Mahou Sensei Negima! is the creation and intellectual property of Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha.

Boku no Hero Academia is the creation and intellectual property of Horikoshi Kohei and Shueisha.

Quirky.

Part One.

Bakugo Katsuki was at the supermarket of his neighborhood, absently looking through the magazine racks for the latest Shonen Jump. Reading about Luffy and Zoro putting the hurt on idiots sometimes soothed his inner fury down.

At one point the blond young man overheard something that invariably did provoke that fury, though, rendering the search for Shonen Jump pointless. It was that annoying Deku's whiny voice. He appeared to be asking something to someone.

Bakugo looked towards the source of the Most Annoying Sound. Down the aisle, he could see the short, freckled, green haired boy talking to some girl as both of them bought groceries, each holding a large bag in a hand. The girl was good looking, Bakugo guessed. He'd seen far worse at their school, that much was sure. She was taller than Deku but not much, with a slender build, and long light brown hair pulled into a ponytail. She had large round glasses, which was a turnoff for Bakugo, but she was too good looking to be talking with Deku. What was going on there?

Since sometimes it was fun to prickle the geek, Bakugo made his way towards them. "Hey, Deku," he snorted.

As usual, the scrawny boy almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of Katsuki's voice. "K-Katchan!" he gasped. "Ah, good morning, this here is H-Hasegawa-san, my—"

"Cousin?" Bakugo snorted, looking at the young lady. She glared back at him, sternly, hate at first sight. She was too good looking to be directly related to him, either. Bakugo had known Deku long enough he'd already know if he had a sister, plus, in Bakugo's own opinion, Deku's mom was too much of a pig looking cartoon to spawn any decent looking children.

Deku nodded stiffly, gulping. The girl kept on looking at Bakugo with narrowed eyes, as if waiting for something.

"Y-Yes, my cousin, sh-she and some friends are staying over for—"

Bakugo and the girl stood in a tense contest of glares, as if measuring each other. This bitch was starting to upset him for some reason. Normally, by that point Bakugo already would be having some fun with Deku, but her presence made things… not complicated, as he wasn't afraid of any bitch and he could just start messing with the nerd any time he wanted, but… she'd start whining about it, and people would stare at them, and the guards would come around to ask what was happening, and all of that would be too much of a hassle to be worth some quick fun.

"Yah, yah, ask me if I care," Bakugo huffed, turning around and starting to walk away. "Whatever."

"Ah, yeah, bye-bye, Katchan," Deku waved weakly after him.

Soon he was out the front door, and only then Hasegawa Chisame spoke. "So that was him."

"Mmm-hmmmm," Midoriya Izuku nodded.

"I was expecting for someone bigger and taller," the girl told him. "Like, American quarterback sized. And you let him push you around?"

"He's still much bigger than me, Hasegawa-san!"

Chisame huffed, starting to go through the grocery list again, picking items Inko-san had put in it and putting them in her bag. "Your own fault, you should've started working out much sooner if you were being bullied."

Izuku sighed, starting to do the same thing again with his own list. "It'd have made no difference. He's got a Quirk."

Chisame said nothing, but once more began thinking back of the events that had led her there, several days ago…

"It's no good!" Anya gasped loudly as everything crumbled down around them, large chunks of rock falling everywhere. "They've destroyed the gate's keystone… the link between the worlds is broken, with us caught in the middle!"

"The displacement magic is going out of control!" Negi observed. "Everyone stay together!" he commanded to his forces and the confused hangers-ons. "Join hands tightly, and-!"

Then everything surrounding him exploded in an onslaught of light, smoke, flying marble, rubble, shattered ice and, for some reason, the taste of a bell ringing and the sound of baby cologne (synesthesia was a bitch). His lungs were filled by dust, and a massive impact hit him in the chest and sent him flying back and away from the others as his whole world went black.

He still could hear Asuna's voice desperately crying, "Negi! Take my hand!" before losing his hearing in addition to his sight. And then everything became quiet.

Chisame was still shivering when she and Izuku left the market, heading back home.

"Hey, Hasegawa-san," the boy asked her with obvious concern. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm not okay, I won't be okay until I'm back where I belong. We won't be okay until we're back where we belong," she grouched, as they walked down the street. Once again she tried to ignore the weird looking people walking all around them, the large flashy signs and screens showing off colorful men and women in spandex, and thought back of Mahora, sweet, good old Mahora. Normal Mahora.

Izuku lowered his head, unsure of what to say, for several minutes, until they reached the front of his apartment building. "I'm sure All Might will give you an answer soon enough," he said in a low voice as they entered the lobby of the building.

Chisame snorted non commitally. They went into the elevator and shared another uneasy silence until they reached the apartment of the Midoriyas.

"Mom, Sensei, everyone, we're home!" Izuku said, leaving his bag and shoes by the door, Chisame doing the same in unreadable silence. "Sorry we took so long! We ran into Katchan at the store and—"

Shiina Sakurako lifted her gaze from the cellphone Inko-san had bought for her. She had been laying on her stomach on the couch, bare feet swinging back and forth. "Oh! You mean your bully?"

Negi Springfield put the book he was reading down, with Chamo the white ermine sitting on his shoulder. "He didn't try anything, did he? I knew I should have gone…"

"Please stop blowing that out of proportion, Sensei," Izuku sighed, while Karakuri Chachamaru walked out the kitchen and bowed at him. "He's not that bad, and—"

"Dinner's almost ready, Izu-kun, Chi-chan!" Midoriya Inko's voice came happily from the kitchen. "And oh, it's delicious! I can't believe how much of a cook Chacha-chan is!"

"Welcome back home, Midoriya-senpai, Chisame-san," the green haired beauty said, humble and soft spoken as ever. "If you sustained any damage, please let me tend to your wounds and also point me towards the perpetrator so I can retaliate properly."

"He didn't even touch me…!" Izuku rolled his eyes.

"By now you've trained enough you should be able to land at least a hit on him," Inugami Kotaro, the final current inhabitant of the rather stuffed apartment, said from where he sat on the floor, watching television. "What's he gonna do after that, start a superpowered fight right at broadlight so he's arrested?"

"He really didn't touch him, why is 'punch punch punch' your answer to everything?" Chisame said, moving towards the laptop on loan from Izuku. "Geez, at least we've been able to restrain you from going out and picking fights with those meatheads so far. I bet you're itching to—"

"Um, yes, about that, Chisame," Negi rasped. The red haired boy put a fist on his mouth. "All Might-san called earlier, and he said that since we have spent almost two full weeks here already…" He paused for a moment, briefly looking really miserable, as he no doubt was thinking about the rest of Class 3-A again. "Well, basically, he says that since he doesn't know when he can help us finding a way back, maybe we should start fitting in and doing something so we… so we don't have to keep on leeching from Inko-san, and—"

"It's not a bother at all, you can stay as long as you want!" a jubilant Inko said. "Oh, this soup! I've never tasted anything like it!"

Negi sighed, placing his hands on his knees. Chisame raised an eyebrow at him. "Then, he more or less asked us if we'd like to start taking some training along Izuku-san, and that perhaps we'd like to take the test for admittance into UA, using our powers as if they were Quirks, and—"

"But I'm not a fighter," Chisame said dryly.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to," Negi raised his hands to placate her. "Sakurako said she'd be okay with it, and we'll be establishing a provisional alliance so we can see what kind of training would fit her best, but—"

"Good for her," Chisame said sharply.

Sakurako, impervious to sarcasm as ever, smiled and gave Chisame a thumbs up. "Thank you, Chisame-chan!"

Negi fidgeted. "But I also know your feelings on the matter, and your powers truly aren't those of a frontline fighter, and—"

"Sorry to be useless," Chisame said.

Negi gasped. "That's not what I meant!"!

"Sorry Kagurazaka can't be here. Or Miyazaki. Or even Iinchou, at least she could kiss you and get you something like a giant bazooka of love that would level a city down," Chisame said.

"A lot of respected Pro Heroes have made successful stints working with apparently lame powers, Chi-chan!" Inko said, briefly poking her head out the kitchen. "You only need to think out of the box with them!"

"Mom, please!" Izuku moaned.

"In any case," Kotaro said, taking another mouthful of chips from his bag, "you should work out with us a little, just in case. This place's got no mercy and you can run into a superpowered freak at any time. What if Negi and us aren't around to protect you then? At the very least, you should be able to take a minimum of care of yourself, Megane-Neechan."

"Don't call me that…" Chisame gritted her teeth. "Are you still doing that in that stinking beach full of trash?"

"It's only half full of trash now," Izuku replied.

Chisame took a hand to her face. "I can't deal with this. But mostly, I seriously can't deal with you guys!"

Yet again, her mind drifted several days ago, to try and make some sense out of her current situation…

Over ten days ago, Midoriya Izuku had been helping All Might cleansing a wide beach littered with junk all around.

All Might, the most powerful and beloved Pro Hero in all of Japan! A human beacon of hope and a paradigm of decency for everyone in the islands to follow. He stood, over seven feet tall, muscular and blond like a sculpted Adonis. His very tight white shirt hugged his torso to such a degree that it looked spray painted, and his tropical shorts showed his robust legs off, his feet clad in sandals.

He smiled, flashing pure white teeth, while Izuku panted in the background, moving large pieces of broken machinery towards a massive box.

"Breathe slowly, in and out, making sure to fill your lungs properly every time," the superhero advised his apprentice. "Half of the endurance training is about breathing adequately."

"Y-Yes, Sir!" Izuku wheezed, having taken his shirt off and sweating all over. The sun was setting in the horizon, but it remained as potent as by midday.

"Are you feeling okay?" All Might asked him. "You won't be getting anywhere is you push your body beyond its limits before receiving All for One."

"I'm fine!" Izuku reassured him, pushing one of the discarded engines into the box, then spitting on his hands and rubbing them together. He began pushing the next machine in while All Might looked at him in silence.

Finally, the titan of a man chuckled. "That's the spirit!" he said in English. "Then we'll keep on doing this for two hours more, then call it a day! You know, Young Midoriya, there's a lot of discussion about whether heroes work better at day or during the night. What is your opinion?"

"It's, it's all the same as long as people actually needs you, isn't it?" the boy asked back. "But, if you ask me, I guess I'm more of a daytime person..."

All Might nodded pensively. "Same with me. Daylights seem to bring the best of people out. Daytime rescues are often about saving people from accidents and catastrophes, while nocturnal emergencies are more about crime and those who would hide in the darkness to prey."

Izuku blinked and stopped briefly. "So you'd rather save people from accidents than villains?"

All Might's powerful shoulders shrugged. "Punching others out is actually the worst part of the job. It's necessary, of course, but I didn't get in this job to hurt others. I suppose that is kind of naive for an old man, isn't it? HA HA HA!"

Izuku wiped the sweat off his forehead with a fist. "N-No! You're right, in a perfect world there wouldn't even be anyone wanting to kill others, or steal from them..."

All Might looked at the sea. "Violence, Young Midoriya, begets its own vicious circle. All too often, it starts cycles of revenge, and that embitters even the most noble of hearts. When you find your nemesis, the guy or woman who gets under your skin, the one who hurts you the most- please try to keep a sound mind about him or her. Don't let them drag you into the abyss with them. Don't be tempted into more violence than strictly needed."

Izuku thought about the person who had injured All Might, damaging his body. What kind of monster could have done that to him? Was that person still around? Or had he... no, it couldn't be... but what if he had forced All Might to-

The hero frowned, looking into the sky now. "What's that?"

Izuku looked up as well, but he couldn't see anything but a normal reddish sunset sky. "What do you mean?"

"Behind me," All Might said, sweeping an arm behind his own back. Izuku gulped and hastily did as he was told, moving to stand behind the juggernaut. Only then, he saw the tiny twinkle in the sky. It was falling quickly towards the beach, like a shooting star, with a whistling noise that grew louder by the second until there was a large explosion of sand in all directions, mere meters away from where they stood.

"UWAAAAAAA!" Izuku shouted, stumbling back but not quite dropping, finding his footing in time.

All Might lurched ahead, granitic fists tightening. "A space alien?! Man alive, it's been a while!"

But then he stopped himself. True to his word, he hadn't attacked before making sure that what had just landed before them was not a threat. Izuku looked around the man's legs, puzzled, to see a short, red haired boy at the middle of a smoking crater in the sand. He couldn't have been any older than twelve, and he breathed laboriously, apparently injured and bruised. He wore tattered pants and a shirt with a huge hole at the middle, wrapped in rags that had once been a longcoat.

"What the...!" Midoriya gulped.

"Quick!" All Might instructed. "Call Emergencies!"

"Em- Ah, yeah, of course!" Midoriya scrambled around for his shirt, rummaging through it for his cellphone, while All Might crouched down before the downed child and took his pulse. With trembling fingers, Izuku dialed the number, but before he could speak, another living projectile arrived from the sky, landing with a splash in the water before him. "Another one!?"

And then, a person rose from the water. A tall, pale, gorgeous young woman with light, long green hair. Izuku blinked, but before he could even proccess what was going on, the girl flew back up, intercepting another plummeting person, and then, almost too fast for the eye to follow, a second one.

"What..." Izuku blabbered. All Might was approaching him now, with the fainted boy in his arms.

"Did you call them?" the hero asked.

Izuku blinked. "Uhh...? Ah, ah, sorry! Did you see that!? That girl just startled me, and-!"

All Might sighed patiently. "Yes, yes, of course I saw her. Here she comes, maybe she will explain," he said, eyes fixed up as the girl flew back down, holding an unconscious girl under each arm. One of them had long light brown hair, and the other one was shorter, her hair bleached blonde.

The flying girl landed gently on her feet, the rocket repulsors built into them turning off. "My apologies," she said softly. "Is he okay?"

"Looks that way, Young Miss," All Might said stoically. "And you would be...?"

"My name is Karakuri Chachamaru," she said, reading the vitals of the girls she was tenderly setting down on the sand. "Our class has just been attacked at the middle of a trip. There were several others with us, I should go looking for them right now..."

"You... You were having a class trip UP THERE!?" the bewildered Izuku looked upwards.

Chachamaru followed his pointing finger with her gaze. "No, not quite there. It is very strange, my readings indicate we would be back in Japan for some reason. But we just were in Wales..."

Then a much smaller comet came down, crashing down on Chachamaru's head and barely fazing her.

"Ouch!" a tiny voice yelped, and a white, small animal covered on fur bounced from Karakuri's skull and then down onto the sand. "Ow My spine!"

All Might looked down at it, and then blinked twice, his eyes widening at the sight of the creature. Izuku was surprised, as this was the most perplexed he had ever seen his hero until then.

"Sorry, Chamo-san," Chachamaru told the twitching ermine. "I didn't see you coming."

"It's.. It's all right, it... only hurts when I laugh..." the ermine spoke.

Another body hit the water, and one moment later, a knocked out boy around the same age as the first one came to the surface, floating with a bump on his scalp, which was covered on wild black hair and topped by furry ears. He also had a long tail to match. That part didn't shock Izuku at all, since had met many children with animal features before, and even gone to school with a few. But...

All Might was already returning from the water with the second boy, setting him down and starting to reanimate him with CPR. Izuku looked quizzically at the girl with green hair.

"That is strange..." she mused to herself, her green eyes glowing faintly. "I'm trying to call Principal Konoemon, but to no avail..."

"Who?" Izuku said.

She looked at the freckled youngster and asked him, "How far are we from Mahora Academy? My maps seem to be malfunctioning, as I can't locate our way back."

"Young Midoriya, sorry, but it looks like we're going to cut tonight's training earlier than expected," All Might said while the boy with a tail began coughing.

The memories of recent days were shaken off Chisame's mind as they reached the beach, next day after classes. Home lessons from Negi in the cases of Chisame, Chachamaru, Sakurako, and Kotaro (Kotaro was grumpy about it).

All Might waited for them in his lanky form while Deku paused only a moment in his pushing of stuff to wave at them, feigning to smile despite his exhaustion.

"Good afternoon," the man told them. In English. "So did you all decide to take it?"

"It should be fun!" Kotaro grinned.

"If we become notorious enough, there are good chances we'll draw attention of our missing friends, so we can reunite," Negi summed up. "Or the other way around, we'll have better chances to find them as active heroes."

"There is no good reason why I shouldn't do it," Chachamaru told him.

"I may be weak but I'll do my best to improve!" Sakurako promised.

Chisame groaned.

All Might perked an ear up. "Sorry, I didn't hear. What did you just say, Young Hasegawa?"

Chisame sighed. "I won't be useful at all, for myself or anyone else, if I just stay indoors for God knows how long…"

All Might looked at her. "Are you sure that's the way you feel?"

"Yes, it is!" she said.

"Because this isn't a safe job at all. You can't go into it with a half-heart. You've got to give your best, and even then, sometimes that's not enough! Just look at me!" He poked a finger on his scrawny chest and coughed blood up.

Sakurako and Negi both winced.

"Sometimes we've gotta do things even if ideally we wouldn't want to," Chisame said sourly.

"That's right to some degree, I suppose." Yagi Toshinori looked thoughtful. "If your willpower really isn't into it, the training should dissuade you anyway."

"So, what are we going to do?" Negi asked, eagerly. "I look forward to seeing how your training compares to Master Evangeline's, Sir!"

"First of all, I need to see what are you made of," Toshinori told the boy. "To assign you a training program I need to learn about the one you have been subjected to, and its effects on you."

He handed Negi a notebook and a pen. "Write a detailed account of how this Eva trained you."

Negi nodded, and very hastily wrote several pages' worth down, then passed the notebook to Toshinori.

The first thing the man noticed was how good Negi's handwriting was despite writing so fast. Then…

He glared at Negi. "Is this a joke?"

"No, Sir," Negi said.

"Because if it's a joke, it's not a funny joke," Toshinori said. "You need to be honest with me so I can gauge you adequately…"

"Every word of what I wrote there is truth," Negi promised with a hand on his heart.

Yoshinori looked at the account again. "What kind of… training was this!? For someone your age!? There's harsh training and then there's this!"

"That's how Eva rolls," Chisame informed the hero. "She once threw Asuna naked into a snowy mountainside and kicked her down a hill."

"You should go for a checkup," Toshinori told Negi. "Who knows what kind of damage she caused you!"

"That's okay, since we have a teammate, Konoka, who healed me with magic every time," Negi said.

Toshinori pondered that, stupefied. "I don't know or understand anything about magic," he confessed, "so if you say so…"

Then he pointed at one of two large containers next to each other.

"Young Negi, Young Inugami, physical testing comes next! Punch those containers with all your strength and we'll see how much hitting power is there in you!"

Kotaro chuckled, rotating his arm while Negi and he walked towards the containers. "Piece of cake!"

Toshinori, Chisame, Chachamaru and Sakurako watched on. Chamo whistled and looked at his paw nails.

"One…" Negi raised his arm.

Izuku stopped his own efforts, and he joined the curious onlooking.

"Two!" Kotaro did likewise.

"THREE!" Negi shouted, and both boys punched the containers.

They exploded sending trash everywhere, their surfaces as well as their contents pulverized into what might have been just confetti.

Chisame had to block with an arm to make sure nothing of it would hit her face. Somehow, none of the flying trash hit Sakurako, all of it just making its flying way around her.

"That was… I hadn't ever seen anyone without a Quirk hitting anything that hard," Toshinori admitted. "Are you sure you didn't start manifesting that strength when you were four or so?"

Negi and Kotaro shook their heads.

"Chachamaru is just as strong, but she is a robot, as you'll recall," Negi said.

"That… That was awesome!" Izuku said, his face full of trash and his eyes shining through the muck. "I want you to train me too!"

"One step at a time, Young Midoriya, or else you could stumble!" Toshinori warned him before coughing again. "Fine, I'll design a training program for you two, I should have it ready for tomorrow."

"What about us?" Sakurako asked.

"He is your teacher, I'm not entitled to tell him how you should be trained." Toshinori pointed at Negi. "I'm trusting him on it, since he knows you far better than I do."

"Thanks… I guess?" Chisame said.

Chamo stumbled around blindly, stuck into a can of tomato soup.

A lot had happened in a very short time since that day they first met.

In Negi's dream, he wandered aimlessly across a cold wasteland. "Asuna!" he called out. "Kotaro-kun! Kaede...! Ku-roshi?"

Then he stopped and shrieked. He had reached a valley filled with stone statues depicting his friends and his students. All of them stood in distraught poses, their faces marred by horror and shock, their arms trying to shield themselves.

He ran and moved from one to another. "Iinchou! Natsumi-san! Nodoka! Yue! Asakura-san!"

Until he saw him. The white haired boy, standing next to a statue of Asuna.

No. Next to the petrified Asuna herself.

"You made a mistake coming after me, Negi Springfield," Fate Averruncus told him icily.

"But... I never sought you out!" Negi said. "I only wanted to find my father, why did you get on our way!?"

"You'll never find your father, and you only dragged your friends into defeat and destruction," his foe told him in that bland voice of his. "Their downfalls are your fault. You involved them in your own selfish quest, and now look at them..."

"No! No!" Negi shouted. "Turn them back, now!"

"Or else what? Will you beat me up until I agree? You know you'll never defeat me," Fate said. "You are weak. Too weak. And you'll never be strong enough to best me, Negi."

"No! Don't do it!" Negi tried to move towards him as Fate readied his fist, but his feet wouldn't move. He was rooted to the ground, his own legs turning into stone already while Fate punched the petrified Asuna and shattered her into so much dust...

"NOOOOOOO!" Negi shouted, jolting up into a sitting position.

"Oh, you finally came back to your senses!" said a gigantic man who crouched next to him, along a short boy with green hair and freckles. Negi immediately realized that Chachamaru, Chisame, Chamo, Kotaro and Sakurako were there as well, thank goodness. "I was about to call for Recovery Lady..."

"Who?" the boy with messy hair asked.

"Bro, thank God you're alive and well!" Chamo wailed, leaping to his chest and hugging it. "My poor little Bro..."

Negi blinked. "Chamo..." He quietly petted his best friend's hair, and then asked, "Wh-Where's everyone else? Where we are..."

The huge man got up, dusting his hands off. "This is the Takoba Municipal Beach, at the coastline of Musutafu City."

"Musutafu?" Negi echoed dubiously.

"You know, in Japan," the man said.

Negi narrowed his eyes at him. At first sight, he had believed he might be Jack Rakan, the old friend of his father, the one he'd first seen in that picture back in Kyoto. Rakan was supposed to meet them at the Gateport, after all, and he looked just as tall and musclebound as this person. But now that he looked at him more carefully, the hair and the skin tone didn't match. "And you are..."

The man blinked. "You mean... that you don't know either?"

"Told you so..." Chisame almost sing-sang under her breath.

The giant took a hand to his own chest. "Have no fear! Why? Because I am here!"

"What?" Negi asked.

The man ran a hand down his face. "You all must have a serious case of selective amnesia..."

"We're telling you, man, we've never heard about you! And Musutafu City doesn't exist either!" Kotaro said.

"I live in that city that doesn't exist," the green haired boy said. Then he bowed at Negi. "Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself! My name's Midoriya Izuku..."

The child blinked. "Ah... It's a pleasure. Negi Springfield..." He looked at Chisame. "Did they rescue us and flew us all the way back to Japan?"

"I don't think so. Nothing about this makes any sense," she told him.

"I believe," Chachamaru said, "that the magical pulses sent by the destruction of the Gateport have somehow transported us into a parallel plane of reality. Chao once theorized about the possibilities of encountering alternate worlds while traveling through time."

"You are time travellers!?" Izuku gasped.

"Like in a sci fi movie?" Sakurako asked her, ignoring Midoriya. "You were hiding all those things from us all this time!?"

"It couldn't be helped, we wanted to keep you safe," Negi sighed. "The world of magic is a very dangerous one, as you have just seen." He pulled several cards out of his breast pocket and exhaled in relief as he examined them. "Thank God, they all are alive, at least..."

"Magic!?" Izuku said.

"Magic," All Might said, frowning in disbelief.

Negi was putting a card on his own forehead and concentrating, then another one, and so on, until he was finished with all of them. "I can't contact any of them," he said gloomily. "They must far, out of reach..."

Izuku looked at All Might. "Surely, in all your years of experience, you must have encountered dimensional travellers before? I know there are records of that, but everyone knows that All Might's untold greatest stories are legion."

"There are no stories about travelling across dimensions in that legion," All Might said, stroking his square jaw of Justice. ""AH HA HA! But there is a first time for everything!"

"This isn't funny at all, our friends are lost and my teacher has lied to us for all of our lives!" Sakurako said.

"We have only known him for less than one year, where is this 'all of our lives' stuff coming from!?" Chisame told her.

"Our friends are still lost," Chachamaru said.

Negi slumped ahead, eyes sinking into his face. "I'm the worst..."

"There he goes again," Kotaro facepalmed.

"Not only I pulled my students into the line of fire of an enemy I couldn't defeat, and one I knew was still on the loose, but I lost them in ANOTHER DIMENSION to boot..."

Izuku blinked. "I don't understand, are you their teacher? Do you have a Quirk of Youth or something?"

"A what?" Kotaro asked.

"You know, a Quirk," Izuku asked. "Don't you know what a Quirk is either?"

Then All Might took a hand to his own forehead. "Nnnghhhh!"

Izuku looked back at him. "Sir!? Are you okay!?"

"I forgot the time was almost up!" the Number One Hero shuddered, starting to move away quickly. "Sorry, Young Midoriya, please look after them while I look for-"

Then he stumbled on his own feet, fell flat on his face, scattered sand everywhere, and appeared to deflate instantly, shrinking several sizes and losing most of his muscle mass in the blink of an eye. In seconds, a scrawny blond man with long twisted limbs was there in his place, facefirst on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding his face.

"What the-!" Kotaro said.

Negi uttered a wise "Uhhhhh..."

Izuku moaned. "Not now...!"

"Maybe we should just call for a taxi, head for the local Iinchou's house, and work our way from there," Chisame thought. "There must be an Iinchou in this dimension, right? Right...?"

"You are so cute when you are delusional, Sis," the ermine said.

"Well, dwelling back on all of that is useless, isn't it?" Chamo said in a peppy voice, drawing one of his magical circles with a sharp piece of metal, on a stretch of boulevard Izuku had cleared up. "Now it's time to give Sakurako-neechan her Pactio, isn't it, Bro?"

Toshinori looked at him from where he and Negi had been sitting, the man listening to the stories told by the boy. "Ah yes, that 'provisional alliance' thing, isn't it."

He got up with Negi's help and walked towards the proud looking ermine and his circle.

"Young Midoriya!" Toshinori called over. "Come here, you might want to see this! It's a life experience after all!"

"Hu what?" Izuku said, too busy pulling on a huge container of junk towards Toshinori's truck. Sakurako and the sweatdropping Chisame were sitting on top of said junk. "Ah, just a sec, okay, All Might?"

Sakurako and Chisame got off the junk, and Shiina giddily skipped towards Negi. "Oh, Negi-kun, finally! I'm so happy, tee-hee-hee-hee! Misa-chan will be jealous!"

Negi gulped. "If you're sure that's what you want, Sakurako…"

Toshinori folded his arms. "So let's see how this is done. You talked a lot about how they give people powers comparable to those of Quirks, but you never mentioned how are they achieved."

Negi gulped again. "It's not that it's a difficult procedure or anything, but… Chachamaru, what about you, are you interested—"

The green haired gynoid shook her head. "Thanks for your kindness, Sensei, but it's not necessary. Please do save your magic reserves for those in the most need of it. Besides… I'm not sure it would even function if I were to try contracting you."

Sakurako looked at Chachamaru's lowered head and pouted. "C'mon, Chacha! You're as human as any of us…"

"I'm not, sorry," Chachamaru said softly. "Please don't be deterred by this."

Sakurako sighed, moving to face Negi at opposite ends of the circle. "Eva-chan raised you wrong, too gloomy. Like this, isn't it, Negi-kun?" She smiled at him. "Am I doing it fine?"

Negi was sweating visibly, suddenly even more than Izuku. "S-Standing right there is okay, Sakurako. Y-You don't need to come closer than that, if you don't want…"

"You know what comes next, Sis," Chamo told the girl. "You remember the instructions, don't you?"

Sakurako rolled her eyes. "It's not like a manual is needed for anything that simple!"

She grabbed Negi's cheeks, pulled him towards her face, and stamped her lips on his.

Chu!

Toshinori sprouted a mouthful of blood while Izuku's face turned HOT PINK.

"Whaaaaaaaa!" the Pro said, tumbling back and dropping on his butt.

Chisame sighed.

"Oooooh, you're a good kisser, yum yum!" Sakurako finally pulled back from the dazed Negi. She wiped her mouth with the back of a fist, and then a card appeared in the air between them. Chisame leaned forward and picked it in midair, giving it to Sakurako. "Oh, thanks, Chi-chan!"

"Don't call me that, you airhead!"

Sakurako looked at her card, which showed the happy go lucky girl in a cheerleader outfit, raising a leg to expose a peek of panty, and holding a pom-pom in each hand. The text under her picture read

Siina Sacuraco

Hilaratrix Fortunans

Toshinori sprang back to his feet, shaking in outrage. "Y-Young Negi, Y-Young Shiina, this is immoral! At your age…!"

Izuku blinked. "But I thought you had spent years in America, the den of depravity? Aren't you used to this kind of thing by now?"

"It's not depravity, you prude!" the ermine growled.

"That's one of the reasons I came back to Japan, you know!" Toshinori fumed. Then it dawned on him. "So, all those other cards you brought…"

He looked at Chisame.

Chisame blushed. "It was an emergency! Listen, Chao was about to reveal magic to the world, and we had to do it! Otherwise we'd have ended up with a society of people using freak powers everywhere, just like yours!"

"Sir, I don't want to question you," Izuku said gently, "but All Might always taught us to respect all different cultures, no matter how their values diverge from us, it's in your Peace Around the Planet videos, and—"

Toshinori exhaled and ran his hand down his face. "Sorry, you're right, Young Midoriya. It's just… this comes as a shock, and I've been through a lot recently. My apologies." He looked at Chisame once again. "But you're sure that none of you ever abused him, aren't you!?"

"I can't speak on behalf of Eva, but the rest of us always kept Iinchou on a very tight leash," Chisame answered.

"A pity, she'd make for an incredible Ministra," Chamo said.

Kotaro snorted insolently. "And that's Negi's greatest pitfall as a warrior, he relies too much on the girls. I fight alone, and I'm that much stronger than him because of that!"

Negi frowned. "Would you want to spar and prove that?"

"You're on!"

"Ahem! Bro!" Chamo said. "Before you do that, what if we test Saku-sis' powers and see how can we use them for this hero thing?"

Toshinori was shaking his head. "Good thing no one's around filming any of this, they'd start thinking weird things about me. I don't sponsor early experimentation, but chastity through a clean healthy living…"

"I know a girl you would love. Her name is Setsuna," Chisame said. She doubted. "You don't have anything against lesbians, or do you?"

"Of course not. I fight for the tolerance and acceptance of all gender leanings, as long as they don't kiss minors in the mouth," Toshinori grouched.

"In Setsuna's defense, she was as obligated by her circumstances back then as I was when I had to do that thing," Chisame said. All Might facepalmed, and Chisame felt a pang of sympathy for the man. She had been there once, hadn't she? She was one of the weirdos now even when compared to Super Captain America on steroids, now that was a scary thought. But moving on…

Moving back to the first day our heroes met, Chisame winced as soon as Toshinori was done with his story.

"And you still keep playing hero after THAT?" she asked him. "Mister, you earned a retirement!"

"I don't 'play' hero, being a hero is what I am," Toshinori said. "Also, people everywhere still need me... I'm aware I'll have to retire for good someday, of course, but that's what I'm preparing Young Midoriya for."

Izuku sniffled. "Thank you so very much for that chance...!"

Kotaro and Chamo looked at him in a dubitative silence.

Toshinori stared at them, although Izuku himself was blissfully oblivious.

Negi sniffled as well. "You... You remind me of my father!" he said, moved to his heart. "He was a great hero, too! They called him the 'Thousand Master', the man who achieved control over a thousand spells..."

"Of course, if you're going to believe Evangeline, he was very strong, yeah, but he also was a lazy bum who only knew six spells by memory and got by on raw inborn potential!" Kotaro said.

Negi pouted. "Master Evangeline is a great woman, but she is a bit biased since he was her nemesis."

"Sensei, even Old Man Albireo and the Headmaster say he was indeed a lazy bum..." Chisame said.

"He still was great and very powerful, and no man is perfect!" Negi insisted.

Izuku blinked. "Who is this Master Evangeline you speak of?"

"Another of Four Eyes' students," Kotaro answered. "She is an immortal vampire in the loli form of an innocent cranky girl."

Sakurako huffed. "To think I studied with Mina from Interview with the Vampire that long, and I never realized it..."

Izuku sweatdropped. "You know vampires, too!?" He looked at Toshinori. "Vampires are real here too? Did you ever fight one behind the scenes?"

"No vampires, no leprechauns, no Loch Ness monster, nothing of that," the skeletal All Might said. "There are a few villains with quirks that resemble vampirism or lycantrophy, of course..."

"Yeah, but Evangeline's an actual vampire, seven hundred years old," Kotaro said. He touched his own furry ears, pulling on them. "And I'm from the wolf tribe species! I should know werewolves exist, I hail from Kami knows how many generations of them!"

"Cool!" Izuku's eyes shone.

Negi stood up and dusted himself off. "No offense, but I'm wasting my time here as the rest of my students are still missing. I feel better now, I should leave to look for them..."

He gave a few steps away from the others, then faltered and had to support himself on a pile of tires.

"Negi-san!" Izuku gasped. "Are you okay!?"

"Yes," Negi breathed in. "It was just some momentary dizziness..."

Chisame walked to him and touched his forehead. "You've got a fever! You should lie down, if the others haven't died yet, they surely can keep themselves alive a little longer!"

Negi shook his head stubbornly. "No, no, how could I do that...?"

Toshinori hummed. "Maybe I should take you to my headquarters. I can give you good medical attention there, and I could use my links to Official Intel to look for your friends. But..."

"What?" Sakurako asked.

"I'd also have to tell my fellow Pro Heroes and the authorities about you then," he admitted. "They would deploy the legal procedures for hypothetical transdimensional incursions..."

"I thought you'd said you never saw anything like that?" Sakurako asked.

"That doesn't mean that we haven't thought of measures for the event that ever happens. Be always prepared!" he added in English, wagging his finger. "And not even All Might pulls enough rank to single handledy prevent you from being taken into quarantine..."

"That doesn't sound too ominous. How long is that quarantine intended to be, Sir?" Chachamaru asked.

"It would last until they have finished dissecting you all for viruses and possibly to study your bodies and research any secrets from your anatomies," Toshinori said. "In your case, you would be taken apart piece by piece, your technology duplicated and adapted for our robotic labs."

Everyone else winced, even Chachamaru, albeit very subtly.

"That... That isn't very heroic!" Izuku understated.

"Young Midoriya, it's the way the status quo works, am I supposed to impose my will single handledy?" the man shrugged. "If it were up to me, I'd just let them chill with cocoa and cookies for months if necessary, but try looking at them from their perspective. The powers-that-be feel it's necessary to be extremely careful around anyone who claims coming from beyond. I can't fully fault them. Appearances can be deceiving, as that 'Evangeline' girl proves, right?"

He gave Negi a weary look.

The boy mage sulked. "I do understand, Sir. The mage society and their procedures aren't that different."

"Normally, they just turn you into an ermine if you commit a crime, don't they?" Chisame gulped.

Toshinori and Izuku looked at Chamo.

"I was born like this!" the furry mammal protested.

Midoriya raised his hands. "If you say so!"

"BUT!" Toshinori lifted a finger. "There is always a way! Fret not, All Might's ingenuity is here! I will provide you with funds secretly, and you won't be left without a roof over your heads! A subordinate of mine will graciously house you during your stay, as a true hero should!"

"I knew you wouldn't fail them, Sir!" Izuku gushed. "Which of your peers do you have in mind? Sir Nighteye? Eraserhead? Captain Celebrity?"

One hour later, Midoriya sighed, facing his mother. "Mom, Toshinori-san asked me to bring these young people in need here, on behalf of All Might. It is... part of my community service as a hero in training. I know I'm asking for a lot, all of a sudden, but... can they stay for a few days, please?"

Inko blinked, then looked again at the people on her doorstep.

A wheezing, feverish looking redhaired boy was supporting himself on a black haired child with wolf ears and a tail. A blonde girl waved at her and smiled. A green haired gorgeous girl bowed at her. Another girl turned away from her in shame and twiddled her fingers. An ermine already was slinking into the apartment, between Inko's legs.

Inko finally stepped aside and nodded. "Please put that poor boy on the couch while I go prepare a futon for him..."

And that was how they got there.

Presently, Sakurako stood before the others, unsure of what to do. "First of all," the ermine said, "hold your card up and say 'Adeat'."

"Adeat!" Shiina obeyed, waving her Pactio card up. In the blink of an eye, she was enveloped by a flash of light, and then she stood there, now wearing the cheerleader outfit seen in the card.

"Whoa!" Izuku said. "An instant uniform!"

Sakurako looked at her pom-poms. She bopped one against a trashcan at hand. "They don't even leave a dent, they aren't heavy. Do they shoot lasers or something?" she wondered. "I don't think they'll be of any use in a fight scene!"

"Sis, you've been doing cheerleading for years," Chamo said. "What do you think you should do with a cheerleader kit?"

She frowned at him. "Am I going to kill villains by cheering them?"

"Killing the villains is only the absolute last resource," Toshinori chided the girl.

"Sis, not all Artifacts are directly offensive," the ermine explained with patience. "Nodoka's, for instance, only reads minds, but that doesn't mean she isn't a priceless commodity and comrade on a battlefield, because she can tell you all the enemy's going to do before they can even pull it off!"

Izuku nodded. "Quirks are like that too! Many famous heroes made their way into the halls of heroism by sagely exploiting apparently useless Quirks."

"Brother, you sound like even more of a geek than Four Eyes," Kotaro said. "Ease down on it or you'll be bullied hard in school."

Izuku flinched. "A bit late for that advice, Inugami-san…"

"Why am I not surprised," Kotaro deadpanned.

"Try waving those pom-poms at something or someone, cheering on them for something, and see what happens," Chamo said. "That is the logical use for them from a glimpse! The Artifact's shape most often, well, shapes their use!"

Sakurako blinked, then pointed the pom-poms at Toshinori, hoping she wouldn't kill him. "A-All Might-san was an ace in a fight, but now he's lost his light. Please cure him from his blight, so he can be better overnight! Go Mahora?"

Toshinori jerked up, startling everyone. The others pulled back from him for a moment, surprised at his reaction. For a second, she sat straighter, and he appeared to bulk up very slightly, only to then recede back to his weakened state. He looked at his hands, trembling.

"A-A-Are you okay!?" Izuku cried.

Negi gulped. "Oh my goodness!"

"That… That felt actually good!" Toshinori said. "I've had very brief pangs of spontaneous recovery, the doctors said it was my metabolism acting, but usually it's only one or two a year. And they never felt so… nice…"

"I knew it!" Chamo boasted. "Neesan's always been lucky! If I'm not wrong, she is weaponizing her luck through the Artifact!"

"That makes sense, the Artifacts are to match the Ministra's already existing skills," Chachamaru said. "Hence, Saotome-san's drawing from her drawing, and Ayase-san's booking from her book reading."

There was a faint rimshot in the distance.

"What a SHAFT anime moment," Chamo sweatdropped.

Toshinori pointed at the boulevard. "Young Midoriya. Jump as far as you can while Young Shiina cheers for you!"

"Yessir!" Izuku ran there, joyous. He got ready to make a leap while Sakurako grinned, placing herself aside. "On your marks, Shiina-san! One, two…"

Sakurako gushed. The guy was kind of cute! Especially when he beamed like that, he wasn't too unlike Negi-kun. If anything he seemed more optimistic than Negi-kun. "Senpai, go as far as you can! You can be a Superman! Go, go, go!" she shook her hips in circles, skirt flaring up. Toshinori covered his eyes with a hand.

But he opened them a second later to see his protégé making the leap, and easily going a long further than he ever had before, shouting in delight. The hero stood up, walked to the boulevard, pulled metric tape from a pocket, and measured the distance from where he had leapt to where he stood now, panting after landing on his feet. "Impressive! That's almost twice as long as the last one." He held a pointer finger up. "On the other hand, the wind very suddenly and conveniently shifted to a way that favored your movement through the air the best…"

He looked at Izuku. "Now leap again, without Young Shiina cheering you."

He did so, and the leap was somewhat shorter now.

Toshinori measured again. "A bit longer than yesterday's jumps, but that's because you are improving through training. Young Shiina, cheer for him again as he jumps."

"Leaping like a grasshopper, Midoriya-kun! He's even green and everything; boy is this fuuuun!" Sakurako was getting into the spirit of things as she used to, while Izuku made another fantastic leap aided by another very noticeable shift in the breeze.

"A probability alterer," Chachamaru said.

"That's why we never bet against her at anything," Chisame said.

"Now let's see if that has offensive uses as well," Toshinori told the peppy girl. "Point them at any thing that can't hurt us and try seeing if it breaks down or anything like that."

"Haaaaaiiii!" Shiina giggled. She aimed the pom-poms at a very tall column of old pans and pots. "Taking down the house, cuter than a mouse, a cuture future spouse! Saku-chan's here and you'll plummet over there! Yay me, yay Saku-chaaaaan!"

The pans and pots suddenly lost all their balance, and they fell like a castle of cards, scattering all over.

"It took me half a day to put all of those together, Shiina-san," Izuku said.

"Ooops! Sorry, Midoriya-kun!"

"That's all very good, congratulations, Sakurako. However, you also need to work on your physical stats, and the same goes for you, Chisame." Negi rolled his sleeves up. "While Toshinori-san handles Midoriya-san, I'll handle you…"

"Oh, Negi-kun, you cad, you," Sakurako giggled coquettishly.

Chisame scowled. "You should think that stuff before you say it, you know!"

Negi blinked. "What? What did I say? Never mind." He smirked in a way eerily resembling Evangeline's, no doubt a successful attempt from the boy to imitate his mentor. "I'm not going to be gentle on you…!"

"You're doing it again!" Chisame barked.

Sakurako cooed and brought her knees together. "Negi-kun, stop it…!"

"Stopping what? I can't stop! I must whip you into shape! Test your bodies and make you give the best from yourselves! Even if it means we need to go all night long… Sweating buckets and—"

Toshinori raised a hand. "We got it already, thank you, Young Negi!"

Izuku was shooting steam out of his ears, his face flushed. "Sir, perhaps I should go take a refreshing shower? I feel overheating… must be that time spent under the sun…"

Senator Hiroyama thought of himself as a good man.

Hadn't he worked for three decades to bring his country and economy from the brink of collapse? He'd been part of a brain trust that made the new Japanese financial miracle possible. He had looked into the eyes of the American and European wolves and survived successful negotiations with them. He'd never turned his back on his children. His wife was well kept, with everything she could wish for.

Surely he was entitled to have his little pleasures without being condemned by them, he told himself as he entered the hotel room.

A girl sat on the luxury, wide bed, lined with fine pastel coloured sheets. She was just like he liked them, very young and fair skinned, with an European look about her. She wore a white dress and glasses, her thin legs crossed as she beckoned him playfully.

"Good evening, Hiroyama-han," she spoke to him in a sophisticated Kyoto accent. She was well bred, which excited him even more. She crooked a pointer finger towards him. "Come here, will you? Yomi-chan will give you a kiss..."

He walked over to her, smiling and already undoing his tie.

As soon as he was at arm's reach, her angelic smile changed, and she reached down, under the bed covers. Before the Senator could activate his Quirk to defend himself, with a velocity beyond anything he had ever seen in the flesh, the girl shoved a sword into his skull.

He fell, crashing on the floor, pulling on the sheets with his final jerky motion. The bodyguard, who had been standing outside by the room, stormed in, shattering the floor and activating his Quirk. Black stripes covered his body as his torso was covered by fur and expanded into stony muscle. The girl smiled wickedly at him.

"There's a kiss for you too," she said, and lunged ahead.

Minutes later, the young lady whistled, and calmly polished the blood off her blades with a curtain. Once again, she sat crosslegged on the bed, waiting until her partner for this enterprise arrived.

Finally, he shuffled in through the destroyed door. Breathing heavily.

"Took you long enough, so, let me guess?" she said conversationally. She sheated the swords in. "Were you eating? Bad form, spoiling your appetite."

"Good evening. Flesh, eat, thank you," the tall, thin man almost fully wrapped in black snapped his jaws, hovering from one of the dead bodies to the other one. "Good meat, very good meal, hehhhhhh! Both, let me have both."

She kept him apart from the Senator by pressing a foot on his chest. "Not this one, Dear Sir. He's important, and the terms of my contract were clear."

He foamed off the mouth at her. "But he's mine! So hungry! Eat you too then!"

The girl stopped smiling and gave him a piercing glare from right above the round glasses.

Moonfish seemed to be taken aback and stepped away from her. It was a trick she had learned while studying Shinmeiryuu. Put enough spiritual pressure into your glare and you can push weak minds back. "Hehhhhhh! Unfair," he said.

"Those are the ways of life, Dear Sir." She shrugged her shoulders delicately, and pointed the dainty foot at the corpse of the bodyguard. "Alas, blue collars like us still can eat other blue collars. He's got more meat on him regardless."

"FLESH!" Moonfish agreed, swooping down to devour noisily.

The girl sighed, throwing the Senator over a shoulder and going towards the window. "It's almost enough to make one miss Fate-han."

While leaping from one rooftop to another with ease, carrying her victim, she thought back of Fate-han. This was all his fault, wasn't it? For all of his intelligence, he hadn't predicted they would be caught on the backlash from the Gateport's destruction, much like Setsuna-senpai's team. Thanks to his oh so brilliant stupidity, now she was lost in another world, forced to take degrading jobs like this one to make ends meet and pay the bills. Next time she saw Fate-han, she would give him a piece of her mind! And take a few from his.

It never crossed her mind, to think he could be dead. If she had survived, so had he. She was sure it was a matter of time until they met again.

She stopped once she thought she was far enough, dropping the body into a stinking, lonely alley, scaring a few rats away.

"Well, here's where we part ways. It was fun, Senator-han," she said, dusting her hands off. "Sorry I couldn't give you sex, but I'm saving myself for someone else. You aren't my type, but-"

Then she tensed up, as she had just sensed someone else in the alley.

Slowly, she pulled the longsword and the dagger out and moved to face the other person with her. The contract had been clear on how she was to kill the target, leave a crime scene as confusing as possible, and drop the body far from the site of the assassination. And no witnesses. The first part had gone without a hitch, but now there was a spanner in the works for the second. She only hoped this person would give her a fight. She was getting tired of milk runs against weaklings.

Another girl stepped out of the shadows, and oh dear, she was beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Setsuna-senpai. What a waste it would be, to kill her.

The stranger smiled, and the swordswoman liked the smile, too. It was an erratic smile, matching those golden kitten eyes so well. Her hair was short and light blonde, but not as light as her own, very messy in comparison with her long, well combed, smooth hair. She wore a lightly smelly school uniform that appeared to have been worn for days, unwashed, and even so, she was so gorgeous that the swordswoman had to remind herself to stay professional.

The stranger waved a hand. "Helloooo-oooooo," she said, singing the word along. Her eyes gazed across the blood splattered Senator and the red spots all over the cute white dress. "Sorry to interrupt, whatever you were doing."

"It's not much, I was just dropping some trash," she replied, focusing her senses to locate any other nearby chis. It was entirely possible that she had been double crossed, and this girl was a decoy for the police, meant to entertain her until they got the drop on her.

"Aaaahhhhh-hhhh," the other girl slowly walked towards her, eyeing the blood pooling around her feet even more intently. "Then you won't mind if I take it, right? If it's just trash..."

Dear Kami-sama, what was wrong with this place? It was full of sickos, even for her tastes.

"You want the meat or the blood?" she asked her, going to the point. Had Moonfish brought one of his friends for the job? The mind boggled. How could anyone like THAT have any friends? Or was she a relative? Was this a Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of thing?

The girl licked her lips, panting. "Just the blood, please. I kind of... need blood." She almost sounded embarrassed for a moment. "It's my Quirk, you see..."

"Ah," the girl answered. These freaks blamed everything on their stupid Quirks. Not her. She was more honest than that. She recognized that her wickedness was all her own. She stepped aside. "Then help yourself, Dear Miss."

"Thanks," she sighed with relief, moving onto the body and starting to lick the blood desperately. The other girl watched her in silence, paying the most attention to her cute raised behind, and she considered just leaving. What happened to the body after she dropped it wasn't meant to be part of her responsibilities, and this girl was so obviously out of her mind that she barely counted as a witness anyone could question.

And yet, she didn't leave. She kept on watching her, trying to understand those strange feelings in her heart.

Finally, the stranger rose from the feast, wiping her mouth with a fist. She faced her benefactor and smiled, more charmingly now, despite the blood caking her features. "Thank you very much. What's your name. Mine's Himiko! Toga Himiko!"

She sounded so strangely casual about it that the shorter, younger girl couldn't help smiling back. "Tsukuyomi." She offered her hand graciously, like the lady she was. "Iwai Tsukuyomi," she added after another moment, albeit she rarely gave her full name.

Toga Himiko shook her hand, not with refined politeness, but with the crude enthusiasm of a plebeian. Tsukuyomi's heart soared despite herself.

Then Toga Himiko grabbed her hand and licked the blood from it, suckling on the fingers, and Tsukuyomi cooed. She closed her eyes, and only opened them when, surprising her, she was kissed on the nose, right under the bridge of her glasses.

Toga Himiko swallowed, like a playful tabby. "You had some on your nose," she said.

Tsukuyomi only hoped she wasn't blushing as much as she felt.

"So... Do you live here, or-"

"For the moment. I had to run away from home. What a bore," Toga Himiko snorted.

"I wonder why. What could move anyone to expel someone so obviously personable from their home?" Tsukuyomi wondered, only half sarcastic.

Toga Himiko shrugged. "It's a looong story."

Tsukuyomi looked at her in silence for several moments. "I have a nice place across town, where I'm staying for the time being. Would you like to come?"

Toga's eyes shone curiously. "Are you serious?"

Tsukuyomi smiled and sheathed the swords back in. "I'm feeling generous tonight."

Please forgive me, Setsuna-senpai. I'm a bad girl after all.

Next: Welcome to UA.