I spent way too long trying to figure out the geological logistics of the internships. I also realized that I have to cut entirely, or at least shuffle away, a scene that I was SUPER excited for because Hawks' agency is on Kyushu and the rest of the arc takes place around the general Tokyo area. And I'm so damn sad about that :(
"Morning, Suzume."
She looks up from her book to see him sit down, two seats away. "Hey, Shouto."
She turns back to 'A History of Crime Scene Investigation', intending on finishing the chapter before Aizawa calls them to attention.
But, because her class is full of ridiculous people, someone pokes her shoulder viciously.
"Hey!" Hagakure hisses, poking her harder. "What was that?"
Suzume swats her hand away to scowl at the invisible girl. "What was what?"
"Since when are you two on a first name basis?!"
"Since yesterday," she can see Kirishima grab Bakugou's arm out of the corner of her eye and whisper something rapidly to him. "Dinner was annoying, there were too many 'Yusada's' with me and my brothers, so I told him to call me Suzume."
"He had dinner with your family?!"
"New rule! I don't repeat myself anymore."
"Wait," Hagakure leans in, right in her face. This close she can see the slightest distortion of the world through her classmate. "Don't tell me you and Todoroki are a thing!"
"Okay," Suzume leans away from her and looks back at her book.
"Wait, no! Tell me!"
Suzume hears Kaminari and Aoyama posing the same question to Shouto.
"Make up your mind," Suzume shoots her a frown. "And anyways, the answer is no. He just came over, that's all."
"Aw, but you two would be so cute together."
Suzume arches a brow.
"...You'd be a great, really scary power couple!" she amends.
Cool, so all my classmates are scared of me?
"That's nice."
Hagakure slumps, the wind going out of her sails. "You're not a bit romantic, are you?"
"Romance? I don't have time for that stuff. I have to be a hero," she waves her hand at Hagakure. "If you're that jealous, you can call me Suzume too… Actually, I'd prefer it."
Even after two years, she's still not huge on being called 'Yusada'. Once she gets to 18, she plans on changing it back to Kono, if not sooner.
"Really?" Hagakure pops right back up. "Then call me Toru!"
" 'Kay."
She hesitantly starts to go back to her book and-
"Alright everyone, eyes up here."
Goddamn it!
She snaps her book shut and sits up to look at Aizawa, who's written a train station, date, and time on the board.
"Today is the last day to submit your hero internship forms. The internships themselves start on monday, when we'll all meet at the train station at nine in the morning. Do not be late. You'll be representing UA at your internships, so I expect you all to be on your best behavior. The agencies have all arranged for places for you to stay if it's out of town. Don't let me hear about any of you causing trouble."
"Yes, sensei," they corus, like good little minions.
He looks across them all, squinting above the scar on his cheek.
Most of the class tries to look as innocent as they can.
She just stares at him.
"Great. Read chapter 10 and answer the end of chapter questions."
He pulls his sleeping bag up and closes it to go to sleep.
Suzume cocks her head.
"...D'you think if I finish early, he'll let me take a nap too?"
Toru giggles at her. "You're so funny."
She wasn't joking, but okay.
"Finish and get your questions right and I don't care what you do. Now quiet down and get to work."
"Yes sir," she tips him a mock salute and cracks open her textbook. She answers all the questions as fast as she can, double checks them, then crosses her arms and lays her head down on her desk.
Maybe I should invest in a sleeping bag…
She manages to doze for a good few minutes before the door slams open and Mic saunters in, calling out a 'good morning!'.
"Pop quiz!" he calls.
The room groans while he passes out tests.
Suzume starts filling it out as soon as she gets it. English is easy .
Well, it's bullshit as a language, but it's a language she's known longer than japanese. She corrects the grammar, adds a comma, fixes the spelling of 'through' to 'thorough', and lays her head back down.
Very faintly, she hears Present Mic start scolding Aizawa.
"- too much like you. Sleeping! Hey, are you listening to me?"
She's glad her head is down. Her cheeks feel warm. He thinks she's like Aizawa? Aizawa is a pretty cool teacher…
She'd never eat those jelly packets, though.
They were way too gross, and Yusa would kill her if she found out.
The rest of the day goes largely the same as any other. They go over a few laws they've been studying, a test they did a few days before, and the best ways to avoid collateral damage in certain areas before they're finally released for lunch.
Suzume takes her usual seat beside Kirishima, sandwiching him between her and Bakugou. She keeps her shoulder to the rough brick wall, and her book open beside her tray where it won't get in the way.
Kirishima peers over at her.
"What'cha reading?"
"A History of Crime Scene Investigation."
"Oh. That's, cool?" he offers. "What's it about?"
"Are you an idiot?" snaps Bakugou, who's been more tetchy than even he normally is today.
"I meant besides the obvious," Kirishima makes a face at him.
Suzume can at least humor him. She likes Kirishima. He's a good person and, and he believes in her.
"Well, the title says it all, but it does talk about how fingerprint science has actually been around for a lot longer than most people expect. For instance, in ancient china finger prints were used to officiate trade agreement, tax documents, and bills of sale. In babylonia fingerprints were included in signing official contracts. In fact the fifth king of the first dynasty had criminals who were arrested's finger prints taken on their official arrest records. Once again in China the Qin dynasty recorded not only fingerprints, but also foot prints."
She pauses, looks up to see if they're actually listening. By this point most people's attention will be gone.
Instead, two pairs of red eyes are locked on her, though Bakugou is mostly watching out of the corner of his eye.
"There's certain genetic mutations that can cause a lack of fingerprints, like a loss of an SMARCAD1 protein, and certain ectodermal dysplasia. There's ways around fingerprints too, like causing swelling in the fingers to disguise the ridges using bee venom or cancer medications, although interestingly enough other methods of destroying fingerprints are rarely permanent. Like burning them off with fire or acid, the finger prints will eventually grow back."
"Wow. I never thought that much about fingerprints," Kirishima admits. "When you think of heroes you mostly think of villain fights, you know? But sometimes they get called in to help the cops and have to track villains down so that they can fight them in the first place."
"That's more underground hero stuff though. Like Eraserhead would do, not so much All Might."
"So is that what kind of hero you're going to be?" Kirishima asks curiously.
Suzume shrugs. "I have to be a hero at all, before I can decide what kind of hero I'll be."
That doesn't stop Shinsou's words from reverberating in her mind.
"...Probably. Once the novelty of having a quirkless hero wears off, I think I'll do more good doing that kind of thing than something like what Bakugou, or Midoriya, or Shouto are aiming for," she nods to him. "I don't care that much about rankings or being the best. That's not what my fight is for."
Bakugou turns a rather fascinating shade of red.
Kirishima elbows him.
They're being so weird today.
Kaminari, who's been watching them from the other side of the table, grins.
"Speaking of 'Shouto'..."
"We're not dating," she says blankly.
"I know, I know," he holds up his hands, "I was gonna say, when are you inviting the rest of us over?"
Suzume stares at him.
"He invited himself over," she says, trying to understand why everyone was being so weird about this. Her house isn't even all that interesting. Did Shouto tell them about her mothers tea?
Bakugou smacks his hand on the table, popping off a few little explosions.
"Then we're coming over too, got it!?" He barks at her.
Suzume arches a brow at him.
"If you act that way in front of my mother, she can and will paralyze you."
Kirishima takes Bakugou by the shoulder and tugs him down into his seat. "He means that we want to come hang out too, if you're cool with it."
Suzume shrugs.
"If you want to, then that's fine with me, but it'll have to wait until after the internships. I'm gonna be busy for the rest of this week. And, if you do come, you'll have to deal with at least one of my brothers, possibly two, and my mom."
Shouto, who had apparently been seated behind them, leans back in his chair until his shoulder touched hers.
"And Jorge."
"Right, and Jorge," she waves at Shouto.
"Jorge?!" Kaminari looks bewildered.
"He lives in her refrigerator," Shouto says helpfully before going back to his own lunch.
"He's napping," Suzume adds, straight faced.
Kaminari presses his lips together.
"I'm… not touching that one," he decides.
"So we'll come by the weekend after internships are over?" Kirishima suggests. "That way we'll have enough time to relax a little bit."
Suzume considers. It'll probably be easier to just let them do what they want.
"Sure. So the weekend after this one, we can all go home together."
"Sweet," Kaminari grins at her and the conversation shifts to what they should have for dinner that night, and then who's favorite food is what. By the time Suzume has finished defending her stance on crab ceviche lunch is over.
It's time for combat practice.
Suzume had been prepared to go out in her gym uniform with just her sansetsukon, but when they reach the classroom to pick up their costumes the case for hers is sitting in the wall along with everyone else's.
Hatsume must have finished already.
What a scary girl.
Her new belt is heavier with the additional discs and the first aid kit, and Hatsume took the liberty of adding extra straps criss-crossing her thighs to keep the whole thing stable and from catching if she moves through enclosed spaces. The vambraces are heavy, and she's immediately glad that she's been wearing weights for the last week.
Instead of a visor like her brother, Hatsume includes a pair of goggles with small buttons on the sides. They're rectangular, amber colored, and remind her of ones that she's seen on Aizawa in what few pictures she's seen of him as a young hero.
They come with a note.
'I'm still perfecting this baby, so have fun with a prototype!'
Suzume tugs them on and filters through the new settings. Heat signatures light up, and she can see Toru where she's standing with Ojiro. Night vision pops up next, and Hatsume startles her by providing a telescope. The bottom button offers her the option of syncing the goggles up to her phone.
"This is gonna take some getting used to…"
"Whoa!" Hagakure bounces up to her, only a pair of floating gloves and sneakers. "You got an upgrade!"
"Yeah. I went down to support the other day and that girl from the sports festival hooked me up," she tugs her goggles down and rubs her eyes. It's really going to take some getting used to.
Hatsume also saw fit to extend the small armor over the top of her foot and calf and extend it all the way up to her knees.
"Oh man! I gotta get down there some time, but that girl looked kinda scary in the festival? I'm really glad I never had to fight her…"
"She's… something," Suzume finally admits. The pair of them walk out to the gym, with Tsu on Toru.
Aizawa calls them all over in the industrial area. Pipes form a maze around them, snaking through buildings. Beside him is a crate of tennis balls.
Suzume does not like the look on his face when he started calling out names and separating them into two teams.
Once she's standing on one side with Toru, Tsu, Sero, Ojiro, Tokoyami, Jiro, Koda, Sato, and Iida he pushes the crate over, sending balls falling to the ground and bouncing all over the place.
"I'm sure you all know how to play dodgeball. Get to it. Last one standing wins."
There's only one word for what follows.
Pandemonium.
"Everyone has their costumes, right?" Aizawa stands in front of the class, looking everyone over. The Mustafu train station is packed with people, and they aren't the only group of students. There's a regular school gathered for a trip, and a gaggle of second years who were taking a trip to the mountains for the week.
Aizawa looks them all over critically. He looks a little like her mother had this morning when she had been checking Suzume's hair for the twelfth time and starting to tear up.
This will be the first time in her life the Suzume has spent more than a night or two away from home. It makes her chest tight with nerves. Her backpack is heavy on her shoulders with a few changes of clothes and toiletries. Her hero case is heavy in her other hand.
"Remember, you don't have permission to wear them out in public yet, and don't lose them or anything."
"Gotcha!" Ashido cheers, waving her case in the air.
"Speak properly! It's 'Yes Sir,' Ashido." Aizawa chides. She slumps, defeated, and mumbles 'yes sir'. "Make sure you mind your manners with the other heroes during your internships. Now get to it."
"Yes sir," everyone chorus' obediently.
"Get moving."
They all scatter to their respective trains.
Suzume almost bumps right into Midoriya going left. He squeaks and jumps away from her.
"I'm sorry!"
"It's honestly no big deal," she dismisses. He looks like a mess. His curly hair had clearly had his hands running in it, he's sweating again, and his eyes dart everywhere but her.
"...Are you. You know. Okay?" she asks, trying to sound kind but probably just sounding irritated.
"I'm fine!" He says, too loud and too fast. "I'm just nervous, that's all! I want to make a good impression on my hero, but I don't exactly know much about him and what I do know isn't comforting and I really need this to go well and-"
She considers finding some ice and shoving it in his mouth, to shock him into calming down or at least giving him something new to focus on. And maybe getting him to stop talking.
"Well for one thing, you need to tie your damn tie properly, or he'll think you're a goose."
She grabs his tie and yanks him forwards, making the boy squeak and turn a fascinating shade of red.
His nose almost touches her forehead while she makes quick work of his tie, neatening it until it lays in a straight line on his chest.
"There," she lets him go, pats him on the chest, and nods once. "You'll be fine. What's the worst thing that could happen?"
"He hates me and tortures me and tells All Might I'm an awful student."
"Okay. And what's the best thing that can happen?"
Midoriya blinks at her. "The best thing? I guess… I learn to master my quirk completely and really impress him."
"Cool. And what's the most realistic thing that happens?"
"... I do my best and learn something new, and hopefully get him to like me?" Midoriya offers meekly.
"Good boy." She pats his cheek (which makes him practically combusts under her hand, unnoticed to her.) and leaves him behind.
Suzume finds Iida waiting at the same level as her.
She pauses.
She doesn't know Iida. And she's not hypocritical enough to tell him not to go after the man who hurt his brother. If anything ever happened to Kaname…
She's never killed anyone before, but for her brother she thinks she could.
Still.
She sighs.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
"Yo, Iida," she calls. When he looks up, his eyes are like stone. Suzanna Hemmings had seen eyes like that before. Kono Suzume has seen them plenty in the Yakuza.
The ground rattles under their feet as a train approaches.
"Ah, Yusada. Good morning," He smiles at her, but it gets nowhere near his eyes.
"Yeah. Great morning," she agrees absently. She works her jaw, trying to figure out the best way to say this. Finally, she settles on a question.
"Are you stronger than your brother is?" she asks.
Iida startles. "What? No, of course not. My brother is-" He faltered and his expression grows grave, " was , an amazing hero."
"Then how do you think you're going to beat someone he couldn't?"
Iida freezes.
"I… don't know what you're talking about."
Suzume turns away from him, to face the tracks as a train rolls in.
"I'm not an idiot, and you're very obvious," she says flatly. She sighs. "Just try not to get yourself killed. Another corpse won't help your family any."
His hands clench at his sides.
"You don't understand."
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "I have five brothers, and one of them is with Gang Orca doing his work study right now. I understand perfectly what I would do if someone hurt him. Don't patronize me, Iida."
He turns away, his teeth grinding audibly. "My brother is a good man."
"And I'm sure he loves you dearly. So don't go making him an only child."
She shoulders her backpack. The next train that pulls up is hers.
And Iida's too, apparently. Hosu is the next city on the line after she gets off.
She quietly hopes that Iida doesn't do anything stupid, but she knows that he will. If reason was enough to stop attempted murder, no one would be killed ever.
Suzume twists her scrunchie around nervously. She knows that Sir Nighteye can be… intense. And Mirio had said a couple of times that he valued a sense of humor greatly.
Mirio won't be able to come by until classes let out for the day. I'm on my own for finding the Agency and making a first impression. Although, if he already saw the Sports Festival, he's already got one about me.
Everyone has an opinion on her as soon as they meet her, and even more of one once they find out that she's quirkless.
The train comes to a stop and she walks the rest of the way to the Nighteye Agency.
The building towers over her, solid and firm.
This is it.
She pushes the door open and walks down a long hallway, following the instructions Togata gave her, and pushes the door at the end open.
A young woman with pale blue skin and slightly curly, dark blue hair looks up from a stack of paper, peering at Suzume through a diving mask. She has wide, lovely yellow eyes and a soft face.
Oh shit, she's pretty.
Suzume clasps her case in front of her and stands with her shoulders straight.
"I'm here to see Sir Nighteye. I'm Yusada Suzume, from UA."
"Oh!" Bubble Girl claps her hands together. "You're Lemillion's girl."
What.
"He's my upperclassman, yes ma'am."
"Oh, just call me Bubble Girl. Sir is in his office right now, just through that door," she points, then pushes her stack of papers into Suzume's chest.
Suzume nearly drops her case grabbing them before they can fall.
"Take those in to him, would you? Thanks!"
"Um. Sure?"
Suzume, feeling wrong footed, manages to hook the door handle with a pinky and push it open.
She walks into a veritable All Might museum.
His grinning face is all over the place, in all different costumes from over the years. There's figurines on the shelves and posters on every available service. She knew he was a fan but this…
Holy shit.
Nighteye himself sits behind a large desk. When he looks up at her she straightens up. She expected to feel pinned under his gaze, like she's heard other people describe meeting him. Even Togata admitted to being intimidated by him.
But, she doesn't freeze. She sets her case down and offers him the papers with both hands.
"Bubble Girl said to give you these."
He eyes her from behind his glasses. His whole body is folded like a crane, all long limbs and sharp angles.
"What are they?"
Suzume glances down and skims the first page in a second.
"Crime reports. A team of villains is trying to go old school mob in this area, and some of the surrounding cities. Hosu, Iowa, Shinmon, and Inari."
She flips to the next page. There's not grisly pictures, just vague descriptions.
"I guess someone got literally curb stomped."
He finally plucks the papers from her grasp and shuffles through them.
"And you're Yusada."
"Yes, Sir. Pleased to meet you," she bows swiftly.
"Stand up straight, and stop looking so grim. Having a sense of humor is important to being a hero. Mirio tells me yours is dry."
"I didn't realize he talked about me so much…" She doesn't know how to feel about that.
Nighteye steeples his fingers in front of him.
"Sit," he nods to a seat on her side of the desk, and Suzume obeys quickly.
"Currently, I have two sidekicks and one student doing a work study with me. This week I'll expect you to keep up with us. We rarely have quiet days, so when one of us gives you an order I expect you to listen and listen quickly. When Mirio comes this afternoon, we'll go out on your first patrol. In the meantime, show me what you learned in your informatics class. Tell me what category you would put the villains in these reports in and why."
Ah. So those papers were a test. Suzume sits upright, folds her hands in her lap, and begins.
"I would label them C rank villains."
"Oh?"
"Yes! C rank, because their quirks don't seem to have much of an effect on what they're doing. The ones listed are dangerous, certainly, but between knife hands, heat absorption and redistribution, and echolocation, none of them are what's actually being used for the um. Executions of their competition. They shot them three times, twice in the chest and once in the head with a gun after making them kneel and bite the curb. So they clearly aren't afraid to kill people, or use brutal methods. But their quirks aren't the dangerous part. It seems like they're just villains out of technicality, instead of because only heroes could handle them instead of regular police officers. So. C rank."
Nighteye watches her closely. She doesn't squirm.
"You only read the reports for a few minutes. You're certain of your decision?"
She nods, once. It's not that hard. It's just a little bit of reading and categorizing.
He quizzes her on a few more things. Villain ranking, situation deescelations, what kind of training she's had, and a few smaller, personal questions like what her brother has told her about working with heroes. Finally, he asks to view her equipment.
She hadn't known what to expect from him. The glint of his glasses hide most of what he's thinking as he inspects her goggles, her vambraces, her leg guards, and finally her utility belt.
When he gets to her weighted disks he pauses, and looks at her.
Suzume puffs her cheeks out and looks away.
"Your stamps are trademarked."
He cracks a fraction of a smile and renews his inspection. Nighteye looks over the trick disks, each one labeled with small marks on the side that she can feel when she pulls them out. Some for explosions, some for smoke, some with the expansion foam that Hatsume had managed to finish. Most of them are just plain disks.
"Good. This should do," he looks at the clock on the wall. "Get changed. There's a locker room down the hall, and through the other door is a gym. Meet me there. Mirio will be here in a few minutes."
"Yes Sir."
She stores her backpack, training weights, and the suitcase in one of the lockers and follows Nighteye's instructions to reach the other side of the locker room. It's small, which makes sense since his agency only has about three people in it. The gym, contrarily, has plenty of room. When she reaches it Togata is there, in his own costume. He beams when he sees her.
"Yusada! You made it! Oh, wait. Since we're in uniform I guess I should call you 'Suzumebachi' right?"
Hearing her hero name sends a burst of warmth into her chest. She straightens up.
"Yes. And you're Lemillion."
He gives her a bright thumbs up. His costume is very much the opposite of hers. White, yellow, and blue and a bright red cape floating behind him. She feels like a shadow standing in front of him.
She looks at Sir Nighteye. "You said we were going patrolling once he got here?"
"We will," he inclines his head to the clock on the wall. "Once I've seen what you can do. I want you and Lemillion to spar. Five minutes. Get as many hits as you can."
He says that like I can actually hit Togata. Well, I guess I can, but he'll have to stay solid long enough.
"Go."
Mirio vanishes. His helmet bounces off the ground where he's dove down.
She spins, and steps to the side just as he bursts from the ground behind her with a punch aimed at her back.
Shit he's fast!
"You dodged!" he looks delighted, before he disappears again. If she didn't know what she was looking for she would have no idea what he'd done.
But she does.
And thanks to Ichigo, she's had way too much experience with something coming out of the ground to hit her.
Her fingers dip into one of her pockets and she grips a small pellet before dropping it behind her on the ground.
Lemillion comes out inchest in front of her toes with an uppercut aimed at her chin.
Suzume bends backwards to dodge and lashes out with a kick that slides right through him. He twists and dives again. Suzume brings her foot back down on the pellet. It explodes under its force, covering the area in smoke.
She hears it when Lemillion solidifies enough to see, and the hitch in his breath when he tries to breath and gets a lung full of smoke.
She slams a kick into his ribs that sends him flying out of the smoke before he phases through the ground again. The smoke slowly fades and settles like dust on the ground.
Lemillion comes from behind this time, the sound of his breath and a flicker of shadow on the ground giving him away. She dodges, and drops another pellet, but he doesn't fall for the same trick twice. Each time she dodges him it's by inches.
The longer they go at it the more she picks up.
When he's intangible, like when he's bluffing, she can't feel or hear the air moving around him. When he's solid and intending to actually hit her she can, and when he switches between the two she can feel the slightest change of displaced air.
That's how she catches his punch and throws him straight into the ground. His leg lashes back out of the ground while his head is under and knocks her roughly in the knees, sending her stumbling downwards.
She catches herself on her hands and Lemillion comes back up. As soon as his boots make contact with the ground she twists like a break dancer and kicks him in the jaw. It connects for a half second before he phases through it and grabs her ankle with a solid hand.
Suzume yelps when he flings her into a wall.
She recovers in time to block another two punches before he flows right through her and attacks from inside the wall. She bounces away from him, and switches to dodging each strike he can come up with.
She flicks out a disk and wings it at him. Lemillion doesn't dodge, but he doesn't need to either. Seconds before it connects to his legs the disk flashes with a brilliant light. He throws his hands over his eyes and she whips another disk at him, but it goes straight through his chest to hit the wall behind him. Smoke erupts out of it, pouring over them.
Suzume wades into it, gripping her sansetsukon tightly. She waits for the shift in the smoke to tell her that he's changed.
It comes from behind her, and she reacts a second too late to completely dodge the elbow that strikes her shoulder. He phases through her, and comes around with a punch that she blocks with her weapon. His fist goes straight through and clips her on the cheek when she's too slow to dodge.
Mirio is one of the fastest people she's ever met. And he's brutal .
She can barely dodge, and he's adapting to how she moves and the tricks she pulls like no one else ever has.
By the time Nighteye calls time, she's sweating and covered in smoke. Her cheek is definitely bruised.
Suzume gasps for breath, her hands on her knees.
I was way too slow. Fuck, I even know his quirk and I couldn't do better than that. I have to step my game up. Damn it!
A strong hand claps her on the shoulder.
"That was a good fight! I was seriously impressed, Suzumebachi!"
"I barely got three hits in," she argues, frowning up at him.
"That's more than most people," he says cheerfully. From anyone else, she would accuse him of bragging.
But Lemillion has put more work into mastering his body in the last two years than most people put into their entire lives. If it is bragging, it's pretty well earned.
He presses a towel into her hands so she can dab sweat off of her face.
"I don't think I ever really appreciated exactly how wicked you are," she tells Lemillion, squinting at him over the towel.
He positively beamed at her, looking cherubic and irritatingly strong.
Shoulda kicked him in the balls instead of the ribs.
Nighteye gives her enough time to get her disks gathered up before they head out. The trick disks have two uses each, and Hatsume promises to show her how to refill them next time she gets back down to Support, after her work study so she can report on how they worked.
The streets they walk are ones that Suzume knows well.
She can't help the spring in her step when they pass by Tsushima Yuzo's dojo. She can even see Ryuhei welcoming some of his students to their lessons.
"What's got you so cheerful?" Lemillion asks, following her gaze.
"Hmm?" she blinks up at him. "Oh, I actually grew up around here. I used to go to that dojo over there. Shihan Yuzo still does all of my level testing."
"I had no idea! You never told me you used to live here."
"You never asked. And I haven't been back here in years. Not since… Well. Since my dad was arrested."
Lemillion winces. "Ah."
Suzume shakes her head.
"It's. It's a thing. Anyways. Tell me about the route, why do we take this one in particular? We've passed two middle schools so far."
She listens with half an ear as he explains about their presence being a detriment to people who would prey on young people as a source for selling drugs to, or drawing into trouble.
It's a good point, but it has the same issues that she's had with the hero system for her whole life.
It doesn't tackle the causes behind crime.
If a teenager starts smoking it's for a reason, it's not just because it's offered. No amount of flashy capes will change that.
She knows this place too. She knows the alley ways, she knows the rooftops. She recognizes faces around her, from the food truck cooks parked on the corner to the businessmen walking into a massage parlor that she knows offers more than just hot stones.
They even wander close to the compound that she spent so much of her childhood inside of before circling back around to the Nighteye agency.
At a glance she can tell which people are Shie Hessaikai, which ones are small rival crime families, which ones are petty pick pockets, and which ones are undercover cops.
It's always the goddamn shoes.
By the time they get back to the agency it's nearing dark.
Sir Nighteye decides that Suzume is going to fight Bubble Girl.
It goes significantly better than her bout against Lemillion.
For one thing, her goggles ensure that the soap bubbles don't blind her, even if they make everything kind of wobbly. For another, she's smelled fouled, bloated corpses in the worst landfills before. A bubble that smells like sulfur doesn't even make her pause as she throws the side kick over her hip and takes her to the ground for a fierce grappling session.
This close she realizes that Bubble Girls top isn't actually completely exposing her under boob, it's just made of a clear, mesh like material on the underside. So there's no chance for a tit slip.
It's more practical than Suzume initially gave her credit for.
It also makes her think of what Midnight said. Were all of Bubble Girls teachers men too? Or did she just like the design?
She's not much older than Suzume herself, she's just over twenty, and she scowls when Suzume pins her arm behind her back. Bubble Girl is stronger than she looks, but Suzume has spent her years molding her muscles into corded steel.
Or as close as she can get without being Tetsutetsu.
They go again and again, with Bubble Girl coming at her from every angle she can think of. Fighting against a trained sidekick, and one who works for Nighteye of all people, is very different from fighting her classmates. Most of them have very, very limited combat experience. Bubble Girl has actually been in the field for a few years and taken down people actively trying to kill her.
The USJ was a shit show, but it was only one very long fight. You don't get long term experience from it.
Not like what Bubble Girl has.
Sir releases them after over an hour of knocking each other around. Bubble Girl turns out to be more flexible than Suzume is, and she slips out of almost as many holds as Suzume catches her in.
Sir looks them over critically.
"Wash up," he orders. "We'll show you where you'll be staying afterwards."
His sharp eyes move to Togata, who's got his helmet in his lap. He looks just as sweaty and beaten as Suzume feels, and his blond hair sticks messily to his forehead.
"Mirio, are you staying or going home?" he asks the boy. "I have you all day tomorrow."
Suzume even knows the answer before Togata smiles at his mentor.
"I'll stay and help keep an eye on my little kouhei, right Yusada?"
"I am so not calling you senpai."
"You're no fun."
"I am aware."
"Showers. Now."
They all bow out and go to clean up.
"Maaaaan," Bubble Girl stretches out in the locker room before she shimmies out of her weird tube top thing. "That was exhausting. Sir really wanted to put you through your paces, huh?"
"I wouldn't know," Suzume carefully folds her utility belt into her case.
"Here," Bubble Girl motions her over to a set of small bins in the corner. She drops her own clothes into one. "They'll have your suit cleaned and dried in about fifteen minutes. Just enough time for a shower, right?"
Suzume drops her suit and underwear into one of the mini washing machines, and Bubble Girl shows her how much detergent to add to it.
"So is this what a normal day is like?" she asks, following Bubble Girl into the showers. "You spend the morning doing paperwork, patrol in the afternoon, and then train until Sir is tired of you?"
"That about sums it up. Sometimes we do long term investigations into villain groups, Sir is very good at that sort of thing, He's… detail oriented. Mirio says you're good at that sort of stuff."
"He certainly thinks he knows me well," she mumbles, brows knit.
"He's a good judge of character," Bubble Girl assures her. "And he's seen you do your homework on the train, so I'm sure he knows your grades too. And we all saw the sports festival."
Suzume hums, watching a few stray bubbles float off of Bubble Girl and into the air. Is this what other people feel like when she plucks facts about them from seemingly thin air? This weirdly… known?
They dry off, collect their uniforms, and come out of the locker rooms with Suzume back in her school uniform and Bubble Girl in civvies.
Togata joins them a few minutes later, his hair still damp against his forehead.
"I'm going home for the night, Sir," Bubble Girl says, waving cheerfully at him. He lets her go and leads the pair of students to an elevator, where he takes them to the sixth floor.
"I thought there were only five floors?"
"There's a sixth floor, but it's not very big and it's only on the back half of the building," Togata tells her. "Sir works with other heroes a lot, and sometimes it's easier to stay here than get a hotel. And more subtle too."
He leans down to whisper in her ear. "And sometimes he doesn't go home himself."
Sir Nighteye shoots Togata a disapproving look over his shoulder.
"So basically, there's a little hostel back here," he goes on, as if Sir wasn't scowling at him. "There's a few rooms, with bunk beds and everything! It's actually kinda cool. I stay here over the weekends, or any time we're doing something that I'll need to come back early in the morning for. I got permission to skip school to help out here for part of this week, so you'll be stuck with me tomorrow too."
They exit the elevator and step into a wide room. There's a window that overlooks the street, a small kitchenette, and a table with chairs. On the other side of it are four doors.
Sir shows her one of them, revealing bunk beds just as Togata had said, and a bathroom attached.
"Do all pro agencies have a place like this?" she asks, peering around at a few random paintings on the walls. One is, shocker, All Might, but the other is a basket of petunias.
"Most bigger agencies do, and even smaller ones have at least futons shoved somewhere."
"Sir works with a lot of other pro's, so he keeps this ready. It's better than sleeping at a desk."
"Eraserhead just carries his sleeping bag everywhere."
"So all heroes are workaholics?"
"Only the good ones," Togata grins at her.
She drops her backpack on a bunk. She had been expecting to stay in a hotel room, or something, but this is just fine.
"I'll be in the next room if you need anything," Togata says, and leaves the pair of them.
Nighteye lets him go before he turns to her. "You have my phone number if anything happens. I'll be back first thing in the morning."
"Right. Thank you for having me," Suzume offers him a smile.
Nighteye nods at her, and goes to say goodbye to Togata.
She locks the door after him, sits on the bed, and calls her mom.