The test is over and the second day of internships is on. Grandma is excited to see an old friend. Wait, what's happening in Hosu and what's with the strange text from Izuku?
Buzzing.
Insistant buzzing.
Buzzing that made Suri groan and stir from her slumber as she dragged her head from her pillow and lifted to see what the hell was happening. It wasn't like she had packed a vibrator or anything. Nope, that little friend was still stuck in America and she definitely had not borrowed Mina's. This time at least. With one eye open she scanned the room which was filled with a soft glow of light coming through the windows. Her ears picked up on the background noise of people going about their day outside, it was the typical white noise you get from living in a city. Her head came back towards the center of the room and towards where the sound was coming from and found her phone. The screen was lit up showing that someone was trying to call her and then she looked at the name.
Mina.
She smiled softly and reached for her phone, swiping the green call button to answer and then pulled it to her ear. She grumbled and swallowed so her throat was clear so she could happily speak to the pink skinned babe on the other end.
"Hey, Pinky Pie," she answered, still a little groggy.
"Crap! I didn't wake you up, did I?" Mina replied apologetically.
"Yeah, but it's okay," Suri answered and reassured her. "Time is it anyway?"
"Twelve thirty. Tooru said to not try calling again until after we had lunch and let you sleep some more."
So they had slept till noon. Some good quality rest! Yay!
"You tried calling first thing, didn't you?" Suri smiled and rolled onto her back, letting her back nestle against the warm sheets while her naked front sat exposed to the cooler air of the room.
"No," Mina whined, trying to sound innocent. Yeah, she had definitely tried calling as soon as they woke up.
"It's all good," Suri laughed. "So how was the first day for you two?"
"It was hard," she whined then sobered a little as she added, "but at least we didn't end up like you and your partner."
"Is that Suri," asked Tooru in the background. Suri then heard as she rushed over and pictured in her head Mina holding the phone so that the two of them could both hear and talk.
"Hey, baby girl," Suri said as she heard the phone shift. She had pictured the two of them correctly apparently.
"Hiii~"
"So how was yesterday?" Suri asked again.
"We mostly did coffee runs and stuff," Tooru answered in a defeated tone. "Then we did training after dinner and it hurt!"
"Raijin had us jogging into one of his storm winds," Mina continued. "It sucked!"
"I'll trade you," Suri snickered.
"Hell no," the two girls answered in unison.
"What did she do to you two anyway?" Tooru asked.
"She had us go two on one with her. All we had to do was still a little cat's bell from her," Suri explained. "Sounds easy right? Until you realize that Grandma has Asuka at the surface, like, all the time."
"Really?" they asked in unison again.
Suri loved the little chorus sound of them together. It made a happy little shiver run though her entire body.
"I had never realized I hadn't seen her shift during the full moon until last night. She's so powerful and in tune with Asuka that they never have to shift," this time Atiena answered them.
"Sounds like you're getting pretty in tune," Mina added.
"Trying to at least. We've gotten pretty synchronized lately but last night, once we realized how Grandma is so goddamn fast and so damn powerful… it just kinda clicked. We hadn't been that in tune since the USJ."
"Yeah, you were awesome that day," Tooru said and there was a little sadness in her voice.
"Babe," Suri spoke in a comforting tone. "You and Mina stayed by Thirteen's side and made sure nothing else happened to her. Just because you weren't in a fight doesn't mean you were any less important. I promise."
"Yeah, I know, I just… you know how I feel about my Quirk sometimes."
"Which is exactly why you choose Raijin. You want to learn to do more than just look all sexy and scrumptious," Suri spoke in a happy matter of fact voice.
"And cuddly and warm," Mina spoke and Suri could practically hear the giant ear to ear grin that was gracing her pinkette girlfriend's face.
"Yeah she is," Atiena purred.
"Guys!" Tooru whined.
"So what's Raijin got you two doing today?"
"Oh! We're heading back out on patrol here soon," Mina answered.
"Yeah, it's been exciting," Tooru added. "What about you?"
Suri thought about that for a moment and hummed while she did so.
"Probably more training, honestly. Kurogami here didn't figure out that her beast was its own thing until last night," Suri smirked at the other girl as she slowly stirred from her sleep.
"Seriously?" Tooru asked. "I thought you said all of you knew about your beasts?"
"Apparently not all of us," she shrugged in response.
"Queen, Ultraviolet, we're clocking back in," Suri heard a man's voice in the background call out.
It was a velvety baritone voice that, if you were really into voices, would absolutely reach out and caress you in all the right places. That was Raijin. He was an absolute babe and did a lot of modeling when he wasn't doing pro hero work which made him really really popular with women and a good share of men. Aside from being handsome, and having a yummy voice, he had great control of his Quirk, Stormbringer which allowed him to conjure and manipulate weather events. He was in the top 20s for a reason.
"Kay' we gotta go," Mina said quickly and excitedly.
"We'll talk to you soon, babe," Tooru added happily.
"You two take care and be safe. Talk to you soon, loves," Suri smiled and hummed, her chest fluttering a little as she spoke.
"Kisses," the two of them sang in unison.
"Kisses~"
Click.
Suri sighed with a smile as she let her phone lay onto her chest. When was the last time she had felt like this just talking to someone on the phone? It felt like forever since she had felt that happy flutter. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed that feeling. With that thought in mind, she smiled as she felt her phone buzz and saw a new pic sent in from her two little dorks, this time in their hero costumes, throwing up peace signs and wide smiles. Then she bit her lip and grinned wide as she scrolled through the previous messages from that morning. That's because, aside from the barrage of good mornings, how are yous, and hellos, there was a selfie from Tooru of her and Mina cuddled up in bed, perfect ample display of pink and invisible skin with 'we miss you' in a cutesy white font.
Suri took a deep breath and forced herself to scroll away, after saving the pic of course, and once she was all caught up, put the phone down and rolled herself out of bed. Lord knows she wanted to do something else but… maybe later. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, letting her feet touch onto the cool wooden flooring before she stood up and stretched. After enjoying the delicious burn from loosening stiff muscles she grabbed her backpack and briefcase before heading for the bathroom.
She took the time to fix and redo some of her braids in the mirror, watching Kurogami pull herself out of her bed behind her. The smaller girl stretched in the same manner before she too picked up her bags and joined Suri in front of the mirror. The two of them did their hair in silence for a moment before the smaller of the two girls broke that long quiet silence.
"So your girlfriends know all about what you really are?"
"Yup. Plus one of our friends."
Yukari turned and looked at Suri with an eyebrow raised.
"Kind of careless don't you think?" Yukari asked with a sour tone.
"I trust the three of them with my life so I felt like it wasn't fair to them to hide anything from them. And," Suri smirked, "they all took the news pretty well."
"So you've told them about Hyrum Black?"
Suri froze and her eyes grew wider. She then slowly turned her head towards the other girl and watched her as she gave Suri a look, rolled her eyes and smirked before continuing her hair and makeup. So. That was apparently common knowledge among wereanimals, huh?
"Don't act like you know what happened, Kurogami. You weren't there and you don't know a thing about what went down that night," Suri scowled before turning and grabbing her backpack.
She was about to grab out underwear when she eyed her briefcase, sighed, and then grumbled as she switched her selection to a black thong. She'd need to design a secondary look to her hero costume next week. As much as she enjoyed the little booty short kind of design her costume had on the bottom it wasn't large enough for truly comfortable panties. It left her with two options; thong or commando. She didn't dislike either option but… going commando in public with a hero suit like hers would come with the same myriad of issues that Midnight's first gen costume came with. And really, she liked thongs, loved how sexy she could feel in them and they were absolutely perfect for teasing certain someones but they didn't always ride very comfortably. She'd deal with the discomfort and then make some adjustments to her costume so that they weren't the only option for underwear.
"No, you're right, I don't know what happened that night."
Oh yeah, Yukari was still here.
"I won't pretend that I do, I just wanna know if they do."
"No," Suri growled. "Not the whole thing anyway."
"That's a big secret to be holding back from them, don't you think?" Yukari asked.
Suri turned to scowl at the other girl again when she watched her pull on some denim jeans that had the legs rolled to the knees. She then reached for a verdant green tank top and started pulling it over her head and the edge of a lacy, blood red colored bra. The outfit was so… ordinary. It had a punk edge that sort of reminded her of Jirou but even her classmate's costume was a little more. Then she spotted the hooded vest and mask still sitting in the briefcase. Oh. That would be the little extra part.
She shook her head and turned back to focus on her own costume after she quickly pulled on the thong she'd pulled out. The leotard slipped up her legs and hugged her hips nicely once she got everything situated where it was supposed to ride. Then came the torso and chest, which once she got it on and was able to get her large breasts sitting right she realized there had been a change or two. The girls rode… really comfortably. Definitely got upgraded by a woman that had to be equally endowed because the only way you'd get that comfort level is if that someone had tits for days too. In fact, the entire costume felt better, like it fit every inch of her perfectly to the point it was like a second skin. It gave her the illusion of freedom that being stark naked did.
Shoutout to the chick in the support course that made the adjustments.
Once her suit was on, Suri fit her mask into place before reaching in and pulling out her gloves and sleeves. Those were the last pieces to go on before she turned and faced the other girl. Suri just stared and let a curious look pass over her face as she looked her co-intern up and down and fluffed her bottom lip as she internally debated whether she liked the costume or not. It was definitely interesting and not the most absurd thing she had seen but the hooded vest - that harkened back to the Shinjuku Wolf Queen's own fur lined vest - paired with the top half of a lucha libre mask was… interesting. Though the more she thought about it, the costume was a perfect blend of her mother's style and her father's Brazilian and Latino heritage. It was nice and it made Suri realize just how much her costume reflected her dad's own pro hero suit that she'd grown up seeing nearly every day.
That realization was… interesting.
"I'll tell them when I'm ready," Suri spoke softly.
"Speaking of ready," came a voice from behind them which made both girls jump and turn to see Grandma Kuroyashi in full Lady Whiplash attire smiling wide and bearing fangs. She enjoyed scaring them didn't she? "Wild Eyes, Lotigre, are you ready for your first day on patrol?"
"We're going on patrol?" both Suri and Yukari shouted excitedly before looking at each other with wide grins. They were expecting training but patrols?
This would be fun!
So…
It wasn't as fun as they'd hoped.
Sure being out in costume and feeling, really feeling, like a full fledged hero did feel great. That was fun. Suri didn't mind the random greetings and tiny back and forth with some normal civilians, it wasn't nearly as bad as she had seen with All Might or her dad. There had been more than a few occasions over the years where family events or dinners were interrupted by people wanting pictures or autographs. Suri saw it as a sort of necessary evil, not that fans were evil or anything, but having your social life needing to come with the little distractions. That sort of thing. Though, it had been fun signing autographs for a few wide eyed and overly excited kids that couldn't have been much older than eight wanting to know who the newest sidekicks were. One little girl with the group had reminded her of Deku, not only because of the messy hair that just so happened to be green, but she wanted to know every minute detail of how their Quirks worked. He'd be happy to know that there were a ton of fanboys and girls so he wasn't the odd duck that he probably often felt like.
Why was she thinking of him again?
The patrol turned out to be mostly uneventful but they were able to get a good lay of the land and got to know a good share about Shinjuku. They got to know where the normal hotspots for criminal activity were, got to know about the local gangs and recent dealings. Apparently it had just been a more than average slow day.
"So how active is Shinjuku usually?" Suri asked.
"Hmm, normally by now I've had to put down three or four squables, apprehend a civilian or two that works up a temper and uses their Quirk without permission, mostly minor things like that. It really picks up around here at night, that's when all of the real action starts. About once a month you'll get a murder or robbery you get to work a case on but that's the most major thing. It does strike me odd that Hibiki's been a good boy," Lady Whiplash laughed. "Usually, the little rascal is stirring up all sorts of trouble."
"Hibiki," Yukari asked curiously. "You mean the youngest of the Blue Kitsunes?"
"That's the one!" she answered with cheer.
"The Blue Kitsunes?"
"Oh, yeah, you probably haven't heard about them," Yukari answered. "They're a small pack of werefo.. I mean kitsunes. Mom and dad have put up with them for years."
Werefoxes. Or as they were lovingly referred to in Japan, Kitsunes. Foxes had a reputation among all wereanimals of being giant pranksters and loved to cause trouble just for the sake of causing trouble.
"We all have," the older woman laughed again. "They've been a mischievous bunch of hoodlums for about twenty years. They're parents were part of a giant biker gang down south then moved here after getting out of prison and started a family. Their boys took up the biker gang tradition, but aside from just being nuisances, they don't cause much harm."
"So," Suri asked again, even more puzzled now. "Why not just deal with them? Aren't they villains?"
"Because, despite their nuisances and being a bunch of rowdy boys, they do good by the community more often than not. They're rough and tumble but, they haven't done anything that counts as true villainy. Now, before you say anything," she stopped and turned around to look at both girls. "Our job as pro heroes isn't to just put everyone down. Not everything needs a hammer to a nail solution and instead you must look at every interaction with a different pair of eyes. Someone getting drunk, then getting rowdy and misusing their Quirk because they're mad they lost a pachinko game doesn't warrant the approach someone committing robbery would. Just like you wouldn't treat a common thief and a violent predator the same. Look at each disturbance or crime case by case and with compassion."
"Compassion?" Yukari asked this time.
"Not everyone who commits a crime is an evil person or even a bad person. Sometimes we're pushed by forces out of our control to do something. Sometimes someone doesn't go and rob a convenience store or bank just because they can. Sometimes life has pushed them to such an extent that they feel it's one of the only possible solutions to their plight. If we treated it as such, we'd treat someone who's taken a life to protect themselves and their loved ones as someone who's consciously taken the life of dozens of people just because they could."
The somber expression that Grandma Kuroyashi's face had softened into pointed itself directly at Suri and made the girl flinch. Suri sank in on herself before turning away and not facing either woman and instead tried to find something of interest elsewhere. Anywhere.
"They're not the same and as such, we treat their cases with a different mindset. The person who consciously takes life for their own pleasure and gain should be treated severely. A hammer of justice and good to the nail of evil. The other? Well I believe the cause was just."
Suri smiled weakly and faced her grandmother, swallowing the lump in her throat. Then she asked the question that had been on her mind for a long time.
"And if that person who, even though you see them as just, wanted to redeem themselves for their actions. How many people need to be saved before they can be redeemed?"
"A thousand," Yukari replied with a sarcastic bite and a smirk.
"Two down, nine hundred ninety eight to go," Suri grinned and gave the other girl a look of determined fire.
Yukari didn't have a comeback for that.
Good.
"Simmer down, ladies," Grandma Kuroyashi sighed and shook her head. "Let's get some dinner and we'll return to patrolling after dark."
That sounded like a great idea. And with that the three of them ducked into a small restaurant a few blocks away from the agency where the air was thick with the smell of food. It made Suri's mouth water as soon as they crossed the threshold and she instantly wanted meat. She wanted it smoked and barbecued. And she wanted it now. Or was that Atiena talking?
Within a few moments the three were seated in a small booth that had a small grill in the center of their table. Ah, so it was one of those restaurants. Once seated they ordered drinks and selections of meat to be brought to the table before sitting back and waiting. The two younger girls watched as their mentor took off her eye mask, fully revealing her face and the two looked at each other with questioning glances. If she took off her mask here, that meant this place was safe, right? The two of them shrugged and then cautiously followed suit, Yukari pulling her hood back and lifting her mask while Suri removed her own eye mask and set it next to her on their booth bench seat. Suri then watched her grandmother do something she never thought she'd ever see the old woman do; she pulled out her phone, checked a text, and Suri watched her face light up like a schoolgirl.
That was really interesting.
"What's with the old lady?" Yukari had noticed too and leaned over, whispering cautiously into Suri's ear.
"I have no idea," Suri whispered back, watching in awe as Grandma Kuroyashi texted and giggled, actually fucking giggled at her phone. It was kind of terrifying.
"Um, Lady Whiplash?" Suri asked carefully.
"Oh," she laughed softly and quickly tucked her phone away. "Sorry about that."
"Okay, really, what's up? I've never seen you do that before," Suri queried.
"Please, dear, I'm not that old, of course I use a cell phone and text and all those sorts of things," she smiled.
"No," Yukari whined.
"You," Suri waffled her hands in the air. "You look like me when I…"
Suri froze and looked at her grandmother with the biggest and dopiest dumbfounded look that had ever graced her face. No way. There was no fucking way. Right?"
"When you what?" Yukari asked, staring utterly confused at Suri.
"When I text Mina and Tooru."
"Oh," Yukari said and blinked. Then it clicked. Like, really clicked. "Ohh!"
The two girls stared at the older woman who just smiled and rolled her eyes at them. There was no way that the two of them were going to be tagging along with a couple of old people on a date. Nope. No way.
"Oh please, you two," she shook her head and batted her hand at them.
As she did so, their food and drinks were brought to the table and the older woman wasted no time in quickly picking up long, thin cuts of seasoned meat and throwing them across the small grill. After doing so and seeing that her interns were still staring at her she took a deep sigh and rolled her eyes again. Yeah, she was acting half her age now.
Something was really going on.
"Okay, spill it," Suri groaned, picking up her own chopsticks and picked up her own meat cuts.
"You're not using us like guys will use kids or dogs to pick up chicks are you," Yukari asked.
"Heavens no," the old woman laughed, full and hearty.
The laughter lasted for a long moment and the two younger girls sank into their seats, both completely and utterly embarrassed. They quietly shrunk into their seats for a few long minutes, sulking as they silently ate and sipped their drinks. It was after a long moment of pouting that Grandma Kuroyashi finally relented and grumbled at the two for being so childish.
They were not being childish!
Okay, that was childish.
"Truth is," the old woman took a long swig of her drink, sighed loudly and then stared at the ice in a longing sort of way. Oh, she had it bad. "I was going to surprise you two and let you meet one of my oldest and dearest friends. I've known him for close to fifty years now and he just recently came out of retirement to take on an intern as well. So I thought we'd invite them to go on patrol with us."
It was at that very moment that Suri remembered her mentioning a couple weeks ago that her oldest friends had also been frequent romps to sate Asuka. This was one of those friends wasn't it? She wouldn't seriously order a booty call like this, would she? No, not the sweet old granny, right? Right?!
"Oh? Just patrolling, huh?" Suri asked with a layer of suspicion the size of a mountain.
Grandma Kuroyashi, this sly old woman, grinned the biggest grin, cheeks tinged pink as she slowly and nonchalantly sipped at her straw. This was the face of a highschool girl that had a date with the hottest guy in school. The face of a teen girl about to drag that boy under the bleachers and pray to the gods that no one caught them. This tricky old woman.
Suri, at that moment, was really really happy that Grandma's apartment at the agency wasn't directly over theirs. The thought alone was going to make it hard to get any meaningful rest.
"Why doesn't he patrol his own area with this intern of his?" Yukari asked, trying to hide the fact that she had the same uncomfortable thought.
"Because he's out in the sticks. Not much crime out that way, and young heroes need eventful patrols to get the experience they need. And besides," the old woman growled defensively, "I haven't seen this dear old man in some time and I want to see how he's been."
So call him.
Or at least that's what she wanted to say. Instead, the subject got changed to Yukari and put her on the spot. That was fine though because Suri wanted to know how the hell a lycanthrope doesn't realize what they are. Still, even with not truly tapping into her beast, she had been pretty powerful.
"Speaking of old friends, Kurogami," Grandma Kuroyashi smiled her sweet smile and looked directly into the girl's eyes. "How are you and your old friend getting along?"
"Decent, I guess," she answered with a huff. "I slept hard after training but I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept. She kept me awake," she waffled at the air, "somewhere."
"Ahh, in the mind forest."
Suri and Yukari looked at the woman.
"So," Yukari spoke cautiously, "that's how it is for everyone?"
"It is. Though, it's not always a forest for everyone, it's just the most common place for us and our beasts to commune."
"And everyone communes with them?" Yukari asked quietly.
"Once you reach a certain age or power level, yes. It's quite rare that anyone makes it into adulthood without communing at least once. Though it is possible to be cut off from your beast almost completely if you're highly capable of creating metaphysical shields."
"Metaphysical shields," the girls asked in unison.
"It means that you have the ability to protect yourself from people or beings with psychic powers and abilities or even cut yourself off completely from your own psychic powers. Which is what I believe is your case," Grandma Kuroyashi answered.
"Yeah," the girl laughed with a sort of bitterness in her tone. "She absolutely hates me for that."
"Did you know you were doing it?" Suri asked.
"No. Even still, she yelled at me for what seemed like an entire day," she grumbled.
"So, I gotta ask then, how have you gone this long without realizing or understanding you're two different souls in one body?"
"I am curious as well, I know that both your mother's pack and your father's pard have older wereanimals tasked with being mentors for the younger members during the first change and early development. We have them so we don't end up with Reavers."
Reavers.
Reavers were bad.
There were a couple of ways that you become a Reaver. One is never having the guidance during your first few transformations and you slowly lose your humanity. Another way was staying in animal form for too long, most of the time it was because of forced shifts. That's why a lot of groups outlawed forcing members into animal form as punishment or for various other reasons. If you stayed in animal form too long or shifted consecutively in a short time span, you ran the risk of not coming back completely human. Sometimes it was physical effects, other times it was mental. As you lost your humanity and the beast took over you'd become more animal than anything and that's what a Reaver was; no longer human or wereanimal, just a wild beast the size of a truck.
Yukari, unaware and completely naive to the fact that her beast was a second entity that she shared her body with, had run the risk of becoming a Reaver. And she had no idea. Her beast could have, at any point, gotten so fed up that she clawed her way out of the girl from the inside out. It would be a lot like Mina's favorite movie where you think you have an upset stomach and then tada you've got an alien popping out of you like a jack-in-the-box.
"I've just always believed that I'm it. I was always stronger, faster, and could do things better than my friends because I was better. Lycanthropy was my Quirk, that's why I've always been better than any of the other kids around me and why not, my parents are both extremely powerful. Nothing ever stood in my way and I just thought that the night of the full moon was when I was at my best."
"You said you were okay with losing that tie and not having memories of the Lupanars. Are you still fine with that?" Suri asked.
"I'm not sure," Yukari answered. "I was okay with it because, even though I knew that my Quirk came with the change during the moon, the idea of an animal form didn't please me. I didn't think it was as cool as everyone else did. Now… I know differently and what I did to her."
"It sounds like you are on the path to balance, if you ask me," Grandma Kuroyashi answered with a smile.
"Hmph, all she needed was for someone more terrifying than mother to get her head out of her ass," came another voice from Yukari. It was that deeper and more mature tone that always seemed to be the tell of the beast manifesting itself.
If that wasn't proof, Yukari going wide eyed and clutching her mouth in shock was.
Suri and Grandma Kuroyashi began laughing while Yukari sank into her seat, pouting and grumbling as she refused to make eye contact with anyone. The laughter broke after a moment and soon the three women did what they came here to do; eat. The three of them took turns on the small grill while the other two ate until soo enough their orders of meats were gone. Between the meats and the few rounds of refills on their drinks, their bellies were full and they felt energized and full of vigor. They were ready to get back out on the street and meet up with this surprise guest of theirs.
It was why they went to the train station near the agency that Suri and her grandmother had gotten off at yesterday morning. The wait shouldn't have taken much longer but after a while, Suri and Yukari noticed a change in their mentor's demeanor. She was tapping her foot, scowling with a low purr of a growl sitting in her chest, and her arms folded tight against her chest. Oh, she was mad.
Though, Suri would be too if she got stood up for a date.
Not that it was a date.
Just a night out on patrol as heroes and long time friends and lovers.
Nope, not a date at all
At least, they'd have another intern their age to join up with and talk with while the old lovers reminisced. The two younger girls had pondered over what the other intern was like or who it could be. Truthfully, Suri knew it could very well be one of her classmates, maybe even someone from 1-B, they could be from Ketsubutsu Academy like Yukari, or they could be from one of the other smaller hero schools. Luckily it wasn't just UA that had the privilege of having students intern with pros. UA just got better favor among pros. They were in the middle of talking and idly watching their mentor begin to pace back and forth when Suri felt her phone vibrate. She was hoping for a text from her girls but her face contorted into a confused glance as she read the name of the sender and the message content.
"Izuku?" she questioned aloud and then tilted her head as she looked at the message. No words, no remote semblance of a message, just a random location. Why would he send a pin of his location? That was odd, even for Izuku.
The two then looked up and saw Grandma Kuroyashi pull her phone up, dial and then pace as the call rang. She looked nervous as there was no answer as she tried a second call, and then a third with no luck.
"Lady Whiplash, is everything okay," Suri asked in a cautious voice.
"Hmm? Oh!" the old woman's demeanor changed in an instant from worried to happy. That wasn't a good sign and Suri knew the next words out of her mouth were a lie. "It's fine! I'm sure Sora just has his phone off or he forgot it. Silly, old man he is."
"Where were they coming from?" Yukari asked.
"From Yamanashi, southwest of here. Their train should have arrived by now so I'm sure they just ran into a delay or something."
If they were coming from Yamanashi they would have…
Suri quickly pulled her phone back out and looked at Izuku's message again and zoomed out from the map to see a wider picture. He was somewhere in Hosu which happened to be on the way from Yamanashi to Shinjuku. Atiena began to pace inside her mind nervously and the two of them shared a very bad feeling in their guts.
"Who did you say your friend's intern was?" Suri asked with a very hesitant tone, praying her gut was just sitting heavy from dinner.
The old woman looked to her granddaughter, catching a faint glimpse of the map and a pindrop and who the message was from. As soon as she had seen the screen of the phone, the old woman paled and it was absolutely not lost on Suri. That was a very very bad sign.
"Grandma?" Suri whispered.
"H-hey guys," Yukari tapped on Suri's shoulder.
The two of them looked to her and then followed where she and a large crowd of people at the station were staring. Dozens of people watched in a collective awe and horror as the news played on the screens around the station. All of them were showing what looked like a warzone as fires raged throughout a nearby city. That city was Hosu. Then Suri saw something that made her stomach and heart drop like a rock into the ground below as her eyes took in the sight of familiar black skin and deformed features.
"Nomu!" Suri and Atiena whisper screamed in unison and then she looked again at Izuku's message again and realized that another of her classmates was in that same city and the horror that Suri felt skyrocketed.
Shit.
Fuck!
Suri began shaking as she quickly turned back to her grandmother and saw the old woman staring at the screens in just as much horror. The two of them were shaking. As the two of them stared at each other in shock, Yukari snuck a peek at Suri's phone to see what had scared the other girl so much.
Oh. Oh shit.
Then the three of them all flared their nose at the same time. They could smell the smoke. They could smell the fires that were burning a couple cities over. The city where Grandma Kuroyashi and Suri's friends were.
"Wild Eyes, Lotigre," Asuka's voice rose up with a quiet and nervous tone. It wasn't the voice of the confident and powerful leopard queen they knew. "Raise your beasts to the surface and focus on resonating. We're going to Hosu and I don't believe we'll be able to use the trains."
The old woman began walking and a wave of prickling heat rose off of her skin and surrounded her like a moving fire. The two younger girls watched her begin to walk away, looked at each other and then both closed their eyes and called upon their beasts. Their eyes lit up, glowing like fire as they began to chase after their mentor. They caught up, falling in line with the woman who had her fists balled tight and Suri could see a tear threatening to fall from her grandmother's eye.
Then the old woman, Lady Whiplash, began moving faster. The two younger girls followed suit. Suri focused on that feeling from last night's training and felt herself walking side by side with Atiena. The two of them walked together in sync, their movements in time with the same purposeful stride as their energy washed outward from them. They felt a similar heat as they're own and watched Yukari striding next to them and even though she wasn't nearly in sync as they were and miles away from Grandma and Asuka, there was progress.
It was time to test that progress.
The three of them went from a powerful stride down the street aimed towards Hosu to a jog. The steady jog turned into sprinting and then sprinting gave way to running. They hit the edge of Shinjuku at a full run getting faster. They were fast but they needed to be faster and the three dug in with a chorus of growling roars and their surroundings became nothing but blurs.
"Hold on, Izuku," Suri and Atiena spoke together with a voice that turned into a roar of determination, "we're coming!"
And with that roar, they were gone, rushing headlong towards danger. Rushing towards their friends because Suri, and by extension, Atiena, needed to be sure of one thing. They needed to make sure Izuku, their Green Bean, their Green Prince was okay.
And if he wasn't okay…
Well.
She'd kill the motherfucker that made the poor decision of fucking with her man.