The train dropped them off at a station so small Ren wasn't entirely convinced it qualified as one. A single platform, a vending machine humming to itself, and a wooden sign with the prefecture's name half eaten by moss were the whole welcoming committee.
Mina stretched her arms over her head with a satisfied groan while her suitcase wheels rattled against the planks.
"Okay, THIS is what I'm talking about!" she said, spinning slowly to take it all in. "Look at this place. Fresh air, zero buildings, zero exams, and nobody breathing down my neck on the bus like a certain pervy little gremlin. I could get used to mountain life."
"Give it three days and you'll be begging for a convenience store," Ren replied, scanning the empty parking lot on the other side of the gate. There was no van or driver, much less someone in a cat costume holding a sign with his name. So much for the warm welcome. Either we got the day wrong, or the Pussycats are about to do something annoying. My money's on annoying.
His phone buzzed against his hip. He pulled it out and the screen lit up with a wall of text that could only come from one person.
Nejire: Ren-kun did you get there yet?? Are the mountains pretty?? Did you see any real cats, not the hero ones, regular cats, because sometimes there are cats in the forests and I need to know?? Also Pixie-Bob moves dirt so do NOT let her bury you as a prank, okay?? I read on a forum that mountain people pull a ton of pranks on newbies. Send me a picture. Of the trees. And of you. Mostly of you.
A short laugh got away from him before he could stop it.
"Let me guess. The blue haired girlfriend," Mina said, leaning in to spy on the screen until he tilted it the other way.
"She wants a picture of the trees," Ren said, snapping a quick shot of the mountain ridge and sending it. "And a warning about not letting them bury me alive. She's thorough."
"That's adorable and also kinda creepy. I like her," Mina decided, planting her hands on her hips. "So where's our ride? Aren't pro heroes supposed to pick up their precious interns in some cool car?"
That was the exact moment a voice answered her, and it didn't come from the parking lot.
It came from inside their heads.
Welcome to Nagano, kittens!
"Kyaaaaaa"
Mina shrieked and clapped both hands over her ears, which did absolutely nothing, because the voice was already on the wrong side of her skull. Ren felt the words land right behind his eyes, warm and clear, almost too cheerful for the headache they were promising.
This is Mandalay, from the Wild Wild Pussycats. Don't bother covering your ears, it doesn't help, doesn't work that way. You showed up right on time, I appreciate that. Now comes the fun part.
"Nope. I don't like the way she said fun," Ren muttered.
The lodge is about five kilometers into the woods, up the slope from the station road. There's no shortcut. You're gonna walk it, and you're gonna do it before the sun touches that western ridge, because dinner gets cold and Tiger doesn't reheat anything for stragglers, it's a whole philosophy with him. One more thing, the forest belongs to Pixie-Bob, and she's bored. Good luck!
The presence pulled out of his head with a soft click, and the silence afterward felt enormous.
Mina lowered her hands slowly, blinking at the tree line.
"...Some lady teleported into my brain just to tell us to go hiking?"
"That's telepathy for you. One way only, apparently, so she can't even hear us complain." Ren rolled his shoulders and hiked his backpack higher. "Come on. You heard her, dinner's on a timer, and I refuse to lose a hot meal because we stood around arguing about it."
"Wait, wait!" Mina grabbed his sleeve, narrowing her eyes in alarm. "What do you mean Pixie-Bob's bored? What does that mean? That sounds weird! No, no, no... that sounds like trouble. That definitely sounds like trouble!"
The ground answered her question.
***
A tremor climbed up through their feet, and a few meters uphill the dirt bulged, split, and reassembled itself into a hulk the size of a small car. It didn't have a face worth mentioning, just two pits where eyes should be and a mouth packed with jagged rock, and it planted four heavy paws into the mud with a sound like a small landslide.
Then a second one rose up next to the first. And a third came lumbering out from behind a tree, shaking dirt off its shoulders.
"Yeah, yeah, sure!" Mina yelled, backing up with her arms in the air. "The dirt is making monsters! Why WOULDN'T the dirt make monsters?! I don't trust the floor anymore, okay?!"
"Get ready, this is the test," Ren said, dropping his bag at the foot of a tree and rolling his neck.
Classic Pussycat welcome, throw the rookies in the deep end and see if they float. Lucky for me, I came prepared for this kind of thing.
"She wants to see what we've got before she decides we're worth feeding. Don't waste your acid melting the whole forest, we still have to walk through it."
"Excuse me?! Don't tell me how to use my acid!" Mina shot back, puffing out her cheeks before jabbing a thumb at herself. "Take a good look, shiny head! This is why I picked a rescue agency! My acid doesn't just melt stuff, it can save people too!"
The first golem charged straight at them.
Mina slid one foot back and a sheet of acid spread under her in a wide arc, the ground hissing as it turned slick. She crouched, dropped her shoulder, and launched herself sideways down the slope, surfing the viscous film. The golem's swing whistled through empty air half a second after she was gone.
Hmm? Well, that's Mina, I wasn't expecting any less. Ren turned his attention to the second monster, which had decided he was the easier target.
He didn't bother dodging.
His telekinesis clamped down on the thing's front leg, and instead of trying to hold all that weight, he gave it one sharp yank sideways. The golem's own momentum did the rest, throwing it off balance, and it slammed shoulder first into the third one with a grinding crunch that dropped both of them into a pile of loose rock.
"Ha! Showoff!" Mina taunted as she surfed past him on a streak of acid. "Watch and learn!"
She flicked her wrist and a thick drop of acid landed right on a golem's knee. The packed earth started crumbling away and the leg gave out, sending the whole mass toppling sideways.
"See?! The joints! Aim for what moves! Why break everything if you can just make it fall over?"
"Yeah, I noticed, thanks." Ren stretched out his telekinesis and found the loose rock Mina's acid had freed up. He spun it out of the ground and rocketed it straight through the lead golem's hollow chest, and the construct collapsed into a heap of ordinary dirt.
For a few minutes the slope turned into a brawl. Pixie-Bob kept pulling fresh beasts out of the ground faster than they could smash the old ones, and Ren and Mina fell into a rhythm without ever talking about it, her acid opening up the gaps while his telekinesis turned the broken pieces into weapons. She'd shout a direction at him and he was already moving, and twice Mina surfed up a golem's back to buy him the time he needed.
Okay, this girl reads a fight in real time. No wonder she runs the team plays back in class.
The problem started when Ren got ambitious.
A pair of golems came at them from both sides at once, and instead of picking one, he tried to catch both, holding the left one in place while he tore the right one apart. All of a sudden, a small headache crept back in.
"Ugh..."
"Ren?!" Mina slammed to a halt when she saw him sway. "Hey, hey! You okay? Don't scare me like that!"
"I'm fine." He breathed through the pressure, dropped the left golem, and finished off the right one with the rock still floating beside him. The headache had eased back a little. "I just pushed it a little too far... I'm guessing I'm still not fully recovered."
Before she could ask what that meant, the last golems sank back into the earth on their own, and the slope went quiet and still around them. A cheerful chime rang inside both their heads.
Not bad, kittens. You're a mess and you took longer than you should've, but you're in one piece. Pixie-Bob says she loves that. The lodge is just up the hill, keep moving. Dinner's almost ready.
Mina stood there staring at the empty slope, her chest heaving and her hair full of dirt.
"When I find that dirt lady... I'm gonna give her a taste of my Acid Surf!" Mina huffed, crossing her arms. "Let's see if she still thinks it's so funny to make people roll around in the mud!"
"Aggressive," Ren said, swinging his bag back onto his shoulder. "Come on, Alien Queen. The mountain's not gonna climb itself."
"... You... Ugh! Don't use that name when I'm trying to stay mad!"
***
The lodge sat in a clearing near the top, a long wooden building with a wide porch and the lanterns already lit. Ren and Mina dragged themselves up the last stretch, completely wiped out.
The four heroes were waiting on the porch in a row, and the second the interns stepped into the open, they snapped into a pose.
"Aiming with shining eyes!" the tall one with green hair and cat ears threw a hand forward, completely radiant.
"Claws to the rescue!" a blonde in blue spun on her heel and pointed two fingers right at Ren.
"Appearing out of nowhere," rumbled a huge man in a brown costume, flexing an arm thicker than Ren's head.
"Cute and spicy like cats!" finished a calm woman in red, with way less enthusiasm than the rest.
"WILD WILD PUSSYCATS!" all four chanted, holding the pose at the entrance.
I love this world of weird poses. I really do.
"That was amazing!" Mina blurted out, eyes shining, hands pressed against her chest. "Do you always do that spin? You have to teach me! That was super clean!"
"Ha! Finally, a girl who appreciates a good show!" the blonde said, bouncing down the steps. She walked right past Mina and planted herself directly in front of Ren, blatantly invading his space. She looked him up and down with a mischievous grin. "So YOU'RE Ren Hayashi? The telekinetic, the bald brainiac who got picked first in the Festival draft. All Might wrote us three whole pages about you! Although, how rude of him... he forgot to mention you were this cute too."
"Ryuko..." Mandalay called out with a patient sigh, crossing her arms. "The kid just got here. Give him at least a minute before you start scaring him off."
"Scaring him off? I'm just saying hi!" Pixie-Bob protested, not budging an inch from Ren. "Besides, he showed up all dirty, he's super tall, and he tossed my dirt babies around like they were stuffed animals. Shino, did you see that arm? What do they feed him at U.A.? I need to know for future recruits!"
And then, to everyone's surprise, Pixie-Bob was the one who decided to make her move.
"Meow! You're a sturdy boy!" Pixie-Bob laughed, throwing herself at him without asking and squeezing him against her chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Let me feel those muscles! Not bad! With a body like this you're gonna drive the girls crazy! Meow, what a catch!"
Ren, who had been about to back off, froze for a second. Then, instead of tensing up or pulling away, he did something nobody saw coming. He let himself drop against her without a hint of shame, burying his face in the hero's generous chest and rubbing his cheek against the blue fabric of her uniform.
"Mmm..." he purred, voice muffled but perfectly audible. "Yeah, that's better. Way too comfy."
Pixie-Bob, who had spent her whole career being the one cornering people, froze with a small choked sound, her cheeks turning red enough to match the little blue dots on her face.
"Eh?! H-hey! Hold on! Not so confident, kitten!" she babbled between nervous laughs, unable to decide whether to push him off or keep hugging him. "You're supposed to be the one turning red!"
Mandalay watched the scene for a few seconds before sighing with resignation.
"Ryuko..." she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I warned you that one of these days someone was gonna play along. Looks like that day is here."
To the side, Mina rolled her eyes so hard you could practically see the thoughts behind them.
"Unbelievable! Not even half an hour here and he's already flirting with a Pro Hero!" she huffed, overly indignant. "You know what? Keep him for a while. Send him back when he stops embarrassing himself."
"I'm just accepting a five star welcome!" Ren shot back without pulling away, sinking deeper into her generous chest.
"Hahaha! I like you, kitten! Approved! This boy is one of us already! Meow!" the hero decided, getting some of her composure back and patting his chest.
"...What?" Ragdoll murmured, and for the first time since they'd appeared, the infectious cheer dropped off her face completely. "That's not... hold on. Wait."
"Something wrong?" Ren asked, feeling a chill crawl down his spine.
Ragdoll took a step forward, fully focused. Her pupils flicked side to side, searching for something that wasn't there.
"I'm using Search on you... right now. I've got you right in front of me... and I can't find anything. Not your position, not a weak point... nothing." She frowned, disbelieving. "There's a hole where a person should be. It's like you're invisible to my Quirk."
Maybe it's because this mind wasn't born in this world? Ren swallowed.
"Maybe I'm boring," he said instead, shrugging. "My head's a pretty dull place, you saved yourself a visit."
"No, no, no! Don't try to be funny, Ren, I'm completely serious!" Ragdoll stared at him with wide eyes, unable to look away. "I've used my Quirk for twelve years. I've seen thousands of people, heroes, villains, kids, grandmas... everyone! And never! Not once! Has anyone come up... blank!"
A slow smile, full of excitement, spread across her face again.
"You're a walking mystery!"
"Great..." Ren muttered with a sigh. "Invisible to the one person who could've helped me. Exactly what I needed."
"This has to be connected to those headaches!" Ragdoll started circling him, studying him from every angle like a fresh discovery. "Your Quirk is tied to your head, just like mine. I don't need Search to see you're a kid who doesn't know how to handle the weight of his own power yet." She tapped him on the forehead. "But this... this is different. Me not being able to see you... that shouldn't happen. And I'm gonna figure out why! Starting tomorrow! At dawn!"
"...At dawn," Ren repeated.
"At dawn," the man in the brown costume confirmed as he came down the steps. His deep voice was calm, no harshness to it, and he rested a hand on Ren's free shoulder. "I'm Tiger. I watched you fight on the slope. Your reflexes are good and your instincts are sharp, but you waste too much energy. Keep that up and you'll burn out before a mission is done." He gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. "That can be trained. That's what we're here for. Eat first. Nobody trains well on an empty stomach... and tomorrow you're gonna need every drop of strength you've got."
******
Hey everyone! Why not check out patreon.com/Shurazero? I've been learning how to make images, and quite a few of them are free to view if you're curious. There are sets for a bunch of different characters, not just one, so feel free to browse. Oh, and several chapters are also up early, before their official release date. So what are you waiting for? Come join!