G'day g'day!

Hope that you all had a great week!

I really really really really really love Kiriko, so I wrote a thing that included her.

Enjoy!

Edward Fyre flopped onto his bed, the bruise around his eye already turning a dark purple.

He groaned in pain as the springy mattress pushed against his battered body, pulling his phone out of his pocket and placing it on his bedside table. Even that small motion caused him to wince, and he tried to clench his eyes, only for the newly forming black eye to close weirdly, sending a shiver down his spine.

Edward was alone in his house right now, his parents out doing their jobs and his younger sister, Marceline, off at her new primary school… Or whatever they called it in Japan, he couldn't remember it exactly. His family had only lived in Japan for a month or two now, moved here by his parent's work and the schooling opportunities Japan had for him. And he wasn't having a great time… Especially today..

He barely spoke any Japanese, he had been moved away from all of his friends at school, and now he was even getting targeted by Yakuza thugs on his way back from his university, who had mugged him for all the cash he had on hand.

That wasn't exactly a lot of money, he would begrudgingly admit. He had an allowance, but when the majority of his free time outside of working towards his exhausting engineering doctorate went towards helping keep the house they lived in from falling apart and tinkering with technology while his parents worked long into the night, itsimply meant that he didn't have the time or energy to add a job onto that schedule as well.

But still!

He had -in broad daylight, no less- been pulled into an alleyway by some goons, yelled at with words he couldn't understand, and then robbed at knifepoint! And then, when he had a burst of courage and was -admittedly- a little snarky when he handed over the money, he had gotten a beating for his troubles!

And to make it even worse, the only thing he had even understood from all their yelling at him was a single word, said with so much misplaced pride and arrogance that he could only assume it was the name of whatever gang/squad/mafia/yakuza they were a part of, one that had been becoming more and more of a problem in his neighbourhood since they moved here.

'Hashimoto.'

He had also thought he heard something about a 'toilet' in some of their yelling, but Japanese was hard, and 'where is the toilet' was one of the only phrases he could confidently say at this point, so it might have just been him latching onto a similar word. Or maybe they had threatened to pee on him and called him a toilet or something.

He had no bloody clue, and it pissed him the hell off.

Groaning, he sat up in his bed and reached into the top drawer of his bedside table, bringing out some leftover painkillers he had gotten from his doctor back in England before his parents had dragged him and his sister halfway across the globe at the drop of a hat. He popped two of them out of the packet, threw a hoodie on from the pile of dirty laundry at the foot of his bed, and left his bedroom with the hood up.

He was fairly certain that he was the only one home at the moment, but he didn't want to make it clear that he had been beaten up if his sister was still home. He wandered through their house with the hood up, heading towards the lounge room.

He fell back onto the couch when he reached it, throwing his feet on the coffee table in front of him and grabbing the TV Remote. Their new house was smaller than their old one back in England, but it was still quite nice. 'Not nice enough to have my whole life uprooted, though…'

Edward frowned as the TV came on in the middle of an ad break. While live TV kinda sucked nowadays, he didn't really have the energy at the moment to change the TV over to a streaming service…

Live TV was good enough to turn his brain off and watch until he fell asleep.

"And they were called… OVERWATCH!"

Jolting from the sudden burst of noise, Edward sat up on the couch. He blinked some sleep out of his eyes even as he looked around, the sky outside being almost pitch black, showing that he had obviously been out for a good while. Groaning he realised that he had fallen asleep way earlier than he had intended to, and probably just royally screwed his circadian rhythm… What was left of it, anyway…

"Many criticisms have been levelled against Overwatch in recent years, and many of them are well-founded. But when we look at the history of the organisation, it is important to remember what it was made to stand for, and what these brave heroes signed up for."

Turning back to the TV, he reached for the remote, about to turn it off and go to bed, when he realised what was on. Edward knew about Overwatch, of course. There wasn't a kid on the planet who hadn't wanted to become a superhero like them when they were little… But he also knew that they had been disbanded by the governments of the world a while back for having a bunch of shady stuff going on with them.

"These were people who had been through terrible accidents, lifelong experiments, and even those who fought in war, coming together with a common goal: To protect those in need, and to thwart those who threatened them. Against all of the odds, they helped end the Omnic Crisis, have defeated criminals like the legendary Doomfist, and worked alongside emergency services the world over to save countless lives from natural disasters, just to name a few of their exploits."

Edward watched the clips that the documentary showed, often shoddy footage taken from someone's phone, some victim of the crisis at hand. Tracer's teleportation was the most obvious, flashy power out of any of the clips, but there was also Winston, Commander Morrison, and more whose names escaped him.

Something bloomed in his chest as he watched the clips, the voice of the narrator falling to the wayside. Overwatch… They were created to help people, to protect people from those who would abuse or threaten them, right? His hand rose to press gently against the bruise on his cheek, and he let out a deep breath.

Could… Could he do something like that here? The Hashimoto Family was a threat to the safety of all the good people around this area, and the police were either overwhelmed by them or, at least partially paid off by the gang. If there was anywhere that needed someone to protect it, wouldn't it be here?

He swallowed, looking down at his bruises. He wasn't super fit or strong. He could try to work out, try to bridge that gap, and while he would never have the stamina of Commander Morrison, the strength of Winston, the agility of Genji, or the superpowers of Tracer… He was smart.

He'd been smart his whole life, and more than just smart, he was good at making things. How many people on Overwatch's roster didn't have powers, but used some kind of technology? The one that came to mind first was his personal favourite, Reinhardt. He was a behemoth of a man, but all of his 'powers' were a part of his armour or hammer…

Edward couldn't help but laugh softly to himself as he realised what exactly he was planning to do, running a hand up his face and through his hair. Was he really considering this? There was no way he was really going to do this, right?

Even as he thought that, however, his eyes drifted towards the staircase behind him, up to where his sister was probably sleeping, and where his parents would have been sleeping if they were home. That wasn't the question he should be asking himself… The real question was far simpler.

Could he really live with himself if he could help but didn't, and the Hashimotos hurt someone he cared about? Edward closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and releasing it slowly. When he opened his eyes, he was met with the TV showing him an old poster of Tracer giving a two-fingered salute, winking at the camera with her signature phrase at the bottom of the screen.

"The world could always use more heroes!"

He didn't know for sure if someone like Tracer would approve of him initially getting into this whole 'being a hero' thing because he wanted to punch those Hashimoto fucks who mugged him in the face, but… There was also nothing saying that she wouldn't, right?

So he knew what he had to do.

"This is Officer Shizuka. What is the nature of your emergency?"

Edward finished adjusting the mask he was wearing, taking a deep breath and slamming the 'on' button. He had expected the police to take more time to pick up the phone, and he hadn't fully prepared yet. The HUD lit up, and he started to speak.

"Officer Shizuka. Head down the third alleyway to your right, and you will find a man attacking a young woman. Hurry."

He spoke in English, but he could hear the mask repeating his words in Japanese, the voice pitched down enough to be completely unrecognisable. He heard the officer sounding confused on the other side of the phone, and when he looked up at the computer screen in front of him, he could see them starting to rush down the alleyway that would usually be hidden from the street cameras…

The public ones, at least.

Edward glanced over to one of the myriad blueprints he had pinned to his corkboard in the last few months since he had been mugged. The one he was looking at in particular was for his hidden cameras, which he had placed all around the city in places that neither the police nor the Hashimotos should be able to find them.

Actually building his own net of cameras to catch criminals in the act so that he could report them to the police in real time had, so far, been the easy part. The hard part was designing the program they ran on to alert him when movement was detected and if it was something he needed to call about, placing them high up and out of sight, as well as discreetly wiring them into the building's power grids.

Edward smiled as he watched Officer Shizuka take down the guy who was beating the woman in the alleyway, tackling him to the ground and arresting him. Officer Shizuka had been his go-to for a while now, as they had proved themselves willing to outright arrest Hashimoto family members, where some others he had tipped off hadn't.

There was nothing else happening on any of his other active cameras at the moment, so Edward got to his feet, unhooking the Auto-Translating Voice Changer -or the ATVC, as he called it- from his face and laying it on his desk. He'd already been working on technology to bridge the language gap for his final project at school, and in recent months, he'd been able to adapt the technology to change the tone and pitch of his voice as well.

Rolling his shoulders, he groaned as his sore muscles twinged a little, as if telling him off for abusing them. Ever since the day he had been mugged, or at least since the day he recovered from that beating, he had been pushing himself, working out as much as possible.

There were even a couple of devices strewn around his room designed to assist him with his efforts to become stronger, from specialised resistance bands to weights, even to the undershirt he was wearing at the moment that stimulated his muscles almost constantly, even while sitting at school. He would never have been able to make as much progress as he had so quickly without his technology…

He understood that such fervent energy towards becoming stronger wasn't exactly something that would be necessary for someone whose main form of 'heroics' was just tipping the police off about crimes. But he was doing it anyway, because just being an informant was not where he was planning to stop.

Glancing over to his other desk, one that he was using more as a workbench than anything else, he grinned at the gauntlets, boots, and helmet sitting atop it. It would only be a little while longer before he would be ready to start doing more. He didn't just want to be the man in the chair…

He was going to be a hero.

"Help me!"

Edward's head turned towards the voice that echoed up from one of the alleyways nearby as he sat atop the roof of a building. His HUD was already trying to locate where the voice had come from as he started moving, the boots on his feet making his movements almost silent.

Eventually, his HUD pinged a specific alleyway, and he leapt over towards it, his gauntlets starting to glow with a dim blue light. As he held them out to the wall, small bursts of electricity zapped between his hands and the wall as the electromagnet in them helped to repel him, stopping him from slamming into the wall.

Gravity overtook him again a moment later, and he fell down from the top of the alleyway quickly, his body instinctively bending his knees and preparing for impact… Only for him to land without said impact, his boots clunking as the Kinetic Energy Redirection System within them absorbed the energy from the fall, keeping him from being hurt.

His HUD immediately switched to a night-vision mode as he reached the bottom of the alleyway where the streetlights didn't quite reach, and he could easily see the tacky leather jacket and slicked back hair of the Hashimoto family member, alongside the man he had been about to attack as if it was the middle of the day.

"What the-"

"-Get out of here."

He cut the Hashimoto thug off and motioned for the victim to run away… And the man got to his feet and sprinted out of the alleyway, passing by Edward with a muffled 'thank you.' As he did so, the Hashimoto thug cried out in anger, the katana he was holding shifting in his hands to be more like a bat as he rushed at Edward, about to strike him.

"And just who the fuck do you think you are, you basta- Gah!"

Once more, Edward didn't let the Hashimoto thug speak, getting the gist of what he was saying as his mask translated for him. His boots clunked again as they released the kinetic energy they had stored within them, and he had to stop himself from yelping as he dashed forward faster than the thug could react.

He ducked under the katana -how the hell did a thug like this get an actual, sharp-edged sword?!- and threw his arm forward, the gauntlet he was wearing slamming into the man's face, sending him crashing to the ground, out like a light. Edward winced as his wrist twinged a little in pain, the force of his punch hurting him as well.

But it was better than punching the thug without his gauntlet's wrist support, because if he didn't have it, he probably would have sprained or broken it. He was still getting used to the actual combat side of being a vigilante, having literally never fought someone before a month or two ago in his entire life.

His tech made up the difference most of the time, but he would probably need to start some kind of martial arts class if he wanted to do more than ambush lone thugs going off and causing trouble on their own. Pulling out a burner phone, he scrambled the number and texted it to the police, footage of the Hashimoto attacking him attached.

Now all he had to do was wait until the police arrived-

"Huh… Nice work."

Edward let out a rather embarrassing shriek of surprise as a voice spoke out from behind him, spinning to face them and raising his fists into something akin to a boxer's stance out of instinct, his gauntlets glowing again. Before he could attack the newcomer, however, he realised that it wasn't a Hashimoto Family member… Or at least if they were, they were really not following the dress code.

"GAH!"

She was a little shorter than he was, with green hair, and she was dressed in something he could only call a modernised 'Shrine Maiden' outfit. There were a couple of Kunai sitting in a holster on her hips and thighs, and a visor cap with fox ears on her head. But what struck him most was her ever-so-slightly glowing green eyes and the confident smirk on her face as she nudged the Hashimoto thug with her foot.

"Woah, dude, calm down. Just appreciating the handiwork. Could have been a touch smoother on the execution, but that was a pretty good hit."

Edward realises that the Kunai are probably more than just for show at her words, his hands dropping from their combat-ready state. He held out one of his hands to shake. "Thank you, I guess. I'm, uh… Actually, I probably shouldn't introduce myself, should I?"

The girl snorted, shaking her head at him. "No, I don't reckon that you should. But do as I say, and not as I do. I'm Kiriko. It's good to see someone else has the spirit to fight back against the Hashimoto Family… It was getting stressful carrying all of Kanezaka on my back."

She held her hand out to grab his, but paused as she got close. Edward realised the electromagnet in the gauntlet was still activated, and quickly shut it off. He didn't want to accidentally electrocute someone who wasn't a Hashimoto…

"Anyway, if you've got this area covered, I'll probably just go and wander around the east side a little more, try and search for some trouble to get into. Just go ahead and give me a scream like you did before if you need my help!"

Then, before Edward could do anything, she put her hands together as if praying… And then literally vanished. And not in the 'cloaking technology' kind of way or the 'smoke bomb' kind of way, either. She vanished in the 'they just teleported right in front of him' kind of way. He stared at the spot where she had vanished with his mouth open wide in shock.

His shock was interrupted when he heard police sirens starting to get closer, and he remembered that he would get in trouble as well if he were found, especially if the officers that arrived were on the Hashimoto family's payroll. Turning to the wall, his gauntlets activated again, the soft blue light intensifying as he placed his hands near the wall.

The electromagnetic energy they emitted helped his hands stick to the wall, and he quickly started to pull himself up the side of the alleyway, getting over the edge of the building's roof right as the police entered the alleyway to find the unconscious Hashimoto thug.

As he heard the police doing their work, he leaned back up against an air conditioning unit at the top of the roof, with what he could only assume was a goofy smile under his mask. He had a fellow vigilante working against the Hashimoto Family, and she had actual superpowers…

God, that was cool as fuck!

Edward yawned as Marceline dragged his hand forward.

It was the weekend, and even though he was exhausted from his patrol the night before, he had promised her that he would take her to the local market. He could have lifted her into the air at this point with ease, but he allowed himself to be dragged along through the crowds of people.

His parents had promised to come as well, but they hadn't even come home last night to sleep, so he was fairly certain they had bailed on coming with the two of them. 'That's alright, I've been keeping an eye on her for so long now it's like second nature to me… Wait, where did she go?!'

Edward's eyes went wide as he looked down at his hand and saw that his sister had vanished somewhere. Panic thrummed through him, and he cupped his mouth with his hands, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. "Marcy? Marceline, where did you go?!"

He looked around frantically as he tried to figure out where she had gone… And then he saw a green pool noodle rise above the crowd near one of the market stalls, waving wildly whenever he called out Marcy's name. Crossing his fingers as he hoped he was getting the right signal from that, he darted over and let out a sigh of relief so potent it almost made his knees collapse out from under him as he saw her sitting on a stool, lollipop in her mouth.

"Oh, thank god… Marcy, you shouldn't run off like that, okay? You scared me."

Marceline didn't look guilty in the slightest as she spoke, clearly far too pleased with the lollipop she had been given to have any regrets. "It's okay! The nice lady made sure I was safe. Also, she gave me a lollipop, so I love her now."

Raising his head, Edward looked up to thank the stall owner for keeping an eye on his sister, trying to stifle a laugh at her words. As he met the green eyes of the person behind the counter, however, he froze for a moment.

It was the girl from a few nights ago, Kiriko… His fellow vigilante.

She wasn't wearing the same outfit, of course, instead dressed in something he would call sporty-casual, but she still had the same headband on, and he could see the subtle weight in her jacket where her kunai were probably sitting. He didn't know when he started being able to spot things like that, but fighting people almost every night seemed to have a tendency to make him more aware of his surroundings.

She was giving him a small smile, but there was no look of recognition in her eyes. He let out a silent sigh of relief as he remembered that he had been wearing his helmet last time and using a voice modulator, so it was unlikely that she would be able to tell that he was the vigilante she had run into… Hopefully.

Bowing his head to her like he was fairly certain he was supposed to, he attempted to speak in Japanese, his pronunciation still a little sloppy after all this time, having not really had time to focus on learning the language with all of his other… Activities. "Thank you. For keep sister safe, friend."

Kiriko snorted at him, covering her mouth to 'hide' her laughter, and she nodded once, reaching down to ruffle Marcy's hair. Marcy seemed plenty happy to allow her to do so, which probably tracked with the whole 'loving her now' thing. She then surprised him a little, talking back with similarly choppy English.

"No worry. She cute."

Edward couldn't help but smile as he reached out to shake her hand. Something in the action must have sparked something, however, because with the action, he saw Kiriko's eyes widen ever so slightly as she reached out to clasp her hand in his. Then, her eyes narrowed, and there was a question within them that he could understand even with the language barrier.

He shook his head softly, keeping the smile on his face. He wasn't there to cause trouble, and there were no Hashimoto around at the moment. She hummed, continuing to shake his hand, and then nodded back sharply.

Before they could do anything else, however, Marcy spoke up from beside him, having watched the entire interaction with a confused look on her face. "Ed, why are you holding her hand and doing that weird stuff with your eyes? Do you love her now, too, or something? Gasp! But she didn't even give you a lollipop?!"

Edward and Kiriko separated quickly at that, and Edward went a little red as he shook his head, waving goodbye to Kiriko. She was staring at him with a raised eyebrow and an absurdly smug smirk on her face, and Edward groaned.

"Marcy, what did I tell you about saying stuff like that around girls?"

His sister just shrugged her shoulders, taking the lollipop out of her mouth for a moment as she smiled up at him, the very picture of innocence… A picture he didn't believe. "I don't remember, but Dad did say it was my job as your sister to embarrass you in front of them."

"Gah! So you even know what you're doing!"

Edward let out a scandalised gasp at that, getting her in a gentle headlock and noogying her head as she let out a squeal of laughter. She squirmed out of his grip and started running, and this time he was able to follow her even as she sprinted, his efforts to get stronger and faster having borne fruit.

'Ugh, she shouldn't say stuff like that lightly. Damn you, Dad…"

"So… Come here often?"

Kiriko looked just as unimpressed with his line as he felt with it… But he didn't really have a better way to say hi, since they had run into each other by complete accident on top of a warehouse where a Hashimoto drug deal was about to happen.

"Wow… Do you use that one on all the girls you go crime-fighting with?"

He cringed a little, holding a hand up in surrender, making it clear to her that he knew just how bad it was. She laughed, shaking her head as she sat down next to him, leaning up against the air conditioning unit he was leaning against.

He hadn't expected to see her tonight, but he assumed that she had been following the same leads that he had been for the past week or so if she was here right now. They weren't exactly running scared, but he had seen a marked difference in how the lower-tier Hashimoto guys conducted their business since he and Kiriko both started working against them.

Leaning into his personal space a bit, she glanced down at the digital screen he had flipped up from the newly added forearm section of his gauntlets, as he had expanded how much of his arm they covered since the last time she had seen him. His boots were similarly expanded, with full leg protection and increased storage capacity for the kinetic energy they absorbed.

"Anyway, what have you got set up this time, Tech Guy?"

Edward snorted at the nickname, motioning towards the screen on his arm. Neither of them had 'superhero names' yet, but he had a couple of ideas in mind. It didn't help that most of the Hashimoto guys he had fought didn't really care to help him workshop the names while he fought them.

"I've got a couple of cameras set up around the warehouse. Once the last one has reached its position, I should have full coverage and be able to catch them in the act. Then I was planning on beating them up and leaving them for the police."

He switched to the final camera's feed and heard Kiriko let out a hum of appreciation as she saw that it was actually moving into position. He'd only recently finished designing cameras that he could pilot, using the same technology in his gauntlets and boots to allow them to stay stuck anywhere he needed them.

This camera, in particular, was heading to the roof of the warehouse to make sure that he got the deal going down from every possible angle, and they couldn't feign innocence because he never got footage of the drugs, or something. The Hashimoto family had plenty of money to pay lawyers -and judges- great amounts to keep their people out of jail…

But each instance that either Kiriko or he got the police involved made it harder and more expensive for them to do so.

Kiriko nodded at his plan, glancing down from the skylight into the warehouse itself. He would have wondered if she saw anyone entering, but right now he could see the whole place and knew for a fact that there was no movement yet.

"It's a good plan, I'll give you that. You mind if I butt in and beat some up myself? I know the West side is your turf, but…"

Edward couldn't help but laugh at that. They had been running into each other for the last few months, ever since that first meeting, and they had kind of split the city in two. Kiriko got East Kanezaka, and he got West Kanezaka. It helped him consolidate his cameras and get even better coverage, and she apparently felt a lot better, not having to spread 'the fox spirit's power' over such a large area.

He wasn't quite sure if the 'fox spirit' was a real thing, but… He had seen her just outright teleport at will before. That was a pretty good argument that she had something backing her up, because even one of the world's finest minds -Symmetra- could only do teleportation with a giant device that opened a portal. Kiriko just kinda vanished whenever she wanted to…

"You really think I'm gonna turn down the help?"

Kiriko just laughed softly at that, shaking her head. She punched his shoulder lightly, grinning at him. "Nope, just thought it polite to ask. While your martial arts need work, at the very least, you have a good head on your shoulders. You're too smart to send me on my way."

He nodded and was about to reply when his gauntlet beeped. Both of their attention was immediately on the screen, where the highlighted outlines of a couple of Hashimoto thugs were arriving from either side of the warehouse. Edward immediately reached out to place his hand on Kiriko's wrist, stopping her from teleporting in.

"Hold on, they'll have a harder time winning their eventual court case if we let them do the deal first and then jump them."

Kiriko didn't say anything, but she didn't teleport, either. He knew she was even less fond of the Hashimoto family than he was, but it was never so bad that it distracted her. He found that admirable. Honestly, she was impressive on so many levels that he had really come to-

Shaking his head, he frowned and returned his focus to the screen on his gauntlet. This was not the time for getting distracted. Kiriko was watching the screen like a hawk as well, clearly ready to go and itching to fight.

He tapped through a couple of screens as the Hashimoto thugs postured with each other for a moment, before they exchanged was full of what he could only assume to be ingredients for more drugs, and the other was filled with bricks made from white powder within sandwich bags.

'Jackpot.'

As soon as the handoff was made, Edward saved the recording, a small beep escaping his wrist. Standing up, he reached down to his belt and grabbed a small cylinder, snapping it outwards to extend it into the baton he used to fight.

His gauntlets were good, but he'd quickly found that he didn't have the affinity for hand-to-hand combat that he would have liked to have. Especially when the Hashimoto thugs had this kind of numbers advantage… He wasn't used to fighting so many people at once, but he did have Kiriko backing him up, and his electrified stun baton and the taser on his hip would most likely make those issues negligible.

Nodding to Kiriko, he slid open the skylight window at the top of the warehouse and jumped down, extending his legs and preparing his boots to absorb the impact.

"Good evening, lads! Got room for one more?"

Edward grunted as he fell back onto his butt, his head pounding in his skull.

He could feel bruises forming all over his body, and there was a searing chill in his gut. He was fairly certain he had been shot. It was hard to tell, with the fighting having been so chaotic. He really should have prioritised designing full-body armour, but the technology in his boots and gauntlets had been so complex…

Ah, he had gotten distracted again. What was he doing? Right, bleeding out in a random warehouse at the edge of Kanezaka. He'd have to get back to focusing on that, the movies always made this stuff seem like the kind of thing that deserved your full attention.

He was a bit embarrassed that he had been shot after giving such a fun one-liner at the start of the fight, but he had taken out almost his entire 'half' of the thugs without Kiriko's assistance before he had taken the bullet.

Glancing around, he saw Kiriko tying up the last of the Hashimoto, a smile on her face. He was glad to see it; she was always super pretty, but there was nothing like seeing her after a good fight… Something about them made her glow.

As soon as she finished tying the goon up, however, she turned to look at him and froze.

He didn't even see her do her usual hand sign, but she was on him as soon as he blinked. Either she could teleport without doing the hand sign this whole time and just did it for style points, or he was closing his eyes for way longer than he thought he was. He almost hoped that she was just trying to be stylish, and this time it wasn't just because that would make her even cuter than normal.

"Woah, dude! Shit, stay still. I've got you, I've got you."

Edward was about to say something, probably something pretty stupid and cheesy, if he was being honest, but the words in his mouth ground to a halt as Kiriko pulled out one of the Ofuda he had seen her making once, placing it on the gunshot wound.

"Kiriko? What's going on? The police will be here soon, just go."

She shot him a glare, her eyes looking towards where his own would be, instead of where the camera on the front of the helmet was. He was about to raise his hands in surrender, but he didn't want to move and interrupt whatever she was doing. After a moment, he saw her praying, and the Ofuda started glowing with a blue-green light, akin to the light that appeared when she teleported.

"Just… Shut up for a second, man. I promise you'll be fine."

As if responding to her words, he suddenly felt a shot of invigoration flood through him, all coming from the Ofuda. He watched in amazement as it continued to glow, the feeling of his body stitching itself back together accompanying the light.

After a moment or two, most of his pain was gone -his bruises included- and Kiriko rose from her kneeling position. Somehow, when she reached down to help him up, he had plenty of strength to spare as he grabbed her hand and jumped to his feet.

"Woah… Did you just… Heal me? I didn't even know you could do that! Wow, you definitely just saved my life, Kiriko! I… Gods… Thank you!"

He was rushing forward and crushing her in a hug before he knew it, and surprisingly enough, she responded with gusto, digging her face into his shoulder. "Of course, dude. You're… You've become pretty darn important to me, and, uh, there was no way you were getting to quit the fight just because some thug shot you, right?"

They stayed silent for a moment, but neither of them moved. Even when the police sirens started to be able to be heard, Kiriko didn't release him. He was about to tell her that they needed to move when his entire vision was filled with the blue-green light, a feeling of warmth around him.

Then, he was somewhere else, with Kiriko's arms still around his shoulders. The roof was slightly slanted, and he stumbled for a moment, but found his feet before he dragged her down with him. "Kiriko… Are you okay?"

Kiriko was silent for a little while, but nodded. After a short time of him just standing there, letting her think, she pulled back a little. "I'm alright, it's just… I'm glad I was able to help you. There's been… I've not had the chance to do that very often, especially not for people I care about."

He was stunned silent by her words, and while he was, she reached her hands up to his helmet, placing them on either side of it. "Could I… Could I take this off your face for a second? Would that be okay?"

He just nodded dumbly. He knew his area of Kanezaka pretty well by now, especially the rooftops, so he knew that it was hard as hell to be able to see up the top of the building Kiriko had taken them to from anywhere but a nearby skyscraper's topmost floors. "Yes, but… I won't be able to understand you while it's off, unless you plan to just stick to, uh, beginner phrases. My helmet has a translation device in it."

Kiriko snorted at that, shaking her head. "You struggle more than anyone I know to learn the language, but you're somehow entirely capable of building a device that knows it pretty much fluently. You really are something else…"

He took that as the compliment it was -probably- supposed to be, and nodded his head. He felt the pressure of her hands lifting his helmet and held his head down as much as possible, letting her slip it off his head. He gulped as he finally met her eyes somewhere other than the market stall she helped her mother run… And then Kiriko spoke.

"Anata wa bakada... Demo anata wa watashi no bakada…"

He obviously couldn't understand what she was saying, other than the fact that she was calling him an idiot of some kind… But he didn't need to understand her words. The fact that she followed them up by leaning forward, dragging him down to her height, and pressing her lips against his own made it quite clear what she meant.

He melted into the kiss, his hand coming to wrap around the back of Kiriko's waist to hold her tightly, the contented hum that escaped him being muffled by her mouth. Eventually, she pulled back from him, a smile on her face.

He knew for sure that the smile on his face was just as goofy as hers was, if not a great deal more so… Leaning forward, he bumped his forehead against her own, letting out a heavy sigh of relief.

"I, uh, thank you, Kiriko. While this is probably just a tad bit late at this point…"

He reached down and grabbed his helmet off of her, placing it back onto his head and watching as the HUD initialised, the translation feature coming back online. "My name is Edward, for the record. We're kinda taking this whole 'us' thing in a bit of a weird order, but I don't think I can bring myself to mind."

Kiriko just smiled at him, reaching up to drag the helmet off of him again, and then grabbed his collar and pulled him into another kiss. She grinned as she pulled back again, and this time she spoke in English, clearly having been practising since their first meeting in the market, at how much she had improved. "You know what? I don't think I can either."

Edward could only grin again, and this time he initiated the kiss, feeling Kiriko wrap her arms around his shoulders again. He felt like he had wanted this for way longer than even he had realised, and as he pulled back from the kiss, he couldn't help but laugh.

Kiriko raised an eyebrow at him, making it clear that if he was directing this laughter at her, then he would be in a world of hurt for it. Edward just shook his head, still laughing. "I promise, you're fine… It's just… Gods, Marceline is going to be insufferable when I introduce you to her as my girlfriend."

She just stared at him for a moment… And then burst out laughing as well, her forehead coming to rest on his shoulder. "At least I know she likes me already… You know she comes to say 'hi' every time you come to the market? She learnt the Japanese word for 'lollipop' just so she could call me 'the lollipop girl', I think."

Edward snorted at that, and this time, when he sat back, he did drag her down with him, ending up with them lying next to each other, looking up at the sky. They stayed like that for a moment, until eventually Kiriko sat up straight, reaching over to grab his gauntleted arm.

He let her, now sure what she was doing, but as she popped open the screen on the gauntlet, he realised what she was after. "Oh, right."

They both watched via his cameras as the entire group of Hashimoto thugs were arrested by the police with ease -it made the police's job pretty easy when the criminals were already unconscious and/or tied up- and Edward even saw Officer Shizuka leading the charge, so he was fairly certain this arrest would stick for this group…

Especially since there was a USB drive with the entire recording of the drug handoff being dropped into Officer Shizuka's hands right this second by one of his camera-drones before it scampered off in the direction he assumed Kiriko had taken them.

Kiriko herself seemed ecstatic to see their success, and leaned over to gently bump her forehead into his, flopping back onto the roof beside him once she had done so. She said nothing, and neither did he, merely finding her hand with his own as he stared up at the stars.

He had no clue about what would be next for them, what battles they would have to be a part of in the future, but with Kiriko by his side…

Edward felt like he could take on the world.

Hello!

Thank you for reading my shameless Kiriko simping fic. This was literally born from me simping for Kiriko and my friends telling me to just write an OC/Kiriko fic if I was so down bad for her.

So I did.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know in the comments what you thought?

This will stay a oneshot, honestly, but I had a lot of fun writing this!