The request was a reasonable one by most standards. That Kioko’s initial internal response was, You can call me uninterested, was a personal non-Quirk quirk of hers. Yet the response she actually gave was limited to a single word.

“Meliora.”

Censoring her true thoughts in delicate situations, as most involving scoundrels dubbing themselves Villains tended to be, was not unusual. Kioko had verbally navigated through treacherous conversations before and she would do so again in the very near future. What was odd was the subtle accompanying shift of Kioko’s mental state.

She was not the type of person to have random highs in her mood that made her more agreeable or otherwise. Kioko stayed on an even keel of annoyance, well-hidden fear, and most importantly at the present moment, paranoia. The woman before her may have gotten the answer she wanted through use of unseen and subtle force in less more typical situations, but now Kioko was even more wary than she normally was and with wariness came even greater reluctance and resistance to being agreeable. Impressive because Kioko was rarely if ever those things in the first place. The biting iciness her tone took when she spoke next heralded a warning of her suspicion and impending hostility with the same efficiency of a rattlesnake’s telltale tune.

“And you are?”


Notes & Tags: rhea

A singular and potentially devastating issue arose at the worst times when one could think as quickly as Kioko — her body and Quirk couldn’t simply couldn’t keep up with her mind. Though the intent had been to pull her mercury back enough to prevent evaporation, the opposite happened to thin sheets of the outer layers even as the bulk of what was left coalesced into her shield. What did not then became an invisible and odorless gas in turn that proliferated through the air. With its state of matter shifted away from its already strange duality, now it was unable to be detected by anyone other than herself unless they had the Quirk or tools necessary to do so. Otherwise, people usually remained clueless.

Until the sickness began.

Anyone that had to breathe in the ever widening vicinity of the vapor would be struck almost immediately by nausea, headaches, and exhaustion as their body succumbed to the toxin. Tonight that meant Ifrit. As mighty as he was, he bore no immunity to mercury. Neither did Sho. And what came up, must come back down. Eventually. For now only Ifrit began the battle against the invasion in his body.

He roared again in frustration at internal pain he didn’t expect. His fires flared even beneath the downpour which made approaching him even more dangerous. Kioko had no plans of doing so, but she didn’t have to. He was approaching her. Such was the life of one dubbed distraction.

The bridge shuddered with each shambling step he took toward her. His pace was slowed by his own bulk and illness. Not that he needed to be fast when he was strong. A long arm reached out to grab a guardrail. It warped beneath force and fire as it was ripped free of the bridge just before it was hurled at Kioko. The debris wasn’t thrown as a spear, but stretched out horizontally. Dodging either left or right wasn’t an option with as fast as the makeshift projectile moved. Which only left up or or down.

Most people would have chosen an upward trajectory for escape to ensure future maneuverability. Kioko would have too were it not for the shadow that loomed overhead with an oversized sword in hand. She opted to drop to the ground to avoid the rapidly incoming guardrail with her mercury shield folding down over her like a cocoon. It wouldn’t protect her from Ifrit should he attack again, but it would help her with what inevitably came next beyond the enemy immediately in front of her.


Notes & Tags: Shō Matsui | Ifrit's Constitution has been lowered by 2 Ranks from Kioko's Quirk debuff and the rain. Ifrit Stats: Awareness (A) - Constitution (B+) (A) - Dexterity (D-) - Presence (S) - Speed (D-) - Strength (S) | Ifrit's Transformation Quirk, Hellfire, turns him into a towering monster nearly two stories tall. His gigantic form is wrapped in hardened muscle that looks charred and a mantel of infernal fire that further discourages hits. He can tank most hits and dish them back even harder, but his size makes him very slow and lumbering.

Kioko’s idle animation as she listened to the introduction lacked one key aspect — animation. Stillness a statue would envy only broke upon the revelation of Kei’s identity. Kioko turned away from him, seemingly satisfied with the answer to the point she felt no need to add anything else as she walked away. At least until she paused a few feet away from where she had once loomed over him to watch yet another group pass by with an obvious wide berth given to her immediate proximity.

She didn’t look back at him, but her melodic voice rose just loud enough to be discerned above the din and was clearly directed at him. “It has been a pleasure, Hada-san.” Her tone devoid of the emotion it claimed seemed to say otherwise, but few ever heard anything other than apathy or hostility in her voice. At least Kei was no longer on the verge of the latter. Nor the former either now as Kioko merged into the crowd with all the grace of a predator tracking new prey.


Notes & Tags: Kei Hada

Silence hung heavy in the air between them as Kioko icily regarded the man before her as his words meant to mollify the riled serpent faded away. Were it not for the ambient sounds of the convention still playing out in the background soundtrack, it would have felt more like they had dared to disturb a mausoleum of something longer departed. And they were in a manner of speaking. Kioko had long since laid to rest the kind of person she had once been that deserved the concern or consideration of others. Still, he had tried when no one else did. If he was lucky, that meant something far beneath the mask of apathy Kioko donned.

“There is one other thing.”

She verbalized no gratitude for the attempt at a peace offering, but her voice had lost a touch of venomous edge earlier displayed. Her eyes were no less sharp and her face no less stony though as she asked the question to appease a new curiosity in the wake of his inquiry. “What is your name?” They had gone the entire exchange without introduction because Kioko needed none wherever she went and she had cared little in the beginning to know just who he was. Whether or not it was a good thing she asked now would remain to be seen in the future.


Notes & Tags: Kei Hada

It was here that Kioko should have said something. Issued a correction that could ensure that the tides of battle didn’t turn against them given all they would face from Ifrit. If she had cared even a little for Sho’s well being or if she was even a fraction less proud, Kioko would have let him in on a secret about her Quirk and how it interacted with specific elements. Perhaps even if Sho had phrased his insistence that she could do no harm to him through friendly fire a little differently, she might have spared him from what would inevitably come.

But she didn’t.

Kioko held her tongue. At least on that matter. She addressed the other matter with a smirk and words unleashed from her sardonic silver tongue. “I am far too spiteful to die.” With that, Kioko took the high road where she could (which definitely wasn’t in how she spoke to him) as Sho had quite literally taken the low road. Mercury rose her up over the lip of the bridge then surged forward.

The metallic wave was far different than her normal approach. Her tenuous arrangement required that she be a distraction. So distracting she was. The metal grating against the asphalt like nails on a chalkboard, only infinitely worse in its harshness. Daiki immediately whipped around and as he did, he began to glow red. Truly a beacon calling the Gyrfalcon to action. She didn’t stop there though. Kioko knew what would follow from all of the intel that she had gathered. Her mercury separated into spiraling bullets that shot forward in an attempt to riddle the growing form before it could spawn into the hellfire that was Ifrit. If she could land even a little of the poison into his system… But it was too late. The transformation was nigh instantaneous.



He towered above the scene. His roar caused to vibrate perilously with its intensity and volume. Kioko had to cover her ears as she ran behind a wall of quicksilver she had called back at the last second. She could only hope that Gyrfalcon had fared better on his end. Between the hulking form of the behemoth between them and the steam rising from his body as rain pelted against the fiery mantel encasing him, it was difficult to get eyes on the man. The fact she had temporarily taken cover didn't help matters.


Notes & Tags: Shō Matsui | Ifrit Stats: Awareness (A) - Constitution (A) - Dexterity (D-) - Presence (S) - Speed (D-) - Strength (S) | Ifrit's Transformation Quirk, Hellfire, turns him into a towering monster nearly two stories tall. His gigantic form is wrapped in hardened muscle that looks charred and a mantel of infernal fire that further discourages hits. He can tank most hits and dish them back even harder, but his size makes him very slow and lumbering.

A turn released Kioko’s latest victim from her Medusa’s hold once he had satisfied her curiosity. She intended to depart upon its completion. A thanks for his time was barred from passing the gates of the serpent’s lips by a counter-question — something she had been actively avoiding. She had a lifetime’s worth of having her motives called into question. At least this instance wasn’t a public spectacle. Not that such a pivotal difference fully stopped Kioko’s ire rearing up from the depths.

Her rotation reversed and she faced Kei once more. When she had last fixed him within the full gravity of her stare, she had at least been leaning. Now the menacing mercurial monolith had drawn herself up to her full height to glare down upon him.

“A problem?”

She gestured broadly at the convention around them. “What could possibly be the problem?” Clearly Kei had not realized the minefield of irony he had tripped into with his inquiry likely meant to be more helpful than accusatory. Were they in another setting in which her emotions weren’t frayed by simple proximity to her former life, perhaps Kioko wouldn’t have reacted so volatilely. But they were here and so was the elephant in the room that Kioko now dragged into full view as an unlikely scapegoat for her future crimes.

“Imagine me having a problem here of all places. It is not as if fearful eyes follow my every movement accompanied by judgemental whispers and conspiracies. Would that not just be absurd?”

Her head whipped around to pointedly look at passersby fitting the summary she had just given. One of the women in the gaggle audibly squeaked in fright at the sudden attention. Kioko sneered in response, baring her fangs as a result and sending the group scurrying away as quickly as they could while still retaining any sort of dignity in the situation. It may have been an act on her part to divert attention from her questions and actions, but the thinly veiled scorn that haunted her presence in public stung no less beneath the fire and ice of her facade as she returned her focus to Kei.


Notes & Tags: Kei Hada

To their credit, they mentioned nothing about the bombs or the plan at large before Kioko used the quicksilver coating her upper arm to boost her strength and ram their head into the metal casing of the closest beverage dispenser. They crumpled to the ground, claimed by concussion and toxin alike. Kioko stepped on their uninjured hand for good measure. Now it boasted an almost matching wound to its counterpart courtesy of the ever sharp points her stiletto heeled boots boasted. She moved on without a trace of remorse for her own actions in a stunning display of hypocrisy given her current goal. Kioko’s path took her toward said goal in the direction begrudgingly given up with her shadow stretching out before her as a silent herald of the reaper that followed.


Notes & Tags: Bakiri Retsu Rui Matsui ctrl Shō Matsui | Mask + Outfit