"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Shisei shouted moving to position himself in between Kaguna and Mikumo. "Let's all calm down! I'm sure there's a proper explanation for this, right? Both of you."
Behind Shisei, Kaguna dangled loosely from a dragon's mouth, gun on both hands aimed towards Mikumo as sharp, glistening teeth threatened to puncture his torso.
Mikumo raised an eyebrow wondering if the dragon's chomp was faster than the man pulling his trigger.
"Mikumo, can you please let go of your coworker? And Kaguna, drop your guns." Shisei acted as calmly as he could with Haruse standing as stiff as a statue to the side.
Bang!
Suddenly the side door was slammed open, catching everyone by surprise.
"Is Toho-san back yet?!"
With a hurried shout, a hooded figure rushed in carrying another, unconscious, hooded figure into the bar.
He sounds like Akane-san.
Mikumo thought to himself as he gave Kaguna a warning glance and lowered the man back to the ground but kept the dragon on standby. In response, Kaguna stiffly nodded at him and lowered his gun, still keeping it in his hands as he eyed the dragon warily.
"We got separated midway. Is he back yet?" The hooded figure let down his hood and threw his mask on the table as he set down the other hooded figure on a chair.
It really is Akane-san.
"What happened?"
Seemingly having forgotten the issue with Mikumo and Kaguna, Shisei went straight towards Akane and lifted the other hooded man's cloak, revealing a recently closed up scar which had yet to completely disappear.
"We got ambushed by heroes as soon as we arrived at sector 14. Toho-san stayed back to distract them and gave us time to escape." Akane muttered grimly. "Somebody probably ratted us out."
"Didn't I tell you to stop overthinking?" Shisei berated as he checked the body for more injuries. "Don't arrive at drastic conclusions without enough evidence."
"But, if no one alerted the heroes of our existence, then why were they there right when we happened to pass by?" Akane tried to stress out his point, only to receive a sigh directed at him.
"Let's talk about this in my office." Shisei shook his head as he stood up. "For now, get Akira to his room to rest."
And with the exit of the three from the bar, the other three looked at each other hesitantly.
Haruse was the first to break contact, smiling awkwardly, muttering about having to give his sister a call and left, leaving Kaguna and Mikumo by themselves.
How did he know?
Mikumo was contemplating how to ask but the stiff and awkward atmosphere made him unable to open his mouth. Fortunately, Kaguna was the first to break the tension.
"Hey, sorry about earlier. I should've known better than to say your kill count out loud. That was uncalled for of me." Kaguna said and bowed deeply as he apologized. "The truth is, my quirk let's me see the kill count of every person I see!"
"..." Mikumo bit his lip, not knowing how exactly he should proceed with this situation. Does he accept the apology? But the damage had already been done and he still didn't know how to face Shisei-san later. So should he disregard the apology? That would kinda be a dick move and would further solidify his bad impression of being a murderer. Neither choice really appealed to him.
So he did none of them.
"Cool quirk. Would've been helpful for police work."
"..." Kaguna stared at the boy strangely. "My dad said that too."
"Oh... I killed my dad."
"Me too."
...
Mikumo laid in his bed, quietly fiddling with a phone he recently got from his most recent kill, which, 'til this day, he still didn't know the name of.
Fortunately, the guy wasn't really connected to much shady stuff which might get his phone tracked so, after reformatting, downloading, and reformatting it again a few tens of times, it was already good to use.
So, as of now, he was reading some posts in a rather anti-hero, anti-HPSC, and anti-society site.
It was already around 5 am and, normally, he should already be sleeping but, after taking account of the immense amount of tips he recieved tonight, he couldn't really bring himself to sleep just yet.
Especially since he read a certain note hidden in a rolled up bill.
[Are you tired of mulling about in this broken society? Had enough of all the hiding from the so-called heroes? Do you want to make a change in the world? If so, then the path of villainy is for you! Join the LOV! Now open for recruitment!]
Yeah. He really can't sleep right now.
Really! Who does that?! A recruitment note for a villain organization styled like a t.v. commercial?!
Mikumo snorted. The phone wasn't really helping to distract him from the note so he might as well take a jump from the roof.
And that was how he got to the current situation.
"Serial jumper." Kaguna muttered as he blankly watched Mikumo fall from the rooftop and onto the awaiting belly of a Snorlax.
"What?"
"A serial killer and a suicide jumper. Serial jumper."
"... Are you high?" Mikumo suspiciously eyed the smoking roll on Kaguna's hand.
"No. This is regular tobacco." Kaguna said as he flicked away the accumulated ash at the end of the stick. "So, um, wanna talk about something while I finish this?"
"Sure." Mikumo muttered as he laid on the furry belly.
"How about quirks? I already explained mine so mind giving me a rundown of yours?" Kaguna took in a breath through the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Mikumo tilted his head, surprised to find that he actually liked the smell.
"I named it Phantasm. I don't really know what it's really called since I never got it registered." Mikumo shrugged as Kaguna listened in interest. "It gives my imagination physical forms."
"That's pretty powerful." Kaguna said in amazement. "Does it have a backlash when you overuse it? Mine doesn't since it's always activated."
"So, it's a passive." Mikumo muttered. "But, yeah. Mine has a backlash."
"Really? What do you feel after overusing your quirk?" Kaguna asked curiously.
"I feel emotionally drained." Mikumo answered in a monotonous tone. "The type of drained that leaves you with an empty and floaty feeling that you get after a two hour crying session at 3 in the morning. After that, I get a headache that lasts for days until I get a panic attack."
"Oh- um. Are you okay?"
"Haha, no."