Chapter 121

.::Smokescreen::.

"Oh hey, you're from 1-B, right?"

The black-skinned boy turned to Kyouka in surprise, but after a moment he nodded. "I am. Are you from UA too, then?"

"Yeah, 1-A," she said with a nod. He gave a small huff as he turned back to the shelf to peruse the CDs. They were in a music store at a mall, neither of them dressed in uniform, and she probably wouldn't have recognized him if not for his distinctive appearance. Not many people had pitch black skin and white hair.

She wasn't the only one to recognize him though, as she could hear some people whispering nearby. "Just so you know, some kids over there are debating if they should ask for your autograph," she commented casually, and saw a flash of white as his mouth curled back in a frown.

"Tch. Figures. I've been getting a lot more attention since the Sports Festival. I assume you have as well."

"Not as much, actually," she said with a shrug. "I mean, I've noticed a couple people, but I don't really stand out much, I guess." Her Quirk, while a mutation, was definitely on the subtler side, and she didn't have many distinctive features. That combined with her team losing their headband early in the cavalry battle meant not many people noticed her. Hell, the main reason she remembered this guy was because he was on the team that stole their headband.

However, while he didn't get past the second round either, his features still stood out enough to be recognizable even without the school uniform. Just being part of the hero course was bound to draw attention, regardless of their performance in the festival.

Her musing stopped as she saw him pull out a CD, nodding in approval. "Dangerous Mischief Makers. Nice, I like their style. If you like their stuff, you'd probably like Deviant Generation, too. I'm actually here to get their newest one." She plucked a nearby CD as she talked, and he grunted in apparent disinterest, but still took another copy.

"Thanks, I guess," he said as they walked towards the register.

"No problem. I'm Jirou, by the way, since we'll probably see each other around UA and all."

"Kuroiro," he replied simply, and left it at that. That marked the end of their only interaction, but his name still stuck in Kyouka's mind.

Kyouka had never really talked to Kuroiro after that so she didn't know him that well, but she still never really would have expected him to be like this. He laughed almost maniacally as Tokoyami lunged at her, his arms joining Dark Shadow in swinging at her. She still pulled the trigger on the Flash Ray to weaken the sentient Quirk, while dodging out of the way of Kuroiro's hands.

His head and arms retreated into Tokoyami's cloak, and a moment later a hand popped out to throw another black pouch her way. Kyouka dodged once more, and this time she risked a quick glance to watch it hit the building behind her and burst into a black substance that felt like a mixture of powder and paint. It coated the window pretty thoroughly, the inky color not even reflecting the sun, and she swallowed as she turned back to Tokoyami.

She had no idea what that powder was, but she'd rather not find out. She pulled out a smoke bomb and threw it while running for the neighobring building, snapping the Flash Ray onto a spot on her side where Yaoyorozu had sewn in a magnet. It bounced against her but stayed securely in place as she moved, and she pressed her middle and ring fingers against her thumbs on both hands.

A chime from her headphones alerted her that Gecko Mode had activated, and she sprung across the thin gap between the buildings and slapped her hands onto the wall. As expected the gloves stuck, and she quickly began scrambling up the side.

"What's this, fleeing like a coward?" Tokoyami called from below, but she ignored the taunt and focused on climbing.

They had one goal today, to check if Tokoyami was their Tokoyami, and so far it didn't seem like he recognized her. Maybe it was because he wasn't alone, but he had given zero indications he might think she was from their world. Zero indications he was from their world. Fighting him right now wouldn't do anything for their goal. It would be better to go help Denki, who was no doubt struggling with Gentle Criminal at that moment.

Gecko Mode didn't work too well with glass, but thankfully the office building had plenty of regular wall space between the windows. She made a point to avoid the two splatters from the pouches Kuroiro had thrown earlier. This close, she still had no idea what the hell that stuff was, and she still didn't want to find out.

As she neared the top she heard a whoosh of air as Kuroiro presumably threw another pouch towards her. She quickly moved to the side to dodge it, silently thanking Hatsume for tweaking Gecko Mode to make it easier to peel her hands off the walls while climbing. The pouch hit a window right beside her, and she barely managed to jerk her hand out of the range of the mystery substance's explosion.

Of course, that was when she felt something hit her in the back. She yelped and slapped her palm against the wall again, barely managing to avoid falling. However, she felt something digging into her shoulders, and for the first time she cursed the hood on her costume for creating a blind spot when she tried to look back. It didn't feel like arms, so she could only assume Dark Shadow had latched onto her.

Fuck it. If Tokoyami and Kuroiro followed her, then that was fine by her. They'd still be outnumbered, but she preferred the odds of three versus two over two versus one. She pressed against the wall as the shadow tried to pull her back, quickly jerking her head to the side to bump against it and put pressure on her headphones. A single beep told her the communications had been activated.

"—don't wanna get crushed!" Denki yelped on the other end. He didn't sound too panicked, so Kyouka figured it was part of some banter.

"Taser, can you give me a hand?" she hissed. "I'm near the edge and need some light."

"What—oh, uh, yeah, on it!" he replied. "Just give me—crap, that was close! Okay, one second—"

There was a bright flash of light as a lightning rod shot from the roof above her with electricity running along the wire attached. The grip on her shoulders immediately loosened and Kyouka wasted no time shrugging it off and finished her climb.

When she hauled herself over the edge she found Denki standing with his hand pointed towards an airborne Gentle Criminal, having clearly pretended to aim at him. However, to his credit, Denki had managed to pull off some strategic thinking and shot at him from a position that had Gentle turn his back towards Kyouka's arrival point. "Your aim could certainly use some work!" the thief taunted while throwing his arms forward.

Denki jumped to the side and Kyouka flinched as she saw the rooftop dent near where he'd just been. While Yaomomo had theorized he could make the air elastic, they hadn't predicted he could throw those barriers. Not for the first time, she cursed the fact Midoriya hadn't been able to tell her anything about the man. Even if it turned out Gentle didn't have that power in their world, Midoriya would probably list it as a possibility anyway, with what Mail said about Quirk variations.

No time for regrets though. Gentle Criminal still hadn't noticed her, so she quickly rose to her full height and turned her legs so her speaker boots faced him. Even with all the gadgets Hatsume and Yaomomo made, she still relied on her Quirk in pinches like this. As her Earphone Jacks slithered beneath her clothes to plug into them she also reached into her pocket to grab a sticky bomb to throw at him.

And that was when a hand suddenly grabbed her wrist.

She jolted and gasped in alarm, head snapping downwards to see a black hand sticking out of her hoodie. "What the hell?" she yelped, drawing Gentle Criminal's attention as he whirled to face her in surprise.

Unfortunately for him though, her Earphone Jacks had already plugged into her boots, and the second he moved she blasted him with a sound wave.

It knocked him off his floating perch, falling very ungracefully to the rooftop and hitting it shoulder-first. This time, the roof did not bounce under him, but instead remained perfectly solid as he crashed in a painful-looking manner.

"Gentle!" Kuroiro shouted, head poking out of Kyouka's side, and holy shit what the hell was this guy's Quirk!?

"Wha—get off me!" She used her free hand to hit him on the head, making him grunt. Her push did little to deter him though, his hand continuing to grip the wrist closest to his face.

Across the rooftop Denki watched in mild shock as Kyouka tried to shove the head sticking out of her hoodie. He knew he should probably do something, like go after Gentle Criminal while he was still down, but he was mildly distracted by the literal head sticking out of his friend's hoodie. It took him a moment to even register the pitch black hand clutching Kyouka's arm closest to the head, too distracted by, well, the head. Seriously, what the hell!?

However, since he wasn't the one currently struggling with a person in their coat, he was able to look at the situation a bit more calmly.

Now, unlike Kyouka, he did not really remember Kuroiro from Class 1-B. Maybe under other circumstances, he might recall seeing him around UA like with other 1-B students. As it stood though, he only had a glimpse of white hair and a hand, and couldn't even see the boy's face under Kyouka's hand as she continued to try to shove his head.

So, his first thought: Was that Dark Shadow's true form in this world?

His second thought: the head was sticking out of Kyouka's hoodie.

And from there, those two thoughts began connecting: the hand was black. Her hoodie was black. And shadows were black.

In that moment, while his train of reasoning was flawed, Denki still came to the correct conclusion. "He's inside your hoodie!" he shouted and Kyouka's head snapped towards him, probably staring in disbelief. Unfortunately, while they now had an idea of his power, that didn't provide many solutions. The only one Denki could think of was for Kyouka to take off the hoodie, but he quickly scrapped that thought since doing so would expose her earphone jacks. And throwing a sticky bomb wouldn't work either—

Then he noticed motion in his peripheral as Gentle moved to get up, reminding Denki he was still there. The teen jolted and immediately hurled a sticky bomb at the thief, who yelped as the pink goo exploded all over him and pinned him in place.

That successfully diverted maybe-Dark-Shadow's attention from Kyouka. "Leave him alone!" he yelled, releasing Kyouka's hand to recede back into the hoodie. Shit. Denki didn't need to be good at strategy to recognize all the ways that could go wrong.

"Take it off!" he yelled to Kyouka in a panic.

"I can't!" she called back, gesturing to her ears with her shoulder. And then a hand shot out of said shoulder and grabbed her neck. Denki's blood turned to ice as she gasped and grabbed at it, a second hand joining the first with fingers locking together to wrap loosely around her neck. As she struggled to pry them away the person's poked out to glower around her shoulder, white eyes almost glowing eerily against his inky black skin.

"Phantom Shadow, get up here already!" he called. Even as he shouted Denki saw the familiar shape of Dark Shadow's claws grabbing the edge of the roof behind Kyouka, soon followed by Tokoyami himself. So much for that guy being Dark Shadow, Denki thought as he watched his edgiest classmate land neatly next to her. That meant they had three opponents, not just two.

"Don't try anything, or else Abyss will have no choice but to act," Tokoyami warned coolly, snatching the Flash Ray clinging to Kyouka's waist. And as if the situation wasn't already bad enough, Gentle Criminal suddenly sprung to his feet, the sticky bomb residue that had been clinging to him bouncing on the roof around his feet.

"Well, that's a new use for my Quirk, I wasn't sure that would work," he said as he smoothed his clothes. Then he turned to his two sidekicks and added, "But hold on now, boys. Threatening a lady like that is the absolute opposite of a gentleman."

"Do we even know this is a lady?" the guy in Kyouka's hoodie—Abyss, apparently?—asked. "The dress could be to throw us off."

"And the voice changer could be part of the deception as well," Tokoyami agreed with a nod.

"Oh my gosh, this is so stupid," Kyouka groaned in exasperation, still trying to pry Abyss's hands away from her neck. "I cannot believe you're actually talking about this right now, but yes, I'm a girl, okay? And also, let go already!" She gave a harsh yank on Abyss's hands for emphasis, managing to pull one away just a little bit.

"Abyss, while I applaud your creativity, now is not the time nor place for this," Gentle said. "I must remind you that we are on a time crunch. And besides that, you—" He stopped short then, and then quickly straightened and barked, "Abyss, return to Phantom Shadow now!"

The brisk command and change of tone startled Denki, and also Abyss judging by how his head shot up in alarm. The latter quickly recovered from his surprise and turned to Tokoyami, who had already moved closer to Kyouka, and Denki watched dumbly as he dove from her hoodie into Tokoyami's cloak. Kyouka stumbled as his weight temporarily pulled her down before vanishing, and then...

A flash of silver shot up from the right side of the building, sunlight reflecting off metal for a brief second.

All the occupants of the roof turned to see an armored man land in a crouch, and Denki felt his stomach sink like a stone. Ingenium. "Well, looks like we're having a party here, huh?" the hero greeted as he stood up, perfectly amiable. "Mind if I join in?"

Denki just stared in dread at their classmate's brother, and their own harbinger of doom. A single beep sounded in his earpiece. "Run," Kyouka's voice hissed, and he didn't need to be told twice.

The two vigilantes turned and bolted for the opposite edge of the roof, and the engines on Ingenium's arms roared to life as he surged into motion to pursue them. Denki had learned from his past encounters with the Iida brothers though, and made sure to swerve slightly to move past the sticky bomb residue so it would be between them. Kinda predictably, Ingenium also swerved to avoid it, so he didn't get caught in it.

That also meant for a split second he was distracted and Kyouka had an opening to lob a foam pellet at his back. Which he also managed to dodge, but that gave them enough time to reach the edge of the roof.

"Go for the thieves, not us!" Denki shouted as they leaped over the edge, and then he was falling. For a terrifying moment, he was just falling, off a six-story rooftop and plummeting into an alley.

But while his brain momentarily froze with panic, Kyouka had already prepared.

Even before jumping she pulled out a yellow pellet about half the size of her fist and threw it over the edge. These were a new variety of the expanding foam pellets, and on contact with the ground it burst into a much thicker foam, the consistency closer to sponge than foam. It ballooned in size, filling out the alley between the two buildings and growing almost as tall as the dumpster.

It cushioned their fall so they didn't break any bones or die, but didn't protect them entirely. The foam sank under the impact, and their feet ended up piercing through it entirely which sent an unpleasant jolt up their legs upon landing. The twin impacts made the foam ripple and wobble before giving out, practically deflating around them into a giant mess. Even in its deflated state it pooled around their waists and made it hard to move.

Kyouka thrust her hands into the foam around herself, Earphone Jacks plugging into the amplifier jacks on the back of her gloves. A pulse from her heartbeat had the foam blowing away from her position and plastering the walls of the alley, leaving a clear path. She darted over to Denki who was still half-trapped in foam, yanking him out by the arm and running towards the end of the alley.

They only made it three steps before two people suddenly appeared there though, making them skid to a halt. Kyouka didn't know either of them, but their appearances left no doubt they were heroes. One was a woman with ram horns and a Chinese dress with overly wide sleeves, and the other was a bulky man with a sleeveless red vest to show off his muscular arms. Hardly clothes civilians would wear.

"Okay kids, playtime's over!" he called. "We have the area surrounded, so just come peacefully, alright?"

"Please surrender," the woman added with a yawn. "I want to go take a nap already..."

The vigilantes both stepped back, and Kyouka risked a glance at the other end of the alley to see two more people arrive there. Like that, two different escape routes were gone, and even if those two routes were open their options would be limited due to not really knowing the area.

But that didn't mean they had no options.

Her eyes locked on a side door on the neighboring building, and a plan immediately formed. "Sorry, we're not surrendering," she announced, and quickly slammed her hands on the ground to channel sonic waves in tune with her heartbeat. The concrete cracked under her palms, and the two heroes tensed for a moment before charging.

That brief moment of hesitation gave Denki the opening he needed to take aim with his index finger. This time though the container on the back of his glove didn't shoot a lightning rod, but a tiny green pellet that collided with the guy's chest and burst into smoke. The hero staggered back more from surprise than pain, the ram-horned woman also stopping her charge to almost glide back a few steps.

"By the way, you might not want to inhale that!" Denki called. "I'm immune, but you might not be!"

A bluff. A total, complete lie, because the smoke was totally normal aside from the color and did nothing, but his words had the intended effect. The two heroes retreated even further, and the two on the other end of the alley also hesitated, all of them wary of the smoke.

It had been Yaomomo's idea to fake a smokescreen Quirk of some sort for Denki. His gloves had been modified to have tubes connecting to a container inside the lining of his own hoodie holding the smoke bomb mixture. There were two kinds, the pellet he just shot, and some kind of semi-liquid concoction that would turn into smoke upon exposure to air or something like that.

The green color would make people wary of any potential Quirk effects, but it would only work once. And that time was now. Denki dropped into a crouch to slap the ground, the liquid-type smoke mixture flowing through the tubes to the palms of his gloves. Green smoke billowed from beneath his hands immediately, quickly filling the alley.

Even as it did they could hear the heroes arguing over whether the smoke actually did anything, reinforcing the urgency of the situation. As soon as they were obscured by the smoke Kyouka grabbed Denki's arm and dragged him to the door, grabbing the handle and giving it a test tug only to find it locked. She mentally cursed and wrapped her hand around the handle, preparing to use the amplifier jack to send a pulse and break it—

Only for it to suddenly twist beneath her hand and the door swing open.

Kyouka had to jump to the side to avoid it swinging into her, and before she could do anything else she felt a hand grab her wrist and pull. With her other hand still holding Denki's arm they were both dragged into the building, the door closing behind them.

"Come on, we need to hurry!" an unfamiliar girl with neon blue hair hissed, pulling them down the hall. Kyouka couldn't help staring as they half-ran, half-stumbled after her, gaze locked on her outfit. She wore a deep blue cloak with the hood resting around her shoulders and white leggings with a pinstripe pattern tucked into boots, the leggings form-fitting but the pattern familiar.

"Wait, another person with Gentle Criminal?" Denki blurted, voicing her thoughts. How many people actually worked with the guy?

"We can talk about that later, just—here!" The girl veered sharply around a corner, Kyouka stumbling after her with Denki in tow. They turned just in time, because they heard the door they'd used to enter slam open. The two vigilantes jumped in alarm as footsteps pounded their way, but rather than keep running down the hall like Kyouka expected, the girl dragged them towards a pile of boxes stacked along a wall.

She pulled them so they stood in a tight huddle on the other side of the pile, standing close to the wall but hardly hidden. Kyouka wanted to object and point that out but didn't get a chance as the girl whirled around and grabbed Denki's other wrist with her free hand. "Hold still and don't make a sound!" she whispered, squeezing their wrists, and then—

She vanished, and so did they.

Kyouka barely had time to process the fact her body was gone before the heroes came into their line of sight. The trio held their breaths as one broke off to dart down the hallway and raced past where they stood, hearts pounding furiously. He reached the end of the hall and rounded another corner, disappearing from sight, but they could still hear his footsteps and voice as he searched, same with all the others.

After several moments passed and their voices became a little more distant they felt a light tug on the wrists held by the girl, before slowly pulling them away from the wall. She didn't need to tell them to be quiet as she led them at a brisk but cautious pace, their quiet footsteps drowned out by the sounds of the heroes' search.

They went back the way they came, and only when they reached the door to the alley did she speak, whispering so quietly they barely heard her. "One of you open that, I can't let go or you'll become visible!"

Denki ended up being the one to comply, and reaching for the handle while invisible was weird. He could kind of feel where his hand was, even if he couldn't see it, but it still caught him by surprise when he made contact with the handle. He turned it and carefully pushed the door open, peeking to see if anyone was outside, but the alley was empty. As soon as they saw that they were on the move again, nearly losing their footing as the girl broke into a run with them in tow.

They raced down the alley and into the open, finding the street now full of heroes and police blocking off the area as office workers gathered to watch. No one looked as the invisible trio ran past on the sidewalk, their pounding footsteps drowned out by the chatter of the excited crowd of onlookers. Even as they reached the end of the street and turned a corner they didn't stop running, pushing themselves through any soreness and lack of breath as the noise gradually became more distant.

Only when they got two blocks away did they finally veer into another alley and stop, all of them gasping as they caught their breath. The girl squeezed their wrists before releasing her grip, and just like that they were all visible again. She gave an exaggerated gasp and wiped a hand across her forehead. "I think we're in the clear now!" she declared cheerily, and then grinned at them. "That was super close, wasn't it?"

Kyouka jolted and snapped a startled look at her, eyes wide with shock. No way. This was the first time the girl had spoken normally instead of whispering, and she knew that voice, that tone, but—no way, it couldn't be.

"Y-yeah, I guess," Denki replied, still a bit breathless from running and oblivious to Kyouka's internal turmoil. However, he had his own spark of recognition as he looked at the girl. His mind flew back to staking out the coffee shop, and an encounter with a girl who became a fan of the 1-A Vigilantes after they saved her. "Wait, you're the girl from the coffee—uh! I mean, we saved you from a mugging, right?"

He hastily corrected himself mid-sentence, doing his best to hide his wince at the slip. The girl flashed a brilliant grin as she bobbed her head, her hair bouncing with the motion. "You totally did Kami! I can't believe you remembered that!"

"I—wha?" His brain ground to a halt as she used his actual name, or at least a nickname variation.

But that was also what finally had Kyouka's doubts vanishing, recognizing that exact tone and energy behind the nickname.

"Hagakure?" she blurted before she could help herself, and then froze and cursed herself for slipping.

Rather than react with confusion or wariness though, the girl's face lit up as she gasped, seafoam green eyes sparking with delight as she clapped her hands together. "You know my name!" she exclaimed gleefully. She laughed then and launched herself forward to wrap her arms around Kyouka in a hug, making her nearly topple. "I knew it! I knew it was really you two!"

And at that the two vigilantes' thoughts ground to a halt again, eyes widening as they both realized the weight of the weight of her words. "Wait," Denki said, tearing off his hood to rip off his goggles and stare at her in shock. "Do you mean, you're—?"

He stopped short, and Hagakure peeled away from Kyouka, flashing them her most brilliant and blinding smile yet as she said the words that changed everything.

"You're my Kaminari and Jirou!"

No comments or questions for next time from me today. I look forward to your reactions.