[yaguro]

Yaguro Shamasu had met some very interesting characters these past few weeks; But none even came close to the absolute giant that called himself the Silent Cartographer; Making such a powerful ally didn’t happen every day, and the vigilante knew that he needed to know more; He already had a face, and with how insanely tall this guy was, it didn’t take long to spot the guy in a crowd.

After their first encounter, Yaguro had made sure to trail his fellow vigilante for a bit, just enough to know the general direction to sniff in; He quickly deduced that Tokyo would be the place to search.

In such a big city, rare quirks were abundant, plenty that made one stand above a crowd, but most of them were mutation types, and almost none of them looked like his target.


He’d had a few potential matches but they’d all led to dead ends; Yaguro had been starting to get desperate, thinking he’d never find the needle in the haystack. The vigilante was ready to start trailing anyone that even taller than average, until one day he had finally spotted him; A giant amongst men, large and hulking, and clearly the man he was looking for.

Another few days of investigation and Yaguro was certain, and after a bit more investigative work, he found himself at the entrance of a fancy dining establishment.


“Guess I know how you can afford your lifestyle then…” As the young man gazed up at the glowing sign and pondered, a rich couple shoved past him, giving him an annoyed look as they went inside.

Yaguro was certainly a fish out of water here, with his jeans and an old hoodie, compared to the much finer clothes the other restaurant patrons were wearing.


“Well, I got a shirt and shoes.”


Pushing the door open, Yaguro wondered what occupation the Cartographer had here. Was he a waiter? A bouncer? Was it a full on Batman situation where he owned the place?

“Table for one.” Yaguro told the main behind the counter as he pulled out a cigarette.

The host he was talking to looked at him like he’d just been asking to juggle chainsaws. Eyeing up this oddball customer, he eventually sighed, and grabbed a menu. “This way.” Stopping, he plucked the cigarette from the punk’s mouth. “And we do not smoke in this establishment.”



Walking through the high end facility, Yaguro got his fair share of looks from the other customers present. It was just after the lunch rush, so there were plenty of other diners still present, but the house wasn’t packed to the brim.

Being sat at a small table meant for two, Yaguro opened up his menu and started to peer through it.

“And now, I wait…”

[rayder]

Another day in the kitchen, and Rayder enjoyed it like any other. The bustling sounds of the kitchen surrounded the giant man. It was his passion, his goal. He was looked up to here, no pun intended. He had earned his position, his name in culinary history. 25 years old, head chef of a high end restaurant, practically the leader of the cooks here, and one of the youngest chefs ever to earn a Michelin Star, all while being technically “disabled”, as his boss put so eloquently to the guests of this restaurant whenever he would show the man off. He was the mute foreigner with one leg who wowed the elite almost every night, and this praise gave him plenty of leeway when asking to leave early or to skip certain nights to take care of his other business… Still, Rayder knew he needed to have more time out there. Through this job, and being a spectacle that his boss loved to show everyone with pride, he was saving to open his own restaurant. One day that dream would become a reality for him.
The lunch rush had finally ended, and Rayder, towering above the rest of his cooks, began typing away on a tablet as they straightened up a bit to prep for the dinner service. Once he finished typing, he hit a button, a slightly robotic voice speaking for the man. It was a common sound from the kitchen, and the regulars had come to recognize it as a sign that Rayder was cooking, gaining excitement from them.
“Very well done, cooks. Lunch went well. I’ll assist with prepping ingredients and help when needed. We are booked solid tonight, and also have a rehearsal dinner coming in with a special menu. All the courses are written down, and desserts need to be prepared beforehand, so let’s get to work for tonight and keep doing a wonderful job with the remaining guests.”
“YES CHEF!” All the cooks replied, as if the words came from their head chef’s mouth. The kitchen had evolved to fit Rayder; Many chefs understood sign language, the giant kept the tablet with him at all times to “speak”, and there were elevated cutting boards and pull out stools when he was cooking and prepping. He got to work, beginning to cut vegetables and garnishes, as well as trimming meats. Orders were still coming in, so he also assisted in that.
Soon, one of the waiters came to the front, talking to a couple of the chefs. It seemed they were laughing at something, Rayder coming forward to keep things working, signing to the waiter, who understood Rayder’s sign language.
“{ What’s going on? Is there an emergency}” He signed, eyebrow raised as the other chefs returned to work.
“Huh? Oh, nothing. Just giving a warning. Seems we got someone off the streets here. Either that, or he’s high off his mind and stumbled in. I’ll make sure to send you to take care of him, big guy, in case he dines and dashes.” A silent scoff was let out from the giant before he signed again.
“{Let’s not judge a guest on attire, please. If there is an issue once he’s completed his meal, I will deal with it. For now, we must treat him like any other. Do you understand?}”
“Yes chef.” The waiter stood, one cook dropping off an entree before Rayder grabbed the garnish, finishing the dish off before it was sent out. The giant’s interest was piqued slightly, but before he stepped out, Blaze came out.
“HEY! Stringbean! Get back to work! I’m starving, and the more we dilly dally, the longer it’ll take until our break!”
“Hey, don’t boss me around, you freeloader!” He jokingly said in his mind to Blaze, who to him, was standing behind him, him invisible to the rest of this world.
Turning back to the kitchen, his boss, Izanagi Sekiguchi came in, doing his usual “observing” by standing in the entrance and nodding. The man was shorter than even the other chefs in this kitchen, and his body was almost round with weight. He made sure to stand with authority, giving little “good jobs” to his workers who passed.
“Yeah, Sekiguchi… like that helps in the damn kitchen while stringbean here runs this damn joint better than you…” Blaze never liked Rayder’s boss, and always pushed the giant to leave, maybe with a grand entrance of flipping off the whole restaurant. At least Rayder had better sense than that. Izanagi walked to the tall man, patting his forearm and smiling.
“Good job, son, as always. I’ll be in the dining room. I might call you out there. You know how people love meeting you, chef.” The tall man looked down, giving a small smile before signing to his boss.
“{Yes, sir. I understand. I know you want me to speak to the future bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner and go through the entrees, as well. I'll be using the tablet to speak to we don't have to translate so much during it. I'll make sure everything's done perfectly.}”
“Good boy! Keep it up!” With that, the short round man left, Rayder keeping the smile on until he was gone. Yep… more being toured around like a damn circus performer. Even with his skill, it wasn’t what that man loved to throw around about him… Still, he kept working, not letting that man get to him. He had skill, he had passion, and he would keep that in his heart as he grew out of this place and finally achieved his dream.

[yaguro]

Still no sign of the Cartographer; Yaguro had already walked around a few times, pretending to be looking for the bathroom, and he hadn’t spotted anyone that matched the mystery man’s appearance. That meant that either he wasn’t working today, or that he worked a position that wasn’t customer facing; Likely a chef.

Thinking about it, it made sense that Cartographer didn’t work as a waiter, or some other job that was in constant contact with customers; He was a mute after all, and sign language was a rare skill.
Time to dig a little deeper. Taking a sip out of his water, he picked a little bit at the white rice he had ordered; It was the cheapest thing he could order as to not be seen as a bum that wasn’t going to pay for any food. Thinking, he called his waiter to him.

“Hey, the rice here’s pretty good.” The vigilante commented, taking in another clump with his chopsticks.
“You think you’d be able to get the cook out here? I know it seems odd to compliment a chef on something as simple as rice, but when they do something so simple so good, I feel like it needs compliments.”
The waiter sighed at the mundane request. “Alright, I’ll see what I can do.” He muttered out, heading to the kitchen.
Peering in and spotting Rayder, he motioned for him. In truth, the waiter didn’t know who had made the rice; He was just hoping their giant of a cook could get this ruffian out.
“We have a customer out there who doesn’t exactly fit in with the crowd…Rayder, can you ‘talk’ to him?”

[rayder]

Working hard preparing a few dishes for the remaining customers before dinner preparation, Rayder nodded as he was gestured to by another waiter. Internally, he felt it would be about that same damn customer. Even though the giant knew this was an expensive and elegant establishment, he believed guests shouldn’t be discriminated against. Sure enough, it was about him. What could the man be doing out there to be getting this much hatred? Rayder began signing, a look of annoyance on the man’s face.

“{Please, if it’s just about how the man looks, I feel it doesn't need me to scare the man. Besides, you know how I feel about being a scare tactic here. I’m not a bouncer.}” Izanagi noticed the conversation going on, walking over.

“Rayder, let’s just go out. You know I can gauge how a customer is. He might be a health inspector or one of those food influencers!” The waiter gave his boss a strange look.

“Sir… he ordered only white rice. He clearly can’t afford this place if that’s all he’s ordering. Not to mention he wants to ‘compliment the chef’ just for some damn rice!”

“{Listen, if he can’t pay, we will speak to him. Please leave the man be. You know even our rice is made with skill.}” His signing slowly became more annoyed, wanting to just get back to his work in the kitchen and respect the guest’s privacy.

“Rayder, we’re going out there. Maybe showing off my star will influence the man to spend more.” Closing his eyes and sighing, Rayder could only nod to his boss before putting down his towel and taking down his bunned up hair, putting it into his normal ponytail to make himself presentable. His prosthetic leg was out in the open, the pant leg on that side cut for easier manoeuvring, and also because the boss wanted to have Rayder “show his true self”... more like become a spectacle. Izanagi looked out, waiting for the giant.

“Yeah, great… time to fucking model for a bum here, stringbean… I hate this goddamn prick…” Blaze was even more pissed, not helping with Rayder’s annoyance before he stepped out and looked around and spotted… the man… It was Yaguro. “What… the… FUCK?! HE’S STALKING US! SHIT SHIT SHIT! I TOLD YOU HE SHOULDN’T BE TRUSTED, RAYDER!” The man’s face turned slightly red from the internal anger Blaze filled him with, Izanagi turning and noticing the strange face his head chef was making.

“Rayder… what’s wrong? It’s just another customer. I know you want to be back to work, but let’s get this done. I might need you to help him out… he doesn’t look like he can even afford the rice. I’ll give my speech and we’ll get him out.” His boss could never understand the anger inside Rayder… His so-called teammate in his vigilante work tracked him down and was at his workplace. Not only that, but now he would see his prosthetic… This bastard would know he wasn’t only a mute, but an amputee… he could see all his weaknesses here… but he had to keep a straight face for his job, forcing a small smile on his face to play his part. As they made it to Yaguro, Izanagi began speaking.

“Hello, young sir. I heard you were interested in our chefs. Well, I am the owner of this establishment and I brought you my head chef. This large man here,” Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. “Is Rayder Lucas Bishop. He is the leader of my kitchen, and the man who brought us our first Michelin Star a year ago at the young age of 24, and aims to bring us our second! A true prodigy!” The look in the giant’s eyes would tell Yaguro the amount of hell he would be dealt with. Oh, he was in SO much trouble. Rage and fear filled both his and Blaze’s entire beings. With this information… he could find out everything. The accident that cost him his leg, the attack that left him scarred as his targets were… and Blaze, dying right beside him during that terrible day. Still, Rayder bowed as he would with any other guest. 

“My boy here has skill beyond his years, and does it without the ability to speak and with only one leg, rendering my boy quirkless. He pushes the limits, and I am proud to have snagged him into my kitchen. Not only that, but he is an incredible pianist! I have him play for the restaurant many nights. A true artist all around! I hope we can influence you to try many more dishes. If not, we can pack up everything for you. It is getting quite late in our lunch hours and I want Rayder and his staff to be at their best prepping for our dinner.” Standing up straight, Rayder used his trembling hands to sign to the other vigilante.

“{Thank you for coming to this dear establishment. I’m glad you enjoyed our dishes. Even our simple white rice is made with time and skill, and I’m very glad my chefs were able to please you.}”

“My boy says thank you for coming here and that even our white rice is made with skill, and is happy the chefs could make you happy!” Izanagi translated him. It felt insulting just being referred to as “my boy”, especially in front of Yaguro. Still, he held it inside, though Blaze’s negative feelings of everything made his face even more red with rage. Rayder turned to his boss trying to contain this anger.

“{Sir, I will take care of him for now. Please have a waiter wrap his rice. I will communicate to him outside about the establishment.}” Izanagi nodded, wishing the young ruffian a good day before Rayder walked towards the door and gestured to Yaguro. He would make it look like he was kicking the man out, but goddamn was it going to be much worse…

[yaguro]

The second the oversized chef stepped out Yaguro knew he had hit the nail right on the head. The cartographer’s real name was revealed; Rayder Lucas Bishop. An untraditional name to be sure.
A wide grin came over the vigilante’s face as the restaurants owner gushed about Rayder’s achievements as he listened on, completely ignoring the death stares he was getting.
It seemed that on top of everything, Rayder was a cripple, only having one leg; That was shocking to hear, considering how he’d seen the guy move. All it would take from here to learn everything about him was a few quick searches on social media, now that he knew the guys full name.

“That’s quite a story; Sounds like Rayder here has overcome a lot.” Yaguro commented. “Seems like he wants to talk to me further, so I’ll just be outside with him for a minute alright?”

Watching Rayder move to the door, Yaguro got up, left a couple bills of yen, and made his way outside to wait for Rayder, oblivious to the storm that was about to come down on him full force.

[rayder]

Rayder was walking out fast, anger spread across the giant’s face, Rayder quickly turned towards an alley next to the building, making sure Yaguro would know to come into it. Waiting for the son of a bitch to come, Blaze was losing it on Rayder.


“I TOLD you, you naive fucking redwood! He is a fucking bastard! Especially what you found out, too!”



“Andrew! PLease, I’m fucking pissed as it is! But don’t worry, I’m going to make sure this bitch doesn’t test us again…”



“Oh, HELL YEAH! THAT’S the Stringbean I remember! Don’t be such a pussy anymore! Kick his ass, or I’ll give you a fucking migraine again!”

Standing and waiting, the giant didn’t waste a moment when Yaguro turned to corner into the alley as well, pulling him fully in, sending fist after fist into his face before throwing the bastard into the trash bins. The kitchen would believe the sound to be him kicking out the delinquent in their kitchen and leave Rayder to his business.


Panting, he grabbed his phone, beginning to message him a long bout of scolding.


“How dare you. How FUCKING dare you! I made a deal with you to let me be in my daily life, and here you come like a rat scampering into my place of employment, making a mockery of everything, and humiliating me!”
He smirked, knowing how to kick him best while he was down.
“You are acting like nothing but the lowlife the Thunderbolts falsely believed you to be, Mr. Yaguro Shamasu. Was a shame you were falsely labelled as a villain all while trying to help, and while being doped out on quirk enhancing drugs. Now you’re as quirkless as I am now, as well, aren’t you? Do you think you’re the only one who did research? Do you want me to tell you everything I learned about you? Where you live, where you work, your nonexistent connections with anyone and how I easily found all this out? But did I strut around showing off all of this information, going into that little convenient store you work in with a big cocky smile and talking to your coworkers? HELL NO! Because all I would EVER use that information for is a quick confirmation my family was safe with me near you, and I would’ve NEVER thrown it into your face! But here we are, and you crossed the line, so I’m crossing this line, as well.”

He walked over, staring down at Yaguro and waiting for him to read the message. He would not play nice with him anymore. The moment his livelihood and family was on the line, this lowlife would feel the wrath of hell bottled inside the giant for oh so long.

[yaguro]

Getting instantly attacked by Rayder was not was Yaguro was expecting. Sure, he didn’t expect the warmest reception, but this was absurd.
Picking himself up off the ground and spitting out some blood, Yaguro let his anger be known.
“Hey, what the hell is wrong with you?!” He asked in a less than hushed tone. “I get it, I came into your place, but I had to do my research on you!”
Sighing, he paused as he pulled out his phone to see what Rayder had been saying. Seemed like he knew just about everything about him, including his arrest…Great. Turnabout was fair play, but this was one hell of a turnabout.
“So, you know about that, huh?” He asked in an annoyed tone. “Look, I wasn’t ‘doped up’, I was just taking some…Enhancers. Considering I was doing it for a good cause, it doesn’t seem that wrong. And today…I was just making sure you were clean. Theres a lot of bad people around, and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t one of them; I wasn’t trying to intimidate you.”
Admittedly, things did look pretty bad on his end; Yaguro thought that by taking the initiative he could find out Rayders identity before the inverse happened; But clearly this guy was a pro.
“Look, lets just not get carried away here alright? I promise I won’t do this again when we have our masks off; You can trust me.”
He didn’t fashion himself as a thug that would resort to threatening families anyway, so hopefully he could communicate that to his giant coworker.

[rayder]

Quickly, Rayder walked to the man, putting his hand over Yaguro’s mouth. How the hell was he still alive with there being nothing between his fucking ears! Loudly talking about vigilante work out here?! Gesturing his hand down, trying to let the man know to lower his voice, he finally stepped back, but not before wiping some of the blood from the punk’s mouth that got on his hand off on Yaguro’s sweatshirt before looking down at him trying to explain himself, but Rayder was having none of it as he typed.

“Well, if you take enough to lose your quirk, I think that could be called being doped up. You tried to use fucking chemicals to compensate instead of using strategy and knowledge to expand your horizons. However, your little “check” of my daily life has brought alot of confusion into that kitchen. If you ACTUALLY knew what you were doing, you would disguise yourself, put up a front. Even if you wore your daily clothing, you needed to pretend to be someone who BELONGS there, like one of those dumb food bloggers. You can compromise EVERYTHING!” Thoughts of what could happen if this bastard got them caught flooded into his head. He would lose everything… his dreams, his love, his family… it made the anger boil even more.
“You don’t have much to risk in this life, as I’ve seen in my research, but that doesn’t mean we all don’t. You could never understand how much I had to fight against to get to where I am now. I had to push myself past the limits while being at a disadvantage since the moment I was born and with the world destroying everything else through the years, ripping away EVERYTHING i held dear! I have shed too much blood, sweat, and tears to be taken down by a clueless excuse for a vigilante who can’t understand the simple restrictions his “partner” gave him! YOU wanted me to work with you, and I put my entire existence on the line by agreeing to help you out! You run into the line of fire without a plan or common sense, and you expect me to trust you? No. That’s not how this is going to work anymore. You are going to listen to me. It’s clear that your years of patrolling have done nothing to prepare you for the dangers that surround us and our work! It’s a fucking wonder you’re still alive!” Running his hand through his long hair, Rayder tried to calm himself, pacing in front of the smaller man. Rayder might only be 3 years older than him, but it was clear Yaguro was more of a child than anything.

“Keep going, Stringbean! I’m LOVING this onslaught of insults you’re throwing at the prick!” Blaze tried egging him on. In Rayder’s eyes, the redhead was standing next to Yaguro, glaring at him with a large smile. “Fuck, I wish I could kick him. Do it for me, with your fake leg! REALLY make it hurt.”

“Andrew, not NOW!” The giant screamed in his head at the man, unconsciously staring towards him with anger. It would look like he was staring at nothing to anyone else. “I am dealing with a potential threat to our livelihoods-”

“That I warned your ass about! I’m going to make sure I rub it in your face long enough! What are you going to do? Put headphones in to not hear me? Remember I’m in your goddamn head forever! Now, keep berating this asshole instead of me.” Blaze stood, arms crossed with Rayder walking over to Yaguro, eyes still locked on the unknown visitor until he was towering over the man and typing away once again.

“NEVER try this again. NEVER mess with our fucking life. Next time it will be the last time you call yourself a vigilante, whether it means we kick the everliving shit out of you until you’re worse off than we are, or we fucking happen to give your name to some authority. Who will they believe in the end of it all; the former criminal with nothing to his name, or the mute one-legged family man? Don’t make it to where you’ll see if these are empty threats or not. No more questions about it. Do. You. Understand?” His anger was so intense, the giant unconsciously used “we” and “our” with his words, showing this fury was both his and Blaze’s in his words. Even without a voice, it was clear the anger and intensity was prevalent as his gaze seemed to burn right through the smaller man.

[yaguro]

Rayder had really done his homework; He seemed to know just about everything there was to know.
Admittedly, Yaguro hadn’t put much thought into going into the restaurant; In all honesty, he’d figured that he had beaten his partner to the punch in learning secret identities; It was a bit frustrating that the inverse was true.
Of course, the vigilante was starting to get a bit pissed off at Rayder’s string of insults towards him; But he decided that for the time being, it was best to just ride it out, and stay silent; A tactic that paid off.

In his haste, Rayder had revealed some interesting bits; For whatever reason, he was referring to himself as multiple people; At first he thought it was a typo; But the error was repeated…Interesting, very interesting. The best part of all was that he had every single word down to the letter saved on his phone now; That made him feel just a bit better about the Cartographer’s silent rage.

“Alright, alright.” Yaguro stated in a hushed voice, trying to hide his smugness at the thought of discovering one of Rayder’s secrets. “Look, I get it, I fucked up; But we’re both on the same side here. You seem to know everything about me, except that I actually was a true vigilante, someone out to stop these gangs from running rampant. I still am. And if you’re still willing to work with me, I think we can do a lot of good; And I swear on my life to keep our personal lives separate from our…’Work’ lives. That sound good to you?”

[rayder]

The anger inside Rayder was immense, but he tried to relax. It would be bad if anyone else saw him like this. They wouldn’t believe just a bum customer would bring out this much rage in the giant. Taking deep breaths, the man listened to his so-called “partner”. The hushed tone that Yaguro was speaking back to Rayder in had a hint of… Something. Confidence, maybe? The giant’s mercenary grandfather taught him to notice these little details, no matter how small. He raised an eyebrow to him as he listened, knowing he had some sort of info, and would decide to use it against him. He truly had to contemplate working with someone so intrusive and reckless. At this point, he had been gone too long because of this bastard. He needed to think of something, quickly messaging the man.

“Before we can even continue this conversation, we need to take care of something. Scratch me, really bad. Make it bleed. It would be suspicious communicating this long with you. We need to make it look like an assault. I'll make sure they don't call authorities. After you do, run a few blocks to the pharmacy there, and turn in the alley. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Rolling up his sleeve to reveal his tattooed arm, he held it out to the man, waiting with a straight face. “Don't worry, it won't hurt me. I've been trained to take worse pain. The kitchen, however, has no idea, so it'll give me a good amount of time. I will also be clearing all my messages after this one. You better clear them, as well. I will check your phone once we meet back up, so you better not have anything on there. You're no longer to be trusted, so I'll have to goddamn monitor you like a rebellious teen. Let's get to it.” The giant said, hitting the message folder and deleting all the messages he sent. There needed to be no connection between them anywhere close to his job.

[yaguro]

Making their whole encounter look like a fight was a solid idea; Dissipates any suspicion among Rayder’s coworkers. Not to mention Yaguro would be more than happy to oblige in his request.
His comment about Yaguro being a rebellious teen was certainly annoying though; It was starting to feel more and more like Rayder considered himself superior in this partnership.

“What a prick…” Cracking his knuckles, the vigilante reeled back and hit Rayder hard, making sure that it would leave a bruise.
“There, that good enough?” He asked angrily, rubbing his now bruised fist. This guy had trained his body, and even hitting him directly in the face was like punching a brick wall; Sure he’d done that exact thing training, but it didn’t hurt much less. “I’ll be waiting; But lets just keep our second meeting quick, alright? Not too many hours of daylight left and I need to get ready for patrol.”

Walking away, Yaguro took out his phone and looked through the messages; Like hell he was just going to nuke one of his best assets against Rayder. Still, it was best to at least get rid of the surface level evidence anyway. Tapping through a few settings on his phone, he saved all of the messages to an archived folder, one that, if looked out from an outsider, would just be an inconspicuous folder with an inconspicuous name. Data retrieval would take a good hour, but that was no skin off his back. Deleting the messages, he headed to the pharmacy to wait for his cohort.

[rayder]

A hit in the face was NOT what he was planning on! Rayder’s head turned just from the force, but the giant showed not a single trace of pain. Looking at the smaller man, his cheek was bruised and slightly bleeding. He was about to lecture the man again about this, about messing with his face when he was the goddamn face of his job, but he walked off. Little asshole. He wanted to drop this entire partnership… but now this bastard knew so much about him. It would be so much more risky to end this with him knowing his fucking name… But now it was time to act. Rayder quickly slammed the door open, his face changing to one of pure pain, holding his bloodied and bruised cheek with one hand as he went up the stairs. 

Once making it to the restaurant, Izanagi saw him in pain and ran over. Some of the waiters came, as well and led him to a seat.

“My boy! What did that monster do?!” The panting Rayder took his trembling hands and signed to his boss and the others, some of his cooks coming from the kitchen to check on the gentle giant.

“{The man attacked me once I brought him out. I had to sadly defend myself and hit him, as well… I’m not sure what he was planning, but… I punished him for it enough. We won’t see him again. I gave him more of a punishment than authorities could give him.}" The whole place fell for it. They were comforting him, thanking him for protecting the place.

“My dear boy, go take a break. We will hold the place. It’s the least I can do for what you did.” 

“{Thank you sir… I will go for a bit and grab something to cover this wound up. I want to still be presentable for our guests. I’ll return soon enough.}” Nodding, the pained looking Rayder walked to the back room, grabbing his wallet and other possessions. Going down the stairs, almost wobbling from the hard hit, he finally stepped out the door and walked a bit. Once he was out of sight, he stood up straight, cracking his neck and heading to the meeting spot.

“You fucking better give him another hit for this! You fucking offered your arm for him to SCRATCH, and he just socked you in the jaw!!!” Blaze trailed behind Rayder, pissed off. 

“Andrew, no more attacking. I’m stuck with him. You were right, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have teamed up with the bastard… But now he knows too much and… maybe I was too hard on him. I need to try and make this as painless as possible… Like a tumor that can’t be removed.”

“Ahhhh, I LOVE when I’m told I’m right! Doesn’t happen much!” Andrew followed with a cocky smile on his face, one only Rayder would ever see. 

Within minutes, Rayder made it into the pharmacy, showing the pained look on his face again as he got a few items from the store to cover the wound, looking in the mirror as he places a bandage on it until the bleeding stopped, paying the attendant and smiling as he walked out and into the alley, spotting the other man. Without typing a word, he held his hand out, demanding the other vigilante’s cell phone. He’d make sure there was nothing on there from his conversation with him.

[yaguro]

Tensions were getting bad with his new ‘partner’; That much was plain and clear. What wasn’t as obvious, Yaguro pondered, was how he could actually get back on his good side. The last thing he needed was for Rayder to decide he didn’t like him and carve his chest up too.
Watching as the giant approached, the vigilante rolled his eyes and handed over his phone, waiting for it to be examined; Thankfully, he’d deleted all of their prior messages, but had backed them up twice, on separate servers, just to be sure. One was just in his native phone’s system, easily retrievable with the right data, and another sent to his home computer; Untraceable, and without the computer itself, impossible to find.

It didn’t matter what Rayder looked for on his phone; Even smashing it to bits wouldn’t do him any good, so Yaguro wasn’t worried.
“You can trust me, you know.” He commented as he watched Rayder presumably take the device. “I’m not some psycho who would go attack your family; That’s the kind of person I’m trying to keep of the street.” A lie, mixed in with some truth. He was sneaky, but not cruel.
“I feel like we should do some team building exercises or something, I dunno. Some way to actually get along.” The punk was still a bit bitter from earlier, so it was hard to think of much to make him like Rayder more. “I know we don’t want to have to watch our backs from each other.”

[rayder]

Rayder partially listened to the smaller man as he searched through the files on this man’s phone for any signs of the messages or anything else. Their message folder was empty, recycling emptied, nothing downloaded about it. It seemed clean… too clean, in the giant’s paranoid opinion. Glaring at the man, he handed him back the device. He wouldn’t just destroy his possessions like that. He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose to calm his nerves before pulling his own phone out to message Yaguro again.
“What you did compromised potential plans that could’ve been carried through to make this ‘team’ a well oiled machine. It will be much more dangerous if we are seen anywhere together now. My work life does stay away from my home life, so I can still pull off a cover story with my husband.” He didn’t give a damn as he pulled out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a deep breath. He let himself relax for a moment before going back to the device.
“I do apologize for my reaction earlier.”
“DON’T APOLOGIZE! His ass deserved a beating!” Blaze scolded the large man, glaring at Yaguro before Rayder continued.
“One thing you have to understand is I have to protect my life. I can’t lose this. My life was a living hell since my first breath. I have fought so hard to get where I am. I have lost so much. I’m haunted everyday by my past. Seeing you there, a connection to activities I do that are believed to be criminal and unforgivable, made me imagine everything crashing down if those activities were discovered. Losing my dream, being arrested, my love and child leaving me. I’ve lost enough in my life that losing anything else would be my end. It may be too much I’m sharing, but I need you to understand why I was so upset, and what my limits are.” Rubbing his face, he took out the box of cigarettes again, this time holding it out to the other man. A reluctant peace offering before he continued his messages.
“It will take a bit to trust you, especially after you destroyed the sanctity of one of my safe havens so recklessly, which I have had only a few ever, the ability to trust has been diminished further. I hide things for a reason, such as… this burden.” He tapped on his prosthetic, almost staring at the missing limb angrily and with embarrassment in his eyes. “I have weaknesses that are hidden for a reason, as do you. As my boss so eloquently put it, I am essentially quirkless, and it’s only with this that I can use the rest of my quirk. That is something I didn’t want you to know. It can cause many problems if we are discovered. They can take it away, leave me not only crippled, but quirkless as I am put on trial. I’d be trapped in a fucking chair again with no one and nothing but shame.”
“Shut up, you dick! Look at who you’re venting to! You’re saying far too much! What, you’re going to say “Oh, and by the way, I have my dead friend and first love stuck in my brain for all eternity?!” Quit opening up!”Blaze made Rayder come back to reality a bit, him realizing how much he was sending. Straightening himself up and clearing his face to its former emotional state, he resumed.
“This is something to save wherever you hidden everything else; You were interested in being taught sign language. You didn’t have money for lessons. I already help with people wanting to learn it and saw you, so I offered my services for free. We have to work with your schedule since you can’t miss any work with your finances, so you message me when you want a “lesson”. When you message when we need to meet, it will be referred to as lessons. This will be the story we keep up from now on, understand? We need a fake story to continue this damn partnership you wanted. Whatever team building you want, it will be our “introductory lesson”. Now, whatever else you needed from me today, tell me now. Whatever information or resources you gathered, tell me." Taking another puff, he knew he'd get chewed out for smoking in his uniform both by his boss and husband, but he didn't give a damn. His nerves were scrambled, and at this point, he felt he would have a breakdown with all the emotions bottled up, withering away at him. A curse of having no voice, no way to open up or release the agony as it snowballed constantly as he hid half his life from everyone around him.

[yaguro]

It had been a minute since Yaguro had gotten slugged in the face, and punching Rayder back helped him gain a bit of composure back.
“Hey, its fine, to be honest I probably would’ve reacted worse if you showed up at my apartment out of nowhere.”
Especially since he was packing heat.

Checking his phone to see Rayder’s next words, he almost felt a bit bad for the guy. Almost. With nothing really to lose himself, he wasn’t able to relate. At the very least it gave more explanation for his companions reaction.
Taking the cigarette of peace, Yaguro took out his lighter and lit it up.
“Don’t feel bad about being quirkless. You already know I lost my quirk too, but I think we’ve proven that quirkless guys can still kick their fair share of ass.”
The vigilante gave a quirky smile towards the giant, feeling a twinge of pride in his quirkless combat skills. Listening further, the cover was a fairly solid one, and one that people wouldn’t question. And if someone did dig too deep, Yaguro could just lie and say that the story was a cover for an affair. Rayder would be furious about it, so that would be a last ditch effort in case someone got way too close for comfort.
“I don’t need anything for now; I think I’m just going to go home and tend to this bruise you gave me. Seriously, you hit way harder than anyone I know.”
Flicking his cigarette to the ground and stomping it out, Yaguro stuck his hands in his pockets, and started to head for the subway home.
“Hey, we’ll meet up again soon, alright? For now I’ll get some ‘studying’ done…” Giving his partner a subtle wave, the punk rounded a corner and vanished from sight.