Chapter Text
Momo narrows her eyes, watching Jiji flail in front of the vending machine. It’s a reference to something, she’s sure, but she’s got no idea what. Seems like Okarun doesn’t either; his expression mirrors her own. Aira makes an exaggerated disgusted face, so at least she’s having a good time. Momo would be enjoying herself too, if it weren’t for this ridiculous slump she’s in with her powers. She takes a big, deep breath, pushing the feeling away. Everyone is happy, and she’s not trying to ruin the moment here. She’s just going to train again once she gets home, even though she kind of hates the idea. But there’s something so cool she wants to do, and if she could just figure it out…
She imagines pulling Okarun out of danger, then flying up, out of the battlefield. He’d look up at her, his eyes sparkling the way they always do when he’s excited about something. And then finally, in that moment, she’d be able to look at him and say-
Well, okay, she’s not going to think about those details here , in public. And definitely not in front of Okarun, that’d be crazy. That’d be embarrassing. She saves the rest of the fantasy for later, for when she’ll actually need the motivation.
Jiji finally stands up, drink in hand. He holds it up like some kind of prize, striking a pose. Okay, maybe she can enjoy herself a little.
Then the sky darkens, the street falling silent around them. Empty space.
“Oh, come on!” Momo throws her head back with a shout.
“In our uniforms again?? ” Aira groans, always way too quick to transform.
Three of them scan the empty streets, looking for movement. Nothing, save for Okarun hopping on one foot next to them, sock half off. It always makes Momo smile a little; he’s cute. Cute doing anything, really, but extra cute when he’s racing to transform, getting ready to protect her as fast as he can.
No, no, getting ready to protect all of them, that’s what he’s doing. She needs to focus.
She shakes the thoughts from her head and looks down the suddenly hazy streets, searching for the alien that has to be there. The fog is thickening, slowly, gradually, but it’s definitely getting harder to see.
“This fog feels like bad news, guys.” She doesn’t feel any different, but that doesn’t mean she wants to stick around until she does.
Although, it might just be camouflage? Sucks for them, but there’s no way anything’s sneaking up on her. Momo closes her eyes, inhales deeply, and reaches out, stretching her awareness. Her friends are nearby, but she ignores them, reaching even further, as far as she can. And then she feels something else. It’s tiny, it’s almost out of range, but it’s there all the same.
“Found you,” she grins, “it’s just the one. Let’s kick it’s ass and go -”
“Momo Ayase, we’ll settle our competition here!” Aira interrupts. It’s all the warning Momo gets before she strikes.
Momo narrowly avoids it, falling back into Jiji. The mass of hair impacts next to her, flinging concrete chips and getting dust all over her uniform.
“What the hell, Aira?” She growls, scrambling to her feet.
Beside her Jiji shouts, knocked into the fog by something too fast for either of them to react to, even with how close he was. And she still hasn’t seen anything. Jokes on her for underestimating a new alien. At least Okarun is still there, taking his usual position in front of her.
“Touch my girl and die, shitheel.”
“Okarun?!” She gapes, scandalized.
Are they seriously going to fight here? Now? She grabs the both of them, keeping them apart. Okarun’s aura feels hot in her spectral hand, and Aira’s doesn’t feel all that different either. She squeezes, bringing both of them to the ground in front of her.
“Okay, what is wrong with you two?”
“I’m so, so sorry Miss Shiratori!” Okarun panics, “I don’t know why I said that.”
“Don’t worry, I know you would never say something like that! You’re too sweet and polite and-”
“Focus!” Momo yells, “If I let you go, are you going to chill out?”
They nod. Momo sighs. Their auras are really warm now - kind of painful, actually - and she’s more than happy to let them go.
And they’re shouting at each other again, great.
She cuts them both off, grabbing and squeezing their forms into submission. It seriously hurts this time, like sticking her hands in a burning stove. This is going to suck for everyone, but she has an idea. She lifts them, flexing her powers, testing their weights.
“Brace yourselves,” she says, ignoring their concerned and alarmed sounds. “You both need a time out!” She throws them as hard as she can in opposite directions. They’ll be fine, they’ve walked away from worse, after all. She’s pretty sure that the most dangerous thing in here for the two of them is each other, and with the fog this thick, she doubts they’ll find each other anytime soon.
“Oh crap, Jiji!”
She finds him quickly, her astral sense leading her right to him. She pulls him out of a tree, glad he’s doing okay. Okarun - and she knows it was Okarun now; it’s the only thing that makes sense - must have held back a little when he hit him. “You good?”
“Nice save, Momo!” He’s hanging in her grasp, shooting finger guns.
She rolls her eyes.
“How are Okarun and Aira?”
“They’ll be fine as long as they don’t run into each other,” Momo says with a shrug.
“Let's take care of this quickly, then.” He locks in, scanning the streets with her. “What’s this mist, anyway?”
“I think it’s supposed to make us fight each other?” Momo shrugs. “It’s doing something to their yokai forms, whatever it is.” She looks at her hands, they’re red, burnt. “I tried to seal them off, but…”
“Here, hold this.” Jiji passes her the drink he bought from the vending machine, somehow still intact. “It’s not as good as ice, but it should help.”
“Thanks.” She takes it, wrapping her palms around the cold can. “Now let’s find this creep.”
It’s definitely easier this time; the auras come to her the second she closes her eyes. She feels Jiji first. He’s fine, for now, but surrounded by his calm blue aura, the Evil Eye flickers, banging against the walls. Okarun’s bright red aura is south, running around the streets aimlessly. To the north she can feel Aira, hot pink. Now that she knows what she’s looking for, both their auras look off, sparking and fractured. They’re overcharged, and it might be happening to her too, given how easy everything feels.
“Is the Evil Eye giving you any trouble, Jiji?” She almost has something, north, by Aira.
She opens her eyes and walks towards it. Jiji winces, rubbing his chest.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” He frowns. “He’s angry, almost like he was when we first found him.”
“One funny move and I throw you too, then.” She searches again, focusing hard. Straight ahead.
“Funny like this?” Jiji asks, striking a pose.
Momo growls, raising her hands threateningly. “Not the time.”
“Sowwy~”
She shushes him. Aira is nearby, and if she listens carefully Momo can hear the swinging and stretching of her hair. She’s moving erratically too, thankfully not towards them for now. Okarun is…on the other side of the empty space, somehow? She looks up. Power lines, of course. And the alien is at the end of the street, straight ahead. Its aura is so tiny, she has to really narrow her focus to see it. She points, following its position. If she reaches, Aira will definitely see her and definitely be a nuisance.
“Jiji,” she whispers.
He nods, raising his hands to his chest. He isn’t going to be incapacitated after sending off one beam like she might be. She doesn’t want to rely on the extra charge only to find it not enough.
Wait. Extra charge. Shit.
“Jiji, be-”
A beam, almost as wide as the one he’d fought the space globalists with, tears through the street. With the fog displaced, they can see a small alien knocked on its ass all the way at the end of the destroyed road. It stumbles to its feet, gas mask leaking more fog.
“There it is!” Momo points, running, scrambling over the debris. Jiji’s blast knocked a fire hydrant loose, and she’s doing her best to avoid slipping on the wet chunks of asphalt.
She glances down, eyes widening, before being slammed into the side of a building by a ball of cursed energy.
“God damn it Evil Eye! It’s not tuesday!” She coughs, covered in brick dust.
He’s on her in a second, once again grabbing the front of her uniform. He lifts her off the ground, stretching out the collar. Damn it.
“I’m gonna murder you anyway.”
Double damn it. She shoves him away as hard as she can, her bow and collar going with him. The alien is definitely getting away. God, she’s going to have to find that tiny thing again. She’s going to have to replace her uniform, again.
“This day can fuck off!” She shouts into the sky, before reading her hands to block another attack. Despite what she said earlier, throwing a powered up yokai is pretty much impossible when she can’t turn off the transformation.
She diverts the ball with one hand, protecting herself from the debris it knocked loose with the other. Evil Eye is on her again, with a punch this time. She raises both hands to block it.
Pink hair wraps around the extended arm and Aira descends from above. Everyone has horrible timing today, she’s learning, until -
“Unhand her you asswipe!” She lands delicately in front of her with a pirouette. “Never again will I allow you to harm any of my precious friends!”
“Hah?” Momo stands there, gaping, as Aira kicks Evil Eye into the fog, then rushes off after him. A building falls somewhere ahead, just out of view.
Yeah, something’s definitely wrong with Aira.
Regardless, Momo isn’t planning on sticking around to figure it out. She runs away from the two, searching. She doesn’t see Okarun, thank god- and isn’t that weird, being relieved to not see him- but she’s going to get out of here before she does. If Jiji’s beam didn’t draw his attention, that fight with the Evil Eye definitely did.
He’s still kind of far, roaming the streets aimlessly.
She doesn’t dwell on why, gift horses and mouths and all, and takes advantage of her strengthened powers to find the alien. South, this time. Alone now, she grabs for the nearest streetlight and pulls, swinging into the air. It feels weird to do this without Okarun, but she can get around pretty quickly on her own. Her rhythm gets better the more she swings, and by the time she’s above the tiny alien she’s smiling, laughing at the feeling.
Suddenly, she’s in Okarun’s arms. He covered that ground fast.
“Did you use an all out for that? ”
“I missed you, Momo,” Okarun says in response, holding her tighter to his chest, running away from the alien.
“Turn around!” She knows it’s futile as she says it. “We have to get that little creep!”
He buries his face in her neck, skidding to a stop next to their school building. They’re back here, now? Really? He sits, back to the wall, and attempts to arrange her in his lap.
“Okarun, come on!” She pushes away and struggles to her feet. It only lasts a second before he’s on her again, tugging her back down.
“We’re safe here, Momo.”
“We’re not safe until we find that alien!” She doesn’t want to hurt him if he’s not attacking her, but she’s starting to run out of options.
He scans the fog ahead of them, alert for a moment, before he relaxes and nuzzles his large jaws against her shoulder. He runs a clawed hand through her hair, ever so gently detangling it.
“Seriously?”
He’s purring now. She didn’t know he could do that. It’s adorable, unreasonably adorable, but she stomps down the fluttering in her chest. Now is not the time.
Another building falls in the distance. It’s probably a good sign? Better than silence, anyway. At least they’re both still mobile, for now.
“Sorry, Okarun,” she says, then grabs hold of his aura.
It seriously hurts this time, and she grits her teeth, fighting her instinct to let go just long enough to pull him off her and fling him off into the distance. With her other hand, she grabs one of the pipes attached to the school building and takes off again.
“Momo!” His wail echoes from the fog.
She barely has to look to find the alien now. It’s far, inconveniently far, but she knows this route, and there are enough power lines, apartment balconies, and streetlights along the way to keep her off the ground the entire time.
The line ahead of her crackles with energy, and Okarun grabs her out of the air, knocking them both to the ground. It’s a soft landing, even like this he’s gentle with her (not the time to get flustered, focus ), but he’s taken her off track again.
“You’re being so annoying!” She’s starting to consider actually fighting him.
“Caught you.” He sounds pleased, as pleased as she’s ever heard him in this form, as he pins her to the asphalt.
She very, very intentionally ignores how that makes her feel. How the whole situation makes her feel, really. She’s pissed! She’s annoyed! She has an alien to kill! She rips a sign off a nearby building and smacks him with it, knocking him away. She scrambles to her feet, throwing a few more things at him for good measure.
And he has her again, too damn fast to be fair, grabbing both her hands gently, but firmly, in his clawed ones. Clumsily, she pushes between them with her powers, almost dislodging him until he opens his wide jaws to clamp down on her shoulder.
She freezes, heart stuttering in her chest. This is not the time to learn new things about herself!
He’s not biting her, exactly, just holding her there. She can feel his ragged panting against her shoulder, his cool breath creeping into her ripped shirt. Gently, he arranges her in his lap again, still keeping his grip on her shoulder. She can feel it when he purrs again, and she bites back a gasp at the sensation. He lets her hands go and resumes stroking her hair.
Time for actual desperate measures, now. Cradled in the pocket of limbs, it’s easy to bring her hands to her chest. He’s walked away from much worse, right?
Her moe moe beam catches him off-guard. He smashes through a window, disappearing into a nearby shop. She hears a few more walls break inside and winces, getting to her feet. She doesn’t hear him moving now, but he’s bound to be up soon, and she’s already wasted too much time.
Another building falls in the distance. She needs to squash that alien before Jiji and Aira seriously hurt each other. She can’t run, though, and swinging through the city didn’t turn out so well either.
Well, she’s been practicing this for a reason, a different reason, but maybe…
She manifests a spectral hand in front of her, actually managing to keep it still while she steps onto it this time. It rises into the air, and she wobbles, losing her balance and falling back down. Her head pounds.
Okay, try again.
She crouches on it this time, almost curling up into a ball. It probably looks goofy as all hell, but she can hear Okarun unburying himself and she needs to move now. She rockets off the ground just as Okarun pulls himself out of the house. He looks fine, physically, anyway. He lets loose a mournful howl and chases after her on all fours. It makes her heart squeeze in her chest; he’s always so cute.
No, focus!
It’s almost trivially easy to find the alien from up here, and with everyone else either busy or out of range, there’s nobody to stop her. She hunts it past another crumbling building, ignoring Evil Eye’s gleeful laughter. That probably means they’re both still okay, right?
The alien’s aura shines at her from the ground below, and conveniently, Okarun has followed her right to it. She grins and drops, letting herself free-fall. Once she’s in range, she grabs the little bastard.
“Okarun!” She calls, then flings the alien towards him as he blurs to catch her. Her timing is perfect, and he tears straight through the thing in his haste to get her back in his arms.
They drop to the sidewalk, surrounded by confused onlookers.
She laughs, delirious. “See, that wasn’t so bad.” She pats Okarun on his wispy, wild hair. “You big dumb idiot.”
Her head spins, and everything goes dark.