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Chapter Sixteen

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Kazuya let out a frustrated growl as she turned down another dead-end street. She had been trying to locate Mirko the Rabbit Hero for half an hour and it proved to be nearly impossible. True, this wasn't entirely unexpected; she knew Mirko had no agency and a reputation for never staying in one place, but she didn't expect to be stranded in Hiroshima because of it. One would think someone who protects people for a living would settle for a few seconds to find their pupil.

"How the hell am I supposed to find someone who never wants to be found?!" Kazuya whined to nobody in particular and threw her hero costume suitcase on the ground, sitting atop it like a pouty toddler.

The two train rides to Hiroshima were long and partially to blame for her moodiness. She was one of the last to be dropped off and as hard as she tried to entertain herself with YouTube videos or games on her phone, she couldn't shake the anxiety gnawing away at her will. To make things better, she had texted almost everyone she knew in hopes of having someone to talk to, but everyone was too busy to respond.

Pulling out her phone once more, she noticed a text from Todoroki had lit up her screen. She realised quickly that he was not the best digital conversation starter and often came off as rather dry, though he remembered almost every conversation.

Shoto: "Did you make it to Hiroshima?"

Kazuya: "I can't even find her! I'm going to cook this rabbit once I get my hands on her."

Shoto: "You'll find her soon. I just arrived."

Kazuya: "I hope you have a great time with that asshole en fuego. Kick him in the teeth for me."

Shoto: "I will keep that in mind."

She smiled briefly before it morphed into a disappointed frown and she felt her hope begin to dwindle. Had she made the wrong choice picking Mirko after all?

I was so damn sure…

The fog in her mind dispersed in an instant, following the loud cries and beast-like screeching that came from the west. At first, she wasn't going to get involved, too worried about missing her mentor, but when she recalled one of Midnight's notes, her eyes lit up with anticipation. Of course, she goes wherever there's trouble!

The wailing and strange clicks made it easy for her to pinpoint where the attack was coming from and rushed to its location. A human-chameleon hybrid was banging his head against the glass of a bank, trying to get at the people huddled inside leaving specks of blood and scraped skin on the glass in the process. Kazuya's grip tightened around the handle of her hero costume case. Her suitcase rolled behind her like a jet on the runway, ready to take off at any given moment. Mirko wasn't here yet and the window was starting to crack. Was she even coming at all? Hell, was she even in Hiroshima?!

The chameleon's bloodied head turned to face her, eyes spinning wildly in their sockets before fixating on her. A couple of seconds ticked by before the lizard's pupils dilated and it let out a high-pitched shriek. With a wicked grin, its scales began to shift in colour and, in a matter of seconds, Kazuya was looking at a bug-eyed duplicate of herself.

"Okay, that's creepy," she cringed, watching the villain's long tongue dance around in the air before jolting forward. She dropped down to the ground to avoid getting hit, but it turned in an instant and wrapped around her ankle. The chameleon reeled its tongue back in, dragging her across the pavement in the process.

"Let! Go! Of! Me!" Kazuya shouted as she slammed the corner of her costume case into the tongue as hard as she could. She yelped when it threw her high into the air expecting to be slammed into the pavement, but getting caught by her throat instead. Not how I thought my morning would go, she thought with a pissed-off frown while her airway constricted. The fucking thing was choking her!

"Make hurt…like me," the lizard groaned almost painfully. Kazuya dug her nails into the meat of its tongue and clawed away at whatever she could grab, despite her already fading strength. Her vision blurred and her fingertips tingled from the lack of dispersed oxygen in her blood, all the while her blue-haired clone smiled up at her.

Right as she was about to slip away into oblivion, a sharp jerk and a scream forced her back into consciousness. The hard slam of her body against the pavement was certainly one hell of a wake-up call.

"You okay, kid?"

Cracking open her eyes, Kazuya groaned as the fuzzy film over her starry vision slowly faded and she focused on the figure in front of her.

"Yeah, I'm f — "

Oh. My. God.

Kazuya's jaw hung open in surprise, her eyes trained on the nicely tanned and well-toned leg that crouched in front of her. She had seen blurry pictures of Mirko in action caught by those present during the fight, though none of them did her justice. Snow-white rabbit ears poked out from the top of her equally striking hair that entangled itself in the wind, powerful legs proudly on display.

"Bi-panic…it's happening again…" Kazuya's starstruck stare wasn't hard to miss.

"Quit your drooling, kid! We've got ass to kick!" Mirko smirked, giving her a quick thumbs up before returning to the fight. Who was she to refuse such an order?

"Yes, Ma'am!" Kazuya cackled and slammed her hand on the briefcase and the pavement. The metal case glowed red and rocketed towards the villain's face. Mirko took the opportunity to distract her opponent and in a single powerful jump, the rabbit hero leapt into the air and brought her foot down on the carbon copy of Kazuya's skull. The impact rattled him (her? them? it?), but he (she? they?) kept standing.

Unable to protect itself from both her legs and the flying case, the chameleon settled for ducking under Mirko's kick and taking a briefcase to the gut.

The force of the hit sent him flying into the bank wall, shattering the glass window it had tried to break before. The civilians inside screamed bloody murder as it slid down like a limp, discarded doll. Kazuya and her mentor were quick to rush inside.

"Is anyone hurt?" the cobalt-haired girl asked quickly. The people didn't move a muscle at first, but when Mirko began to drag the villain back outside by its leg, they slowly nodded. "Right, the police should be here any minute. I need you to stay out of our way until they get here. Are there any rooms you can all fit into?" She raised a brow questioningly towards one of the tellers. With police sirens approaching, her main priority was keeping them from further harm until the cops arrived.

"Make hurt! Make hurt!" the chameleon cried out in a warbled copy of her voice. It almost sounded…painful.

"When did he start acting like this?" Kazuya asked as she watched Mirko and the villain dance around each other for a few seconds. It was like some strange reptile-rabbit version of cat and mouse.

"A – About an hour ago. He came in asking for…for a loan to help with hospital bills. We gave it to him," explained one of the bank workers who was huddled in the corner. Kazuya narrowed her eyes, trying to reimagine the scene as it was: the lizard man near the front of the line, other customers scattered around the room, and no clear trigger for rage.

"What happened right before he lost it?" she asked. The gears in the teller's head slowly began to turn.

"He complained about the music," he explained with furrowed brows, "but our speakers have been broken for weeks…" When Kazuya frowned confusedly at his statement, a coworker interrupted.

"A woman was humming! I couldn't see her face but I remember hearing it before !" she clarified.

"Humming…?" the blue-haired hero mumbled to herself. She carefully watched the way the offender was attacking Mirko, mainly the unrefined hasty movements and hard charge toward his opponent. This was the kind of fighting she expected from someone who had no training or experience. He looked more afraid than anything, almost as if he were scared of being hurt. It was easier to see the tears running down his face when he shifted out of Kazuya's copied skin and back to his own. His eyes shimmered with the film of freshly formed tears, but his eyes were hazy underneath. He didn't look like he was willingly putting up a fight…

Shinsou's face popped into her mind, wild violet mane a mess as he forced a fellow UA student to unhand her during an altercation at lunch during the first week of school.

Brainwashing. Her eyes widened with realization.

Since the people inside the bank had been corralled into a safe room, Kazuya figured it safe enough to rush back outside to help her new mentor.

"Bug-eye's pretty fast!" Mirko hollered as she swung around a lamppost and dodged the chameleon's whip-like tongue.

"He's under someone else's control!" Kazuya shouted, filling her in on the newest information.

"He's still attacking! Put that pretty little brain to work and figure out how to stop it!" Mirko retorted while jumping into the air to land a high-powered kick, but getting her leg grabbed instead. Kazuya winced as the rabbit woman was thrown into the ground by the chameleon's extended tongue.

The only way to snap someone out of Shinsou's brainwashing was to cause pain, but they had already smacked around this villain plenty. Based on the bank teller's recollection, the hallucination was caused by an outside force's voice. If the affected individual were no longer able to hear the voice then maybe they'd be free. It was a long shot but it was the only idea Kazuya had.

"If that's the case, then…" her earthen eyes scanned the scene.

There!

In the alley between the bank and the next building over, a tall figure in a grey hoodie was watching the combat while leaning against the wall. When Kazuya locked eyes with the stranger, their head lifted and their hood fell back an inch, allowing her a brief look at the woman's face. There was no guarantee that it was the person behind the attack, but she wasn't willing to take that chance.

"I'll be back!" she shouted quickly to Mirko, who threw her an alarmed look.

"Kid!" the bunny hero called before the chameleon's tongue lashed out again and forced her to hop out of its reach.

"I know what I'm doing! Be ready to capture," Kazuya explained vaguely, rushing to follow the hooded figure that was already disappearing down the alley. She slipped into the oddly dark shadows of the buildings, jumping over garbage in an attempt to follow her target. When she reached the end of the alley, a metal gate stood between her and the mystery woman. How had she gotten over it so quickly? Kazuya wasn't that far behind her…

"You look quite familiar," the villain hummed, voice silky with a slight echo to it. It was annoyingly alluring. Kazuya bit her tongue just in case her quirk worked similarly to Shinsou's. "Not a talker? Shame. You seemed so full of spunk during the festival."

Her cobalt brows raised in shock. She knew plenty of people would remember her face from TV, or at least her name, but it felt like a disadvantage when her opponent, whom she knew nothing about, knew plenty about her.

"No matter. We'll be seeing more of each other real soon, Imai Kazuya, daughter of the Mad Scientist," the woman held up an ashen hand and waved as her body slowly faded from view. Kazuya tried to jump the fence, but by the time she stood where the villain once was, there was nothing but shadows in her way.

"Damn it…" she huffed, fists clenched at her sides. What did she mean by Mad Scientist? Was her father somehow following her to Hiroshima? Mirko's equally frustrated shouts drew her attention back to the issue at hand, but she couldn't shake the nagging voice that said that woman wasn't your run-of-the-mill villain.

"Stay…! Still!" the bunny hero growled, pinning down a much less threatening version of the chameleon. His eyes were clearer now and his speech less broken.

"P – Please! Don't hurt me! I'll pay my loan off for real this time!" his body shook with his sobs.

When the police arrived, Kazuya handed off the "villain" and stuck around (per Mirko's recommendation) just long enough to listen to what he remembered about the attack. Or rather, what he didn't.

"Complete amnesia?" Mirko grumbled, sitting atop the bank's roof and watching the police take care of the civilians. Kazuya learned pretty fast that her dislike for cooperation included working with police to clean up and process the villains she caught. "And you think that woman was behind it?"

"It would make sense. I just don't get why she'd do this or who she even is," Kazuya sighed, leaning back and allowing her flattened palms to hold her up. She stared off into the afternoon sky, still as blue and clear as the calmest ocean. She left out the woman's mentioning of her father, but it irked her that his reputation as a villain was growing. Wasn't he laying low? Had he hurt anyone? She knew he always had enemies, but just how big of an army was he fighting?

She shook her head free of her spiralling thoughts and spoke up, "We never really got formally introduced. I'm Imai Kazuya, but my hero name is Flick." She extended a hand for Mirko to shake, only to receive a snorting laugh in response.

"The name's Mirko and for the next week or so, you'll do everything I say," the white-haired hero snickered with an alarming gleam in her eye. Kazuya stiffened and withdrew her hand quickly, hoping to revoke her kindness before it was too late. "I'm not going easy on you because you've had some early run-ins with villains. I doubt you'll make it through the first day," her mentor stood up, cracking her knuckles and joints while she stretched.

Kazuya swallowed her anxiety like it was cough syrup and gripped the edge of the roof with ghost-white knuckles; "Try me, Cottontail."

"Let's see if you can handle some agility training then," Mirko spoke slyly as she narrowed her scheming eyes. Kazuya opened her mouth to quip back, but the bunny bolted towards the edge of the roof before she could get a word out. Her eyes shot open when Mirko hopped right off the edge of the building and landed with a rather dramatic crouch on the next one over. Her taunting gaze struck Kazuya from over her toned shoulder.

The teen took a deep breath before standing and taking a peek and the two-story drop below. Her heart thumped in her chest, but she steeled her nerves and took a step back. Throwing herself into the air via Repel was one thing – an additional twenty feet was another. With an audible gulp and a prayer, she got a running start before sweeping her hand across the rooftop and pushing her quirk through her soles and into the building. She soared through the air with her scarlet aura like a ball of fire, rolling when she roughly hit the next roof.

"Good job," Mirko praised when she finally caught her breath, "Now let's see if you can keep up." In a flash, she began bounding from building to building, every hop, skip, and jump leaving Kazuya further behind.

"Oh, it's on," the cobalt-haired girl mumbled to herself as she pushed herself over to the next roof. The simple game of chase quickly became more than a training exercise when she felt the cool air rush onto her face. Her lashes tickled the space below her eyebrows as she leapt through the air, gradually gaining on Mirko with blithe laughter and the radiant blue light of her quirk trailing behind her. Like a morning dove with the rays of the sun on its wings, the freedom of the skies provided her with a short escapism from all that troubled her.