Birds of a feather Flock Together

by Arachnocorvid

Midoriya Izumi had it rough for a while. Bullied and looked down upon for things out of control, she finds out that not even moving to the outskirts of Musutafu changes people's perception of her. She's used to it though, and pushes through it. People may call her useless, but she does her job perfectly, even at the age of 12. She has friends on her side. And an 8 mm caliber rifle

4. (un)Natural Disposition

Six men sat on a roundtable in a hidden room beneath Kyoto. Bullseye glared daggers at Giran from his seat, as he put his feet on the table, grinning and smoking without a care in the world.

In the other filled seats stood a man wearing nothing but a military uniform dyed black that covered his entire body, a man with a long thick chest-length white beard with a tired look, a man with his eyes closed an a third one open in his forehead, and a man in a tank top with arms thick with muscles and covered in wrinkles.

"It seems that no one else is going to come, let's begin then" The man in military uniform said, tiredly.

Bullseye clicked his tongue, looking away from Giran. Out of all 20 chairs in the table, 14 were empty, members of the Order of Orion that hadn't showed up to the meeting.

"There's less of us attending each time" The bald man grumbled, glaring at Giran.

"I wonder why~"

"You shut it! You aren't even a member of the Order, Giran!"

"I'm here on behalf of Diana~ come on, chill a bit, will ya?"

Veins popped on Bullseye's head, and he gripped his right hand. The man with three eyes opened his regular ones, glowing a light blue, as Bullseye's arms were moved away from each other by an invisible force.

"You know the rules, Bullseye, Giran is allowed as the intermediary of Diana."

"That's the fucking thing, Deathglare!" Bullseye regained mobility in his arms as Deathglare closed his regular eyes. "I'm telling you, Diana is somehow breaking the rules!"

The man clad in all black pinched the bridge of his nose.

"This again… Look Bullseye, you've been calling for meetings for a year now, always claiming some stupid shit about Diana getting more jobs from the SASC than us. We are tired of this"

"Then listen to me, dammit! Trickshot, just look at Giran, he is laughing at us! He has some kind of deal with the SASC to favor Diana!"

"I'm just laughing at you, buddy"

Bullseye almost growled at him from the intensity of his glare. The man with the long white beard slammed his fist over the table, bringing back Bullseye's attention to him.

"Bullseye, the reason people don't attend meetings anymore is because you always summon us for this petty one sided rivalry!"

"It's not a one sided rivalry, Backfire!"

"Then stop acting like a child, you are supposed to be in your thirties, for god's sake!"

"Diana is definitely doing something with the SASC! They are going out of their way to just hire her for jobs!"

"Her territory is just close to them." The man in black military uniform said, with a cold voice. "They are based in Konukoru, and more often than not we are tasked to clean the messes that escape from them. Of course they'd call the closest hunter"

"It's not about being close! The guy before Diana, that creepy Jupiter guy, he never got as many jobs as her! Then, he suddenly disappears, she joins in and claims his territory, only speaking to us through Giran, and suddenly starts getting more and more jobs!? There's definitely something going on here that neither Giran nor the SASC is telling us!"

Giran snickered and puffed a circle of smoke while the other four men sighed. The man in the tank top waved the smoke away and turned to Bullseye.

"Look Bullseye, I get it, you joined just as we made the deal with the SASC, but times change. We aren't living in the same world as back then."

"Yeah, Panzerfaust, you're right. Back then you weren't just the dogs of the SASC. What happened to the true Order of Orion? The criminal syndicate that heroes feared and that half the underworld hired to do their dirty jobs?"

"All Might happened." Trickshot said, leaning over the table. "He hunted down every single villain group in organized crime. Our numbers greatly diminished either getting caught by him or betrayed by our contractors. You joined knowing all this, that we would separate ourselves from villainy and be obscure guns for hire."

"Of course your problem was making this your full time job, Bullseye." Backfire grumbled. "If you don't get enough jobs, don't pay it with Diana, just get a day-job like the rest of us."

"I'm not going after her because of fucking financial issues, you geezers! Have any of you seen Diana!? There's obviously something wrong with the deal with the SASC! They are taking advantage of the Order in some way and just using her for jobs that could go for us!"

"Are you implying she's going to our territories to hunt?" Deathglare raised an eyebrow on his third eye.

"It's the only way she can be this efficient!"

"Pffff, you are so desperate, actually throwing baseless accusations"

"Shut it, Giran!"

"I can assure you she hasn't hunted outside of Tia even once. She's also far more quick and efficient than any other hunter I've been an intermediary of. That's one of the reasons she keeps getting hired."

"She's a psycho! Efficient!? We've all seen corpses of her prey! Most of the time the flesh is so tangled you can't even recognize what animal it's supposed to be!"

"Enough, Bullseye." Trickshot slammed his hand against the table. "You are going too far. Before it was an annoyance, but now you are accusing a member of the Order of breaking the rules without any evidence!" He sat down and the rest of the men (except Giran) glared at him.

"Get a day-job, a pet, or whatever to keep yourself busy, and don't summon another meeting unless it's for another subject or you have sufficient proof for your claims. Meeting is over"

All except Bullseye got up, and went for the exit.

"If this were the old days of the Order, this suspicious behavior would get Diana killed"

"If this were the old days of the Order, Bullseye, none of us would have gotten in." Panzerfaust said, putting a coat over his tank top and bare arms. "We may use weapons, most of us at least, to differentiate ourselves from villains, but in the Dawn of Quirks the Order was a quirkless supremacist group. So don't go spouting nonsense of the 'good old days' you weren't even part off.

They all left the room, as Bullseye sulked and seethed on his own.

---

4 - (un)Natural Disposition

It had almost been a year since Izumi stopped getting along with her mother. She stopped listening to her and ignored her whenever possible. Inko dealt with it pretty badly, trying to overcompensate by not questioning her when she arrived late and constantly trying to be overly nice to her.

Inko had gotten Izumi lots of bras when her chest started developing, pushing her center of gravity forward. It had become annoying, both how she had grown and the attention her mother gave her because of it.

Still, Izumi knew Inko was avoiding completely addressing the crows, as much as she tried to reconcile, she still wanted Izumi to have nothing to do with them, and Izumi wasn't going to even consider that idea.

And speaking of the murder, even they seemed to have noticed her growth, and had stopped referring to her as one of the younglings in the murder. Izumi found her new chest more annoying than anything, having to change clothes to a few sizes up in a matter of months, and trying as much as she could to get the clothes on her own, without her mother's help.

Giran was a bit surprised when she asked for money as payment for the first time, because there's no way she'd have him buy her clothes, let alone something like a bra.

Her second year at Railosu Middle School wasn't much different from the first one, other than her already being established as a weirdo and the new students avoiding interacting with her.

Izumi didn't mind them at all, and decided to spend her time at the arts and crafts club, whenever she wasn't out there hanging out with the murder in Tia forest or in the streets of Gaulusu.

Some people had started taking measures to drive the crows away, by adding spikes to buildings to not let them rest there and keep them away.

It was annoying for the crows, they've complained to Izumi a bunch of times about it, but they were smarter than pigeons. If they really liked a spot, they tore the spikes out of the building and harassed the owner for daring to do something that annoyed them.

Izumi was a bit worried the SASC would get involved. They were supposed to only handle quirked animals, Izumi was awfully aware of that, but some people tended to confuse the crows' intelligence for a quirk.

Samehada had gotten even more people following her, as after puberty the mutation of her quirk had gotten stronger, gaining more muscle and jaw strength similar to that of a real shark's, and a dorsal fin on her back.

This had done nothing but stroke her ego, making the temporary uneasiness of Izumi's outburst when she threw a pair of scissors at her desk nothing but an obscure memory to her.

There was also the other development due to all of them hitting puberty already. Izumi had noticed the change in most people in her class, and so had Lanbosu, as Izumi had heard him complain about teenage hormones multiple times when the class got a bit unruly.

Izumi really hated the new attention she was getting because of it. It was apparently normal for teenagers to start getting attracted to the idea of relationships, and to bodies in a more carnal manner, she was completely aware of that. But she found it so easy to resist, she didn't even have to get in the zone to control herself, even on her weaker days.

Instead, Izumi noticed more and more boys looking at her chest, some even ignoring Samehada's relentless snarky comments about her. That had only made her even more annoyingly persistent over making fun of Izumi for her new back problems.

She happened to have big breasts, what was the fuss about it? The comments about the crows hadn't decreased, but Izumi noticed Samehada and her friends, mainly Anshin and Kyosei, her partners in crime, go on and on calling Izumi a cow, or making fun of having to change to a larger size of bra, or even making fun of her developing back pain in the future.

So, Izumi had started to bind her chest. It was uncomfortable, but she had quickly gotten used to it. She was worried it would affect her ability to breathe properly to calm herself, but in actuality it helped her be even more nimble when she was out hunting, improving her stealth.

Even if only to keep the boys in class from constantly looking at her, it was worth it. Izumi enjoyed how disappointed some of them looked when she came to class with the binds for the first time. Of course, Izumi feeling anything positive was a personal offense to Samehada, so she tried her very best to tease Izumi about it.

"Wow Midori-chan, what happened to you? Did any of the flying menaces take off your boobs? Well ,you don't have to worry about being molested anymore! No one will look at you without those melons dragging down your spine~"

Izumi had learned how to endure anything that Samehada could throw at her. Even when she got creative with meaner insults, or found ways to ostracize Izumi more from the rest of the student body always because of the "hateful flying menaces", Izumi just dismissed her.

Of course that meant that Samehada was constantly annoyed by her, and izumi had to always put her guard up, getting into the zone without issue, bindings or not.

Still, if anything, Izumi regretted not being able to reach out to Toga. Because of the image Samehada had managed to put on Izumi, she wasn't ever looked fondly by any of her senpais. So instead of trying to reach out to Toga like last year, Izumi had decided to give up, to not feel the same disappointment of rejection she had felt last year.

Izumi still felt bad about it, mostly when she was on her period, the memories coming all at once. But she had learned how to handle that on her own, without help from her mother, and just ignored those feelings in order to be able to enjoy herself and the crows.

The bell signaling the end of class rang off, and the students prepared to leave for the day. Izumi was on her way to bolt out of the class before Samehada got annoying, but was stopped by Lanbosu.

"Midoriya-san, could you stay for a bit?"

"Yes, sensei" She sighed to herself, ignoring the snickers from the girls gossiping about Izumi getting in trouble for something.

Lanbosu eyed a few papers from his desk, looking for something in them.

"Last year you were at the top of the class in grades, then something happened in the middle of the year and your grades started to drop." He said when they were the only ones left in the class.

Izumi instantly turned her poker face on, completely uninterested with the conversation. She didn't care much about her grades anymore. She knew what she was capable of. The murder, her friends knew what she was capable of. Giran, her employer, knew exactly what she was capable of. Izumi didn't see the point of indulging more than the bare minimum to an establishment that had brought her nothing but headaches.

Lanbosu sighed and looked at her with a concerned face. Had Izumi not been already pretty good at concealing her emotions because of Katsuki and Samehada, she could have clicked her tongue at Lanbosu.

As if you really care. You don't even lift a finger when Samehada torments me, but this is worth your attention?

"Midoriya-san, you are smart. I've been told of the little things you do in the arts and crafts club. Building bird houses can be a bit, uhm, controversial" He coughed and averted his gaze, as Izumi's eyes hardened. "But the small gadgets you've made, like that automatic paper shuffler, are pretty impressive."

"It's not an automatic paper shuffler. It uses infrared light to check the color of the ink of the pen used on that piece of paper and just stacks them neatly into different stacks. It really doesn't have a practical use. I did it out of boredom."

In reality, she did it because she wanted to make an infrared light scanner, and this was the only excuse they came up with in order to be able to make it in the arts and crafts club. Sure, she could have asked Giran for better materials than the lame mirrors she had to use (and polish very thoroughly) in the club, but it was a silly project. It also made zoomCEO from the MakeshiftGo forums blast her DMs asking about how she managed to do it without expensive materials like silver, when Izumi had posted a small clip of the gadget shuffling paper on her blog.

It had made her chuckle, as zoomCEO had realized the usefulness of the scanner quicker than anyone else. Izumi could use it in lots of different ways for her hunts, and she had marked a few points of interest in Tia forest with a fine powder that was very noticeable under infrared and UV light.

Izumi had struggled to explain to the crows what she was doing and why they shouldn't mess much in the places she had marked, for them to not become beacons whenever she used the scanner.

It was thanks to Gorogoro, who could faintly see infrared and UV lights that she managed to explain it to the rest of the murder.

"O-oh, I see. Well," cough, "still, even if there's not really any use to it, you are clearly skilled at it. Not everyone can build something like that without being a mechanic or an engineer. Have you wondered about getting into support item development?"

Izumi blinked at him. It was something that even Giran had asked her right after she made B-tip.

"I've…thought about it before. But I'm not sure. I like it, but there's another thing that I like and I don't want to choose just one of them."

"I see… Well, I can see that you have a passion for building stuff."

Izumi raised an eyebrow. Didn't he say he'd been told about it? Now he knows?

"Think about it. With the skills to make uhm, an infrared based paper shuffler-" That doesn't sound as cool as you think, old man. "you could make it into a good support development school. Maybe even UA if you improved your grades."

Ah, so that's what it is. Getting students into UA High, be it the acclaimed Hero Course or any of the other courses, like Support in this case, brought a lot of prestige to the middle schools those students came from.

Or rather, they loved bragging about it. Izumi knew that's why people like Katsuki and Samehada faced less punishment than others because of their clear intent to go to UA and their high potential.

Honestly, Izumi didn't think neither had the personality to become heroes. She didn't much like them, a rarity in the hero based society she lived in, but with her enjoying more her time in the wilderness with the crows, it wasn't odd to divert from the popular opinions of hero society.

Katsuki and Samehada could become heroes, Izumi was aware of it. They even could become really popular, but they didn't fit the type to help others. Maybe they could find success, but Izumi was a bit biased against them.

"I'll try, Lanobosu-sensei"

Izumi said, monotone, and turned to go, itching to pierce flesh with a bullet and forget this conversation.

"Do or do not, there is no try"

Izumi looked at Lanbosu as if he had grown a second head. Which in this world isn't that strange, but that wasn't his quirk. Lanbosu coughed into his fist and tried to compose himself.

"Nevermind, that's something my teacher used to say… Anyway! Let it be your best, Midoriya-san."

Izumi clicked her tongue, her back facing Lanbosu as she left the classroom. Fortunately, it seems that Samehada didn't feel like waiting outside to be a nuisance to her, so Izumi left without any other issues.

After getting outside, she saw Shiro, hidden in a tree. Izumi whistled in a short, practiced pattern. Shiro immediately knew what she meant, and got out of the tree, flying up and getting mixed in as a non-menacing type of bird by a few bystanders that caught a glimpse of him.

Izumi smirked, and went to the Shinkanshen station.

A cool breeze blew over Izumi's neck, making her shiver for a bit. Shiro and her had gotten to Tia forest without a problem, and Izumi had gone over her usual spots to get her hunting clothes and her rifle.

Shiro flew over to Izumi's shoulder and rubbed its feathers against her, making Izumi moan softly at their warmth. Izumi hadn't gotten a job today, so she was just patrolling the area, and looking for unsuspecting prey.

A few other crows joined her, and they all silently went on their way in the forest. Izumi wasn't scared of getting lost, she'd pretty much memorized the entirety of the forest a long time ago.

It was actually one of the first things the elder crows and Oji-san had taught her when they took Izumi under their wings. To know her surroundings and not get lost where you are supposed to be the apex predator.

As such, she had explored and memorized the forest, along with a considerable portion of Konukoru until she knew it like the back of her hand. There wasn't a single tree that was unfamiliar to her. In fact, whenever she didn't recognize something, it was a sign that someone or something had gotten into her territory.

And speaking of that, Izumi stopped when she noticed a group of trees with multiple scratches. They weren't close enough to each other to be the cause of a bear's claws or even smaller animals like wolves.

Izumi took out one of her fingerless gloves with teeth and put her palm on the bark of a tree.

The scratches aren't very deep, the edges still feel raggedy, as if the bark was just torn off moments ago.

Izumi pressed her thumb over one of the scratches, her pinky pointing in the opposite direction and rubbing a different one. She nodded after measuring the distance of the marks in her head.

A deer. Odd for them to get so far into Tia.

She clicked her tongue and let a small muffled whistle escape from her lips. The crows around her spread around, their wings beating in the air and slowly making less noise as they spread around the forest.

Izumi put the glove back on, and crouched down, looking at the ground. She found evidence of an animal being there recently, with grass being cut just an inch over a layer of dirt, meaning a herbivore had eaten here.

She looked for any signs of tracks left behind by the deer, and eventually, she found them. They went east, the mildly wet dirt of February leaving a clear track once she had found it.

Izumi walked east for a few minutes, in complete silence, avoiding sticks, dry leaves and puddles. Her feet were soft and she made sure to distribute her weight as she moved in a way she didn't let clear tracks herself.

She saw crows on the trees on her way here, meaning she was going on the right path, as she could tell they had already found the deer.

Izumi stopped as she heard the rustling of a bush and hooves against the dirt. She got in the zone, leaning against a tree without making a sound, her breathing and heartbeat completely under control.

She pulled out her rifle, and leaned over the tree just enough to look at the deer. It was an adult male, his antlers fully developed.

It was a beautiful mass of muscle created by nature, antlers proud and high and in a regal posture that made anyone who saw it respect it. It was rubbing his antlers on a tree and leaving marks in its bark.

Izumi respectfully loaded her rifle, making sure to not make a sound after years of practice. Don't get her wrong, she admired the deer, but she was also the apex of the forest. The crows loved deer eyeballs and brains, so giving them a treat was also on the table.

Izumi slowly leaned over and pointed at the deer's head. Her breath slowed and her perception of her surroundings increased. She briefly glanced at the side, seeing crows about to create a distraction for her.

In an instant, she realized that the moment the deer would turn his head at the sudden noise the crows were going to make, his antlers would get in the way of her shot.

She quickly and quietly moved the rifle and pointed to the deer's sides. Aiming straight to the lungs and heart.

At that moment, the crows cawed, and just as Izumi predicted, the deer turned to look at that direction, startled.

Bang!

The bullet soared through the air and hit the deer square on its side…

Clank!

…and it ricocheted off of it as if its fur was made of metal.

Izumi widened her eyes, as she saw the deer, very much alive, and looking pissed as hell, jump around in the air and kicking the air, waving its antlers in the air trying to get whatever was near it.

She ducked and hid behind the tree. Her breath had gotten uneven after being surprised by the sudden invisible quirk of the deer.

The deer had taken an 8mm bullet like it was nothing, ricocheting from its body as if it were an armored car. Izumi knew it wasn't literally a metallic material like Kuro's feathers, as its fur looked completely normal.

Judging by the sharp angle the bullet ricocheted on, it seemed to be some short of super durability quirk. Izumi slowed her breathing again, fighting against the adrenaline in her body, and steadying her resolve.

Caws of the crows distracting the deer and its bleating filled her ears, but she got into the zone. She came out from behind the tree with a steely heart and sharp resolve, and aimed the rifle at the deer.

The shot went right in between the moving antlers, avoiding them with extreme precision, and hit the deer right on its head.

Clank!

The deer's head wacked back from the shot, but the deer shook its head and glared at Izumi, unharmed.

She let her adrenaline overdrive her body and started running, the deer bleating and running right back at her.

The crows flew at the deer, trying to distract it and keep it from chasing Izumi, but their beaks and claws did nothing against its fur. A few tried getting on its face and clawing its eyes, but a swing of its antlers was enough to keep the crows from trying again.

Izumi ran, hearing her frantic and panicked heartbeat inside her head. She was used to hunting quirked animals under jobs she got from Giran, getting information about them from him.

This situation was something she rarely dealt with. An animal she was hunting on her own that had such a powerful quirk? Even aiming at its head had done nothing but to anger it.

Eventually, the deer caught up to her, using its antlers to trip Izumi, raising them as they got around her feet.

"Ahh!"

Izumi fell on her face as her foot was pulled up. She quickly rolled in the ground just in time for the deer to miss a swing of its antlers as they swung at the ground, lifting dirt and grass when it moved its head up.

"Caw!"

Kuro tackled the deer on its side, making it fall because of the impact and weight of the raven.

It quickly got up and tried to kick Kuro, only managing to scratch her side and making the sound of two metals screeching against each other.

Izumi got up, grabbing her rifle and shooting at the deer again, hitting it in its neck. The deer coughed and kicked the air a bunch of times to get Kuro and the other crows off of it.

Izumi shot at it again in between gasps, missing entirely this time. The deer was about to run at her and ram its antlers when Shiro dived down from the air.

The friction of the air against his wings made them burst into flames. He made an arc right in front of the deer, the tail of flames following him in the air being enough to startle the deer and finally run off.

Izumi huffed and puffed, still hearing her heartbeat drum inside her head. She didn't know how much time she spent like that, but when she managed to put her breathing under control and slow down her heart, the crows were leaning against her, rubbing themselves on her.

She let out a heavy sigh, and pet them, whispering she was fine and not to worry.

That was close.

Shiro cawed, waving his wings and blowing the steam coming out of them. He thankfully hadn't set anything on fire, so that was one less thing to worry about.

He was right, had Kuro not arrived when she had, the deer could have gotten her. And speaking of Kuro, she was thankfully fine. It seems that the only thing the deer had going for it was incredible defense, as its kick had done nothing to Kuro and her armor.

Izumi blinked a few times when she saw blood on Kuro's claws. That wasn't right, her armor and feathers were in perfect condition, then where did that blood come from?

"Kuro? That blood…?"

From the horned one.

That caught Izumi's attention. Only Kuro had managed to pierce its tough hide. She got up and looked at the ground. There was a small trail of blood going in the direction the deer had fled to.

"Your claws…they are made of the same metal as your feathers…Kuro, you are tougher than that deer! You can hurt it!"

The revelation made Kuro caw, satisfied. She hopped around smugly at the rest of the crows, who cawed back at her, irritated.

Izumi dragged a hand over her hair, tired. It had been a while since she had failed a hunt. Granted, she didn't have enough information on her prey this time, but that didn't matter to Izumi.

She wordlessly made her way to the Nest, the rest of the crows following behind her. She ignored the cool wind this time.

Izumi sat on her regular spot in the nest as crows told the rest of the Nest what had happened. The hunter sulked on her own, a frown in her face.

She shouldn't have failed. The moment she saw the first bullet ricochet she should have fled and reevaluated the situation, coming back with a plan that would definitely work.

Instead, like a rookie, she had kept going against a prey she wasn't ready for. She was angry at herself, angry at the world, and angry at the deer.

Her mood soured as her mind drifted to school. How everyone looked down on her. Samehada and her friends always trying their best to make her miserable. Lanbosu and the school not caring at all except on the off chance that her mechanical skills could get her into UA for some clout.

What is it? Oji-san hopped next to her. Failure feels bad, but you feel worse.

Izumi sighed, looking nowhere in particular.

"It's just, I messed up. I should have known better and try a different thing. I don't think even with B-tip I could have pierced the hide of that deer."

That is not all. Oji-san and the rest of the crows looked at her.

Izumi was silent for a while, looking back at the crows. Hatori hopped into Izumi's lap, and Izumi resigned herself to petting her. A few other crows got closer, wanting to feel what opposable thumbs could do to their feathers as well.

The teen sighed, smiling at them. They always knew how to cheer her up.

"It's just…today my 'teacher' said that considering my skills in 'making gadgets'" She made quotation marks with her fingers, making a few crows look at her hands confused. "Well, that I should consider applying for UA's Support Course"

The crows perked up after hearing that. Names like UA were familiar since a lot of people talked about it thanks to the yearly Sports Festivals. They knew it was a place where humans went to grow and learn.

"UA" One of the old ravens said. Learning place. Going to go there next?

"That's the thing… I do like tinkering and making stuff like birdhouses and B-tip, but I don't really know if I want to do that full time…"

She paused, putting a hand in her face and dragging her skin. The crows looked at Izumi, waiting for her to continue.

"Ughhh. It's just, Lanbosu only said that so that I could improve my grades! He doesn't really care nor think I can get into UA! Even if I got in, the school would just use it to brag about getting a student into UA! Always the same with the Musutafu schools, so fucking desperate with the recognition they get from the students they send to UA. How about putting in the effort yourselves and earning that recognition with your own prestige instead of leeching off UA?!"

Izumi snarled, getting heated up over just being encouraged to do better not for herself, but to increase the prestige of a school she didn't even care about.

"They look down on me… Lanbosu learned I was potentially good at something, and without looking more into it, immediately went 'Hey, wouldn't it be great if you studied more and got into UA?'." Izumi buffed. "I wonder if he receives some sort of commission if a student gets in. He certainly never cared that I was in the arts and crafts club."

Izumi panted, too mad to care about keeping herself calm. She was with the crows, it didn't really matter if they saw her angry. She wasn't angry at them after all, and they knew that.

Wanna gauge eyes out? One of the crows said, as Hatori was pushed off Izumi's lap by another crow, who Izumi started to pet.

"No, it's not that. It's just… I wish… he cared. Like you do. Whoever doesn't have hero potential doesn't get much attention in that school. Well, at least good one" She chuckled.

"If he knew what I'm capable of… I bet even a few heroes would struggle with some of the prey we have taken out."

Is that what you want? Shiro said as he groomed his wings.

The question took Izumi by surprise. Did she want to be recognized by her skill? Did she want people to be impressed by her skill taking out quirked animals?

People were simple. They love gathering around heroes and watching them defeat villains. Did she seek that kind of attention?

"No…I don't think so. If I cared about that I'd go to the meetings of the Order just to see what the others thought of me completing so many jobs at my age. I also never cared about impressing Giran when he found out I could actually build stuff, or impressing adults when I went to archery competitions. I only post some of the gadgets I make in MakeshiftGo because zoomCEO asked me to. I want…"

She paused, looking at all the crows present. Oji-san, the elders, Hatori, Kuro, Shiro, all of them. They were wonderful, and so smart sometimes she forgot they aren't actually humans. But they aren't, and because of it they were shunned. Because of being different. Of thinking differently. Of not being normal.

"I want…to be accepted, for you to be accepted. I hate being looked down upon because I like you. I hate how you are looked down upon because of something that happened before we weren't even born! I, I hate how I can't talk to other humans about the things I like because they'd think I'm insane! O-or worse!"

Izumi panted, catching her breath after letting out that sudden rant. She felt her eyes watery, and blinked away the tears, calming herself and slowing her breathing.

The crows gathered around her, staying close to her and rubbing their feathers against her. She hugged them, forcing her tears to stay inside her as she calmed her breathing.

Yes, she has the murder. The crows are the only friends she needs. Opening up and talking to Toga… Trying to get closer with people online through the MakeshiftGo forums… She didn't need that.

But then, why did her chest feel heavy?

Izumi brushed aside those thoughts, locking them deep inside her. She needed to focus on something else. Hunting! Yes, she loved that. She gets to spend time with the crows and hunt quirked animals like-

"Hmmm, that deer…"

Izumi grabbed her chin, thinking about the first prey in so long that had managed to elude her. It was clear it had some sort of endurance quirk, its hide so strong 8mm bullets ricocheted off of it.

"But Kuro managed to pierce it…"

That means Kuro's claws were tougher, or at least tough and sharp enough to scratch it. She didn't think it was an emitter type quirk because it had repelled a bullet even before being aware of Izumi.

"So it's definitely some sort of durability quirk…"

Izumi got up, and started walking in circles around the Nest. The crows looked at her from the side, letting her walk. They knew not to disturb her when she was thinking that hard.

"Kuro can definitely hurt it… An ambush and aim for the eyes? No, even if Kuro can hurt it, it'll be risky, and she can get hurt if it rams its antler into her armor or not. Can't take aiming at its eyes for granted, they could be as tough as its hide…"

She rambled for a while, walking around the Nest three times over. Some crows even followed her, curiously, as she rambled on and on about how to pierce the deer's hide.

Izumi stopped dead in her tracks when she stepped over some feathers in the ground, after they made a crunchy noise. She crouched and picked them up, a white feather that was still warm even though it probably had been a while since it fell from Shiro, and a black feather, shiny and hard, barely having been bent from Izumi stepping on it even though it wasn't connected to Kuro anymore.

A smirk split her face, an idea getting inside her head. The sight was enough to make the younger crows remember that their dear sister was the true apex predator of Tia forest. She was Diana, of the Order of Orion, and she got an idea.

BirdKeeper: Hey, zoom. Do you know any techniques to make heat resistant molds?

zoomCEO: DO I!? HAVE YOU HEARD ABUT SANDCASTING?

BirdKeeper: Wow, that was fast. Yeah, I've heard something of it. I wanna try casting metal into a mold, and need one that can handle very hot temperatures

zoomCEO: DONT TELL ME YO HAVE ACESSTO AN INDUSTRIAL FURNACE!?

BirdKeeper: No, I don't. I'll make a furnace myself. I've looked up how to make one and I have the materials at hand. Now, can you talk to me about sand casting?

zoomCEO: OF COURSE! SEE, YOU USE SAND & SOME BONDING MATERIAL LIKE CLAY TO…

Izumi smiled, reading the lengthy explanation that zoomCEO had typed in her DMs so fast it'd make a professional competitive typer jealous. She was on her way home in the Shinkanshen, Shiro hidden beneath her seat.

She had kept touch with zoomCEO since they joined the forums, and they had exchanged tips about how to make different gadgets a bunch of times. Izumi was impressed by how much zoomCEO could type and they seemed to always be online.

She continued reading the messages zoomCEO sent her, asking questions about the process and answering the questions about how she'd make the furnace later on.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship that she'd made with that user. Whenever one of them asked for tips, they would also offer some new stuff they've learned as thanks.

Izumi also liked seeing the user rant whenever they started explaining something or they were reacting to something Izumi had made. Even with all the grammatical errors probably due to their typing speed, it seems like they were always trying to get what they were thinking the fastest way possible, and she respected that. She didn't like the attention or being praised of course. The crows were enough for her.

Izumi didn't disclose all of the steps of how she was going to make the furnace, because there was some…sensitive information in there, but zoomCEO was satisfied with the explanation. They just demanded to receive a picture of the furnace in action when it was finished. Izumi could do that.

The following day, being a Saturday and being completely free, Izumi took a bus to the other side of Musutafu, to Dagoba beach. She had sent Giran a message yesterday about needing some special bonding clay for sand casting, and to give it to her as soon as possible.

Wuji was with her, along with a few other of the crows of Musutafu, looking through the garbage dumped in the beach searching for something to use for the base of the cast.

The crows flew close to Izumi with shiny stuff in their beaks. It was cute, and they didn't intend to give it over to Izumi, they just wanted to show off the shiny thing they found.

"Wow, yes, very impressive" "Sparkly" "Wow, where did you get that?"

Izumi indulged with the crows, now all of them playing with something in their beaks and competing to decide which one had found the most impressive shiny thing.

In the end, Izumi found the broken chassis of a car. It was wider than her, but not too big she wouldn't be able to carry it around.

Ok, that could make for a good base, is the car this came from near? I need another base…

In the end, she found the car and took part of a fallen off door, taking out every non-metallic part with the help of a bent steel rod in the shape of a flat pipe that she had found.

She then filled four big plastic bags with sand. She chose the sand closest to the sea, for its thinness, but avoided getting too close to the water to not get wet sand.

After filling the four bags, she dragged them and the two car pieces she was going to use as bases over to the bus stop. She got a few weird looks but no one said anything.

In all honesty, what were you going to say to a teenager carrying four bags of sand and two big metallic car pieces? Yeah, it was so weird they just left her alone. Good.

She got off in the stop closest to one of the Shinkanshen stations, and went on her way there. Letting some big ravens take the bags from her and going on their way to sneak into the train.

Izumi left the two bases on the side of the wall, and waited for a moment where there weren't people around, easy on a Shinkashen station on a Saturday, and whistled for some big ravens to grab the future mold bases and fly away with them, probably to hide in between wagons on the Shinkanshen.

Izumi got inside like a normal girl, without bringing the least attention to herself in the security cameras of the station, and sat down.

Getting the materials to the Nest was going great.

Izumi arrived at the abandoned building of Tia without any problems. The bigger ravens helped her with the bags and one of the car platings, waiting by the door of the building for Izumi to open it.

"I've seen you guys open door multiple times"

We help already.

Izumi smiled, opening the door herself.

"Yeah, thanks for that"

"What the hell are those things?"

Giran was already inside the building, with the special bonding clay in two large bottles of several gallons each by his side.

"This is the chassis of a car, and this is the outside of one of that car's doors."

"Did you tear them off?"

"What? No! I went to Dagoba beach in search of junk."' Izumi looked at him as if he were a little kid saying nonsense.

"Hey, you called it junk. Here's the other junk you asked me for. Consider it your payment for your next job." He smirked, grabbing a cigarette and lighting it, ignoring the crows hissing at him and inhaling the smoke. "You know, I never actually pay in advance."

"Yeah, sure, because putting your clients in debt doesn't sound like something you'd do."

"Again, you said it, not me" He smirked and blew smoke.

Izumi inspected the bottles of clay, tilting them and watching the clay shift inside the bottle.

"It's wet, great"

"Of course it is, who do you take me for?"

"Yeah, yeah, you are great and all, and don't worry about me being in debt. With all that you've scammed from me this shouldn't even make a dent to your pocket."

"Hmmm, yes, it's not like I'm short on money, but you know Izumi-chan~" He got closer to her, smirking and blowing smoke on her face. "Not paying your supplier is bad business~"

Izumi pushed him away with two fingers without taking his threat seriously.

"Relax. You are going to be called to hand me a new job soon."

"Oh? How are you so sure? Did the crows whisper it to you? You are going to make this poor informant cry"

"Who knows. The thing is, there's a quirked deer in the forest, and I need an upgrade to take it down."

Giran whistled.

"A deer is giving you trouble? I thought it was going to be a wolf or a bear. What kind of quirk does it have that you need sand to take it down?"

"If you want to know, how about you increase the pay a bit? Someone told me information is money."

"Hahaha! You learn pretty quickly, Izumi-chan~"

"Don't patronize me, I've just been letting you get away with scamming me because you got me bullets."

"If you say so~ We'll, I guess I'll wait for that call if you are so sure about it. Throw sand and clay to that deer's eyes or whatever you are going to do~"

He dragged his feet out of the building, taking the smoke of his cigarettes with him.

Izumi got into the corner of the building that connected with the underground tunnel, going to the Nest to grab her other tools. mainly, her hammer and shovel.

There was much work to do.

Izumi spent the rest of the day hammering the two car pieces into the proper shape. She rubbed some of Shiro's feathers over them to heat them up and become more malleable.

In the end, they became unrecognizable. She'd curved the edges of the metal plates inwards, giving them the shape of large metallic bowls with a diameter of one meter.

Izumi checked her phone, reading the explanation she'd gotten from zoomCEO, and managed to leave them in the desired shape, as the base for her casts.

She emptied the bags into the two bases, and then poured half of the content of one of the bottles of bonding material into the two bases.

Izumi used a wireless blender to mix the sand with the bonding clay, and rubbed the underside of the metallic cases with Shiro's feathers.

By that point, the Nest had practically moved to the abandoned building to watch Izumi work, bringing white feathers that Shiro had dropped along the way. Shiro had to snap his beak to some crows that tried pulling feathers straight from him, and Izumi couldn't help but giggle a bit.

After finishing with the casts, ready to be used later, she wrapped them with a plastic sheet to not spill the sand over on accident. Izumi wiped the sweat out of her head and watched over what she've done.

She snapped a picture to send later to zoomCEO and turned to the crows.

"Don't poke the plastic. I'm serious."

She knew they'd eventually poke it, but was content when Oji-san cawed at the crows that tried getting close to it. She smiled, that just meant that he'd poke it when no one was looking.

Izumi then went back to the tunnel, and into one of the paths connecting to Konukoru, far from the main tunnel and the one leading to the Nest. It led to a dead end, closed off by the city when the villain group that used the tunnels had been captured.

After getting sufficiently far from the main tunnel, she poked the shovel as hard as she could into the floor, hitting the reinforced dirt.

She hit it a bunch of times, her arms burning from the effort and her back strained from all the work, until eventually, after the tip of the shovel had started to bend slightly, the floor gave out, and she managed to get the shovel in between a new crack in the reinforced dirt.

Izumi used her weight to pull the dirt apart with the shovel, tearing apart a chunk of the floor. She huffed and puffed from the effort, but continued scraping off parts of the reinforced dirt left over by the original maker of the tunnels.

After a few hours, Izumi had managed to scrape off around 7 meters square of the floor of the abandoned tunnel, leaving the soft, untouched ground bleed through the tunnel.

With the help of some ravens that didn't mind going underground, she dragged off the pile of dirt back to the abandoned house.

She was covered in sweat, her hunting clothes a mess after working with sand and dirt all day. The light of the sun setting leaked through the windows of the building. She waved tired goodbyes to the murder and got out of the building, followed by Hatori and Shiro.

Izumi got back to the station dragging her feet, exhausted. She changed into her casual clothes, giving Hatori the keys for her secret safe and her locker in the station, and took the Shinkanshen from Konukoru back to Gaulusu, Musutafu.

She wrote about her progress with zoomCEO online, but after skipping lunch and spending almost half the day gathering dirt for the furnace, she couldn't match their enthusiasm.

When she arrived at Gaulusu, she smiled at Shiro and a few other crows flying off and causing a scene, the people around the station screaming in surprise when they flew and cawed right on their faces.

On her way home, Wuji landed on her shoulder. It was getting late, the streets dark enough no one noticed the flying menace being on her unless they walked right by Izumi.

"Tomorrow I might need more power, could you call all the others?"

Wuji cawed, and flew off, scaring the pair walking right in front of Izumi, and screaming at him as he flew away.

Izumi smiled. She probably didn't need the additional power, but she had a surprise for them.

Her smile faded off as she entered her mother's apartment.

"Izumi! Where have you been all day!?" Inko screamed, her face filled with worry.

"Out"

"Out where? Izumi I was so worried, you didn't answer the phone and-"

"I switched it off"

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Seeing Izumi go to her room, Inko quickly tried to stop her.

"Wait! At least have dinner! You've skipped lunch again"

Izumi didn't say a single word for the rest of the night. Eating in silence the food that used to be her lunch, now her dinner, after being heated up in the microwave.

Her mother watched her, eating alongside her too, but being too distracted trying to start conversations and always finding silence in return.

When she was finished, Izumi got up to clean the dishes.

"No! Wait Izumi, I, I'll do the dishes"

Not wanting to start a conversation, Izumi left her plate in the sink and let for her room, going straight to bed.

Next day, Izumi took the Shinkashen again, but instead to Konukoru, she stopped a few stations earlier, in Monkara.

Monkara had a beach that wasn't filled with garbage, and so, it was a better place to look for seashells. She'd need them to make a ceramic bowl later on.

Shiro and a few other crows were here too, and so, they went to the beach. She had been there once before, so Izumi already knew how to get there.

They started looking for seashells without anyone bothering them. People were a little surprised at seeing so many crows on the beach, but unlike in Gaulusu, they were just mildly curious rather than disgusted.

Still, no one wanted to get closer to them.

After filling an entire bag with seashells, Izumi got out of the beach, getting the sand out of her shoes as the crows groomed each other.

She got back to the station, and got inside the Shikanshen headed to Konukoru, followed by the crows.

When Izumi arrived at the abandoned building in Tia, the murder was already waiting for her there. It was the first time in a while all of them were together, roughly 500 crows and ravens.

Izumi spent a while greeting all of them. She hadn't seen a few of them in years, coming from everywhere in Japan, and still recognized each and every one of them. They all had their own personalities after all.

Gorogoro hopped closer to her. Izumi petted him, feeling her hand tingle as she touched his feathers.

"Glad you all came"

There was a cacophony of caws everywhere, and Izumi was glad they were far enough from Konukoru for no one to become suspicious of the noise.

"I'm building something and wanted you all here for it"

She got inside the building, Gorogoro and Shiro on her shoulders. Inside there were more crows, Kuro, Hatori and Wuji along with the elders, from the Nest and other places of Japan.

Izumi got to the pile of reinforced dirt, grabbing the bottles of clay and getting to work.

She set the dirt in a spread circle, using the clay to bind it together like cement. After getting a nice surface done, she started building walls around the edges, leaving a hole pointing at the center of the room.

The crows helped Izumi as much as she could, bringing pieces of the reinforced dirt for her to place as bricks. She started tightening the walls the further she got, giving it the shape of a bottle as she went further up.

Her hands were covered in mud and clay, her biceps and back burned from the effort, but she kept going, using the makeshift bricks and cement. She had to crawl inside the structure, using the hole she had left earlier, in order to finish up the top part.

And, after 6 hours of work, she crawled out of the hole, her clothes stained with dirt and clay, and turned to admire her work.

She had built a dirt furnace. It wasn't exactly pretty to look at, and the opening at the top pointed directly to a hole in the ceiling, so the smoke coming out of it could filter outside of the building.

But it'd be enough, with her fire power thanks to Shiro's quirk, she only needed a strong base, and thanks to the reinforced dirt left behind by that villain group, she didn't even need bricks to make a strong wall.

Izumi whistled, Shiro and Gorogoro getting to her shoulders. They groomed their feathers and plucked a few out, giving them to Izumi. She tied the white feathers with the black spiky ones.

Hatori flew over next to her with a dart in her beak. Kuro and other crows started to pile dry leaves and sticks inside the furnace.

"Thank you. Herahera, get out of there, it's dangerous"

The young and small crow flew out, his feathers dirty from the clay. Izumi sighed and licked her thumb, wiping off the dirt and clay from his wings, earning a purr in return.

Oji-san and another raven plucked and cawed at him, scolding him.

Izumi smiled, and wrapped the feathers of Shiro and Gorogoro in the dart.

After finishing up, she flicked her wrist, swinging the dart straight into the center of the furnace, where dry leaves and firewood were.

The dart sparked in the air from the friction, making a cracking sound, and ignited midway into the furnace. It stuck right in the middle of the dry leaves, Shiro's feathers working as the main fuel, ignited by Gorogoro's feathers.

With something to eat at, the fire from Shiro's quirk got bigger and and hotter. Izumi shoved a piece of log that Kuro handed her, and the fire ate it up instantly.

They observed the fire, roaring inside, eating away the wood, spreading its warmth into the winter day.

The murder couldn't help but get closer to the furnace, but Izumi signaled them to not get much closer. Thanks to Shiro's Heavenly Fire, and the wood it was eating up, those flames were so hot that getting closer was dangerous.

Izumi started sweating, and knew that she had done a great job when the clay and dirt hardened around the fire, the furnace solidifying and keeping the heat inside.

Smoke puffed out of the opening of the furnace, and out of the building from the hole on the ceiling. Izumi grabbed the broken back of what used to be a chair, and placed it on the opening of the furnace, keeping the fire and heat inside.

"Cool, isn't it?"

The hunter sat on the floor, next to the crows. The ones outside tried squeezing against each other, trying to get inside where there was that nice warmth.

Izumi petted Gorogoro and Wuji, helping the elders keep the young crows from getting too close by pushing them back with her legs.

"I'm sorry for lying about needing you all here, but I just wanted for all of you to see this at the same time. This thing is meant for another thing too, but if you ever want to spend time here where it's warm, you only need to set fire inside it"

Izumi made sure to explain it better to the elders, so they could pass down the knowledge to everyone, as it was tradition in the murder.

She let the flames harden and dry the furnace on their own, getting up and pushing the sand casts further away so they didn't harden and dry up. Izumi did send a questioning look to Oji-san when she saw a few pokes on the plastic wrapping the casts, but he decided to look elsewhere.

Izumi smiled and took off her dirty clothes, staying only in a plain tank top and her undies. The girl grabbed a bucket from a corner. It was already filled with water from the nearby river, thanks to the ravens having noticed her eyeing the dirt on her clothes the day before.

"Oh, you shouldn't have, thank you so much!" Izumi thanked them, hugging them tightly and prompting the old ravens to caw and complain.

Izumi let them go, and without waiting any longer, she dipped her sweater and pants inside the bucket. She scrubbed the dirt out of it, making sure there was nothing left. She could wash her hunting clothes at home, but didn't want Inko getting annoying over going to the forest again, so she kept cleaning them on her own.

After her fingerless gloves as well, Izumi left them on the table in the middle of the building, to dry with the heat of the drying furnace.

After that, Izumi went inside the tunnel again with the bag of seashells and the hammer in her other hand. Kuro, unable to take much of the heat for a long time, went with her, along with some other heat-sensitive crows. She smiled and set up the flashlight so it lit up the exact spot they were in.

"Wanna see me pulverize this?"

The cawed, excited. They resisted the urge to go and pick up the shells, as Izumi raised the hammer, and brought it down with all force she could muster, breaking apart the shells in her way.

Her arms and back still complained about the effort, but for once, she only had to destroy, and that was far easier than anything else.

Izumi let herself go, bringing down the hammer one and again into the poor seashells. She screamed, letting off pent up steam from school and home.

When there was nothing more from the shells but fine powder, she dropped the hammer. Her hands hurt, but she ignored it, and scooped the powder into a plastic bag.

She was tired, she had skipped lunch and it was late again. But she didn't care. Izumi petted the crows again, getting up and going to the building again.

Izumi checked one last time the furnace was alright. There were no cracks, and the dirt and clay felt dry and hot. She nodded to herself, grabbing her now dry clothes and putting them on.

Yes, she was sweaty, but she had to put them on to get outside. The safe was far enough she'd catch a cold if she went outside in her undies and a mere tank top.

"Bye bye, everyone! See you tomorrow, Hatori! Have fun and get cozy with the furnace! Watch out for the casts, Oji-san!"

Izumi waved at them, as some started to fly away to go back to their nests, including the ones taking the Shikanshen with Izumi back to Gaulusu.

They returned home without much issue, and Izumi set the bag of seashell powder on her desk. Nothing much of note happened that day.

Next day, Izumi stuffed the bag in her backpack and went to school with enthusiasm for once. Wuji landed on her shoulder and cawed at anyone glaring at them on her way to school.

Izumi didn't let Samehada ruin her mood, and managed to ignore her all day, much to the shark girl's annoyance. Izumi felt a special satisfaction (that she effortlessly hid with a poker face, being in the zone) when even Lanbosu had to scold Samehada to leave Izumi alone.

After classes were done, Izumi went to the arts and crafts club, and sat on the desk with the pottery wheel. She got a few looks from the other members of the club. It was rare for anyone at the club to use the wheel at all, the school hadn't gotten the club clay to work with in a while after all.

That's when Izumi opens her backpack, and gets the bag of powder and the bonding clay out. She still had two handfuls of clay leftover from the furnace and the casts, and she intended to use them.

She turned on the machine after setting the soft clay on top of the wheel. It started spinning, going faster slowly but surely. Izumi pressed her hands lightly against the clay and started giving form to the clay, pushing it to an uniform shape and making sure it got to a nice cylindrical form.

Izumi pressed her hand on the center of the spinning clay, pushing it away and forcing it to form a hole on the inside. She kept her breathing steady, getting into the zone without even realizing it.

Before she knew it, she grabbed her bag and slowly spilled the seashell powder on the clay pot. The tiny bits of what once were animals living in the sea now fused together with her clay.

Izumi kept giving shape to the clay and spilling shell powder on it for a while, until she was satisfied with it.

The clay had transformed into a cylindrical container with the top side open. The calcium carbonate inside the seashells mixed with the clay would make for a strong ceramic after heating up the pot.

Izumi pinched the edge of the pot on one side, giving it a small dent in order to have a side to spill the contents of the pot more easily in the future.

She carefully grabbed the pot, and got up to put it in the microwave of the room. Older members of the club had installed one years ago because they used to have their lunches in the room apparently, and now it was going to heat up something completely different.

And speaking of the other members of the club, Izumi found them with their mouths agape looking at her.

"What?"

That seemed to wake them up from whatever dream they were having, and they sheepishly resumed doing whatever they were doing.

Izumi shrugged it off and put the pot into the microwave, setting the hottest option and living it there for as many minutes as she could program the microwave.

She still had some clay and seashell powder left, so she went to a free table and rolled it up into a thin rod, about a meter long, as wide as a finger.

Izumi then cleaned her hands a bit, to use her phone properly and kill time as the pot heated up. She texted her progress with zoomCEO, seeing her reaction to the picture she'd shared with them of the furnace, heated up.

She smiled reading all the comments zoom left, and after an hour, when the microwave dinged, she split the rod in two, used some baking gloves she'd gotten from home (sorry, not sorry, Inko) and pulled it off.

The result was a steaming ceramic pot, perfect to use in her furnace. The melting point should be high enough for the clay to hold out after mixing it with the calcium carbonate.

Izumi then put the two pieces of the rod inside, and set them to heat up again. She checked the time. 6:30 pm. She could make it today, but it was going to be late by the end.

Meh, who cares. I'll just sleep less and get over it.

After getting the rods done, she wrapped them on a thin cloth and packed them on her backpack, along the pot.

At the exit, Izumi saw Samehada, Anshin and Kyosei, their bored faces changing to smirks the moment they saw her.

Izumi clenched her backpack and stormed out of the school, brushing past Anshin as she tried to block her path.

"Hey now, Midori-chan, that wasn't very- ahh!" Anshin screamed as a crow flew right into her face.

She managed to duck just in time, Wuji's claws swinging the spot she was a moment before.

Izumi kept speed walking, leaving the scared teens behind. Wuji cawed and landed on her shoulder.

"This isn't over, freak!" Samehada shouted. "The flying menaces aren't going to be with you all the time! You hear me!? You won't pull more of this with me around!"

Izumi rolled her eyes, ignoring her completely and heading straight for the station. Other students got out of her way, looking at her as if she had just attacked Anshin.

Well, Wuji had been close, but considering what they did to her, giving them a scare wasn't an escalation whatsoever.

Izumi did see Toga looking at her with an unreadable expression. She wondered what could be, normally Izumi thought she could tell what at least Toga was thinking. Or at least she thought that.

Either way, she passed through all of them, Wuji leaving her shoulder and flying with other crows, and headed to finish her new toy.

When she arrived at the abandoned building, carrying her school backpack alongside her hunting gear (now clean, feels nice) and bow, Giran was already inside.

"What happened here? There's bird shit everywhere outside"

Izumi raised an eyebrow.

"Guess"

"Hmph, I heard sightings of crows all over Japan yesterday. Did you mobilize all of them? To build, uhm, what is this supposed to be?"

"It's a blast furnace. Well, more like 'homemade blast furnace'. It should pale in comparison to an industrial one."

"You used the bonding clay for this?"

Izumi raised an eyebrow again at him, the crows in her shoulders and around her in the room cawing and enjoying the show.

"I missed when you just told me stuff. Puberty made you smart."

"Yeah, yeah, go tell your sob story to someone else."

Izumi took out the pot and the rods from her backpack, and used the last left over clay to bind the rod back together again. She stuck one of the ends to the opposite side of the pot with the dent.

Giran sighed and puffed some smoke.

"Well, you were right. Got a call from SASC about the deer with Nemean Fur quirk."

"Nemean Fur? Hmmm, an accurate name"

"Better than the ones you give"

Izumi glared at him and Hatori tried to bite his ankle, but Giran moved his feet just in time.

"I'm just literal."

"Too literal I'd say. Kuro. Shiro. Very original."

"Are you done, Giran?"

"Nah, I want to see what you are cooking over there. I haven't seen a blast furnace in action before."

Izumi stared at him with a poker face for a while, but he didn't flinch away, grinning and smoking a cigarette like he had nothing better to do.

"Whatever, just don't get in my way. And don't get any ideas telling any of this to any of your other contacts"

Giran raised his hands apologetically.

"Hey, I have client confidentiality."

"Unless someone buys it"

"Hehe. You are getting all my tricks."

"Just remember words spread faster in the air."

Giran whistled, blowing smoke, as Izumi wrapped some of Shiro's feathers around the clay she used to bind the rod to the pot.

"And threatening now! I'm almost proud"

"It wasn't a threat, just a warning. I could always skip the middleman"

"Now and what of all my wonderful contacts? You wanna go to those meetings of the Order?"

"I was skipping them even before you said you'd go in my stead."

Kuro handed Izumi a piece of flint and a rock to smash it with, and she clicked them together, sending sparks to the white feathers, making them combust and burn the clay, binding and drying it into the pot.

"Heh. Alright, I won't tell anyone, but you sure? Teasing Bullseye is always fun"

"Especially not him. Does he still call for meetings to complain about me?"

Giran nodded as Izumi started throwing firewood inside the furnace.

"Asshole"

"Asshole!" "Asshole!" "Gauge eyes out!" The crows chanted after Izumi.

"Hahaha! You flying pests have a great sense of humor!"

Izumi's face softened. She grabbed more of Shiro's feathers from the floor and put them inside the furnace with the firewood. She whistled, telling the others to stay back. Giran stopped messing around and watched her work, keeping his word of not disturbing her.

Izumi clicked the flint against the rock again, sending sparks in the edge of the furnace's entrance. The fire roared as soon as a spark touched a white feather. Izumi pushed it further inside using a piece of firewood.

The fire roared, and the temperature in the room increased quickly. Izumi pushed the back of that one chair again in the entrance, sealing it as the fire consumed more feathers and firewood, getting stronger and hotter.

The hunter flicked her wrist, getting some of Kuro's fallen feathers in between her fingers. If Giran wanted to watch her work, she'd show off a little. She put the metallic feathers in the pot, and a few other crows, including Kuro, put some more of the metallic feathers inside after seeing her do it.

Izumi put on the baking gloves again, and wrapped the hood of her sweater around her mouth.

She grabbed the rod of the pot, lifting it, and got closer to the furnace. The heat was much more intense than yesterday, having used far more firewood and white feathers. Izumi opened the entrance of the furnace, and a heatwave hit all of them, black smoke pouring out from the top of the furnace.

Izumi pushed the pot inside the furnace, hearing the metal of the feathers sizzle as the fire licked them.

In the background, Shiro cawed smugly at Kuro, his feathers proving stronger than her own. Kuro simply turned to look away.

Izumi got into the zone, holding still the pot, and slowly letting it lay on top of the fire. Once she managed to do so, she quickly closed the furnace again, and moved quickly to the opposite corner of the room.

Giran and the crows followed her with their gazes, as she took the sand casts, and set them up on the table. Izumi peeled off the plastic and grabbed an arrow.

She pressed the arrow against the soft, butterlike material one, two, and three times, sinking the arrow halfway and leaving three imprints of its shape.

Izumi then did the same to the second cast, sinking the other half of the arrow three times, symmetrically in the same places as the other cast.

After leaving six symmetrical imprints, Izumi grabbed the two casts, and closed them together. There were three holes on one of the sides they were connecting at, leaving the holes she'd just made with the shape of the arrow partially exposed.

Izumi set the casts so the holes face upward, and put on the gloves again, taking the pot off of the furnace.

"Move out of the way"

She mumbled with the hood of the sweater covering her mouth. The feathers had melted inside the pot, and were a deep orange color, steam and smoke coming out of them.

Izumi felt sweat run down her face, but didn't let it distract her. She put the pot right above the sand casts, and slowly tilted it.

The hot metal sizzled against the cast, going inside the holes in it, and filling them. The crows had flown over to the other side of the room because of the heat, only Shiro staying put in place, thanks to his resistance to heat.

Giran was so impressed he didn't say anything until Izumi stopped filling the casts with the metal, and put the pot into a bucket. Water sizzled and steam came out of the bucket.

Izumi took the hood of her sweater out of her face, gasping for air and closing the furnace again.

She took out the sweater and left it in the table with a grunt, making a wet noise as it slapped the table.

"Bwah! I thought I was going to pass out, damn, so hot"

"Why didn't you take it off?"

"To not burn myself if I got molten metal on me" Izumi shrugged at him as if he said something moronic. "I need a better protection against it."

"I take it that'd be the next payment" Giran smirked, inhaling smoke from his cigarette.

"Most likely."

"So what exactly have you done? Metal arrows? Can those even be shot?"

"Of course they can. B-tip can handle the force required to shoot them."

"But can you? Don't you need strong arm force for that?"

"Want me to slap you to see my arm strength first hand?"

"Nah, I'm good~"

Izumi petted the crows, slowly getting closer now that the heat from the furnace and the casts was slowly dying down. She saw Giran eyeing her bow on the table.

"You going to hunt that thing down today?"

"That's the idea, when the metal cools off"

"Isn't it going to be a bit late for you?"

Izumi narrowed her eyes.

"Why do you care? Thought you'd like me to get the job done the same done they handed it to you"

"Hey, just saying. And I don't really care, I was going to stay the night in Konukoru either way."

They waited for the metal to cool off for an hour. Izumi spent the time talking with the crows and talking about her day in school today. Giran spent most of the time on his phone, talking with other clients of his, and apparently enjoying the deals he was getting judging by his smirk.

By the hour, Izumi forced the two halves apart, watching out for the black metal spread around the holes. Kuro helped her snap the pieces of metal hugging the casts together like otherworldly black tendrils using her beak.

The result was better than she imagined. One of the arrows was a bust, the two holes in the shape of half arrows not being perfectly symmetrical and making a very strange looking arrow.

The other two were aligned perfectly, and she was met with two perfect rods with a very pointy and sharp tip.

Izumi took them out of the cast while wearing the baking gloves. The edges of the cast cracked, heated and dried from the intense heat, but the arrows came off perfectly.

Izumi spinned one of the arrows in her fingers once she checked the temperature to not burn herself. The were heavy. Unlike Kuro's quirk, Light Armor, strong and equally sharp, the arrows were heavy. Comparing it with other of her tools…

"Hmmm, seems to weight around 0.75 kilos"

"That much?"

"Lighter than expected, but it's the first iteration, makes sense."

Izumi grabbed her bow and went outside. She drawed the arrow into B-tip and pointed to a tree. She used more force than normal to push the arrow all the way back to the limit of B-tip. Then, she relea-

Fiiiiiup!

The arrow shot forward at incredible speed, piercing the tree and going straight to the other side, piercing a second, and then a third tree before stopping there, the arrow halfway sunk inside the third tree.

Izumi's face was split by a predatory smirk. She looked back at the crows.

"Guys, let's go for a hunt~"

Giran shivered at the sight, his smirk twitching with a bit of fear at the display of force.

This kid… This is the first time she ever does anything like this? Keeping contact with her was the right idea.

He lit another cigarette as Izumi put on her gear, wearing her fingerless gloves and her sweater back.

"I guess I'll wait here for your return. Have nothing else to do."

Izumi took the now cool pot out of the bucket and threw the water inside the furnace to kill out what remained of the fire.

It wasn't enough to extinguish the flame, but it made the natural process faster.

"Don't get any weird ideas. I know what I left there."

"Yes, ma'am~ Now go make me some money, princess Diana~"

Izumi flipped him the bird, the crows cawed at him, some staying behind to watch over the building, not trusting him.

These birds aren't idiots either, heh.

Izumi rolled her eyes, not letting his comment sour her mood.

She got out of the building, planning to settle the score with her dear prey.

Tracking down the deer was child's play, even after the sun settled and Izumi had only the dim light of the stars and the moon to guide them. Izumi felt lucky there weren't any clouds in the sky, as if the heavens wished her good luck.

The hunter stalked the area where she found the deer last time, crouching down to find its footsteps. Izumi followed a path ñeft by dry blood from the injury Kuro had given it.

The scratches in the trees were a good sign she was getting closer, until she saw Hatori and other crows in some branches, pointing ahead.

Izumi smirked, they had found it.

The deer was just a few meters ahead, awake but clearly looking for a place to rest for the night. Izumi got into the zone seamlessly. The scent of flesh in the open from the open wound on the deer's left side made her pupils contract into small dots in her eyes, as the crows silently circled the deer.

Izumi didn't even acknowledge Hatori landing on her head. She grabbed one of the two metal arrows, which she mentally called Black Arrows (hey, they needed a name), and lined it in B-tip.

She saw Shiro about to make a distraction for the deer, but Izumi clicked her tongue. A message to tell him to stand down.

The deer also heard it, its head straightening and ears flickering. It was on alert now, but Izumi had hidden her presence perfectly.

The predator hid behind a tree just out of sight of the deer, its bloodlust completely hidden by the calmness of her heart.

Thump….thump….thump…thump…

Izumi slowed down her heart more, slowly drawing the arrow and pressing against the strings of the bow.

Thump….thump…

Her heartbeat slowed so much it stopped beating. In that moment, Izumi got out from behind the tree, making no sound at all, her feet completely avoiding any dry leaves and sticks on their way, and released the arrow.

The silence was broken by the snap of the strings as they pushed the black arrow forward, piercing the deer's right side and sinking halfway on it.

The deer bleating and screaming, kicking the air, surprised by the pain.

Thump.

Izumi drew her second black arrow, slingling it on B-tip while moving around the deer. Her prey had seen her now, but it was paralyzed with shock of being hurt. Izumi didn't give it time to think clearly and ram into her, and pointed her bow.

Thump.

The strings snapped back into place again. The deer's head snapped back, the black arrow completely crossing its head, getting stuck inside it, both ends sticking out from opposite sides.

The murder cawed and flew towards the deer, as it fell to one side, blood dripping from its head and sides.

Thump…thump….thump…thump, thump, thump.

Izumi let her excitement go through her body, feeling the rush of her blood and adrenaline hit her all at once.

She screamed with her arms above her head. She had taken down the damned deer, with a new tool she had made just in a few days.

Izumi felt proud of herself, like the first time she'd taken down a bear, or a quirked animal. This deer had a quirk that'd make even a pro-hero jealous. And she, a quirkless freak, lover of crows, had taken it down.

She went over to the carcass, cackling like a mad woman, and took of the black arrows from its dead body. They were still usable, after all.

Izumi licked the blood out of the arrows and stored them on her quiver, before grabbing one of the leftover shards from what she had broken off the casts. It was crude and ugly, but it was still made from Kuro's quirk.

She used it as a knife, the metal going through the supposed impenetrable flesh with a bit of difficulty. It wasn't as refined yet. Izumi thought over making a cast for a knife next time.

The honorary crow worked to remove the tricky hide, cutting it from the flesh and skin the deer. The moment fresh meat was available, the crows sinked their claws and beaks into it, tearing the deer apart.

Izumi couldn't help giggling and laughing as she skinned the deer, the sound of her voice and the murder's gore being the only thing filling the forest.

She handed what was left of the deer, along with one of its super hard ears to Giran as proof, to give to the SASC.

"They aren't going to be happy about you taking the hide"

"Did they explicitly ask for it?"

He smirked.

"Haha! You are becoming pretty scary, Izumi-chan~ You going to scam me next?"

"I don't intend to right now. Not good business"

"Hahaha! Oh, I can't wait to see the handler's face after giving him this bloody mess. Don't you wanna come to?"

"No, it's getting late, I'm going back."

"Hmmm, alright then~ pleasure doing business with you, Diana~"

Izumi hummed, and went for the station, before safely storing the black arrows and nemean deer fur in her safe. She was beyond telling Giran to not think of any funny business. She had gained his respect.

Izumi was in a good mood. She had barely slept anything, her mother giving her an earful for coming it after midnight, but even with sleeping that bad, the satisfaction over the arrows, casts, furnace and everything being successful greatly overshadowed it.

Izumi circled around some third year students arguing about something, not wanting to get involved in what looked like a possible fight.

She hadn't even seen Samehada and her friends (yet)! Honestly, even with their usual antics and the vague threat from yesterday, she was confident she could brush them off-

"Kyaaaa!"

A student screamed, making everyone turn to look at what the fuss was all about. It seemed someone had jumped in to stop the fight the moment they had devolved into fists and- wait, was that Toga?

She was on top of one of the students, a knife cutter in her hand, plunged into his chest, blood overflowing from the wound.

Izumi's senses immediately put her on alert, sensing she was suddenly in the territory of a big, scary predator. Everyone else ran and screamed, saying Toga had lost her senses and that she had killed Saito (so that is his name).

One of his arteries must have been hit, from all the blood leaking out from him like a fountain.

She had to get out, she didn't have weapons or crows by her side, Toga's presence as a predator putting her on edge. But against her common sense, Izumi didn't move, just watched Toga cry and smirk, taking a straw and slurping on the blood that was coming from his chest.

Izumi stood there, her heart slowly calming down, and watching Toga feed on that Saito guy. Why was she even scared in the first place? The crows had done worse than this.

Toga looked relieved, like a weight had lifted from herself. Even though she was crying. Wait, who was? Izumi felt as if Toga was just… being true to herself, in a way.

"No, she's just normal."