of Quirks had altered society, but it was human nature to turn a blind eye to suffering that occurred on the other side of the world. Up until someone who'd lived through it told you about it to your face.
"It's better now. The new boss is a top ten hero globally, even if the laws he upholds are a bit more grey than the ones here." Fugo said. "Even if he kills most of his opponents, whether they have Stands or not. That sort of thing is normal there."
Yasuho recoiled a bit at the thought. "Is that why he's banned from Japan?"
"Yes. He killed a villain, here in Hosu, in fact, who was only using their Quirk. You're already aware lethal force isn't allowed on most villains in this country. The government was also aware of his ties to the Italian underworld. The ban was strongly supported.
"But because of that brutality, you feared he might kill you." Kira noted.
"I was a rogue Stand user, who'd been involved in criminal activity in the past. I suppose you could say Gold Experience 'pardoned' all of the villains who'd come to his side. But he killed the ones who opposed him.
"I hadn't opposed or supported him, so I thought I was free of it all. Until he tracked me down, that is. At that point, I had to join up. I did a job for him, hunting down some traitors as a vigilante, and he brought me back into the organisation and got me a hero license." Fugo stated.
"How did a villain organisation get turned into a hero agency though? That's so strange." Yasuho wondered, as they came to another crossing.
They stopped, but the person behind them with the stick figure Quirk didn't seem to expect it. He walked right into Kira, shoulder checking her.
"Hey! Rude..."
"Italy is a completely different place compared to Japan. You have to remove your preconceptions." Fugo said, ignoring Kira's muttering.
"Corruption is much stronger there. In fact, Passione still rules the underworld. The hero agency is a front." Yasuho could barely believe what she was hearing, but Kira didn't seem to care. She was shouting something at the stick figure person as they walked past her, but Yasuho's attention was totally focused on Fugo as he continued to speak. "Well, as both the premiere hero and crime lord in the country, Gold Experience makes sure that crime is much more manageable and less harmful than it was before, so-"
A loud crashing sound cut him off, and Yasuho whipped her head forward, looking away from Fugo and towards the source of the commotion.
The stick figure person was laying in the middle of the road, right in front of a car. There was a dent in the hood.
"They wouldn't stop walking!" Kira said, her voice filled with horror. "I tried telling them the light was still-" She stopped talking suddenly.
The person had stood back up. Ignoring the car that hit them, and all the other cars and pedestrians which had stopped to see what was going on, they continued walking forward at a leisurely pace.
"What the hell?"
"Hey, are you okay?"
The stick figure didn't respond to any of the people calling out. Fugo rushed forward across the street, made easier with all the cars stopped while the drivers stared. He caught up to the person in seconds, and grabbed their shoulder.
"Explain yourself. What's going on here?" His hold prevented them from moving, but Yasuho could see their feet continuing to lift and drop down, like they were doing a walk in place exercise.
They didn't respond to Fugo's questioning or make any indication whatsoever that they noticed him.
"Purple Haze! Look at the lights!" Kira called out. He turned his head to face them, before his jaw dropped.
Yasuho had been so focused on the person's bizarre behaviour that she hadn't noticed the motion.
Another stick figure was pulling itself out of one of the pedestrian walk lights. It pressed the nubby ends of its arms against the sides of the light, and pushed. It fell to the road, while the crowd stared.
And then it started walking.
Fugo let go of the one he had a hold on, and stared past them. The other slowly walked up towards his side of the crossing, but he ignored it.
"Mister Purple Haze?" Yasuho called out tentatively.
"These things might be dangerous, we should capture them." Kira said. "The collateral damage, just from walking in front of traffic alone-"
"That's not our current concern." Fugo interrupted her, still staring past them.
"They could cause more car accidents!" Kira argued. She moved to take a step forward, but stopped as the ground began shaking.
A shadow came over them. It was humanoid in shape, but stretched out far enough to cover the entire street.
Yasuho slowly turned around, and looked directly at a massive robot, standing as tall as a building.
"That," Fugo stated in a dark voice. "Is our current concern."