Chapter Text
Fractured sections of pavement outside of the konbini spread outward in a nonexistent pattern like shattered glass. There was a car lying on its roof with human sized dents battered into the doors. Piss yellow police tape ran around the area, enclosing it with bold, black lettering that read: “crime scene do not cross.” There was a cluster of reporters, news crews, and general onlookers further back behind a temporary barricade, all gathered as close as they could get to the edge. The pin-needle migraine behind Toushirou’s left eye gave a particularly painful throb at the sight.
What gave him more grief though was the wielder of a foam-headed microphone in front of him. She had a close-lipped smile that set all of Toushirou’s alarm bells off with how artificial it was.
Damn reporters.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Hijikata-san,” she said.
He nodded. He was itching to have a cigarette, but he knew he couldn’t smoke during the interview. The Shinsengumi would get angry complaints from affronted mothers about what a terrible example he set for their children if he did.
The reporter glanced at her cameraman, then at the broken parking lot over her shoulder. She turned back to the camera lens and cleared her throat. “Today, at ten thirty-two p.m, the parking lot of the konbini you see behind me became the victim of an unprecedented attack. Several robots of unknown designations, and the infamous vigilante group known as the Demons, arrived on the scene in the midst of a conflict, and used this parking lot as their arena. Thankfully, Vice-Commander Hijikata Toushirou of the Shinsengumi was not far from the location. Isn’t that so, Hijikata-san?”
Toushirou’s fingers twitched. Mayoboro! Mayoboro! they cried out, anguished that they couldn’t have a smoke stuck between their knuckles. He shifted onto his back foot and nodded again, then tacked on a hasty “yes” when that didn’t feel like enough.
“And is it true that the Demons were able to escape Shinsengumi custody again?”
He set his jaw, his annoyance rearing its head. “That’s right.”
The reporter’s smile widened. “Would you mind telling us how that happened?”
What he really wanted to do was go back to the barracks and suck mayonnaise straight from the bottle, not deal with a bloodthirsty news crew. He had just stocked up on Mayorin, and there was a pack of a dozen waiting for him in his desk—if Sougo hadn’t found it yet. His uniform was coated in a thick, suffocating layer of concrete dust, and he could feel bruises beginning to form all over his body. His ribs were the worst, and the dull ache behind them was steadily growing the longer he stood there.
Toushirou stuck his hand in his pocket and thumbed at the edge of his lighter.
“Right,” he said.
***
Two hours ago:
Toushirou dove into a roll, his shoulder making contact with the pebbled pavement of the alley and coming off as he came back up again. Heat licked his skin as a miniature explosion raged where he had been standing only a second ago. He cursed when he was forced into diving away again as his adversary tossed another tiny bomb at him.
The man standing a dozen or so feet across from him laughed, then jammed a finger up his nose. “You fool!” he said, then flicked another booger at Toushirou, who only barely managed to scramble out of the way of a snot-induced explosion. “How could you think of challenging me alone? You, who are powerless!”
“Shut up!” Toushirou snapped. He skirted closer, grip tight on the hilt of his sword. His opponent danced away and dragged his pinky out of his nostril, flicking the results at him in retaliation. He was forced to back off again, unless he wanted to get fried by fire born from nasal mucus.
“You have no chance,” the criminal said. He grinned, pinching a booger between the pad of his forefinger and thumb. “I am Mister Sixty-nine, the man who ate the Blow-Blow fruit!”
Toushirou grimaced. “You’re in the wrong fanfic!”
Mister Sixty-nine just laughed as he retreated further into the alley. “Thanks to the powers of the fruit, I can turn any part of my body into a bomb. My only weakness is sewage water!”
Oi, isn’t it seawater?
“And seeing as we’re far from any manhole, you, Demon Vice-Commander, are finished!”
Toushirou threw himself forward, barely managing to avoid becoming the victim of one of the worst villains he’d seen since Don K***g. He sprinted faster than the smoke could clear, until he was nearly on top of the criminal. Then he slammed the butt of his sword into the side of his face. The man let out a cry as he crumpled, and Toushirou wasted no time in pinning him and clamping a pair of anti-ability cuffs onto his wrists.
Sixty-nine gasped, wriggling on his stomach despite the fact that he was restrained. “Sewage cuffs? How? How did you manage to find such a rare material?”
Toushirou didn’t deign that with a response, just pulled the man to his feet. He dragged him back to the entrance of the alley, where their fight had begun in the first place. He’d caught the guy trying to break into a nearby lingerie store. What sort of freak tried that at ten in the morning? And in front of witnesses, too. Moron.
This was a regular occurrence for Toushirou. Not catching men in the wrong fanfic breaking into lingerie stores, that is. He meant running into those with abilities, who chose to take advantage of them illegally. Unfortunately for him, it happened to be all too common…
Mayonnaise. Cigarettes. Otaku life. V-shaped bangs.
Oi, Toushirou thought, glaring at the disembodied voice of the narrator. What do you think you’re doing?
Shut up, said the narrator, serenely. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the amanto attacked. Only Tosshi, master of all four unappealing traits, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he—
Stop doing that! Toushirou thought. This isn’t A*****. You haven’t even finished the first chapter and you’re already derailing the story!
The narrator frowned, pausing to think about where she was actually going to take this fic. Perhaps Hijikata had a point… she hadn’t outlined anything, and she was coming to realize that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Coming up with things on the fly was hard; after all, it had taken her something like six months to finish this chapter. She was adding this entire segment post-completion because she thought it would be funny. And she was right, it was funny. Maybe she should go into comedy—
Stop it! Toushirou snapped. No one wants to hear about your shitty introspection!
The narrator would like it to be known that Hijikata is the only one who thinks her introspection is shitty. You all like it, right? Right?
Hm… of course you do. And of course the narrator knows you do, she just needed to check. Just to be sure. But she also thinks that Hijikata should lock that O** P**** character up now, so maybe it's time to get back on track…
When the Amanto arrived, they brought with them a seemingly harmless contagion called Bovid-20. It took a while for humanity to realize what it did, but once people started to discover the abilities it gave them, the effects became less innocent. At least twenty-five percent of the country’s entire population developed abilities after the virus swept across the nation, too fast for the authorities to realize what was happening.
Now though, to use your ability, you had to be registered with the government. In doing so, they would be able to call on you for assistance whenever they wished, and you would be obligated to answer. Many didn’t take well to this new law, and so Toushirou and the other members of the Shinsengumi would routinely have to arrest those who used their powers illegally.
“If you release me,” the man was saying, still struggling against the cuffs, “you can join me in my quest to find the One Piss!”
“No thanks,” Toushirou said, then pushed him into the backseat of his car.
“But you could become the Plumber King—”
The car door slammed shut. Toushirou shoved a hand through his hair, sweat making the locks slide through his fingers; that fight hadn’t been difficult, but it had been long. His feet ached in his boots, and he was looking forward to leaving this guy for Yamazaki to handle, before returning to the barracks.
He was just about to open the driver’s door when he felt a rumble run through the asphalt beneath his feet. What the… Toushirou looked further down the street, only for a sharp crash to ring through the air, paired with the ground shaking at such an intense rate that it was enough to send him stumbling into the car. A great plume of smoke rose up from behind the roofs of businesses only a couple blocks away, like a black ink stain against the blue sky. He could hear the faintest of screams carried on the wind.
Toushirou cursed and turned to the driver’s door. He flung it open and reached for the radio sitting inside. “Yamazaki! Yamazaki, pick up dammit!”
It crackled in his hand, fizzing to life with the panicked yelp of his subordinate. “Yes, Vice-Chief?”
“Get out here, I need you to take a criminal back to the precinct.”
“But I don’t know where—”
“In the Kabuki District! Now get your ass over here before I make you commit seppuku.”
“Vice-Chief—”
“And send over backup. There’s been an explosion not far from my location.” He frowned at the smoke plume in the sky. “I have a feeling you’ll know it when you see it.”
“But—”
Toushirou slammed the radio back into its holding space and shut the door. He made sure to lock the car in case the aspiring Plumber King got any ideas about escaping, and then he was sprinting down the road. His boots crunched against the dirt, and his muscles pumped until he fell into the frenetic rhythm of running. He tore through the streets, the smoke plume growing steadily larger.
When he rounded a corner and emerged onto a new block, Toushirou stopped dead. There was a konbini across the street from him, and it was on fire. To be more accurate, the gas station in front of it was on fire, and clearly the source of the explosion. The sign above the konbini’s door had snapped off its chain, and was lying as a barricade in front of the door. A cluster of people were standing behind the glass, which was scratched, like they’d tried breaking it and failed.
There was a fight going on in the parking lot, too. Toushirou counted at least two dozen… maids? He blinked at the cluster of women, who looked like they belonged in a cafe over a parking lot brawl, and seemed to be led by a man dressed like a butler. They were fighting a group that Toushirou was unfortunately familiar with.
There were two figures cloaked all in black, wearing masks to hide their faces, and a pair of floating glasses that he could hardly pick out amongst the action. The smaller of the two visible members wore a mask colored red like blood. It had bulbous eyes and an impish grin, which fit the infuriating behavior of its owner. But that wasn’t who Toushirou’s gaze was drawn to. No, instead he watched with something he knew would eventually morph into rage as the larger figure’s wooden sword clashed with the butler’s broom handle.
The man who had been a pain in Toushirou’s ass for months wore a mask white as bone, with horns protruding from the forehead like thorns. Teeth curled out from the wild, vicious grin of a demon, and pitted eyes, that were a solid black against the white of the mask, stared forward in all their empty glory.
I don’t get paid enough for this shit, Toushirou thought as he lit a cigarette, ignoring the narrator when she politely pointed out that he doesn’t get paid at all.
It was the Shiroyasha.