PLASTIC FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 21

' still waters '

━━━━━

Mizuki Kaede experienced an ordinary day. Under the dilapidated storage room, crouched in between two wooden crates and a lime flavored soda pop propped in between her now cherry lips. The youth breathed in the fresh yet tangy scent of gunpowder and metal, bloodred eyes glinting like rubies in the dark as she followed two men opening the crates and checking the guns.

"You reckon the boss will be mad if we move the transaction to tomorrow?" one with a squeaky voice asked, as he watched his companion move, inspecting the powder in between his scarred fingertips.

"I don't know," the other replied, scratching his bald head that almost glinted in the dark. "How about it, Junichi-san? You've been here longer than me."

The former dropped the gunpowder back into the wooden crate. "He'll be mad," he said, closing the crate with nubile arms. "This is dangerous territory right here. Ruled by some sort of almighty boss."

"The name?" the bald one asked.

The one with the baritone voice-Junichi shook his head. "Gives me nightmares just thinking about him," he said. "King of the Underworld. If I wasn't so desperate to get paid for this, I wouldn't agree."

"Is he really that big of a deal?" the one with the squeaky voice asked, and the youth growing tired of the dull conversation they were having about All For One, unsheathed the dagger strapped to her leg, and its freshly sharpened tip glinted in the dark for half a second.

The one with the baritone voice loaded his gun, chatoyant amber eyes narrowing at her direction and she grinned. Not entirely hopeless. He'd prove a challenge. "Yeah," the baritone voiced one answered, taking a step towards the youth's direction. "From what I can gather, he's probably sent some of his underlings. We've displeased the gods, Hisao and he's sent his demons to come get us."

"Come on, don't be joking, Junichi-san!" the inexperienced one named Hisao said, loading his gun too and flanking the person he called Junichi.

"Be on your guard," Junichi whispered and his amber eyes glowed in the dark like fireflies with their diaphanous wings fluttering about.

Night vision for a quirk, the youth thought. Not bad. She turned to the other one whose feet had began springing. Up and down. Up and down.

Eating the last bits of the flavored soda pop, she laid the stick on the ground and prepared.

The one with the squeaky voice's hair had flashed to flames for a brief moment, but Junichi held a palm over him and said, "Don't! Kenichi, gunpowder's all over the place. Just use one of your weapons."

"Y-Yes," Squeaky Voice replied, and then Junichi's eyes immediately darted to that alertness.

"There," Junichi whispered and before he could lunge at her, the youth jumped over the crate and slit the throat of Squeaky Voice earning a furious growl from Junichi. Tactically, he was the most dangerous, he could set this place on fire and the youth didn't want to relent that pleasure to anyone.

She ducked a bullet zooming towards her, counted five seconds and evaded another one. Junichi kept firing, picked up another gun from his holster and simultaneously fired.

One bullet grazed her cloth, but the youth whose name was Mizuki Kaede, continued to push through, crouching behind wooden crates and in less fortunate times, rolling on the floor.