Mind Games - Chapter 56 (Patreon)

“I've got to tell you something very important,” Hitoshi told her one day as they were preparing his 'office.' Really, it was just a repurposed janitorial supply room that had fallen out of use. Fuyumi wasn't sure why they'd even put one on the top floor like this when so few people used this area. But at least it would be better-served now.

“How important?” Fuyumi asked, wiping sweat from her brow. “Is it going to make me want to question why your father still has custody again? Or make me want to arrest your girlfriend's parents... again?”

Hitoshi snorted, because of course he did. “Not this time. I'll be sure to have something like that tomorrow if you really want it, though?”

Fuyumi heaved an enormous sigh of mingled aggravation and fondness. “Alright, so what's this very important thing you have to tell me?”

“I have a second job,” Hitoshi informed her.

She blinked, frowning in confusion. “Charity work or something?”

“No, I'm employed by the Heavenly Bureaucracy that governs the infinite worlds,” he replied with a straight face.

Fuyumi blinked.

She stared.

Then she laughed. “Y-you didn't sta-strike me as a chunnibyou, Shinso.”

He snorted, his face otherwise humorless. “It's a bit I'm going to do, when I've got my debut and stuff. Act like a weirdo conspiracy otaku. Since I'm all masked up and everything...”

Fuyumi took a deep breath. “Ah, right. You're worried about coming across as too much of an empty suit?”

“Pretty much,” Hitoshi shrugged and stretched, popping his neck and shoulders in a way that made Fuyumi want to scream. The tiny smirk on his face that told her he knew how much it annoyed her, on the other hand, made her want to strangle him. “I figure I can pull off casual weirdness well enough for it to be identifiable without becoming off-putting.”

“Hmm... well, you're already working it into your online persona well enough, I guess. Still... the Celestial Bureaucracy? Isn't that... a little...?” Fuyumi hummed and rolled her hand in a vague gesture.

“Breaks your suspension of disbelief?” He asked.

“Huh?” She blinked.

He shrugged. “A writer's term. Suspension of disbelief is what allows you to submerge yourself in a work, even if it's blatantly fictional. Weaving characters, plot, worldbuilding... all into a cohesive narrative that's believably constructed... if you introduce a new element that's at odds with the other ones in the story without doing the legwork to justify it... they call that 'breaking your suspension of disbelief.'”

“You know the strangest bits of trivia, Shinso-kun,” Fuyumi replied, dropping onto a moving box as an improvised seat. “But... yeah, I guess you could put it that way.”

“Good,” Hitoshi replied, reaching over and grabbing water.

“Good?” Fuyumi asked, cocking her head as she accepted a tossed bottle of her own.

“I mean, it's not like I actually want people to believe it, that'd be dangerous,” Hitoshi replied.

Fuyumi chugged half the bottle, a habit that she shared with her brothers and quietly attributed to her father. Shako, of course, probably only did it when no one was looking. “Dangerous? What do you mean by that? What, you'd think someone would try something stupid?”

It happened, on rare occasion.

Someone took a potshot at a hero, either with a firearm or their own quirk. That was rare in Japan, outside of hero-villain conflicts, but those weren't the same thing. This was more... assassination, though the media was careful never to call it that. Calling someone an 'assassin' glorified the act, made it a work of political activism like what happened so often during the Dark Age.

It was more common overseas, in America. Even then, though, it wasn't often successful. To be a hero in the states... it was different than being a hero here in Japan. Harder, in a lot of ways, easier in some. Hero-Killings, though, were come down on with extreme force. Usually, by her reckoning, excessive. It was one thing if a hero died in battle against a villain or a natural disaster. It was another if someone intentionally took their life in a premeditated attack.

“Not like you're probably thinking,” Hitoshi shook his head.

“Okay?” Fuyumi asked, taking a gulp from her bottle. “So what do you mean, dangerous?”

Hitoshi shrugged. “Well, think about it. If anyone seriously believed there was a legitimate divine authority – a Celestial Bureaucracy – in charge of things, what would happen?”

Fuyumi blinked, something cold settling in her stomach that she couldn't put a name to. It was too... abstract to be called fear, but that was the closest. Still, she considered the question for a moment. “Honestly? I have no idea. It couldn't be that bad, though, could it?”

Hitoshi chuckled in that mildly-patronizing way of his that was hard to call him on. Especially when 'calling him on it' meant getting a complex and detailed lecture that proved him right. “I mean, it's already happened once, right?”

“Huh?” Fuyumi frowned, that strange feeling coming back in her gut.

“When quirks showed up,” Hitoshi replied, making Fuyumi pause as the point sank in. “In literary circles, they call the separation of acceptable weirdness and unacceptable weirdness, 'Arbitrary Skepticism.'”

He took a drink of his water and continued. “On the one hand, everyone has somehow agreed that it's perfectly acceptable that we've built an entire global transportation system on devices that create controlled explosions using the liquified remains of giant lizards that lived millions of years ago. And yet we do it every day. Get in cars, trains, planes... and start burning chemically-treated dinosaur goo.”

Despite her nameless anxiety, Fuyumi snorted. “Well, when you put it like that, of course it's going to sound weird.”

“But that's the point. It only sounds weird because I'm using unfamiliar terminology to describe it,” Hitoshi smirked. “Everyone thinks it's normal otherwise. Which is where the other side of the equation comes in. Two hundred years ago, quirks started showing up and suddenly... everything everyone thought they knew, wasn't right.”

“But people have had religion for thousands of years,” Fuyumi pointed out. “Would it really be that bad?”

“There's a difference between believing in something and having tangible proof of it,” Hitoshi replied, which... well, fair. “You tell someone that you believe the world is flat, they'll write you off as a lunatic. You show someone irrefutable proof of it? They'd freak out. That's what happened when quirks showed up. Everyone just... freaked out, all at once.”

“So, wait... if you think all of this is so dangerous, why tempt fate?” Fuyumi paused and shook her head.

“Tempt Fate?” Hitoshi gave another one of those chuckles as he leaned back against the wall behind him and took a long pull from the bottle of water. “I suppose that's one way to look at it. I prefer to think of it as... insurance.”

“Insurance?” Fuyumi asked, giving him a level stare.

“I mean, just in case it ever turns out to be true,” Hitoshi grinned. “You never know, I could actually be some kind of secret supernatural agent sent by a powerful Celestial Bureaucracy. It could happen.”

Fuyumi sighed and rolled her eyes. “Shinso. If you turn out to be some kind of angel sent by a paperwork obsessed heaven, I think we've got bigger problems on our hands than that.”

For some reason, the little shit found that particularly funny.

Which, honestly, made Fuyumi wonder why she put up with him. The fact that he helped her finish all of her backlog of paperwork afterwards helped remind her. And it didn't hurt that he had a great ass-

…

Fuyumi shook the latter part of that day's memories off like a bad cold. She didn't need to be thinking about any of that right now, not if she could help it.

“So what are we doing here?” Fuyumi asked, tucked away into a supply closet that her junior had dragged her into just a few moments before.

“Watch,” Hitoshi replied, his voice a low thrum against her as they peeked out at the rear entrance to the courthouse. A van was backing up, bearing the logo of a catering service Fuyumi vaguely recognized.

Her silver eyes locked onto the daily grind of the courthouse's employees.

All she saw was a normal routine.

The catering van finished pulling in, the rear opening up and uniformed employees stepping out. Two from the cab up front, two more from rear of the vehicle, one more with a clipboard talking to a member of the building's security personnel.

She frowned.

Something about that...

A pitcher of tea toppled, the lid flying off and one of the catering staff froze, then deflated.

The woman with the clipboard stepped up, pointed back into the van, and the man with the now-stained uniform bowing respectfully before returning to the setup.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?” Fuyumi asked, not taking her eyes away from the scene.

Hitoshi gave a small sigh. “There are two seats in the front cab. There are two seats in the rear of the vehicle. Why are there five employees?”

Fuyumi blinked, feeling like a record had scratched in her mind as she looked back to what was in front of her. She could see the rear of the front cab through the open back of the vehicle. Hitoshi was right. Two seats. And Fuyumi knew that model of van, at least in a general sense. She'd seen enough of them – and used a few – to transport items reclaimed from villains to the general holding area at the agency or a central police station.

There was a middle console, no jump-seat for a third person.

Likewise, the rear of the vehicle, the cargo compartment full of catering equipment now being unloaded, had two seats as well. One each on the back of the front seats.

Hitoshi was right.

There was no fifth seat.

“Another vehicle?” Fuyumi muttered to herself, but... there was doubt. She squinted, looking out beyond the catering van, but couldn't-

“Live feed from the parking lot,” Hitoshi interjected, thrusting his cellphone into her face.

Fuyumi blinked again, frowning as she looked over the four-grid of camera angles. No more company cars, it was true, but the fifth employee could have come in a private vehicle, maybe... but more importantly-

“How do you have this, Bootstrap?” She asked lowly, still staring at his phone.

“You have to report a crime if you're aware of it, right?” He asked, instead of answering.

She frowned at him, looking him over with new eyes. “So do you.”

“I'm currently reporting a crime,” he replied neutrally. “Specifically, the metahuman interference with an ongoing legal proceeding, attempted assault with a metahuman power, and multiple cases of falsification of identity papers – some to a national-level governmental body.”

Fuyumi gave an irritated grunt and looked back at the catering vehicle. “Part of being a hero is abiding by the law, Bootstrap, even when it's inconvenient.”

“I agree,” Hitoshi replied. “Which is why I'm operating outside my capacity as a hero of the Endeavor Agency at the moment and will receive no notoriety, recognition, or other form of credit for what I'm doing right now.”

Fuyumi's frown only intensified, bordering on a scowl. “I’m beginning to worry that Eraserhead is rubbing off on you a bit too much.”

After a moment's internal debate, she changed the topic and put aside the many questions she was going to wring out of the little bastard after this was over.

“She could have arrived by private vehicle,” Fuyumi spoke, nodding at the 'fifth worker,' the woman with the clipboard.

“Putting aside the fact that all vehicles for this building's parking lot are ticketed in advance as a security measure, which makes that unlikely, look at this,” Shinso stated, handing over his phone again.

She stared at it for a moment longer, this time, puzzling out what she was seeing.

It was the courtroom they'd just left, the image taken while they were still seated during the proceedings. The angle didn't show the judge, defense, prosecution, or witness stand, though. No, this view was entirely of the viewing gallery. With her and Bootstrap being at the front, they were at the 'bottom' of the camera feed. The 'top' of the still-frame was the courtroom doors with two uniformed guards standing next to either side.

She blinked.

Looked back up at the fifth employee.

Waited until the woman turned so that she could see her face properly.

Then turned back to the image.

“Shit,” Fuyumi hissed tightly. “Shit, shit, shit.”

The woman with the clipboard.

The guard at the door in the picture.

They were the same person.

A hand reached out and caught her arm as she was about to throw the door open.

“Don't,” Hitoshi cautioned her. “She'll run. I estimate a high chance of a probability-based defense that stops us from arresting her. There are too many factors at play here. Too many people. Every additional variable gives her something to attack or defend with.”

Fuyumi took a breath, then nodded.

Her hand went to her phone. “Keep watch, Bootstrap. I need to call this in. We need backup to box her in.”

“I recommend they come in undercover,” Bootstrap advised firmly. “There's a non-zero chance she has someone on the outside ready to help with extraction. If they're on overwatch, they'll alert her to a major unannounced hero presence.”

Fuyumi frowned, but nodded.

Quickly, she pulled out her phone and called the private emergency line for the agency.

“This is Hot Ice, onsite at the courthouse. I need backup in civilian vehicles. Probability-manipulation quirk at play. Be warned that subject may not be alone-”

…

“You have so much goddamn explaining to do after this, Shinso,” Hot Ice practically snarled under her breath as we took a parallel hallway to the catering group.

“I'm aware,” I replied with a nod, my voice slightly muffled by the full gear I was wearing. Unfortunately, I hadn't been allowed to take my weapons with me today.

“I mean it. You like to squirm your way out of things, Hit-Bootstrap. You're not this time, this is too big,” she stated firmly, her voice cold.

“I'm aware,” I repeated. “I went into this situation with the understanding that I would need to come clean to you to some degree in response to getting your help. The alternatives, though, were... much less palatable than telling you the truth.”

She snorted, angry and upset. “Oh? Like what?”

“Permanently damaging your trust in me,” I replied, making her skip a step. “If I wasn't willing to disclose things to you, then I'd have to so thoroughly deceive you that you'd never trust me again. Even were I successful in accomplishing what needed to be done today, were you ever to find out in the future that I'd taken this kind of action without your supervision or knowledge in such an important matter, there would be no going back after that.”

Fuyumi took a breath, then nodded. “Anyone ever tell you you're a frustrating person?”

“A good friend and a reliable senior has that opinion and has shared it with me, repeatedly,” I replied with a grin, absently noting the blush on her face.

There was quiet for a moment.

“You're not working for a foreign government at least, are you?” Fuyumi asked tiredly.

I snorted. “Honestly? I wish. It'd make things easier. Nope. I work for the Celestial Bureaucracy, like I told you.”

She stared at me as we walked. “I don't know what's scarier, honestly. The fact that you might be completely insane or the idea that you could be telling the truth.”

I nodded, understanding what she was getting at. “We should get our story straight before we turn our body cams back on.”

Fuyumi clicked her tongue, but nodded. “I'm guessing you want to keep this a secret, then. You want me to keep this a secret.”

“It'd be ideal,” I hummed. “Revealing who I am and what I'm here to do to the Japanese government at large would inhibit my ability to work as I need to. So, yes. I'd like you to lie on my behalf. Either that or give me a thirty second head start.”

Fuyumi shot me a look that had little of her in it. Instead, I was staring down the Pro-Hero Hot Ice. “You're saying you'd run. Himiko?”

I nodded. “She knows. We have contingency plans. I'd rather not use them, though. I've put a lot of work into getting into UA, after all. And, as much as I may bitch, I am learning important things.”

There was a long moment where we paused, waiting for the catering team to pass by, counting the members of it to make sure we hadn't been made, and then hurrying along.

“So, how'd we figure out she was a villain?” Hot Ice asked.

“The accident in the courtroom with the glass put you on edge,” I replied evenly. “Before we went to get food, you wanted to burn off nervous energy from sitting in the courtroom for hours and decided to walk the inside perimeter of the building. This pulled double-duty in teaching me-”

“-in teaching you that you should keep a watchful eye out on your surroundings, even when you believe you're in a secure location,” Hot Ice nodded sternly. “And I suppose I was the one who recognized the fifth catering worker as the door guard in the courtroom?”

“It would hold more water than if you said it was me,” I replied with a nod. “That's an awful lot of trust to put in an underage junior, after all.”

“True,” Hot Ice paused, then grunted. “Alright. I noticed her. I called it in. This is my collar, then.”

“Bodycams and recorders on?” I asked, fingering the switch.

“Go,” Hot Ice affirmed.

We both flipped them on. The only reason they'd been off was a stringent rule against recordings in the court. While no one would notice unless there was an incident and the footage had to be aired, the fact that the courtroom had its own cameras meant it was – nominally – safe to turn them off and rely on those, instead.

“Hero: Hot Ice – resuming recording after pause due to courtroom regulations,” Fuyumi spoke into the microphone on her costume. “My sidekick – Bootstrap – and I are tailing a suspected villain with a probability manipulating quirk. Her likely objective is the injury of one or more of the accused in the current court-case to create a delay of the proceedings and/or foment public sympathy towards them. It is unknown at this time, but speculated that she has been hired by one or more of the defense to pursue this strategy.”

“This is Bootstrap, concurring with all of the Pro-Hero Hot Ice's current findings, for what it matters,” I replied into my own mic.

“Keep it professional, Bootstrap,” Hot Ice warned sternly.

“Roger,” I nodded. “What's the play, boss?”

“We have her on the court's security cameras with witnesses other than ourselves to testify she was playing at being a guard in addition to changing her clothes to disguise herself as a member of the catering staff,” Hot Ice spoke, low and quick. “Reinforcements are en route to our position, less than five minutes away. We're playing for time unless and until a civilian is in danger – including the accused parties. If that happens, you follow my lead. I'll give you the go-ahead for your quirk if I feel it necessary.”

“Got it,” I replied firmly. “I'll follow your lead.”

As far as her acting went, I'd give it a B+, but the most 'realistic' scenes were often a bit unbelievable. So between that and the fact that she was intentionally and explicitly being performative for the camera to cover our asses, it would pass muster.

And with our asses suitably covered, we refocused on the criminal.

“So she's going to make it look like an accident, right?” I asked Fuyumi. Because I was the green new sidekick-hero and didn't know the answer. I definitely wasn't feeding her information disguised as a question. “Since she has a probability quirk.”

“It would defeat the purpose of doing this if she just pulled out a gun and shot someone,” Hot Ice replied, her tone half-laced with realization. “So I'll be blocking something like scalding hot soup, maybe a burner malfunction on a piece of their equipment or a blade slips somewhere. In any regard, we'll be working to isolate her from the civilians.”

“Roger that,” I replied, following along.

Honestly, if I could have done all of this without telling Fuyumi anything, I would have. But the only way to keep her ignorant, not have her blame me later on, and maintain any sort of friendship with her would be to abuse my Essence to turn local reality into a Sidereal pretzel.

And I could do it.

It'd be messy, though.

'Messy' in this context meaning 'strange enough the building might get temporarily quarantined.' Which would be a real problem when something decided my exotic energy was tasty enough to tear a hole through reality and eat people.

Give me a few years... hell, even a few months more time and I might be able to finesse my way through this. But I didn't have that luxury. Even the potential of my alternate identity covering for me would create an absence that I couldn't explain unless I pulled in Himiko. Which would create another absence that needed another explanation.

Which I could do.

Except for Nezu.

“Reinforcements are one minute out, pulling up now and building the cordon,” Hot Ice stated.

“Endeavor himself or...?” I asked, doing my best to play up the uncertain sidekick again.

Hot Ice nodded. “The villain is inside a national courthouse and her targets are involved in an important court case. Endeavor would prioritize this.”

Which was a polite way of saying that this was a high-profile PR response.

“They're going in,” Hot Ice pointed out.

“How do we...” I began, then Fuyumi stepped into the open as our target made to step into the conference room.

Okay, I guess we're going loud.

The woman with the clipboard froze as she saw Hot Ice and myself move down the hallway. “Hey! This is where the defendants for the trafficking case are, right?”

Or not?

“Uhh... I mean, I'm not sure?” The clipboard woman replied, her posture practically screaming wariness and panic in tandem with a sudden surge of anxiety and ruthless anger. “We're just delivering lunch.”

“Well I need to speak with them, so-” Hot Ice stated, stepping up.

It happened in a flash, probability shifting instantly.

As soon as Hot Ice moved close enough, one of the wheels to their cart broke off, and all of the food on top of it began sliding off. Fuyumi, primed for something like this to happen, reached out and caught it before it could start falling to the floor.

“Oops,” she chuckled, “must have accidentally kicked it. Here, let me help you-”

Then the small burner underneath the tray of meat exploded.

A brief surge of chaos and noise enveloped the hallway and I primed myself for action as the smoke cleared. The door had fallen open, and the villain attempted to push through into the room with the CEO's beyond.

Attempted.

Because in its place was a steaming wall of solid carbon dioxide blocking off the doorway.

Then, amidst the splattered food, there was another block of dry ice, encapsulating the remains of the exploded burner.

Hot Ice, glaring behind her mask at the woman, held an open hand towards her, crystals of incredibly cold ice sublimating into gas as they formed in a gesture of unmistakable threat.

“You really don't want to try that,” Fuyumi warned her.

“I'd listen to her, for what it's worth,” I chimed in casually, making the woman send a glare my way and-

My quirk snapped into place, a latent connection forming that I could tug on in the next minute.

“Fine,” the woman bit out, sighing and relaxing. “I surrender.”

“Cuff her, Bootstrap,” Hot Ice ordered.

“Roger that,” I nodded, moving forward with the agency's standard-issue cuffs. I frowned as I snapped them closed around her wrists, trying to feel out the knot of fate and destiny trapped in this moment. As close as things were to being resolved...

“Don't even think about using your quirk,” I ordered her, disguising my words as a cautionary warning.

I felt the knot loosen.

Slightly.

But not enough...

Was something else going on?

~~~

Yeah, this is a little late, but it's also a bit longer than normal.

I hope everyone enjoys the chapter and Hitoshi's ongoing shenanigans.

The courthouse arc isn't quite over yet, so look forward to the finale coming up next week!

But this weekend? Pokemon coming up!