[Yanai Yoko]

Hostage Rescue Simulation.

Three words that were almost as grating on the ears as ‘Yanai Hebiru’ or ‘The Gorgon’.

With her ankle healed she was ready to get back to class and start doing more practical training again. She took the advice Jun had given her and tried to apply it where she could, but it was ten times harder than it sounded. Pain in the neck emotion-powered quirk! She was fine training on her own and occasionally chatting with Nat when they crossed paths, but soon the two disaster roommates found themselves paired together once more for another thrilling school exercise.

‘‘Your seniors will play the villains in this exercise.’’ Sadako smiled, introducing a roster of seniors that were gonna form team villains. ‘‘What? That’s impossible, we can't compete with them!’’ Bickered some of the first years. Yoko as per usual stood in the back, away from everyone smoking her cigarette as she leaned on a tree. ‘‘You’re that intimidated?’’ Sadako teased as she glanced down at her clipboard for notes. ‘‘Don’t worry, they’re not allowed to use their quirks!’’ She proclaimed with a smile, followed by a chorus of jeers from the seniors. ‘‘What?? Then it’ll be over in seconds, they won’t even have to strategize!’’

So that was the plan for this exercise. First years were going to be paired up in groups of three as team heroes. Then there were a couple of second years playing the hostages and third years playing team villains. Yoko took it all in from the back. So, basically her job was to rescue the hostages and subdue any, or all the villains if possible. Then there was something about them being graded on their approach and so on, she didn’t give a shit about any of that.

‘‘Team 4… Natesa Bee.’’ Sadako read aloud from a list, pointing for Nat to stand in a specific spot. ‘‘Kaori Koyama.’’ A green-haired girl just a couple inches taller than Yoko stepped forward, standing next to Nat. ‘‘And Yoko Yanai.’’ Sadako pointed, but then looked up when Yoko wasn’t joining her teammates. Finally spotting her, Sadako shot out a chain using her quirk, and snatched Yoko’s cigarette out of her hands without harming her. ‘‘Hey that’s mine!’’ She complained, finally stomping up to join her teammates. ‘‘No smoking in the forest zone, Yanai-san.’’ Sadako smiled passive aggressively as her chains crushed the cigarette into a tiny ball of ash. ‘‘Whatever.’’ She huffed, putting her hands in her hoodie pocket. She was going to sneak in here and have a smoke later just to defy teacher Sadako.

‘‘Nat, did you catch all that? We’re rescuing people or something.’’ Yoko immediately turned to her roommate and started going over everything, completely ignoring their third team member. ‘‘Um…’’ The girl spoke up nervously. ‘‘L-Let’s all do our best?’’ She tried to encourage them, but didn’t sound all that convincing. Sensing weakness nearby, Yoko turned to look at her. ‘‘Who are you?’’

‘‘Um, Kaori Koyama.’’

‘‘Cool. Why are you talking to us?’’ Yoko scowled, immediately ready to throw down with this random girl, seemingly forgetting they were teammates. Hopefully Nat had paid better attention than her.

nat

[nat]

Nat's focus was on how she could help the most just from the sound of the course. If the goal was rescuing hostages somehow, then running around or maybe running interference was probably a big part of it? She had to be cautious about getting tangled up, she wouldn't be able to do much if something like those scarf tricks happened again. Not until she could figure out a way to counter it anyways.

Nat didn't complain about being against seniors, just shifting her weight on one foot and lightly crossing her arms under her chest. The ban on quirk use being objected by said seniors was amusing, and made her wonder how many of them were neglecting the physical side of things. Maybe she wouldn't be too bad off for this after all? More importantly, the approach was part of the grade, Nat frowning slightly to try and assess what would be most likely to be good or bad approaches. Yoko being on her team again was a pleasant surprise, giving the short girl a brief little thumbs up gesture. Right as her cigarette got stolen and her roommate went into Grump Mode. She didn't know Kaori, though, so she wasn't sure what to make of being on a team with her.

“Yeah. If we need to carry them out, you might have to use your Quirk.” Nat noted, fully aware it was unlikely Yoko could do something like that under her normal strength. When Kaori spoke up she glanced over at her, giving a small tip of her head in acknowledgement. Before she could reply Yoko was grilling her, Nat reaching over to distract the grumpy blonde with a light poke on the shoulder. “She's on our team, too.”

Her voice was as flat as always but she hoped the gesture came across as a friendly reminder more than anything that would irritate Yoko more. If it did she would be quick to apologise, and have to think up something nice to do later to make up for the blunder.

Eventually either way she was going to ask: “Any plans on how to do this?”

Yanai Yoko

[Yanai Yoko]

‘‘If we have to do that then sure, whatever I can transform.’’ She wasn’t happy about it, but she couldn’t exactly expect to make her way through hero school without using her quirk. She wasn’t nearly skilled enough for that. Besides, Jun had given her some pointers that made it less annoying to transform.

‘‘She is?’’ Yoko turned to look at her roommate, grumpy as ever, but she didn’t seem affected by the shoulder poke. ‘‘Then why didn’t you say so, idiot.’’ She directed the insult at Kaori who just took it without talking back. ‘‘So, team of three… Oh right.’’ Yoko pulled out a map and looked at it. ‘‘Sensei gave me this…’’ She blinked her eyes, feeling a strong case of not-wanting-to-read-maps-itis coming on. Potentially deadly if she held it for any longer. ‘‘Nat, map.’’ She said firmly, handing it to Nat like she had been established as the team’s map reader.

Once the exercise was about to kick off the girls found themselves in the middle of the forest zone. The map was meant to help them plan how they were going to attack the villains, as it showed a bird’s eye view of the ‘camp’ the villains were hiding out at and keeping the hostages. With multiple openings, which one would be the most ideal and garner the most favor with the teachers? ‘‘Stop being so quiet.’’ She reprimanded Kaori who bowed her head. ‘‘Sorry, sorry!’’ This only made Yoko more annoyed. ‘‘And stop saying sorry! You’re acting like we’re gonna hurt you.’’

‘‘H-How could I not be? You’re both so scary. That time you fought Shirayuki-sensei…’’ Yoko clearly recalled shouting at the crowd and insulting their entire class. Her quirk had probably shaken up some of the others, and Nat being so capable despite being quirkless was probably a bit of a shocker too. ‘‘Whatever, just don’t get in the way.’’ She huffed, turning away to try to scout out the camp ahead.

‘‘Idiots!! I’m not scared of either of you! I’ve been thinking about all that stuff you said back at practice and how wrong you are!’’ Her timid expression warped into a sinister grin when both girls looked away. ‘‘Gotoh-sensei placed me on a team with you? Lucky! I’m going to embarrass you both and report you to sensei, you’re gonna look like the worthless bottom feeders that you are!’’ Flipping her palm up she whispered into it, waiting for the opportune moment to use her quirk. A small ball of fire with arms, legs and a cartoonishly angry face immediately started taking swings at Kaori. ‘‘No! No not me!’’ She whispered to it, before directing it towards Nat. The ball floated up to the back of her neck and gave her a whack, which only felt about as painful as a bee sting.

Pain wasn’t the real benefit to her quirk. The real benefit was that it was going to amplify Nat’s anger to explosive proportions. She was going to overreact and Kaori was going to record the abuse for her sensei to see! ‘‘Oh no!’’ She whined and pointed down at her shoe. ‘‘My shoelaces came undone! Nat-chan, could you tie them for meee?’’ She asked innocuously while taking her phone out and pretending to look at it. In reality, she had just hit record. Yoko wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on between her allies, too busy focusing on what to do. They could either take a serious approach to this assignment, or halfass it and piss off their teacher. Decisions, decisions.

nat

[nat]

Nat took the map without a second thought, perfectly content to be the established map reader whenever it came up. Peering at it, she briefly appreciated that it wasn’t pitch black or on a mountainside this time before focusing on coming up with plans. She gave small comments here and there, exchanging some thoughts with her teammates, on their way to the middle of the forest. Nothing in depth, just trying to get a feel for how they wanted to approach it. Sneaky, guns blazing, that sort of thing. Looking up from the map when Yoko reprimanded Kaori for being quiet and apologizing, she wanted to interject to try and reassure Kaori that Yoko was probably just trying to help in her grumpy sort of way. Like their own talk when they were stuck dangling, Yoko had said it wasn’t good for Nat to just go along with everything and she probably saw a similar issue with how timid Kaori was.

Being described as scary made her tilt her head to one side, glancing at Yoko with one eyebrow raised in a way that silently asked ‘Am I scary?’.

Before she could say anything their teammate suddenly flipped her whole demeanor around. Shifting her weight to one foot, Nat got the impression Kaori was just messing with them the entire time until now. Staring at her with a stony expression, she wasn’t sure how to respond exactly but the sudden Quirk use threw her off more. What was Kaori up to with such a funny looking Quirk? Maybe if she wasn’t so fascinated by Quirks she would have thought to avoid it, but the sudden bonk on the back of her neck from it prompted her to slap a hand up against the spot it touched.

It had stung. What was the point of hitting her with something like that? Just to be petty? From the outside it probably looked like Nat was just standing there with her hand on her neck as Kaori started mockingly whining about her shoes, the dreadlocked blonde closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to try and center herself. Moving forward, eyes opening again, the look on her face made it clear it hadn’t worked. Eyes wide and focused only on Kaori, pupils small and eyebrows narrowed, Nat was absolutely furious as she reached out to rest her hands on either of their teammates shoulders.

She was fully intending to knee the girl right in the stomach as hard as she could without so much as a word of warning.

Yanai Yoko

[Yanai Yoko]

Yoko fiddled with her packet of cigarettes in her pocket as she eyed the path ahead. Their seniors weren’t exactly prohibited from taking the initiative and moving in on them, so it was probably best that someone kept a lookout. When she was about to take out a cigarette she almost heard Sadako scold her again for trying to smoke in the forest zone. Pain in the ass hero teachers. When her eyes met Nat’s and her roomie asked her that silent question she just shook her head, before putting a finger gun up to her temple. Implying Kaori was a bit of a nutjob.

As she turned back to keep a lookout she wondered about what she should have for dinner tonight. Was Nat going to cook again, or would she have to chip in herself this time? Meanwhile Kaori stood there with her phone ready to record incriminating footage of Nat getting angry. ‘‘What’s the matter? Can’t you help-’’ Kaori’s condescending question was cut short when Nat kneed her in the stomach, causing her to drop her phone and double over. ‘‘What the hell?’’ Yoko turned and looked back at her teammates. Were they fighting? That wasn’t the Nat she usually knew. Hell, if Nat was that violent she would have gotten several bruises herself by now. Maybe it was because she understood Nat better than Kaori, maybe it was because she cared more about her roommate, but just as Kaori expected to be backed up, Yoko walked over and lifted her by her hair. ‘‘What happened? What did you do?’’ She hissed at Kaori, before looking up at Nat. ‘‘What did she say to you? Is she being a shithead?’’

Yoko’s reaction was already exactly what Kaori needed to record, but she knew that if she targeted her with her quirk it would become even stronger, the perfect type of explosive anger that would look terrible on video and get both her and Nat expelled. With her power of OBEY she was going to get both of them kicked out. Manifesting the little fireball in her hand again, she tried to sneak it past Nat as the ball punched, or stung Yoko on the cheek. ‘‘Ow.’’ She grumbled, rubbing the spot where she had been hit. ‘‘Tell me what’s going on here.’’ She pointed at Nat, demanding answers while she felt her own temperament begin to rise. Odd. She had nothing to be especially mad about. Annoyed? Sure. Kaori and this whole exercise was a pain in the neck, but not enough to get angry enough to risk activating her quirk. At the same time, the artificially inflated anger Nat had been feeling before would quickly dissipate.

nat

[nat]

Kneeing Kaori in the stomach should have made Nat feel better, but it didn’t. All the dreadlocked blonde could focus on was their condescending classmate, who apparently couldn’t even block or avoid an attack like that because she had her head that far up her own ass. Tie her shoes for her? Right now Nat felt like wringing her neck instead. When Yoko intervened and started asking questions, glancing at Nat, it fell on deaf ears. Nat wasn’t ignoring her, she couldn’t really register that she was there at all with how laser-focused she was on Kaori.

Then all at once that overwhelming anger just vanished, all the tension going with it and Nat nearly stumbled as she came back to herself. Frowning, brow furrowing, Nat’s confusion was uncharacteristically easy to read on her face as she glanced at Kaori, her own hands, and wondered why she had felt so angry over something so trivial.

Yoko demanding answers while pointing at her caught her attention, glancing over at her fast enough to make her dreadlocks sweep across her shoulders. “Sorry, I don’t…” She trailed off, trying to think of how to phrase it. She knew she’d been angry, so saying she didn’t know wasn’t right. “I don’t get angry like that, I’m not sure what happened. Are you okay?” She settled on that still unsatisfying feeling answer, checking on Kaori and bringing a hand up to her head as she tried to remember exactly what had happened through the cloud of anger shrouding the past minute of her memory. She was just standing there and then Kaori was saying stuff and before she knew it she had stepped over and hit her. She couldn't even remember exactly what Kaori had said. She remembered a sharp pain just before then, too, and something small zipping by. Twice, just before that strange anger went away she could remember seeing it again out of the corner of her eye.

One of the senior’s quirks? Or…

[Yanai Yoko]

‘‘Nat. You apologize too much.’’ She reminded her sternly, but her attention wasn’t off of Kaori yet. She knew this girl had to have said something nasty to get such a rise out of Nat, but she didn’t know what and more critically, she didn’t have any proof.

‘‘I’m not!! You’re just as violent as the rumors said! This is what you can expect from someone who is quirkless, you don’t have any powers so you just resort to violence, typical!’’ Kaori whined, rubbing her stomach after it got kneed. Ever the opportunist, she looked in Yoko’s direction. Now that the short blonde had been hit by her quirk it was only a matter of time before she lost her temper. Any small trigger could set her off. ‘‘Just get along. Get along for this one exercise and then you can kill each other after I don’t care.’’ Yoko hissed, turning to walk back to her spot.

‘‘Yoko-chan.’’

‘‘Fucking what?’’ She sneered and turned around, staring Kaori down with her trademark grumpy scowl.

‘‘My… shoes, can you help me tie my shoes?’’ Kaori pointed to her untied shoelaces. She had laid out the bait! Now she just needed Yoko to take it. Once both girls had been recorded beating up their innocent classmate they would get in trouble for sure!

‘‘Tie them yourself, shithead. How old are you? Dumbass.’’ Despite anger coursing through her veins to an absurd degree, Yoko was remaining remarkably, no, disturbingly calm. Had Kaori’s quirk missed somehow? She could have sworn Yoko reacted to the sting, and she knew her power hadn’t run out yet. ‘‘N-Nat-chan told me to ask you!’’ Kaori pointed an accusatory finger at Nat.

‘‘Leave Nat alone bitch. You’re wasting our time by making us stand around.’’ Still nothing. Yoko was angry, but not enough to approach Kaori or get violent like Nat had. ‘‘Nat. Did you tell her to ask me? If you lie I’ll kick your ass.’’

nat

[nat]

Nat gave a slight incline of her head to acknowledge Yoko’s reminder while she tried to piece together what was going on. Easier said than done, though. Were there really rumors about her being violent? Was kicking and footwork that much more violent than the stuff a lot of Quirks could do? Maybe Kaori was just lashing out because getting kneed in the stomach had hurt, saying whatever came to her mind even if it didn’t make that much sense? Any further dwelling on that though was put aside by Yoko and Kaori arguing, and Nat’s eyes widened a bit as something clicked together.

Shifting her weight onto one leg cautiously as Kaori pointed at her, Nat shook her head at Yoko’s question. “I didn’t.” The threat at the end went entirely ignored, keeping her attention on Kaori.

It was a good thing she did too, because she threw her hands up with a yell of “Forget it!” and brought one palm up to whisper into again. Conjuring a strange wispy thing that Nat recognized as what she had briefly seen before, this time Kaori didn’t give it much time to try to mistakenly attack her as she shoved it towards Nat while calling out a pre-emptive attempt to rile her up. “Aren’t you roommates and friends or something? What kind of person threatens to beat up their roommate?”

Nat hopped backwards as the Quirk raced towards her, pivoting on one foot to change course and avoid it. It was quick to turn around, zooming quickly right for her faster than she could hop around and reaching out to sting her aga - Nat quickly stepped around Kaori, putting her in the way as the Quirk bopped her right on the face. A moment later their teammate was red faced and letting out a frustrated yell as she started jabbing fingers at both of them.

“Why aren’t you two fighting! This was supposed to be easy!”

Keeping wary just in case Kaori tried to attack them, or use her Quirk more, Nat gave a tip of her head towards Kaori while explaining her best guess to Yoko if she hadn’t already realized what was up. “Her Quirk is some kind of… Anger Ball.”

Yanai Yoko

[Yanai Yoko]

‘‘You don’t know shit about me so you better-’’ She was about to go on a long tirade, but stopped when Nat dodged the attack and caused Kaori to hit herself with her own quirk. ‘‘Oi, what the hell is this?’’ She walked closer, which proved to be a mistake as she just narrowly avoided Kaori’s hand as she swiped at her. ‘‘Anger Ball?’’ She glanced over at Nat, not wanting to take her eyes off their ‘teammate’ if she was about to go berserk.

‘‘It’s called OBEY you IDIOTS! That’s what you were supposed to do!’’ She shouted, throwing a tantrum as she charged up another anger ball, but before she could sent it off after anyone Yoko stepped in and slapped her hand out of the way, using her troll quirk to restrain her and hold her down. With the added muscles from her quirk, it was a piece of cake to keep Kaori from attacking either of them anymore. ‘‘Are you insane?? You’re attacking your own teammates, do you realize what you’re doing?!’’ Yoko and Kaori quickly entered a shouting match, shouting insults back and forth at each other a few times.

‘‘I bet my quirk didn’t work on you because you’re an ugly monster!’’

‘‘It didn’t work because I’m always angry you fucking idiot!’’

Once things finally calmed down and both Kaori and Yoko were out of breath, Yoko turned to Nat. ‘‘I have an idea, I know exactly what our battle plan should be.’’

Getting ready to storm the villain camp, Kaori stood there, sobbing. ‘‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.’’

‘‘Shut up! You attacked us first!’’ Yoko roared, pointing a finger at her, resisting the temptation to deck Kaori in the face then and there. The plan was simple. Kaori was to charge in through the middle and draw away all the attention from the villains, while her and Nat swept in from the side, used the distraction to rescue the hostages and take down as many villains as they could.

The result was predictably, exactly what they were hoping for. Kaori was surrounded in seconds, thank god their seniors weren’t allowed to use their quirks. ‘‘She’s alone? Is it a trap?’’ Before one of the seniors could finish his thoughts Yoko dropped down from the trees above, squashing him with her added troll transformation weight. ‘‘Freeze villains, or I’ll dismember your friend!’’ She growled, holding onto the one villain she had managed to capture like her life depended on it. What their seniors probably didn’t realize was that Yoko was only the second distraction. The most underrated member of their team, Nat, had all the opportunities she could want to act now. Fight the villains and save the hostages? It was completely within reach. ''Jeez, some hero you are...'' Chuckled one of their seniors, a little frightened by Yoko.

nat

[nat]

Nat relaxed once Yoko had Kaori restrained, impressed with how quickly her roommate could trigger her transformation. Certainly far faster than the way similar things were shown in shows and games, but that was probably for dramatic effect or something? Or maybe it was just some ancient hold over from the pre-Quirk days when nobody actually had a frame of reference. Putting that idle thought aside and bringing her arms up to cross under her chest thoughtfully, she listened along to Yoko’s idea. It was a good one, and maybe it was some residual effects of the anger ball or she just really didn’t like Kaori, but Nat didn’t mind throwing her to the wolves one bit, so to speak.

Tipping her head to one side slightly while the other two were arguing, Nat concluded that Kaori just also deserved it for trying to get them in trouble and misusing her Quirk like that.

After Yoko dove in the ‘villains’ weren’t giving up that easily, focusing on trying to handle Kaori and get Yoko to release the one she had a hold on. Which could let Nat sprint in unnoticed to free the hostages. Something Nat considered trying, but escorting them might get messy quick if the villains managed to threaten the hostages or team up on her while Yoko and Kaori were trying to catch up or busy.

“Wait, the third one is probably-”

Right as the ‘villain’ held down by Yoko realised Nat was missing, about to tell their teammates to worry about the hostages instead, Nat came running in to help with the fight with a big kick aimed at one of the villains surrounding Kaori and sending them stumbling in surprise, more kicks following. Most were blocked, but Nat had some decent speed and force and she focused on keeping the group as off balance as she could to prevent them from coordinating. Some of them definitely relied too much on their Quirks, not being able to making it pretty clear they weren’t that familiar with getting kicked at. Some were seniors for a reason though, blocking and getting their bearings despite Nat’s efforts.

They were more or less all lined up now though, focusing on Nat more than Kaori or Yoko and leaving the short troll-transformed girl free to barrel through them.

Yanai Yoko

[Yanai Yoko]

‘‘Nice going, Nat!’’ She grinned, knowing she could put her trust in her roomie. Maybe they had learned something from their sparring match against combat teacher Mai? Heck, if they passed this exercise they might just have to go thank her after, not that Yoko would suggest it. Going around thanking people so casually would ruin the image she was trying to build for herself.

With all the seniors lined up barreling through them was easy, and to make matters better, she had the perfect weapon with her. Grabbing one of their seniors by the ankles she scooped them up and swung them at the other seniors, using them as a makeshift weapon. Mid-swing she stopped and looked over at Kaori. ‘‘Kaori!! You better not misfire that shit ball!’’ Their teammate just nodded awkwardly, before landing a hit on one of the seniors, causing them to lose their cool.

In the aftermath they had managed to capture the villains and free the civilians but…

‘‘You girls…’’ Sadako sighed, putting a hand up to her temple. ‘‘After strategizing you concluded that sacrificing one of your own was the best way to move forward? You’re lucky it turned out okay, I can’t in good conscience reward you for being so reckless. In the future, I’d like to see you resolve your internal conflicts more peacefully.’’ She glanced down at her clipboard for a moment. ‘‘That being said, I’m letting all three of you pass.’’ Yoko was surprised, but she tried not to show it. ‘‘However…’’ Yup here it was, they were passing, but there was a catch.

‘‘You’re going to be assisting the janitor in cleaning up the campus after school for a week, starting tomorrow.’’ Sadako smiled brightly. Manual labor, great. Although, if she was doing it with Nat maybe it wasn’t too bad. Yeah, there were way worse punishments.

nat

[Jinx]

☆ MISSION SUCCESS ☆

Hostage rescue simulations are so in rn.
Great thread you two!

+ 5,000 EXP!!

Yoko: 15,250 // 20,250
Nat: 25,000 // 30,000

tag: Yanai Yoko,nat