Location: Nagano Prefecture – The North Ridge
Date: Monday | 06:15 AM (One month into the Wild, Wild Pussycats Agency contract)
CRUNCH.
The sound of a heavy boot crushing through a layer of frozen ferns echoed in the crisp morning air.
WHIRRR—CLICK.
The small gimbal on the chest-mounted camera of Yawara—Tiger—shifted, the lens glass catching the dim, blue light of the pre-dawn forest.
He moved through a dense wall of cedar thicket with a silence that seemed impossible for a man of his massive, muscular frame.
His body felt loose, his muscles stretching and snapping back like high-tension rubber as he wove through the jagged branches.
THUM-THUM. THUM-THUM.
Tiger's heart rate was steady, a rhythmic thrum that stayed low even as he surged up a sixty-degree incline.
He wasn't panting. He wasn't struggling. He was reading the mountain as if it were a familiar book, his eyes scanning the treeline for the natural flow of the slope.
"Operations, I've cleared the three-thousand-yard marker. The brush is thick here, but the ground is solid," Tiger said.
It was a soft, resonant presence in the minds of the others, a telepathic bridge that felt like a shared whisper in a quiet room.
SWOOSH.
High above, Ryuko—Pixie-Bob—leapt from a granite ledge.
She didn't bother calling up a massive beast of earth to carry her this time.
Instead, she kept her movements small and focused.
RUMBLE.
The earth formed a perfectly angled slide, a "Handrail" of packed dirt and stone that accelerated her down the ridge without her having to take a single step.
She rode the wave of soil with a grin, her hands trailing in the dirt to keep the ridge firm behind her.
THUD.
She landed in a low crouch exactly ten feet behind Tiger.
Her hands glowed with a soft, warm light as she patted the newly formed ridge, sealing the soil so it wouldn't wash away in the coming rain.
"The Handrail is set, Shino," Ryuko reported through the link, her mind-voice full of a playful, sharp pride. "I've reinforced the whole drainage line. If a hiker slips on this ridge now, the slope will literally catch them and funnel them right down to the trail. We're making the mountain do our job for us."
"Keep your eyes sharp, both of you," Shino—Mandalay—replied.
She was back at the lodge, sitting at the command desk with her eyes closed, her fingers pressed lightly to her temples to keep the four-way mental link steady.
"Tomoko is holding the bird's-eye view. Tomoko, what's the status?"
SQUAWK.
High on a jagged peak half a mile away, Tomoko—Ragdoll—was perched on a rock like a gargoyle.
Her oversized yellow gloves were tucked under her chin, and her eyes, wide and glowing with a lime-green light, scanned the valley below.
"I've got the lock!" Tomoko chirped, her mental voice bouncing with its usual kinetic energy.
"The 'victim' is tucked deep into the hollowed cedar fifty yards west of Tiger's current spot. I can feel the 'thump' of the training dummy's pulse-box. It's weak, just like a real hypothermic case. You're close, guys! Really close!"
Kaito's voice entered the link then. He was sitting next to Shino at the lodge, a mug of steaming tea in his hand, watching the live feeds from their chest-cams on a wall of monitors.
"Good work, Tomoko-san," Kaito said. "Tiger, don't just rely on the mental map. Look at the way the wind is whipping around the trunk of that cedar. The air is pooling there. It's the only spot on this ridge where a person could stop the shivering."
Tiger pivoted, his eyes narrowing as he spotted the specific sway of the pine needles Kaito had mentioned.
He didn't pause to check a GPS.
SNAP. CRACKLE.
Tiger pushed through a final, stubborn layer of frozen brush and dropped into the hollow.
There, tucked under the massive, gnarled roots of the ancient tree, was the training dummy.
Tiger reached out, his hand checking the "skin" temperature of the doll.
"Target secured," Tiger rumbled. He tapped the timer on his wrist. "Time from the first alarm: three minutes, forty-five seconds."
BEEP.
"Acceptable," Kaito's voice came through, followed by the sound of him setting his mug down on the wooden table.
CLACK.
"That's the fastest we've ever cleared the North Ridge," Shino said, opening her eyes and letting out a long, relieved breath.
She turned to Kaito, a genuine smile tugging at her lips. "Normally, we'd still be arguing about which side of the ravine to check first."
"You're stopped guessing," Kaito replied, standing up and stretching his arms. "You're letting the mountain tell you where the people are. Now, bring it in. We have a family visit to prepare for, and I don't want the lodge looking like a gear locker when Shino's sister arrives."
"Hear that, Ryuko?" Tomoko's voice teased through the fading link. "Kaito says stop playing in the dirt and come help me with the floors!"
"I'm an engineer of the landscape, Tomoko! I don't do floors!" Ryuko shot back, though the sound of her laughter echoed across the ridge.
_-_-_-_-_
Location: Pussycats Agency Headquarters – Main Lodge
09:45 AM
CLATTER. THUMP.
A rugged blue SUV pulled into the gravel driveway, its tires kicking up a fine mist of dust and frost.
The front door of the timber lodge flew open. Shino—Mandalay—didn't walk down the steps; she practically bounded.
She wasn't wearing her crimson feline tactical gear today.
She was dressed in a simple, oversized cream sweater and soft jeans, her face lit with a warmth that Kaito rarely saw during their high-stakes rescue drills.
"Nao! You're actually here!" Shino cheered, pulling a tall, athletic woman with brown hair into a fierce embrace.
"We wouldn't miss the one-month anniversary of you becoming the talk of the entire prefecture," the Nao Izumi laughed, pulling back to look at her sister.
This was Shino's sister. Standing beside her was a man with a broad chest and the kind, weathered face of a veteran rescue pro, Chiba Izumi.
They were the Water Hose duo—the heroes who handled the treacherous southern coastlines.
WAAAAH! Uwaaaahh!
A high-pitched, fussy cry erupted from the backseat of the SUV.
The Chiba reached in and pulled out a bundle of thick, soft blankets.
Inside was a tiny toddler with messy black hair and big, curious eyes that were currently swimming with tears from the long mountain drive.
"And here is the real boss of the family," Chiba joked, bouncing the child in his arms.
"Kota has been grumpy since we hit the Kiso Valley hairpins. I think he's had enough of the car."
Kota, barely eighteen months old, gripped his father's thumb with a tiny, fierce hand. He looked up at the massive lodge with a look of deep toddler-sized suspicion.
Kaito stepped out onto the porch, leaning against the wooden railing.
He was wearing a simple black hoodie and cargo pants, a steaming mug of tea in his hands.
Over the last month, the "Golden Manager" had become just "Kaito" to the Pussycats. The distance had evaporated, replaced by the easy, lived-in familiarity of a team that had survived a total restructuring together.
"Kaito! Come down and meet my family!" Shino called out, her tail-piece giving an excited flick.
Kaito walked down the steps, the gravel crunching under his boots.
He gave the Water Hose pair a respectful nod. "It's a pleasure. Shino speaks about your work on the southern coast constantly. She says your water-pressure control is the gold standard."
"And the whole industry is talking about you, Arisaka-san," Chiba said, shaking Kaito's hand with a firm, calloused grip. "We saw the rescue logs you released to the National Registry. To be honest, we thought the HPSC had made a typo. To clear the North Ridge in fifteen minutes during a storm? That's not just skill; that's something else."
"The mountain is only a maze if you don't know the straightest path," Kaito said, his gaze drifting to baby Kota.
The toddler stared back at Kaito. For a long second, the two just watched each other—the analytical man and the tiny boy.
Kota reached out a small, chubby hand, grabbing at Kaito's golden glasses.
CLINK.
Kaito moved back just a fraction of an inch, a faint, genuine smile touching his lips. "He's got good instincts. He's already looking for the leverage point."
"He's a handful," Nao laughed, taking Kota from her husband. "But Shino, seriously... the lodge. It feels different. It's quiet. There isn't that frantic, exhausted energy you used to have every Monday. Even the yard looks... stable."
"Kaito calls it Passive Safety," Shino explained, gesturing to the subtle earthen ridges Pixie-Bob had spent the month crafting. "We don't wait for things to break anymore. We make sure the mountain behaves before the hikers even get here."
_-_-_-_-_
CLINK. CLINK. CLINK.
The sound of silverware against ceramic filled the warm kitchen.
The air smelled of toasted sesame oil, ginger, and a rich miso stew Tiger(Yawara Chatora) had been simmering since dawn.
They sat around the massive timber table—the Pussycats, the Water Hose duo, and Kaito.
Kota was currently sitting in a high chair, happily smashing a piece of soft steamed carrot, his earlier grumpiness forgotten in the face of Tiger's cooking.
"It's about the Hub," Kaito said, setting his chopsticks down. He wasn't giving a lecture; he was sharing a vision over a family meal.
"Right now, the HPSC sees you as a specialized team. That's a trap. It means you're only relevant when someone gets lost. I want the Pussycats to be the reason people don't get lost."
"We've been reviewing the body-cam footage," Shino added, looking at her sister. "We aren't making videos or chasing 'likes.' We're releasing Tactical Rescue Logs. We're showing the world exactly how we use the 'Handrails' and the 'Data Link.' We're proving that our way is the safest way."
"And the certification?" Chiba Izumi asked, leaning forward.
"By next month, if a hero agency wants to send their sidekicks into the mountains, they'll want a Pussycat Certification," Kaito said. "They'll pay to come here and learn the rhythm. Your rank will climb because you're the teachers of the profession. You're becoming the authority."
Nao Izumi looked around the room, her eyes lingering on the high-definition monitors in the corner and the calm, focused faces of her sister's team. "It's incredible. You've turned a rescue team into an institution."
Chiba leaned over the console, his eyes scanning the data-stream. He looked at Kaito, realizing that the man hadn't just brought money; he had brought a sense of invulnerability. "You're reputation as the Golden Manager, speak for itself Arisaka-san."
Yawara Chatora (Tiger) let out a low, rumbling chuckle. "He's a specialist, Chiba. He doesn't know how to do things halfway."
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: Tokyo – O'Clock Records Studio
Date: Wednesday| 03:00 PM
THUMP-THUMP-TSS. THUMP-THUMP-TSS.
The heavy, rhythmic kick of the bass drum was a physical force, rattling the heavy, triple-paned glass of the recording booth.
Inside the studio, the air was thick with the scent of coffee and the sharp smell of overheating amplifiers.
"This is it; we're recording the final take for the upload now." Makoto announced to the group inside the studio room of O'Clock building agency.
Four days ago, this room had been a place of sweat and frustration.
[FLASHBACK – FOUR DAYS PRIOR]
STRUM. TWANG. SCREEE.
"Stop," Kaito's voice had cut through the room, cold and clear.
"Tamao, your fingers are dragging on the bridge. You're playing the notes, but you aren't feeling the friction. Hit the strings like you're trying to wake up the entire Naruhata ward."
Tamao wiped sweat from her forehead, her jet-black Stratocaster heavy in her arms. She nodded, her jaw set.
In the corner, the trio—Soga, Rapt, and Moyuru—were hunched over a lyric sheet, their faces red.
They had been practicing the rap verses for four hours straight.
Kaito had been drilling them, forcing them to run laps around the block just to build the lung capacity for the high-speed delivery he demanded.
"Soga, you're mumbling," Kaito had continued. "Rapt, your timing is soft. You aren't just talking over a beat; you're the heartbeat of the street. If you can't spit those words with enough force to crack the sidewalk, we aren't releasing this."
"Again!" Koichi had shouted, his own shirt soaked with sweat.
He had spent the month doing vocal drills until his throat burned, learning to push his voice from his diaphragm until it carried the same weight as his flight maneuvers.
[PRESENT DAY – THE FINAL RECORDING]
VRINNNN—SKREEE!
Tamao's guitar erupted, a high-octane surge of sound that felt like a sunrise over a city skyline.
She shredded into the opening riff of Kekka Orai, her fingers moving with a precision that only a month of Kaito's coaching could produce.
Koichi stepped up to the microphone, his eyes closed.
He thought of the wind on his face as he soared over the Naruhata rooftops.
CLAP-CLAP-SNAP.
"Ke, kekka orai
Kekka orai
Ke, kekka orai
Ke, kekka orai
Kekka orai
Ke, kekka orai!"
The trio chanted the intro, their voices locked into a tight, percussive rhythm.
Soga was leaning into the mic, his rougher texture grounding the track.
"Kou inshou na nou bisu!
Kara korogaru sutaa ni!
Baramaita yasashi sa no soto ni!
Te wo nobashite!"
(A charming novice
Tumbles into stardom
Stretch those hands beyond
The happiness you've strewn)
Koichi dived into the first verse, his voice a revelation. It wasn't the polished, plastic sound of a manufactured idol.
TSS-TSS-TSS.
The tempo shifted. Soga, Rapt, and Moyuru stepped toward their own mics, their energy explosive.
"Seigi no koutei!
Nansensuna mei de!
Kanban tsukiyabutte!
Ton jatte eede!"
(Affirming justice
With a nonsensical Mayday
Go ahead, break through the signboard and
Fly away)
Soga spat the rap lines with a rhythmic force, his shoulders bouncing to the groove.
He wasn't just rapping; he was vibrating.
Every time the bass dropped, he slammed his palm against his thigh to keep the tempo, his forehead slick with sweat.
Beside him, Rapt and Moyuru hit the backing vocals with timing.
They weren't just thugs anymore; they were the chorus of the city.
"Sore de koso good! (Good!)
Gote ni mawareba boom! (Boom!)
Give me your...
Give me your...
Kek kekka orai!"
(That's what makes it good
If you're late in the game, it's boom!!
Give me your …
Give me your …
All's well that ends well!)
VRINNNN—SKREEE!
The whole group hit the chorus together. Kazuho (Pop★Step) was at the mixing board next to Makoto Tsukauchi, both of them singing along at the top of their lungs as the needles on the soundboard danced in the red.
"Otto!
Mayoeru oretachi no hiiroo!
Mou tomarenai keep off, keep off!
Kurou wo sono te ni nani wo nigirou!
Get, get this! All right!
Get this! All right!"
(A hero for all of us who have lost our way
Can't stop now, keep off, keep off
Holding on to hardships, what should those hands grasp?
Get…Get this! "All Right"
Get this! "All Right")
They were finally expressing the pride they had for the song they sing and that Kaito had helped them build for a month.
SHHHH—POP.
The last ringing chord of Tamao's guitar faded into the silence of the studio.
Inside the booth, Koichi let out a long, shaky breath, his forehead resting against the cool metal of the pop-filter.
BZZZZT.
A laptop on the desk chimed. Kazuho hit the speakerphone button immediately.
Makoto leaned in, her eyes sharp.
"Kaito?" Makoto asked. "We've just finished the record. Kazuho is prepping the upload now."
In the Nagano lodge, Kaito sat in the quiet dark of the command center, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in his glasses.
He had heard every breath and every drum hit through the high-fidelity link.
"The quality is acceptable," Kaito's voice came through, steady and heavy. "In fact, it is the standard for the new era. Makoto, check the Registry."
Makoto's fingers flew across her tablet. Her eyes widened.
Ding.
"Oh my god," Makoto whispered.
She turned the tablet toward the group.
OFFICIAL NATIONAL RANKING: 10 – O'CLOCK AGENCY (NARUHATA BRANCH)
"WE DID IT!" Kazuho screamed, tackling Koichi as he stepped out of the booth.
Soga and the trio roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph that shook the studio walls.
They had spent a month in the shadows, training, bleeding, and learning to find their voices.
"The O'Clock Agency is Top 10 now and this new song release is just right," Kaito's voice cut through their cheering, grounding the room instantly. "The nation is looking at Naruhata now. You aren't just local heroes anymore. You are a national standard. When you step onto the street from now on, remember that the people trust you because of the feeling you gave them today. Don't make them regret it."
"And lastly, we need to release more songs, in preparation for the Music Festival."
Kazuho looked at the screen, seeing the 'O'Clock Agency' logo glowing next to the Rank 10 badge.
"We won't, Kaito," she said, her voice firm. "And we're ready."
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: Industrial Sector – Alleyway near Central Tokyo Hospital
Date: Friday | 11:50 PM
DRIP. DROP. DRIP.
The rain in the city was smelled of exhaust and wet concrete.
It clung to the brick walls of the narrow alleyways, turning the darkness into a slick, suffocating trap.
Kaito walked through the drizzle, his hands buried in the pockets of his olive jacket.
He had come to this city to secure the final set of sensors for the Nagano Hub, but as he neared the back of the hospital district, the air changed.
It didn't just get colder. It got wrong.
HIIIIISSSSS.
A sound like a ruptured steam pipe echoed from the depths of a dead-end alley.
A faint, flickering glow of blue light danced against the wet, blackened bricks.
CRACKLE. WHOOSH.
"Hmm? What happened?" Kaito stopped. He smelled it now—the sharp burning gas and the sickening, heavy scent of charred meat.
He turned the corner and his breath hitched.
A teenager, no older than seventeen, was slumped against a stack of discarded shipping crates.
He was unrecognizable—his clothes were tattered rags, his skin a patchwork of pale flesh and horrific, charred purple scars held together by crude, rusted surgical staples.
But the fire was the problem.
Wooosh.
A swirling, uncontrollable vortex of blue flames was erupting from the boy's palms and chest. It wasn't a campfire; it was a high-pressure blowtorch.
The heat was so intense it was melting the asphalt beneath him, turning the rainwater into a scalding fog.
Ten feet away, a primary gas main was beginning to glow cherry-red from the radiant heat.
If it breached, the entire hospital wing would be leveled in an instant.
"Don't... don't come... closer..." the boy gasped, his voice a broken, wet rasp.
His eyes—a piercing, tragic turquoise—were wide with a mix of agony and madness.
This was Touya Todoroki, though the world would one day call him Dabi.
Right now, he was just a dying kid whose Quirk was eating him from the inside out again.
Kaito didn't move toward him as Kaito.
SNAP.
The world didn't just get quiet; it went silent.
The sound of the rain hitting the ground vanished.
The hiss of the gas pipe died. The very air in the alleyway seemed to freeze, stripped of its momentum by a force that didn't care about the laws of nature.
Hero X stepped out of the shadows.
His white suit was pristine, the raindrops seemingly sliding off the fabric before they could even touch him.
His golden glasses caught the blue glare of the fire, turning them into twin pools of molten, unreadable light.
"You're overheating," Hero X said. His voice was cool and soothing.
"Get... away!" Touya screamed, unleashing a desperate wave of blue fire.
Hero X didn't dodge.
SNAP.
He walked directly into the center of the inferno.
As he moved, the blue flames didn't burn him; they simply ceased to be.
The fire hit the "Absolute" presence of the man in white and flickered out like a candle in a vacuum.
Hero X reached out, his hand hovering just inches from Touya's forehead.
SNAP.
The reality of the alleyway experienced a sharp, invisible shift.
The raw, agonizing heat in Touya's blood settled.
The cellular rejection that was causing his skin grafts to rot and peel back didn't just stop—it mended.
The skin beneath the staples knit together, the inflammation dying down as the body was forced to accept the repairs.
Touya's eyes rolled back in his head, unconscious. The blue fire vanished instantly, leaving the alley in a heavy, sudden darkness.
Hero X caught the boy as he collapsed, lowering him gently onto the wet concrete.
He didn't leave. He stood over the unconscious teenager, his gaze unreadable behind the golden lenses.
He knew exactly who this was. A poor character in the original series.
For ten minutes, Hero X simply stood as a silent sentinel, acting as a guardian for a boy the world had forgotten.
GASP.
Touya took a breath.
For the first time since Sekoto Peak, the air didn't taste like ash. It tasted like rain.
Touya looked at his hands. The pain—the constant, screaming agony that had been his only companion for years—was a gone.
He looked up at the figure in the white suit.
"Who... what are you?" Touya whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of terror and wonder.
Hero X adjusted his glasses. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't offer a lecture on the path of a hero.
"They call me Hero X," the man replied.
Kaito looked down at the boy. He could see the hatred in his eyes—a grudge so deep it was the only thing holding his soul together.
"Live on" Hero X said, his voice grounded and heavy. "The world is much bigger than you think. Don't let your hate be the only thing that keeps you warm."
SNAP.
"...."
Before Touya could speak again, the man in the white suit was gone.
Before leaving, Kaito had silently modified his body to handle his overwhelming strong quirk.
He didn't just mend the flesh. Within the silent vacuum of the Snap, he rewrote the threshold of the boy's nervous system, forcing his fire-receptors to finally acknowledge the cooling quirk he had inherited from his mother. It wasn't a cure for his hate, but it was a cure for his suicide.
There was no smoke. There was no flash of light. He was just... not there.
Touya Todoroki sat alone in the rain. He touched his face, his fingers tracing the scars that no longer hurt.
He looked at the gas main, which was now cool to the touch.
"Thank you..."
For the first time in his life, the "Ghost" of the Todoroki family felt a different kind of fire in his chest—not one that burned, but one that demanded a reason to stay alive.
_-_-_-_-_
Location: Pussycats Main Lodge – Kitchen
Date: Saturday | 08:00 AM
CLINK. CLINK. CLINK.
The sound of silverware against ceramic was the only noise in the room.
Kaito sat at the table, eating a bowl of rice and miso soup. Across from him, Shino was feeding a much-calmer baby Kota.
"You were out late in the city," Shino said, her eyes searching his face over the rim of her coffee mug. "Everything okay?"
Kaito set his chopsticks down. He thought about the alleyway.
"Everything is where it needs to be," Kaito said.
He looked at the topographical map of the Nagano range pinned to the wall.
"The Hub is ready, Shino. It's time to send out the invitations to the other agencies. Let's show Japan how the Pussycats run a mountain."
Shino smiled, a bright, confident thing that lit up the kitchen. "Ready when you are, Kaito."
Outside, the sun broke over the peaks of the Kiso Valley, turning the "Handrails" into lines of gold.
The Wild, Wild Pussycats weren't just a rescue team anymore. They were the standard.
_-_-_-_-_
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