Snip, Snip, Behead

Mikumo leaned on the wall at the back of Akatsuki, lingering longer even when Kaguna had already headed back inside to catch up on sleep.

Honestly, he should be sleeping too but, since he was already outside, he might as well do something worth his time.

On his hand, he rolled a cigarette he had stole from Kaguna's pack and had a dragon appear to light it up, taking a hit curiously. He half expected to cough and choke on the first try but was surprised when it went in and out easily.

It was better than he expected.

As his head began to clear up with the lingering taste of nicotine on his tongue, an inconspicuous owl hooted and silently landed on his shoulder.

"Did you find him?" Mikumo asked the owl as he breathed out smoke.

"Hoo." The owl answered, its head swiveling 180 degrees to point towards a certain direction.

"Lead the way then." With a lazy gait, Mikumo pushed away from the wall, summoning out a giant nine-tailed fox as a mount as the owl took off from his shoulder, flying towards a distant location.

...

This wasn't a good night.

Peeking through the cracked windows of his hiding place, Hotaru's whole body was tensed, only relaxing a little when he found no heroes around.

Crouching low, he quickly attended to his injury; a deep puncture on his upper arm.

"Ngh!" He grunted in pain upon touching the wound. It hurt a lot and might affect his movements but, fortunately, the bone seemed to be unharmed.

He spent a few hours trying to get the heroes off his trail, using himself as bait in order to make time for Akane to escape with Akira. Hopefully, they arrived back at the base safely.

Ripping the bottom of his cloak, he carefully wrapped up his injury, not knowing that he was being watched by an invisible pair of eyes.

...

"Damn it! We let three of them escape from the net!" Quick Sword, a sidekick from Orichalcum Agency, cursed as he ran towards Silver Shield, a fellow sidekick from the same agency.

"Are you even sure they're from the same gang?" Silver Shield asked as he straightened up, looking around the surrounding buildings to see which spot a villain might choose as a hiding spot. "Don't you think it's a bit irresponsible to just attack anyone without confirmation?"

"I mean, they were wearing suspicious cloaks and masks, plus, they were right there when we happened to be cracking down on the local gangs! If they weren't villains, then what were they supposed to be?" Quick Sword snorted.

"I don't know, cosplayers maybe?" Silver Shield raised an eyebrow, causing Quick Sword to freeze.

"Oh shit. You might be right." Quick Sword mumbled then pointed at his cracked costume. "But, one of them tried to injure me!"

"Wasn't that only because you tried to injure one of them first? That guy only defended his companion." Silver Shield recounted, trying to think back to their battle. He realized that the three they were chasing hadn't actually tried to attack them at all. "Damn. So was it actually just a misunderstanding?"

Unfortunately, he couldn't continue to think about the problem since a small figure suddenly dropped from the sky, falling right on top of Quick Sword and crushing the man's face into the ground with a sickening crunch.

As blood began to pool around Quick Sword's head on the pavement, the figure in a bunny hood shook his head, removing the foot stepping on the fallen hero's head boredly.

"Well, that was anticlimactic." The boy said, making Silver Shield realize that the person he was facing was actually a young boy despite not seeing his face underneath the hood and the surgical mask.

As the boy approached Silver Shield calmly, the hero glanced at his unmoving companion worriedly, not knowing if he were already dead or unconscious.

"What do you-"

"Seriously. What the fuck is wrong with the hero society?" The boy said darkly, glaring at Silver Shield as the hero froze up. Never in his life had he ever seen such venomous eyes filled with so much hatred and loathing.

"First, a hero goes on rampage and kills hundreds of civilians, just for the shit HPSC to cover it up like nothing happened and now, this?! Heroes attacking people just because they happened to be wearing the wrong clothes at the wrong place at the wrong time?!" The boy laughed in a mix of disbelief and malice. "Really! What the fuck!"

With those words, the boy slowly stepped forwards and softly kicked Silver Shield's chest while the hero was still stunned, causing him to stumble backwards, right into the awaiting metal spike.

Coughing out blood, Silver Shield stared at his abdomen in disbelief; trying to struggle out of the spike only for him to be skewered deeper.

And as his sight began to fade, the last words he heard were an ill intended muttering.

"Heroes?" The boy sneered as a giant pair of scissors materialized in his hands. "Heroes my ass."

And with a sharp snip, the hero's head fell off and rolled on the ground.

...

Tap. Tap.

Inside his hiding place, Hotaru crouched lowly, staring at the door warily. He was sure he had already gotten rid of his pursuers so who was it?

Had he been found so quickly?

From the corner of his eyes, he eyed the cracked window, judging if he could escape faster through there but, just as he was contemplating about it, an oddly familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Hotaru-san, I'm here to pick you up. The heroes outside have already been dealt with so it's safe to come out now."

"..." Hotaru's brain momentarily stalled. "Mikumo?"

"It's me, Hotaru-san. Can you please open the door so I can send you back?" Mikumo asked calmly. He knew that Hotaru must be feeling extremely nervous and wary right now so, when he saw the older man open the door hesitantly after a while, they both let out a sigh of relief.

"H-how did you- find me?" Hotaru asked nervously, to which, Mikumo responded by snapping his fingers, causing Hotaru to jump in surprise when an owl suddenly appeared outside the window.

"I've been keeping an eye on things happening in the city." Mikumo said indifferently, as if it were a normal thing to say.

"...Since when?" Hotaru asked slowly, his remaining nerves still having yet to completely disappear.

"Since yesterday." Mikumo shrugged, glancing outside to see the sky beginning to grow brighter. "We should be heading back now. Shisei-san sounded a bit worried a while ago and I still have work tonight."

It was already nearing 7 am and, as the rays of the sunrise hit the snow on the ground, nobody noticed the misty fox leaping over the rooftops.

Though, unknown to Mikumo, a video concerning his altercation with the heroes began to circulate in a certain site for villains.