A few months before the current timeline.
A girl with purple hair and a well-developed body was walking toward the fridge and opened it.
"Mhn... what should I take?" She reflexed, looking at the different things inside.
"If I were you, I wouldn't take Erza's cakes. You know how much she loves her cakes." A voice came from behind her. Turning around, she fell upon Kiku, which was looking at her while her feet were at least 1 meter above the ground.
Kiku loved floating using her quirk, instead of walking. Thanks to her training, she could maintain the floating part of her quirk almost constantly.
"I know...One week ago, she wanted to punish me for eating the last pie, if it weren't for Suzuki who brought her cakes at this precise moment, I do not know what I was going to become in her hands." Hitomi replied, closing the fridge, nothing in her hands.
"If you want there's some popcorn in one of the drawers." Kiku said, floating toward the couch, she then sat on it, her legs crossed while watching the T.V.
A few minutes after Kiku started the movie, Hitomi sat on her right side, a bowl of popcorn filled to the brim, she put it between her and Kiku, and they continued to watch the movie.
"Tell me Hitomi..." Kiku said, drawing Hitomi's attention to this conversation.
"Yes?"
Turning her head to look at Hitomi in her eyes, she asked "Katsu and you...How is it going?"
Shortly choking on the popcorn in her mouth, she began to cough violently, visibly surprised by the question.
"...what?" She asked startled.
"Well, it's quite obvious that you are loving each other you know?"
"Huh? And... and what about you, Suzuki and Erza?!" She asked, trying to change the topic.
"Our relationship will be set in a few months hopefully. You won't be able to change the topic so easily, you know?" She said, not falling in Hitomi's trap.
Sighting she answered "It's complicated... I got some personal things to settle right now but one day, we will talk about it, only him and I."
"I see, but you shouldn't keep things only in your heart you know, we are friends, friends are here to share your burdens."
"I know, thanks Kiku." Hitomi said, small tears in her eyes, hugging Kiku who hugged her too.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
"So... why am I here for again?" Suzuki asked, looking at the three in front of him.
"You will help us with our training." Hitomi replied, checking her weapon and ammunitions which happened to be a long precision rifle.
"Yeah, I did understand that. But why you three at the same time?"
"Because we aren't combat-oriented members, unlike Erza, Katsu, Genta, and you. We are more like support members so fighting you won't be very useful for Hitomi and me unless we are supporting another combat-oriented member like Genta." Kiku replied to him, a mix of determination and unwillingness to fight him.
"I see, and you got forced to participate Genta or...?" Suzuki asked, this time looking at Genta.
"Hum, actually I was..." He said before receiving to glare from the girl who turned around toward him, preventing Suzuki to see their glares.
"...I mean, I am completely okay with this!" He said, sweating at their glares, a fake smile on his face.
"Well, if you are okay, I don't see any problem.
Come at me with all your might, otherwise, you will end up on the operating table, whether you like it or not." Suzuki said, unsheathing his katana and pointing it towards them.
"Let's do it, guys!" Hitomi said, backing away from Genta and Suzuki, Kiku was her, already high in the air, her back against the ceiling.
'I have to muster my courage ... and stay focused. Suzuki is very very strong a single moment of distraction, and I would lose for sure! Fortunately, the girls are there to help me otherwise, I can not hold him very long.' Genta thought, looking at any sudden movement from Suzuki.
While he was lost in his thoughts, a cute ghost, like those in the cartoons, appeared at his side, floating slowly. However, the ghost was completely invisible to Suzuki, who could only speculate about his presence, knowing Kiku's quirk. She named this technique, [Ghostly Phone]. With this, she can summon multiple ghosts and send them to the people she marked beforehand. The ghosts are acting as a phone, and they are completely invisible for people not targeted by the call.
A voice came from the ghost, waking up Genta from his thoughts. "Genta, I need you to produce a sufficient cover for me. Don't make it obvious, I want him to forget about my presence."
Even without hearing any answer, Hitomi knew that Genta perfectly understood what she said.
'[Candy Kingdom]' Waving his arms around him, the ground surrounding Genta changed in a pink color, with different patterns of different colors decorating it.
The ground turned pink suddenly raised, blocking all escape routes around Suzuki and Genta.
'[Candy Guards]' Putting his hands on the ground, Genta crafted several two-meters golems made of candy, however, he seemed slightly panting. Such control and power behind the two techniques are probably quite taxing on the body.
The golems, despite their size and their obvious great weight, moved at a surprising speed towards the unmoving Suzuki who had his sword unsheathed, resting on his left shoulder, the scabbard on his right-hand parallel to the pink floor under his feet.
Precisely eight golems were running towards him, the first two who reached him had their hands were disproportionate to the rest of their body. Their hands' size was equal to Suzuki's upper body. Needless to say, their strength was also very large, breaking the spot where Suzuki was standing a few seconds ago in one punch.
"Wow Genta, you improved since last time..." Suzuki said, dodging the attacks of the two golems.
"...but something like this won't be able to stop me." After his voice stopped, the golems who were harassing him until now stayed completely still.
Suzuki appeared behind them, his sword pointing towards the ground. The golems collapsed on themselves, completely cut apart.
'I lost contact with my golems, he didn't even use his quirk!' Genta thought, seeing that his golems were annihilated.
'There's no point in hesitating now, I still have 6 more golems. If he can dodge them when they are fighting hand to hand, it will be more difficult to dodge all my projectiles! [Candy Fusillade]' Making motion for the stationary golems on each one of his sides to begin shooting their arrows. The said arrows were more like candy pole of 1 meter each. The 6 golems were shooting one arrow each, every 2 seconds.
'[Spectral chains]' Kiku thought from her spot in the air, she knew that the next attack was going to be very important in their plan.
Several translucid chains appeared and surrounded each limb of Suzuki, limiting his movements.
The fire continued until Genta didn't have any stamina left to support the continued creation of so much candy. The golems crumbled, and a part of the ground returned to its previous state.
"Huff huff." Panting one knee on the ground, his eyes were locked on the dust mist raised by his attack.
"He is still standing and kicking, don't drop your guard!" The ghost at his side yelled to him, communicating the voice of Kiku.
"?!"
Not giving Genta the time to realize what she just said, the mist of dust got cut in two, the figure of Suzuki emerging from it. The attack wasn't without effects as his clothes were torn apart, his pants were the only thing not damaged by Genta. Some blood could be seen sipping from his opened wounds not very deep, seemingly only having cut his skin.
"It was quite close, if it weren't for my quick reflex, and my quirk I would have been in a much worse state than now." Suzuki said, looking at Genta with a mix of surprise and proudness. "You progressed a lot."
'[Ghostly Paralysis]' Kiku thought, pointing her hands towards Suzuki.
"?!" Surprised to see his body unreactive to his commands, Suzuki's instincts flared once he noticed a shining light inside a small slit on the only wall of candy still standing.
'[Artemis' grace] Hitomi's precision rifle shined, and a ray of condensed light shot from the barrel, heading toward Suzuki's shoulder.
'I see, they forced me to focus my attention on Genta, making me forget about Kiku and Hitomi, who first paralyzed me, then shot a ray of light not only having frightening speed but also having a deadly precision.
"Your plan is frightening, unfortunately..." whispering these words to himself, a small light could be seen in his purple eyes, showing that his next move will be without restrains.
'[Room], [Null]' Suzuki thought, seeing the ray of light almost approaching him with inhuman speed.
The technique [Null] was really simple, however, Suzuki uses it only as a last resort because it is an extremely taxing technique. It consists of creating a very small [Room], surrounding only his body. He then pushes his spacial manipulation to the very limit, making anything coming in contact with his body completely disappearing, shredded by the space itself.
The light wasn't an exception as it completely got sucked by the folds of the space, making the light ray seemingly absorbed in a vortex on Suzuki's body, leaving Suzuki completely unharmed.
'What?!' They all thought, seeing Suzuki ignoring the attack.
"It was the most powerful shot of my weapon, it is inescapable!" Hitomi exclaimed, seeing that her attack was ineffective against him.
'I can move once again, let's finish this fight.' Suzuki said to himself, seeing that he wasn't paralyzed anymore by Kiku. '[Shambles]'
Instantly teleporting behind Genta he didn't let him time to react to his appearance, he kicked the back of his head, making the later go unconscious on the ground.
"Good job Genta, you can sleep now." He said before directed his eyes towards Hitomi's figure.
"Without him, you won't have any occasion to attack me. You lost." he said, once again appearing his sword in front of Hitomi who was the only one having the real firepower enough to threaten him.
Sighing at their loss, Kiku came floating behind the two.
She didn't seem tired, just a concerned look on her seeing that Suzuki was injured.
"Are you alright Suzuki?!"
Not letting him time to reply, she moved her hands on his body, inspecting the wounds.
"They seem to be flesh wounds, come quickly with me, I will patch you up. Accepting to spar with us was reckless of you, what happened in your head?! " She said, pinching his cheek, still floating beside him.
'Are you his mother or what?' Hitomi thought, giggling at this funny scene.
'It was your idea!' Suzuki shouted in his mind, shocked by the woman's madness.
"We will debrief about the fight later Hitomi, you did a really good job." Suzuki said, giving her a thumb up.
"Mhn." She nodded, a proud smile on her face.
Once the duo left the training ground, she went toward the sleeping Genta and sat on the ground beside him.
Speaking to the unconscious Genta she said "He really is amazing... I only wanted to see the gap between him and me. I can see only notice that he became even stronger than what I expected."
"..."
"With a chief as strong as him, we don't fear anything right?" She said, getting up.
"Well now, how will I wake you up?" She said, looking at his sleeping figure on the ground, he was way too heavy for her fray arms.
She also tried to taser him, but he didn't move at all, still profoundly immersed in his sleep.
"I forgot that when you sleep like that it is extremely difficult to wake you up." She said, looking at him.
"..." Genta was still sleeping on the ground, a smile on his face. He was visibly enjoying his sleep, not knowing that after the spar, he was left alone on the ground, Hitomi's figure disappearing in the elevator a few tens of meters in front of him.
"...The agents will surely come across him tomorrow in the morning." She said to herself, looking at his sleeping body on the ground, before the doors of the elevator close on themselves.
It wasn't the first time that he slept like that, in fact, he does it since they are kids almost once each month. He just lay somewhere and sleeps without being disturbed by anything happening around him. He brought the word 'hibernation' to a whole new level. They were accustomed to his behavior somewhat unusual.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
In the elevator, Hitomi was looking at her phone, more precisely at a message she received from her sister.
Gritting her teeth she whispered to herself, "I won't abandon so easily..."