Yokumiru Mera let the guards search him up and secure him. It was standard procedure for anyone visiting Tartarus, not even the higher ups in the HPSC or any other government agency was exempt from it. The risk of any sort of security breach was just too great.
After the guards deemed him secure, he was allowed to go into the meeting room. Unlike other prisons, there was only one seat for one visitor, and another the prisoner being visited.
Villains here didn't receive many visits to begin with, the paperwork alone being a journey to hell and back, but if you were here, chances are no one wanted to even bother keeping contact.
It's not like Mera wanted to be here, or had anyone he'd like to see. HPSC employees don't usually have anyone expecting meetings inside Tartarus. But the Madam President had ordered the meeting, and thus he could do nothing but adapt his already tight schedule to have time for this meeting.
When he sat in his chair on his side of the reinforced glass, the door he came from hissed, several locks closing it tight. He looked at the camera in the corner of his side of the room, and gave it a thumbs up. He was unfortunately ready.
The door on the other side of the reinforced glass opened, and a woman with a shaved head wearing a straightjacket came in. She glanced at Mera as she walked by to her seat. The door from which she came from closed and hissed closed the same way the one on Mera's side did.
But unlike from his side, when the woman sat her thighs, hips and torso were bound to the seat, binding her in place. She didn't even react to it, merely raising a multicolored indigo and pink eyebrow at Mera.
"What is this all about? I thought the commission was done with me"
"You will speak only when spoken to, prisoner 656698" A voice coming from a speaker buzzed around them.
She rolled her eyes, the deprivation of body autonomy not bothering her at all. Or maybe she was just used to not being able to move freely.
"Tsutsumi-san, the commission is interested in hearing your opinion on a certain topic"
She didn't move one bit, just staring blankly at Mera through the glass. He swallowed his nervousness down. This woman was the worst nightmare of the HPSC: Tsutsumi Kaina, the former Shooting Hero, Lady Nagant.
She looked completely disinterested in Mera, the meeting and being forced into the chair, but she was supposed to be a lethal agent of the commission, a high ranking hero that took out bothersome and possible future threats to the era of peace created by All Might. Instead, she went rogue, and murdered the president of the HPSC at the time.
It was quickly covered up, and was arrested after the HPSC purposefully released information regarding her murder of a hero, just censoring every mention that it was ordered by the commission.
So, for the commission to go to Tartarus to ask her opinion on anything at all… It really showed how desperate they were, and Kaina was smart enough to realize this. She received the best 'education' after all.
Well, not the best if she suddenly went rogue. Mera thought.
"My opinion? Not interested in helping you, and besides, ignoring the fact you even consider that as an option, you are aware of the rules of this place, right?" She tilted her head towards a corner of the room, on her side of the glass. "You aren't supposed to tell inmates anything about the outside world"
She looked at that spot for a while, waiting for any sort of response. Was that point where the speaker from which the guards had spoken earlier had come from? There wasn't any sign of it being there, but Mera was too nervous to turn his head and take a closer look. He wasn't going to stop having Kaina right in front of his eyes. It was an irrational fear, with the 50cm thick glass in between them, and Kaina being bound and hairless, but he couldn't help but feel cornered, alone in this room with her.
Kaina finally stopped glaring at the wall, huffing and resuming to stare blankly at Mera.
"Figures, rules don't mean a damn thing to you lot, do they?"
Mara flinched at the venom in her words. The cold certainty in her voice along with still sounding completely apathetic was disturbing. As if she had accepted it as the truth already.
"A-an exception has been made due to the circum-"
"Exception? Don't make me laugh." She rolled her eyes, dismissing that idea completely. "As long as it's for 'the greater good', any action is justifiable. Any exception will be made. No matter the cost" She scoffed. "To think the HPSC's influence has gotten to this point… and you delude yourselves like this"
Kaina leaned her head forward, her face for the first time locking into Mera's with an intensity he wasn't prepared for.
"Tell me, how is your control different from the villain state of the Dark Ages?" The intensity of her eyes disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she leaned back into her seat. She didn't even move much at all because of the binds, but for Mera the difference was bast. "The world you are trying to create… I don't have any intention of living in such a thing. Being stuck in this prison is much better in comparison"
It took Mera a few seconds to recover from the intensity that she had looked at him previously, and even more to ignore the accusations and claims she made about the commission.
She is just disillusioned, that must be the reason she went rogue. The commission has done… questionable things, but it's… a necessary evil. The alternative is much worse than she thinks.
Mare reassured himself, while calming down and getting back on track.
"Moving on-" Kaina rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. "The reason as to why this meeting was called…" Mera straightened up, slowly regaining his composure. "The last few months there's been a new villain evading our watch. Their modus operandi is very similar to your own, specializing in long range terminations and leaving no trace behind"
Kaina didn't respond. Just kept staring at Mera, without giving him or the HPSC anything sort of an answer. It was the only show of defiance she could do, and she wouldn't give them anything.
Still, Kaina's eyes hid her mind, thinking about all the implications of what has just been revealed to her. She understood why visitors weren't common in Tartarus, and why the no outside information rule was so important. This meeting alone had made Kaina see how far the reach of the commission had gotten.
Not only that, but even then, the appearance of someone Mera claimed had similar skills to her own had put them on edge to the point they went as far as to go ask for her opinion. But it was his wording what had picked her attention.
"'Evading your watch' you say. You almost imply that you want to find that villain, and not arrest them"
"I-"
"Don't bother. I know the difference, the commission made sure I always understood it"
Mera gulped down. Kaina wasn't looking at him anymore. Her eyes didn't look bored or apathetic, but were still looking long past him, deep in thought. He felt cold sweat on his neck.
She's thinking about it. What did she gather from it?
"Uhm, th-the Commission was also worried that perhaps you would know something more… personal about this case?"
Her eyes went back to him, and Mera felt again the sensation of being cornered by a completely bound beast.
"Just because I worked similarly? Don't tell me they thought I was secretly getting out and doing it"
Mera gulped down.
"Oh, so you really considered it, huh. Please, do search through the tapes of Tartarus. You'll love how boring it is here."
Mera doesn't respond but does take in mind requesting looking into security footage later on.
This conversation is going nowhere. Tsutsumi is just avoiding my questions and taking advantage of the fact she is getting info out of me. I'll have to be more direct.
"Tsutsumi-san, since you don't seem interested in collaborating, I'll go straight to the point. Would you choose to be cooperative moving forward, the commission is willing to make your living arrangements more comfortable here"
Kaina didn't show any sign of being interested in that offer.
More signs of the Commission holding more power than they should. She thought.
Mera sighed.
"Do you know of someone who could have learnt from you? Or rather, did you teach someone to follow after your footsteps behind the Commission's back? Someone that is right now taking revenge on innocent Pro Heroes"
Appealing for empathy. Such a nerve.
"You should be able to find that out without my assistance. And your real question is whether I'm somehow controlling this new agent, right?"
Mera's reaction was all the proof Kaina needed.
"Figures" Her eyes dulled again, no longer interested in the meeting. "You don't need my statement to figure that out"
"It would certainly be more helpful" Mera tried to rationalize.
"It would, wouldn't it"
Mera sighed, coming to terms that he wouldn't be getting anything else from her, and if anything, he'd end up giving away information to her. Not that she could do anything with it, but if he wasn't getting anything, Mera refused to give away anything more.
He got up and went to his door, waiting for the guards to open it after doing the scheduled security checks.
"One thing, if you will"
"Speak only whe-"
"Next time, tell the higher ups to come in themselves. They are too comfortable sending someone else to do their dirty work"
She received a shock for speaking over the guards and ignoring the order of only speaking when told to, but Kaina didn't care. This meeting had been the most interesting thing that had happened in years, and one shock wasn't going to spoil it.
She had gotten harder punishment from her hero training, this was nothing.
Kaina watched Mera go without a word, the door hissing and locking up as he left. Moments later, the binds of her chair unlocked, and allowed her to stand up. She rolled her shoulders a bit, having become stiff from having her arms for too long in the straight jacket.
"Prisoner 656698, you won't share any of what you've heard today with any of the other inmates. You will return to cell C-46 in silence"
She didn't respond, but followed along, getting towards the door and waiting for the guards to open it up.
Kaina followed the guards and went back to her cell without causing any issues. She wasn't sure how much time had passed since she got sent to Tartarus, the lack of windows and other signs to measure the passage of time being hard to check. But thanks to this meeting, comparing the image of Mera that she remembered with the one she saw today, it was somewhere along 10 years, maybe a bit less.
That new villain… it was definitely odd that someone with similar skills to her own had gone over the HPSC for enough time for them to consider visiting her. She wondered what they could be doing.
They were a villain, but if the Commission saw similarities with Nagant, what did that mean? Were they another person they indoctrinated into their twisted ideology that saw what happened to Kaina before them, and because of their similarity they defected as well? Were they just a gun for hire not under their control? Or just a villain that targets heroes? Mera did mention they went after innocent Pros.
But Kaina couldn't trust the Commission's word for 'innocent' and 'villain'. What she could trust is that they thought that this new threat to their society was similar to Kaina.
Kaina was led to her cell, and waited before getting inside per the instructions of the guards.
"Due to your conduct on the meeting, you'll have the straightjacket for a month"
Kaina sighed, and nodded, not looking directly at the guards. She was allowed to have her arms free before because of her good conduct, but it seems talking back and not revealing information wasn't going to come without a cost.
She got inside her cell, the door shutting behind her. Kaina sat on her stiff bed, feeling her arms itch and complain about their current forced position.
The former hunter wanted to think that it was worth it, but hearing about this new player that was so similar to her… just brought back the itch for action to her right elbow.
For the first time in years, Kaina felt back the desire to use her quirk.
Mera passed through all the controls and security checks on his way out of the prison, and got into the car from the commission. The bridge connecting Tartarus to the mainland began rising from the water as they lifted it up so he could leave, never leaving the bridge up for more than 10 minutes.
As soon as the car started driving through the bridge, parts of it behind them began falling back into the sea, sealing Tartarus back in the middle of the ocean.
Mera was almost immediately called by the higher ups, so he signaled the driver to close up the inner window of the car so he could have some privacy.
"Give us some good news, Yokumiru-san" The voice of the president came from the other side of the line.
"I'm afraid it was inconclusive, Madam President"
"You weren't able to take anything from her?"
"If anything, she was taking information from me, so I stopped. My apologies" Even though she couldn't see him, Mera still bowed in apology.
"I hoped she would have become more cooperative after so many years imprisoned, or at least her conviction to defy us weaker… What is your opinion on the worst case possibility?"
"If anything, she asserted she had no involvement with it, and encouraged we request Tartarus for its, and I quote 'boring' security tapes"
"And that we will. We can never be too sure with someone of her capabilities. For as unlikely as it may seem, we still can't ignore the possibility of of Tsutsumi being involved somehow"
"Yes, Madam President"
Mera sighed, knowing he'll get the work over looking over at the tapes and already hating it.
"On another end. We need to relocate resources about Takami. The lead about the crows hasn't lead us anywhere"
Another silent sigh. "Yes, Madam President"
They had gotten hold of a rumor in the underground that said that 'if you want to speak to Karasu, just speak to a karasu (crow)'. The possibility of Karasu having some sort of crow or raven related quirk had become a possibility (albeit a very little one) ever since they learned about the name they were going with.
As such, they made efforts to try unsuccessfully to reach any and all crows the agents of the Commission came across. Hawks was tasked with trying to reach and talk with the crows more directly, following the rumor more literally.
They hoped that somehow if the rumor was true, that Hawks having wings would somehow make the crows trust him more, but like Hawks had said, their wings were nothing alike, and in the end, Hawks reported that it seemed that his indecent insistence had annoyed the crows.
Now the whole black corvid community had it against Hawks, and they had heard more than one report of crows vandalizing Hawks merch. Crows didn't let Hawks get close to them, so he couldn't even follow them anymore, in hopes that if they were related to Karasu they would lead him to them.
Not like following them before they started spreading the word between them that 'Hawks sucks' had worked, but now it wasn't even a possibility anymore. The way knowledge and spite spread through those animals was hard to come by, and ever since that villain, the Whisperer, had used them against heroes decades ago, some people still hated them.
"For now, return to headquarters. We'll discuss more privately"
She hung off without waiting for a response, and Mera could do nothing but relax and sigh more openly. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and just surrendered to the amount of more workload that was going to be dumped on him.
With how things have been going with the investigation of Karasu, and the way their victims are starting to catch up in numbers to those of the Hero Killer, the commission was starting to struggle to find more ways to obscure or downplay more hero killings.
There were people starting to notice and talking about the amount of hero casualties from Karasu even though they had suppressed the attention the news gave to them after the few cases of hero deaths had been sensationalized.
It was hard, as some publishers didn't really like getting silenced, with Shoowaysha Publishing being the news outlet that most of the times pushed harder against the necessary censorship.
Still, the control of the spread of information was thankfully out of Mera's workload. It still affected the rest of the investigation, as the higher ups feared that if Karasu targeted a very high ranking hero next, they won't be able to cover it up and they'll get even more infamous than Stain.
Let's hope it doesn't reach that point, the loss of a top Pro would be bad enough, but the amount of paperwork that Mera would have to do if that happened. He shivered just thinking about it.
12 - Totally normal girls
The warm breeze of spring had come a few days ago, finally letting people breathe more comfortably after a pretty cold winter. Izumi wasn't bothered much by the cold, she was happy to be able to use lighter clothes and not have some crows try to sneak into the hood of her coats.
Spring also seemed to improve the spirit of people around Izumi, and she noticed her neighbors and classmates were less irritable. Samehada and her friends hadn't bothered her in a very long time now, with Izumi just having to maintain an unapproachable look to intimidate them from getting close.
But that issue had been changed by another one completely new. Ever since the winter holiday break was over, Lanbosu had been especially weird about wanting Izumi to not be close with crows.
Now he not only bothered her with some boring encouragement about improving her grades to get into a nice Support Item school without making an effort to hide it be UA, but also, for some reason, he was even more paranoid than the rest of Gaulusu about crows.
It wasn't exactly a secret that Izumi got along well with them, with the crows more than once making themselves known as they flew towards Izumi when she got out of school.
"There's something off about them" "They are surrounded by dangerous people" "You sure you don't have any problem with them?" He kept saying to her after class.
It got to the point where the rest of the class started to feel unease about the crows even more. At least, the little self awareness that Lanbosu had kicked in and he started dialing it back down, as if to not worry them too much.
Izumi figured he must think that the crows were somehow a bad influence on her, and that they were taking away from her 'potential'. That thought alone pissed her off to no end, and as a member of the murder, insult to a crow isn't taken lightly.
So maybe Lanbosu's car had a little accident that night. Word spreading that right after speaking against crows Lanbosu's car happened to be vandalized did spread some rumors, but Izumi didn't mind it.
People were merely even more apprehensive about approaching her. Samehada and other students didn't even make eye contact with Izumi anymore. She honestly loved how she was finally left alone in the waste of time that was school.
Lanbosu though… it seems that he was even more wary of crows (as he should be). The crows told Izumi of the many times he looked over his shoulder and stared at them spooked. Every time he told her to be wary of crows, Izumi just imagined her friends messing with him. It always managed to cheer her up.
The information network the crows managed to get was a success, and Giran was pretty happy about the scoops and secret info he managed to get thanks to people not thinking much of a crow listening in in the distance.
Giran had also spread some rumors about Karasu, just saying that if you talked to a crow, you could get a job forwarded to Karasu. At first Izumi thought that he was overestimating the stupidity of people to believe such a ridiculous rumor. But well, in the end, it didn't take long after crows started telling her about dozens of goons speaking to them as if the crows were Karasu (they weren't exactly wrong but that's not the point).
Giran was stupidly smug about that for a week, but it did end up in some good jobs. Still, getting more into her work as Karasu didn't mean Diana didn't get jobs either. The SASC kept hiring her to deal with different animals, such as the one Izumi is hunting at the moment.
Izumi was tracking a brown bear that the SASC said had come to her territory. Izumi wasn't stupid, had a bear come to her territory, she would have known about it before them, thanks to the Nest being so close.
The crows there did confirm it shortly after Giran called her for the job, and as Izumi tracked the bear she understood why the SASC had been so weird about the origins of the bear. According to Giran, the SASC feared that the bear might get too close to the city if left unchecked, and wanted Diana to take care of it.
But according to the tracks and direction of the footprints, it was clear for Izumi that the bear had come from the city. She left Hattori and a few other crows to watch after the bear, while she followed the origin of the tracks.
Broken branches, footprints on still wet mud… She found every proof she needed to confirm that the bear had come from the Konukoru. What business the SASC wanted to hide, Izumi didn't care, but as an informer, Giran would certainly appreciate this. And he had made a habit of showing his appreciation to her lately, so Izumi wouldn't keep quiet about it.
Going back on her feet and getting back on track after the bear was an easy task. Staying out of its scent range wasn't. Izumi coordinated herself with the crows, silently moving around the woods.
She inched closer, finally seeing the bear and always keeping her body out of range of his nose. Bears had a sense of smell more sensitive than wolves, and izumi wasn't going to take her chances on a bear sporting a strength augmentation quirk according to the SASC's given intel.
Izumi crawled silently on all fours, a technique she had picked up from Toga. Nothing was above Izumi to use as a hunting method (except poison, that was boring), so after seeing Toga's almost animalistic way of moving around with an impressive amount of stealth, she started to replicate it.
She wasn't as natural as Toga was, but it allowed Izumi to move around the forest much faster than she would otherwise, while maintaining a level of stealth she was confident in.
The bear started sniffing the air, picking something up, but it was too late. There was only a reason Izumi would breach into his range, because her prey was also in hers.
With an unwavering heart, Izumi released the Black Arrow from B-tip, flying straight to the back of the bear's head, going right through it and sinking into a tree. The brown bear fell to the ground right after that, lifelessly.
Izumi sighed, taking air back into her lungs, as she got closer to the bear's corpse. She checked out the body, and could very easily tell the signs of abuse in his body. Its limbs were heavy, the strength augmentation quirk having made it bulkier and stronger. There were patches of fur missing that showed red, raw skin underneath.
There were also clear signs of abuse on its neck, by far the most raw and bloodied part of the bear's body.
It seems like it was held captive somewhere. If I had to guess, I'd say that the SASC are behind this.
Izumi didn't fall for the commission's outward appearance of caring about quirked animals and wanting to study them to better understand them. She was a member of the Order of Orion, and they had been employed by them enough times to terminate or capture quirked animals, it was pretty clear to them that something shady was going on in that government agency.
It's why her relationship with the crows (including its quirked members) were kept a secret to them, with Giran also never mentioning them. Izumi was aware that the amount of jobs that she got from them and the proximity of the agency's headquarters in Konukoru with her territory was directly related with one another.
Whatever they were doing over there with the amount of quirked animals that seemed to come from them, Izumi didn't care, as long as it didn't affect her or the crows. Still, this seemed sloppy even for the SASC. It was never as obvious as this. Giran would surely appreciate the intel.
While the crows tore the bear apart like the good scavengers they were, Izumi got the Black Arrow out of the tree it got stuck on, and readied a sled to move around the body. When she finally got it ready to move out the body, the crows had made quite a mess of it.
Well, it wasn't her problem leaving her prey disfigured, and the SASC hadn't complained before about that, so it's not like Izumi cared.
The hunter dragged the corpse all the way back to the Hunter Cabin. It wasn't exactly easy, carrying around that mole of muscle around, even if the crows had made it lighter, but there was no helping it.
After pulling on the sled through the forest for a while, Izumi and the crows accompanying her finally reached the Hunter Cabin. It had changed quite a bit since Karasu and Giran's deal had expanded, with Giran helping Izumi get the necessary materials to make the abandoned cabin a place worthy to be called her "villain lair", like Toga-senpai likes to say.
The windows had been repaired and the door changed for a new one, but the moss and vines covering the cabin hadn't been removed, so it still looked like an abandoned cabin lost to time on the outside, just not in the sorry state it seemed to be a few months back.
Izumi got the sled through the door frame and finally got inside the cabin, where most of the renovations had been made. The floor's wood planks had been cleaned and repaired, the table at the center of the cabin changed to a new, more resilient looking one, and surrounded by cheap but sturdy plastic chairs.
The furnace had been cleaned and polished, with Izumi improving on the original design and making it more efficient. It was still a rustic, handmade, amateurish furnace, the only reason it could melt Kuro's feather's being because of the help Shiro's white feathers gave it to heat up and concentrate that heat to the level of industrial blast furnaces.
Izumi had also fixed the broken spots of the ceiling, closing the big hole around the top of the furnace, so from the outside it looks more like a chimney than something sticking out of a hole.
Izumi left the sled with the bear on it next to the furnace, right next to the improved and polished tools that Izumi had made herself or had Giran get for her. Her casts were also neatly packed there.
On the other side of the cabin lay sleeping bags and spare clothes for whenever Toga-senpai visited. Izumi had also set up multiple indents and shelve-like planks in the walls for the crows to have more space to stand whenever they got inside (also so they could get to higher ground, since some liked that).
The entrance to the underground tunnel connecting the cabin to the nest had been fixed, with Izumi blocking it and setting up a proper hidden door, instead of just letting wild vines mildly cover the entrance of the tunnel. Now they mildly covered a hidden door that could as well be mistaken by the wall.
There were some crows already inside the cabin, mainly the younglings. They flew closer to Izumi, cawing and greeting her, swarming her and the bear.
"Onee-san!" "Onee-san!" "Izumi-chan!"
She petted them and whistled back, giving them the ok to nicking and pecking at the bear if they wanted. Toga wasn't here at the moment, but that was fine. She could go and come here as she pleases, she knows she's always welcomed here.
As part of the things Izumi had gotten from Giran out of their new deal, was another special, untraceable shinkansen ticket for Toga to use and be able to move around undetected as much as she liked.
She used it a lot to expand her hunting grounds (cities) and keep the heroes on their toes. Izumi texted Giran to inform him of the hunt.
"Got the bear. Left it in the Hunter Cabin. Also got interesting info about it, will send a crow with it to you"
"K, princess ;). I'll pass tomorrow morning to pick it up"
Izumi rolled her eyes and looked around. If Toga wasn't here, she might as well continue with that 'special project' of hers.
She starts setting up everything to start her work, getting some high quality syringes she had Giran pick for her. There were nothing like the disposable ones she had gotten for Toga a few months ago, being the kind that doctors used in hospitals.
Izumi grabbed a bunch of thin plastic tubes she had also had Giran get for her and began her work. She turned on the furnace, putting a few white feathers and letting it heat up, while putting a bunch of black feathers in the ceramic pot.
When she was satisfied with the heat coming through the furnace, Izumi got her gloves on and wrapped herself in her apron to put the pot into the steaming furnace. The black feathers sizzled as they began to bend and melt into the pot.
With the feathers melting now, Izumi closed the furnace, with a few crows getting closer to the furnace to enjoy its heat.
She started snapping the end points of the syringes, and putting them in the end of the plastic tubes. After she was done, they looked like elongated tubes with needles at the end of them.
Having finished with the tubes for now, she put them aside and got a spare casting sand mold she had prepared beforehand. She then grabbed the shape that she was gonna engrave into the cast: a large knife.
She pressed the knife into each side of the cast, so when she closes it later to pour the hot metal, it lines up symmetrically to form a knife.
After that she only had to wait around an hour for the feathers to be completely melted down, and pour them into the cast. The crows learned already when to pull back when Izumi was working with the furnace and casts.
She left the metal to cool off for the night, as she didn't have time to wait the hours it'd take to cool off. A professional forge would have a special refrigerator to cool it off faster, but though Izumi was proud of the final result of her tools, she was still an amateur and didn't have every piece of machinery of a real forge.
She already could do quite a lot thanks to the crows letting them use their quirked feathers.
On her way back to Musutafu in the shinkansen, Izumi had almost made it a tradition to be on her phone either watching a video from Gentle Criminal and La Brava, or speaking with zoomCEO about the different gadgets and support items they were developing.
zoomCEO: Did you make the pneumatic-suction tubes yet?
BirdKeeper: Still working on it, for the moment I added the pins. Was mostly focused on preparing a new cast.
zoomCEO: OH? ANOTHER BABY FROM YOUR FURNACE!? WHAT S IT DIS TIME?
BirdKeeper: Just trying something new with utensils
zoomCEO: OH COMEON! YOU MADE SUCH A COOL BABYMAKER! TEHRE'S NOTIGN MORE INTERESTIN YOU COULD USE IT FR!?
BirdKeeper: Nope. Sorry :)
zoomCEO: DONT BE LIKE THTA! can you at least show how the tubes ended up?
BirdKeeper: [attatched image]
zoomCEO: OH! THEY LOOK LIKE SUPER THIN BABY IMPERFECT CELL TAILS!1!
BirdKeeper: … thanks, now I'm not going to get that image out of my head
zoomCEO: YUR WELCOME!
Izumi chuckled and shook her head, and prepared to leave the train as it reached her stop.
Next day, Izumi was on her way to the station to get back to the Hunter Cabin and work on a project, yawning from poor sleep. Lanbosu had been annoying her again about improving her grades and getting away from the crows, and she honestly just wanted to relax and bury herself in the comfort of tinkering with her stuff.
Suddenly, she felt a stranger wrap an arm around her shoulders while leaning closer to Izumi. It's a girl she's never met before, and is confused for a moment. Thankfully, because of her training keeping herself calm, she controlled her heart and was able to deduce from the way the girl was smiling and showing her teeth what was going on.
The fact that the crows hadn't warned her was also a dead give away.
"Hi, Senpai"
The smile on Toga's disguise widened to something more akin to what she normally does, and even giggled a bit, releasing Izumi from her arm.
"Tehee~ You noticed~" Even though the voice was different, Toga wasn't putting any effort in hiding her mannerisms.
"Well, I can see Urusai over there, so I didn't have much trouble." Toga pouted and turned to glare at the crow, who cawed with its beak open, laughing, before flying off.
"That little! I'll get him for that!"
"It's good to see you two get along." Izumi said with a smile. "Still, you sneaked up on me without me realizing it. That was impressive"
"Bah, I noticed how Wuji-chan and the others noticed me, so it's not like if they really wanted you wouldn't notice"
"True, I guess." Izumi looked up and down Toga's disguise, then looked around to see if there were cops or heroes around. "You sure it's good to keep… that face on right in the open? If they are searching her maybe it's better if we go somewhere more pri-"
"Yep, because I tried what you told me, and there's no problem~ Check it out~"
Toga closed her eyes and concentrated. Her body became the silverish color of the goo in the middle of a transformation. For a moment Izumi got worried that she was exposing herself, before calming down. She trusted Toga, and she wouldn't just expose herself like that after months hiding from authorities perfectly.
Instead of transforming into a different person or back into her own form, when her body went back to having color, Izumi could see how some of the facial features of the transformation had changed, along with the eye and hair color.
What's up with the clothes? It looks as another set of clothes is overlapping the ones from the previous transfo-
Izumi widened her eyes as she realized what Toga has done.
"You mixed two transformations?"
"Yep yep~" Even her voice had changed, sounding a bit deeper than before, but speaking like the real Toga. "Tried it a bunch of times, but it never worked quite right. Until I mixed two blood sources and realized it counted as a different transformation~!"
Toga excitedly explained the process to Izumi. It had been a question of Izumi if Toga was limited to doing full transformations, since another type of shapeshifting could help her be out in the open without being recognized by the faces of her victims.
Izumi couldn't quite really understand what exactly Toga felt, but the idea of doing partial transformations was very weird to her, as if she was asked to hold some natural process of her body midway.
"So by mixing blood… your quirk interpreted it as a separate transformation?"
"Hehe~ yeah~! Now I can finally be out without a worry~!"
Izumi looked down at the get up, and the strange way that her quirk had overlapped the clothes of the two different blood sources.
"I still can't understand how your work does… clothes, but it seems that it messed them up a bit in the mix"
Toga looked down, picking at the strange overlap of a shirt that had formed from her quirk.
"You are right, they ended up not being so cute… oh, I know! Let's go on an outing Midori-chan~ Get some cuter clothes and act as regular girls~" She said that last like a little kid would mischievously say to act like heroes.
"Eh? An outing? Well, ehm, you see, I was actually on my way to the shinkansen, I have some stuff to do back at the ca-"
"Nuh uh, you do~ I asked Gi-kun and he said you~ were~ completely~ free~"
Izumi made a face, turning away from the disguised Toga to frown at the betrayal of Giran. Was that how he paid her for all the info she and murder fed him?
Toga giggled and grabbed Izumi's hand, dragging her across very easily. They were both thin body types specialized in stealth, but for some reason Toga had much more physical strength than her.
"Come on, come on~ it'll be fun~ we've never hang out during the day outside the cabin~"
"There's a reason for that!" Izumi tried to argue.
"Yep~ and I fixed it~ So come on and let's go~! I still have a lot out of this get up if you know what I mean~"
Izumi could swear Wuji, Urusai and the rest of the crows were laughing at her up from the trees and buildings they were looking down to the two teens from.
Them as well? I'm being betrayed by everyone today!
Despite her protests, Izumi didn't fight back against Toga once, letting her pull her right into that 'normal outing' that was so unfamiliar to her.
Toga ended up bringing Izumi to Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall, and dragged her to the first clothes store she saw. Izumi was practically forced inside a changing room, with Toga getting out and getting back shortly after with a mountain of clothes to try out.
"Eh… I think that's a bit too much, Senpai…"
"Pffffff, come on~ it isn't that much~ Now, now, undress~!"
"Eh?"
"What do you mean 'eh'? Come on~ let's both try them!"
"W-w-what!? I thought you were the one that was going to try them out!"
"And I'm also going to try a bunch, duh, these clothes aren't cute at all" As she said that, her weird overlapping clothes melted off into gray sludge, exposing her nude transformed body. "Come on! Come on! You too!"
Before Izumi could realize what she was doing, Toga was already slipping her out of her clothes, and the taking her Nemean Vest out and grabbing the binder around her chest, pulling on it.
"You also won't be needing this~!"
"W-wait!"
There wasn't a moment she had wished she were wearing the Nemean Vest other than right now, as it would have probably stopped Toga from pulling on the bandages that made Izumi's binder, making her spin in place until Toga put a hand in the way to stop Izumi.
Toga felt a soft bump against her arm as she stopped Izumi, followed by seeing it bounce back in place. The vampire stayed still looking straight at Izumi's surprisingly well hidden secret, while Izumi slowly regained her senses from spinning around.
"Wow, Midori-chan~ you didn't introduce me to these friends of yours~"
Toga cupped Izumi's chest with both her hands and a blush and smirk on her face. Izumi felt her face heat up instantly, and momentarily forgot how to control her breath.
"Th-there was nothing to be introduced to!" The younger teen squealed while getting out of the reach of Toga and covering her chest.
"Come on~ you've seen me naked a few times already~ don't need to be embarrassed~"
"I-I'm not!" Izumi realized that covering her chest was not helping her case at all, and slowly put her hands down. "Just wasn't expecting you to touch them" Izumi's pout only made Toga want to tease her more.
"Sorry~ sorry~ Couldn't help myself~ you shouldn't keep them hiding like that, you look pretty cute~"
Izumi narrowed her eyes at Toga and sighed, going to the pile of clothes to look for a pair of bras to put on.
"They are just a hassle to work around with. Being cute doesn't help when they get on the way from getting a good point of view"
Toga blew a raspberry as Izumi covered her chest in a bra.
"That's no fun. Your only opinion on bodies is how good they are to hunt properly. There's much more to look at than whether it's fit and can move efficiently, you know~?" Toga pointed at her chest and then moved her hands down.
"You just pointed all of yourself"
"Yeah I did~" She looked smug about it, proud of her body, even though she was still disguised into a mix of two people that gave her some sort of androgynous looking form.
"I just was never too interest on those types of things"
Toga looked at Izumi for a while, then hummed, as if she just realized something.
"I think I get it now…" She put a hand on her chin and looked at Izumi up and down.
"What is it?"
"I was just wondering… what do you prefer, the current body I'm wearing, or my regular one"
Izumi furrowed her brow and tilted her head.
"Where did that come from? And I don't know, I don't think I can… give a good answer to that"
"Just try it. Come on, you've seen me nude before~ Don't be shy now~"
Izumi thought about her answer for a while, but she didn't really know what Toga was asking of her. Izumi just didn't care that much about bodies. She knew that was unusual for the way her class started acting when everyone started going through puberty, but Izumi only ever saw it as a mild annoyance.
She understood conventional attractiveness and sex appeal, and thus could somewhat get at what Toga was trying to get at from her. She could lie and say she preferred her true body, though since Toga loves experiencing being in the literal shoes of her prey, that may not even be the correct answer.
But Izumi couldn't bring herself to lie to Toga. They were the same, and even though they were allied and technically didn't owe Toga anything after all the help she's given her… It just wouldn't feel right to not be honest with her.
"To tell you the truth… I don't see much difference between the two. Unlike with other transformations, you aren't playing out a different persona. You are being you. There's no way I could prefer this disguise over your real body, since it's the same"
Toga looked straight at Izumi, those greenish blue eyes of her transformation wide. Izumi could tell Toga was taking what she just said in, analyzing Izumi with the intensity of a predator. She wasn't disturbed or worried about it though, she understood it was Toga's way of taking in information.
Shortly after Toga grinned wide and leapt at Izumi, hugging her and pressing her nude disguised body against her.
"Ow~ you are so sweet~" Izumi didn't acknowledge the fact Toga was hugging her with a naked body, being unbothered by it. "But you still avoided giving a straight answer~ you wise gal~"
Busted…
"Ahem! Is everything alright over there?"
One of the employees of the store had gone to the other side of their changing room to check on them, probably since they were there for a while and kept speaking nonstop.
"Yep yep! Everything is alright~! Just two completely normal girls trying out new clothes~ nothing to worry about~" Toga said, chirpy while still holding Izumi tight in a hug.
"Ok, if you two need anything please don't doubt to ask me or any my colleagues"
"Will do~"
They waited for a moment for the woman to walk away and give them some privacy again.
"You know, saying we are normal girls probably weirded her out a bit more than it would if you didn't. Also stop touching my boobs" Izumi deadpanned as she pulled Toga's hands away.
"But we are tooootally normal girls, aren't we~?" Toga said with a smirk that was so hers, it didn't matter she had a different face now, it suited her perfectly.
Izumi smiled back.
"I guess we are"
Just when Izumi thought she wasn't going to be teased anymore, Toga started trying every single outfit on both of them. Izumi would be lying if she didn't admit that she ended up having a bit of fun, mainly thanks to Toga's company rather than trying dozens of different clothes one after the other.
In the end, Toga forced Izumi to take at least one of the clothes they tried, so Izumi chose a casual lime tank top and white shorts (she also had to get a bra since Toga forbade her from putting the bandages as a binder back on). When Izumi told Toga her reasoning for the tank top being that she could put it on when working in the furnace not not get so hot she wasn't so happy about it, but just sighed and took the small victory of having Izumi wear something other than the Railosu uniform or her hunting clothes.
Toga got a black shirt and a red skirt, wrapping the two into an outfit with a couple of simple black belts. Izumi asked her why she needed two when one did its job well enough, but she only got in response a head shake and that she didn't understand fashion. Since she was right, Izumi didn't argue with her. Along with that, Toga also got some very thigh high black socks and black boots.
The shopkeeper was a bit worried after seeing that Toga wasn't carrying her previous clothes anywhere unlike Izumi who had put them in a bag. They paid (Izumi paid) and then moved on.
"Oh! Look over there! let's get a smoothie!"
"Ahh! You don't need to pull me! I can walk on my own!"
Toga dragged Izumi to a stand in front of the shop, and excitedly asked for a fruity smoothie.
"And what do you want, miss?" The man handling the stand asked Izumi.
"Hmmm… do you have something with chocolate?"
"Uwah~ Do you have a sweet tooth, Midori-chan~?" Toga teased her, making Izumi pout.
"I just like chocolate"
"Haha! That's fine miss, I have chocolate milkshakes if you want that"
"Yeah, that'd be great, thank you"
"Thanks to you, miss"
Izumi went to pay, but Toga got to it first. They moved to a nearby bench to sit on and enjoy their drinks.
"Senpai, where did you get the money from? I thought when you transformed it ate up clothes and everything else you're holding"
Toga showed her a smile full of teeth and showed her a wallet.
"Picked this up on the way to the stand~ Did you think I only got around by blood~? Being stealthy also helps me get things unnoticed~"
Izumi had absolutely no idea how she managed to swipe someone's wallet on their way to the stand, when she had been with Toga all the time, and that was clearly not her wallet.
"Wow, impressive. You'd give some crows a run or their money when taking stuff unnoticed"
"You really think so~?" She giggled, before sucking on the straw of her smoothie. "Hmmm~ you know what this needs~? More sweetness~"
Toga whistled like Izumi had done multiple times before. Urusai appeared shortly after with a juice pack on its beak. He flew right next to the two girls, letting the plastic pack down and leaning into Izumi's hand as she pet him. It happened so fast that with all the background noise of the mall, no one noticed.
"Thanks Uru-chan~"
"Senpai!" He used Izumi's voice to acknowledge her, before flying off.
"I see you two are getting along" Izumi stated while taking a sip of her milkshake.
"Yeah, Uru-chan has been hanging around me lately, and even offered to help me pack my juice when I'm in transformation~"
She opened the pack and poured its contents into her smoothie, grinning and licking her lips as she did so. Toga stirred the content using the straw before sucking on the smoothie again, moaning and humming into it as a blush spread through her face.
Izumi noticed the features of Toga's disguise become stronger. The color of her eyes brighter, her hair softer and her skin smoother.
"Was that the special mix?"
"Uhuh~ How did you know?"
"I noticed the transformation improving as you drank. It's amazing how you managed to actually mix two different people together into a single transformation"
"It was all thanks to your idea, Midori-chan~ I love my quirk, I've been using it as much as I can since I let loose, but it never occurred to me to try mixing blood together~! Tehee~ you have really morbid ideas~"
Izumi was thankful for the mall's usual background noise of chatter and all the people around them. Otherwise she would have reprimanded Toga for speaking so casually about blood.
"I've found out that when you don't have a quirk to experiment with yourself, you tend to ask questions about how others could work"
"Is that how you discovered what you could make with the help of Shiro-kun and Kuro-chan~?"
"Mainly, yeah. Their quirks are unusually strong, I was a bit curious to whether they could do anything more than what Shiro and Kuro were doing"
"Hmm~ hmm~ I never had time to see what else my quirk could do since my parents didn't let me use it… and when I finally got to use it, I was so happy to just use it and become others I didn't realize I could become a completely new person~!"
"I'm happy you figured it out. How exactly does it work though? You said it's like having a new transformation"
"Yep~ yep~ I tried mixing blood from different people together, but it didn't work. This last one worked I think because they both have compatible blood types"
"Oh? Really? You looked into it? I would never have expected that"
Toga pouted and pressed a finger into Izumi's cheek to stop her from enjoying her milkshake.
"Now what's that supposed to mean, Midori-chan? You think I could not have figured that out?"
"No, no. Not that, just that I didn't think you'd look into the medical records of the people you go after. I thought your quirk made you immune to any possible blood transfusion complications or side effects"
"Oh, no, no, I haven't had any problem like that." Toga tilted her head to think about it. "Actually, it hadn't even crossed my mind, I must be immune as you say. Haha~"
"You are taking the revelation that you could have been potentially endangering your health pretty lightly"
"Don't worry~ don't worry~! I'm fine aren't I? That means everything is alright~"
Izumi sighed, shaking her head.
"I guess it is, yeah." She then raised an eyebrow and looked at Toga. "Wait, then how did you know their blood was compatible?"
"Because of the taste, of course"
She said with such a straight face Izumi couldn't even tell whether Toga was joking or being completely serious.
"The… taste?"
"Yeah! Everyone's blood has a different taste, but some have very similar tastes. Like, uhm, how do I explain it…" She blew into her smoothie with the straw, making bubbles on the surface of what was left of it. "Oh! Yeah, it's like different brands of soda!"
"Different brands?"
"Yeah! Every brand of soda tastes differently, but if you drink something without knowing what it is, you could still tell it's soda, just maybe not specifically which of all the brands of soda it is"
"Hmmm, I see. Then that's how you distinguish between all the different blood types? Each one is… like a different drink? And then each person is a different brand?"
"That's exactly it!" Toga's eyes sparkled at her, and even though they weren't the eyes Izumi was used to, they were so distinctly Toga's she could not have confused them for anyone else's.
"Interesting… I wonder where the enhanced taste buds for blood come from if you haven't found any problem when ingesting it… Maybe it's an evolutionary trait to encourage consumption of blood… but if there's taste related to it maybe there's some sort of biological warning against some harmful blood that you co- ack!"
Izumi rubbed her forehead right where Toga had flicked her.
"Neeeeerd~ That doesn't matter~ Blood tastes good, and if there were not tasty blood I wouldn't try it in the first place~!"
Izumi pouted, rubbing her forehead and pouting while drinking more of her milkshake. She saw Urusai along with other crows hop around on top of a stand while looking down on them, clearly laughing.
Izumi took out a 50 yen coin from her pocket, and flashed it around to bring the crows' attention. She then tossed the coin with a flick of her fingers, making it fly overhead, with the crows cawing and flying over to get it, making a few people scream as they tried to evade the crows in their chase for the shiny coin.
"That should get them occupied for a while"
"Hehe~ they are always around with you, huh~?"
"Most of the time, yeah. Probably the only time they aren't around is when I'm in school or in the apartment"
"I see~" Toga sipped on her smoothie until there was nothing left, making a slurping sound as she moved the straw around the cup to get every last drop. "Hmm~ by the way, what was that thing you said you wanted to do at the Hunter Cabin~?"
Izumi turned her head, evading the question. "I didn't say anything"
"That's why I'm asking~ come on~ you doing something cool~? Fixing more of the cabin~?"
"It's… a special project"
"Special~? Hoho~ now I'm even more curious~ Special in what way~?"
"Special in a secret project kind of way~" Izumi teased her back, giving Toga a smug smirk.
"Beeeeeh!" Toga stuck out her tongue. "Come on~ I wanna knooooow~" She shook Izumi from side to side, whining like a little kid. Izumi merely smiled and kept a hand on top of her cup to not spill her milkshake.
"I'll tell you when it's done"
"And when will that be?"
"Just in a few- wait" Izumi's expression hardened as she saw Wuji right in front of them, standing on a handrail.
"What is it?"
"Wuji wants to talk, let's go somewhere private"
Wuji beat his wings, going over to a section of the mall shrouded in shadows, and right into a hallway leading to a public restroom where they could have more of a private conversation without being bothered (mostly).
Izumi finished her milkshake and licked what had spilled into her hand before tossing the cup into a trash can 3 meters away from her without even looking at it. Toga flicked hers into it after getting closer, and then hopped her way next to Izumi as they went to the hallway.
Waiting for them wasn't only Wuji, but Urusai, Gorogoro, Kuro and a few other crows.
"Did something happen?" Toga said, her smile dropping, noticing something serious had to have happened for so many of them being here while a moment ago there were just three crows at the mall with them.
"Someone" asking for "Karasu" Said Wuji, while one of the other crows hopped forward.
"The client told of a target?"
"Caw!" Yes.
They heard someone pull the chain inside the restroom, and got quiet, waiting for them to get out of the restroom and find a strange sight of two teens and a bunch of crows.
"Byee~" Toga said, showing a smirk full of teeth and narrowing her eyes. The poor guy shrank on himself and left the hallway.
"What's the matter then? Usually you inform Giran as well of things like this." Izumi narrowed her eyes. "Or is Hawks following you again?"
"No" problem is "target"
"He's still messing with you guys? Think he'd learnt his lesson after being shat on while being interviewed" Toga shook her head, giggling at the memory. She had seen Urusai leave that little present herself.
Izumi meanwhile had her mind elsewhere. The target is the problem? Was another hero trying to employ her to go after Toga-senpai again? Izumi looked at Toga, worried about the strange insistence that the heroes had to get over her. Or perhaps was someone going against Giran? He had enough enemies for someone wanting Karasu to turn on him.
"Diana" Izumi looked back at the crow that received the message. "Target. Is. Diana"
"Wait, but isn't Diana your other-?"
"Yes"
Toga had a dark glint on her eyes, the very same she got when she was stalking her prey.
"Then they are up to a big surprise. Who would even want to go after you?"
"There's only one person that wants to see Diana dead." She turned to look at Toga, face completely serious, heart controlled and breathing steady. "You remember him, right?"
"Ooooooh, that guy. Yeah, he looked like an idiot"
"Yes. I'll tell Giran about this. He isn't going to get away with pulling this kind of shit. Stepping on another hunter's business like this? The Order isn't going to be happy"
Toga smirked, as they left the hallway, the crows flying over them.
"Soooo, what are you gonna do?"
"Well, I did tell Bullseye that he wouldn't get a warning next time. So I'm going to go pay him a visit"
Toga smirked, and clung to Izumi as they made their way out of the mall. Just two normal girls enjoying going for an outing.
Two predators living among their prey. And it was time for one of them to clean up her territory.