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Everyone is quick to react once the first villain appears on the scene.
The small group of hero students — Kyouka included — all tense with anticipation. They all have their provisional licences, and they know that they'll use them if they need to.
Kyouka keeps one ear-jack aimed in the direction of the villains, watching carefully while Yaomomo- no, Creati gets to work formulating plans and comms devices in case they need to separate from each other.
When her fingers are curled around the bulky customised earphone, Kyouka only waits a second for the nod in her direction before running off to get closer to the action.
Kyouka is probably the most stealth-geared person in their group right now, so they accept their role gracefully. It isn't long until she's close enough to the villains to not need a jack to hear them.
It's a group of three. One is watching the crowd of civilians they've gathered with literal eagle eyes. The other two are talking — more like arguing — with each other in hushed tones off to the side.
Creati's voice comes through loud and clear in their ear, and Kyouka plugs one ear-jack into the microphone slot so that their classmates can hear what's going on. It's too dangerous to speak right now, so she doesn't bother giving an affirmative past a quiet hum.
Kyouka stops paying attention to the two villains talking when they feel eyes on them. It's the first villain.
Staring directly at her.
Or at least, that's what they think the villain is doing. They're certainly looking in Kyouka's direction. A sense of dread goes through her when one of the two she'd been watching is beckoned over by Eagle Eyes.
They have rings of light going in pulses down their exposed forearms, which speed up and get brighter when they look in Kyouka's direction.
It feels very foreboding. Kyouka is smart enough that she knows what a Quirk charging up looks like.
Ducking out of where they hope the Quirk's path will go, Kyouka stumbles slightly when a visible wave of sound pulses throughout the ground they’re crouching on. The ear-jack still in the ground listening to the villains rings with tinnitus.
A squeal of feedback in her ear forces her to unplug the jack connected to the earphone. Everything goes quiet. Well, mostly quiet.
With the ringing still echoing around their skull, Kyouka can't hear anything going on around them.
She has no idea how long she spends with her hands held tightly against her ears, but it's evidently long enough for someone to sneak up on her. Creati — their friend, Yaomomo — rests a gentle hand on their shoulder, mouth moving as she delicately pushes Kyouka's hands away from their ears.
Kyouka can't hear what Yaomomo is saying, but she recognises the look in her eyes as nothing good. Looking down at their hands reveals blood, and tentatively prodding at their ear confirms where it came from.
This doesn't feel like a good omen.