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Thirteen drummed her gloved fingers on the table beside her, the rhythmic sound of plastic on wood being the only reason she hadn’t started pacing. Yet. It wasn’t that Thirteen didn’t like waiting. The room was just too clean—empty. There was not even a pamphlet on the table, or a picture on the wall, or—
The door gave no warning before it swung open, and Thirteen could not have been more thankful for the ability to hide her shock behind her visor as Nagant-senpai stepped into the room. Such relief was short-lived, however.
“For your sake, I hope your reaction time is not so high in the field,” Nagant-senpai said coolly, pushing the door closed with the heel of her boot.
Thirteen couldn’t find a proper response to that, though Nagant-senpai either didn’t expect one, or didn’t care enough to question her silence. Taking the only other chair in the room, Thirteen finally found out just why she’d been summoned.
“You’re needed for a hostage situation,” said Nagant-senpai bluntly. “One of the villains has an explosion quirk, and it is likely your rescue knowledge and quirk will be required.”
“I-I don’t really have much combat experience—”
“And that,” Nagant-senpai interrupted. “Is why I will be going with you.”
“But—”
“We have thirty minutes for preparation,” Nagant-senpai said sharply. “If you require any equipment, you know where the armoury is.”
Nagant-senpai was already waiting at the door when Thirteen arrived. Her hair was done up in a tight ponytail. Even her bangs were pulled away from her face, which was partially concealed by a dark face mask. She stared at Thirteen as she approached, turning her gaze to the bag Thirteen held tightly in one hand.
“That’s a liability,” she said simply. “It leaves only one hand free, and would be a hazard if you dropped it.”
Thirteen was taken aback by the statement, tilting her head in confusion. “My costume is too bulky for a backpack. I don’t exactly have any better options.”
Nagant-senpai sighed, and held out her hand. “Fine. I’ll take it then.” Thirteen complied, and Nagant-senpai slung the handle over her shoulder, letting the bag rest on her left. She turned to the door. “Now, let’s go.”
Thirteen couldn’t help her unease as they walked down dimly lit alleys and dingy roads. They’d been able to drive some of the way, but apparently they wouldn’t be able to get Nagant-senpai and Thirteen all the way to their destination. Thirteen wished they could have — it would have left her less time to think about what she was quite literally walking into.
Thirteen had never liked combat scenarios — they were too unpredictable. Dangerous in a way that disaster scenarios just weren’t. She could look at a damaged building and judge which direction it might fall, where the gas lines might have been broken, and plan out the best routes for evacuating civilians…
Villains weren’t like earthquakes and fires. One wrong move could end with a knife to a civilian’s neck, or a bullet to the chest. One villain could just be trying to grab a loaf of bread, while the very next could be looking to make a statement . But Nagant-senpai didn’t seem to understand her concern.
“You don’t give them the opportunity to react,” she’d said, in a tone that Thirteen couldn’t quite decipher. She almost sounded… annoyed? No. It was almost… tired ? But she wasn’t acting tired — she was more alert than Thirteen, if anything. Her gaze was constantly moving: left, right, forward; up, back, forward; left, right, forward… Thirteen was so preoccupied with this thought that she almost missed when Nagant-senpai broke the silence:
“Seventy eight meters to the objective. Watch yourself.”
When they reached the second floor, Nagant-senpai had shown Thirteen how to step so her boots didn’t squeak on the linoleum floor. When they reached the fourth floor, she had signalled a comms blackout; no speaking past this point.
When they reached the sixth floor, she activated her quirk, snapping out her rifle in one smooth movement, placing a “bullet” into a small cavity in her right hand before pointing to a door on the far side of the hall with her right.
Thirteen followed, breathing in slowly in an effort to quiet her ever-increasing heartbeat as they closed in on the door. Nagant-senpai raised her hand, stopping about half a meter from the door. She waited a moment, then began the countdown. Her thumb closed in, then her pinkie, then her ring finger—
Nagant-senpai paused for a split second before springing into motion; she spun around, arm raising so the barrel of her Rifle hovered over Thirteen’s shoulder. And then Thirteen heard three of the ten doors they had passed open behind her.