Jordan's gaze moved from King to the two figures still floating above the crater's edge.
One tall, one short. Blue psychic light and green. The Esper sisters, together and in person—which was an unusual enough combination that Jordan spent a moment simply registering it before his brain caught up.
What's Fubuki doing in M-City?
He landed properly, stepping onto ground still radiating heat through his boots, and walked toward them.
King dropped from the monster's remains as Jordan approached, a dazzling golden spark crackling under his feet at the impact. The King Engine was winding down, its resonance fading from the chest to a distant rumble.
"Jordan." The relief in King's voice was well-concealed by his face, which was constitutionally incapable of conveying anything other than grim severity. "What brings you here?"
"—What are you doing here."
Tatsumaki said it at almost exactly the same moment, the words landing with the sharpness of someone who had been building toward this encounter and was now deploying it at three-quarter charge.
Fubuki, still airborne at her sister's side, heard the tone. Her eyes moved between Tatsumaki and the approaching figure with the bright, careful attention of someone who has just spotted something interesting and is choosing not to comment on it yet.
Jordan was already closing the distance, walking in a straight line that happened to pass directly through the space Tatsumaki was occupying.
"Excuse me."
He said it the way you'd say it moving a stack of books off a chair—pleasantly, incidentally, already past the moment before it finished.
Tatsumaki, who weighed approximately nothing and was caught completely off-guard, was pushed aside by the displacement of air before she'd registered the movement.
She drifted sideways.
"..."
Jordan had already passed her. He clapped King on the shoulder and turned to survey the crater with the expression of someone assessing cleanup requirements.
"He ignored me."
Tatsumaki's voice carried the precise quality of a person working very hard to determine whether something had actually just happened. The green light around her flickered once—a single involuntary pulse.
Fubuki pressed her hand flat over her mouth.
He walked past her. He physically displaced her. And she didn't—she didn't do anything.
She stored this information very carefully.
Something separated from Jordan's silhouette—a purple-tinged outline that stepped free of his body with the unhurried professionalism of someone who had a job to do and intended to do it. The Stand moved toward the monster's remains with steady, purposeful strides.
Tatsumaki's attention snapped to it immediately, the moment of outrage suspended. She tracked F-boy's movement with the focused interest of someone who had seen this once before and was still working out what exactly she was looking at—the spiritual energy signature, the transparency of the form, the blue flames at the edges.
Fubuki followed her sister's gaze.
She saw nothing. Or almost nothing—a faint shimmer at the edge of perception, the visual equivalent of a sound you weren't sure you'd heard. She squinted.
F-boy reached the monster's body. He registered the two sets of attention on him—one precise and tracking, one confused and searching—without breaking stride. He turned his head, met Tatsumaki's gaze with the minimal acknowledgment of a professional who has noted a colleague, gave a slight nod, and returned to the matter at hand.
He placed his palm against the cooling lava skin of the corpse.
Still warm.
Tatsumaki watched him work. She had forgotten, for approximately thirty seconds, that she was in the middle of something.
"Sister." Fubuki's voice pulled her back. The younger woman had crossed her arms, the torn edge of her battle suit catching the wind off the crater. "Not to interrupt whatever this is—but shouldn't the more interesting question be why you're here?"
Tatsumaki's eyes snapped back to her sister with the velocity of someone who had been waiting for this conversation. The momentary distraction vanished.
"You want to ask me that."
Fubuki recognized the tone. She'd grown up with that tone. It was the opening note of something that typically lasted twenty minutes and covered multiple grievances simultaneously.
Running the Blizzard Group was exhausting in the specific way that managing ambitious people always is—everyone wanting more resources, more territory, more attention, and all of it ultimately falling on the person at the top. Fubuki had found, periodically, that the only real remedy was to simply leave for a while. No announcement. Just M-City, a shopping street she liked, and nobody expecting anything from her.
The fact that she'd chosen M-City on a day that happened to contain a twenty-story magma creature was exactly the sort of coincidence she was not going to be allowed to call a coincidence.
And then her sister had materialized from the sky. Because of course she had. Because Tatsumaki always found out, and had apparently been trailing her at undisclosed distance without mentioning it, and had not mentioned it until the moment when mentioning it would land hardest.
My sister is truly something.
Fubuki could already see the lecture forming. She squared her shoulders.
"Being a hero isn't something you treat like a leisure activity," Tatsumaki said, floating forward until she was directly in front of her sister—not quite eye-level, but carrying herself as though height was a concept she had simply decided not to apply to herself. "If I hadn't come—could you have handled that thing?"
Fubuki said nothing.
"You were lucky this time. Don't build a habit out of expecting someone to help you."
The green light around Tatsumaki's hands shifted slightly. When she was like this—not angry, exactly, but very certain—she sometimes forgot to keep her psychic energy at rest.
"And your group. I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: taking on people without potential and calling it an organization doesn't make them stronger. It makes you responsible for them. A collection of—"
Tatsumaki stopped.
Fubuki waited. The next word had been ready—she knew the sentence from memory, had heard it enough times that she could have finished it herself. But it didn't come.
Silence.
She risked a glance upward.
Tatsumaki had gone very still in the air—arms still crossed, posture unchanged, but her eyes had fixed on something in the middle distance with an expression Fubuki had almost never seen on her face.
Not calculating. Not sharp. Something quieter than either of those things.
Since when does my sister look like—
Fubuki followed the line of sight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~