Hiding In Plain Sight

Well, It WAS There A Moment Ago

Rolling her eyes, Harukawa sighed at the accusation. "Ouma, we're orphans, you have no parents."

"How are you so sure, Miss Assassin?" Kokichi grinned, swaying his body from side to side.

"We grew up in the same orphanage since birth. Be quiet, you're annoying me," Harukawa's apathetic behaviour never wavered.

"Harukawa, that's why you needed my uncle's help, right? To hide your job?" The woman nodded, opening her mouth to speak before being hindered. A loud crashing and banging erupted throughout the town as the ground beneath their feet shook. An earthquake? At this time? Having no desk to hide underneath, the group huddled together in the middle of the room, waiting out Earth's stampede.

Shuichi felt a warm hand grip his own as if the world were ending, provoking him to glance behind him to see a brief glimpse of terror flash through Kokichi's violet eyes. Something about this is wrong, this doesn't feel like an earthquake. The moment the shaking ceased, Harukawa left the building, her cloak swishing behind her. Shirogane attempted to follow, but Shuichi held her behind by her navy blue jacket. "Trust her, she'll come back to tell us what happened."

"What do you mean 'what happened?' It was just an earthquake," Rantaro argued.

"No, it seemed different," Shuichi mumbled, holding his chin in thought.

"What was it then?" Kokichi asked, standing in front of Shuichi to try and garner his attention.

Harukawa swung the door open, hitting the wall behind it as she stormed towards their short supplies. "A building fell, possibly a bomb, we need to go." Without any argument, the five criminals gathered the bare essential supplies and ran from the studio. The first thing Shuichi noticed was the fitness centre had disappeared, the one that he, Kokichi and Rantaro had previously climbed through on their way to the bar. She's right, the building just disappeared, but wouldn't officers or firefighters be everywhere if it was demolished?

Sneaking through the shadows growing in the cloudy sky, the group snuck around the remains of the building, following Harukawa towards a new home. As they passed by, a brief flash of white snatched Shuichi's attention, the male pausing in his tracks to investigate the abnormality from a safe distance. That's a person!

Kokichi rushed towards Shuichi, noticing the boy lagging behind the group, and grabbed his wrist with immense force. Shuichi hissed in pain, squirming to free his arm from the stinging, he hoped to whatever god was out there that Kokichi didn't pick up on his behaviour. "What the fuck are you doing? We have to leave!"

"There's someone trapped in there! We should help!" Shuichi argued.

"Learn to be selfish, will you? Your survival comes first, so let them die. They'll just turn you in to the cops later anyway."

Shuichi switched glanced between the struggling white blob buried in rubble and the rest of his group. Shaking his head, the male didn't take long to decide. "I'm helping them." Slipping his wrist free from the small male's abnormally powerfulgrip, Shuichi ran into the rubble and clambered over hills of concrete. Slipping in between rocks and unstable debris, Shuichi endeavoured towards the white object sticking into the air, an arm battling to emerge beside it. This is harder to move through than a foam pit in a trampoline park.

Reaching the object, Shuichi grabbed rock after rock, shoving it to the side. "Hey, I'm here to help, are you alright?"

"Yeah, just in an awkward position," a masculine voice echoed underneath the construction's remains. Shuichi continued to remove each possible chunk of concrete before he'd created a hole big enough for the trapped person to escape. A boy with bright teal eyes and snow-white hair emerged from the rubble, patting dust from his body and smiling. "Thank you for your help."

"It's no problem, are you alright? Do you need a doctor? I can call an ambulance for you," Shuichi fussed, skimming his gaze around the other's body to assess for injury.

"No no I'm okay, I managed to hide under those big rocks so I didn't get directly hit." Shuichi looked in the hole he'd created, following the other male's pointed finger to notice two large rocks just big enough to fit a human underneath them. Without warning, Shuichi's back collided with the uneven rocks, the boy scrambling away from him. "Why are you helping me, and what are you doing here alone?"

"I could ask the same," Shuichi narrowed his eyes, finding a familiarity about the boy before him. He's been on television. "Are you... An Ultimate?" The boy's eyes widened, his body silently screaming in fear as he slipped on a rock, sliding towards Shuichi. "Wait, it's okay, so am I!" It would make sense, the building collapsing for no reason, seeing him on TV and the reason he'd be here.

Sparking his eye, Shuichi briefly activated his power to prove he told the truth, the other boy's shoulders relaxing at the news. "Sorry, it's just hard to trust people. My name's Kiibo, what's yours?"

"Saihara Shuichi, pleased to meet you." Shuichi shook Kiibo's hand, the two struggling to hop towards the group that watched them from the shadows. "What happened to the building?"

"Oh, right, well I didn't want to risk people seeing me so I thought I could break a part of the wall and jump through. Well, this is how that turned out." Kiibo explained, kicking a small rock from his path. Once the duo jumped to stable ground, they were surrounded by Shuichi's group, introducing themselves to Kiibo after learning of his Ultimate status.

"Kiibo, what do you mean by you tried to break a part of the wall?" Shuichi asked, curious as to what power Kiibo possessed.

"Here, I'll show you." Approaching the building standing next to them, Kiibo held out his hand, teal and white sparks scattered around his face. The moment his hand made contact with the brick, a loud pop sounded as the brick shattered. Pushing the brick revealed that it had shattered into various sized debris. "When I touched the wall of the building, it shattered the entire wall on the bottom floor. I'm so used to things being made of brick that I forgot sometimes walls are made with concrete."

"You're an idiot for doing that out in the open. If someone is watching us then they know everything." Harukawa glared at the newcomer.

"Come on Harukawa, live a little! Always so serious!" Kokichi chuckled, resting his hands behind his head.

"No, that's wrong. If we're going to work together, we need to know everyone's powers and how to use them," Shuichi countered. 

"You talk like a survivalist Saihara, were you an explorer or something?" Shirogane asked, her head tilting to the side out of curiosity.

"A detective, actually." Well, only a detective's assistant, but they don't need to know the truth. "We should work together, after all, we're all the most wanted criminals in Japan right now. If we can either take down the government or escape the country, we're going to need each other."

"Woah, you have high ambitions Emo Boy. Let's do it!" Kokichi shouted, his eyes sparkling in excitement.

"Come on, people might investigate Kiibo's art piece." Rantaro joked, waving the group towards their bar studio.

"Investigate a demolished building in a ghost town? I doubt that," Shirogane countered.

"We can't take any chances."