Anya had never seen something so terrifying before. She was so sure that convincing her parents to take her to the store would end the day on a happy note, but whatever that...thing was, it seemed to be stalking her. Was this boy also a failed experiment? Are they trying to bring her back to the lab?!
"Mama!" Anya cried.
In a blur of black and red, her mother had placed herself in between her adopted daughter and the strange pink-haired boy. She turned back to Anya, her eyes ablaze with protective anger.
"What have I told you about running off, Anya?" Mama chastised.
"I needed to get peanuts before the store closed! I'm sorry Mama," Anya replied, looking down at her shoes.
"Uh, excuse me, ma'am?" The boy asked, with a shy smile. Yor Forger, otherwise known as the infamous Thorn Princess, turned her gaze to the boy down the aisle. The boy took a tentative step back, putting up both hands placatingly. Anya noticed that the mouth on the boy's hand had disappeared.
"What did you do to my daughter?" Yor spat.
"Well, you see my hand–I mean there's just a misunderstanding really–" the boy stammered.
"You laid a hand on her?!" Yor exclaimed, not letting the boy finish his sentence. Before the boy could get a word out, Yor leaped forward, her leg drawn back to slam devastatingly into the boy's head. Astonishingly, he danced away with incredible reflexes. It obviously caught Yor by surprise as well, but she wouldn't be bested by some teenager in a grocery store. She landed lightly on her feet before spinning once again and swinging her other leg towards the boy. This time, he ducked and slid to the side.
Anya watched in awe as Yor and the boy fought in the store. This was incredibly exciting and no one had been able to even keep up with her mother before! A part of her wanted to turn and find out where her father had disappeared to, but she also didn't want to leave her mother to deal with this boy in case that weird thing inside of him tried anything funny.
"I didn't touch your daughter!" the boy said loudly, scrambling back as Yor kept throwing every kick and punch that she could manage. "And I don't want to hurt you!"
"Itadori!" Another voice called from behind Anya. She turned around to see a tall boy with black spikey hair standing in the aisle with a black dog growling beside him.
"Fushiguro!" the boy responded, turning to smile at his friend. That gave Yor the opening she needed and finally one of her kicks landed square on the side of his head. The boy called Itadori went sprawling into the shelves nearby, sending boxes of peanuts and other delicious snacks flying. The shelf teetered for a moment before toppling down into the shelf the next aisle over and suddenly the grocery store had turned into a dangerous game of dominos. The other boy and his dog ran past Anya towards Itadori. Yor had kicked him with such force that the boy had made a serious indent into the wooden shelf. Anya wondered for a moment if the kick had just straight up killed him. Much to her surprise, Itadori sat up rather quickly. He groaned and rubbed the side of his head that Yor had kicked.
The boy with the black hair glanced back at Anya and for a moment, they made eye contact.
"What the hell did this idiot do now? We have to get out of here before any of these non-curse users report us,"
"Get up, Itadori. We have to go," The boy said gruffly and yanked Itadori roughly by the arm.
"With those reflexes, is that woman a sorcerer too?"
Anya's face pinched in confusion. Sure, her adopted mother was pretty amazing, but a sorcerer? Like a magician? No, she was just a secret assassin. She had never thought about doing magic before. Were these two boys magicians? Is that how that boy was able to speak through his hand? She turned to Yor, but her mother was staring at the Itadori boy with a look of confused concern.
