[SS]Here we go...again?

Kohaku could not help but raise her eyebrow at Toshiro's story about his encounter with some delinquents. She was the type who generally disliked fighting altogether. After all, that kind of thing led to more injuries and that was never a good thing. Still, that just meant that the faster they got out of this alleyway, the better.

However, things never seem to go the way one usually wants. A bunch of delinquents had walked into the area. However, they were all relatively injured. Despite the grins they seemed to have on their faces upon encountering the small group, Kohaku started to walk up to them. After all, the etiquette between delinquents and what not did not really matter to her. She saw people who were injured and so she simply did what she normally does. "Are you guys alright? You guys look like you're a bit beat-up and it looks like you just hastily applied bandages over some wounds."

Mirai looked at Toshiro attentively as he talked about his encounter with the gutless. So... One of them actually had an ability? And they seemed to be kind of aggressive according to his story, too. ... The telepath didn't say anything, though. She simply turned her gaze to Sogiita instead and smiled at him...

But her attention quickly focused on something completely else. A group of young men started to grin at them, as soon as they saw Toshiro in the crowd. Mirais facial expression didn't change really much at first, and she just nodded at the other group with a friendly smile, before staring at Toshiro again. She didn't seem to care about their injuries at all.

"Ah~ They must be the friends you just talked about! How about we take another-..." She said in a bubbly voice to the brown-haired boy, but interrupted herself because she saw Kira Kohaku walking towards them. She immediately started to giggle nervously. That was...

"Tehehehe- What are you doing?!" Was she... upset? She suddenly didn't look cheerful at all.  Also, her right eye twitched a bit.

"Are you guys alright? You guys look like you're a bit beat-up and it looks like you just hastily applied bandages over some wounds."

Mirai took a step forward herself, but she just grabbed the arm of the other girl to prevent her from walking. "Listen to me. They won't let you help! They never do. I should know! I..."

Takashi, arms crossed, listened to Toshiro's story of those who pursued him, while thinking over the details. "One potentially has fire manipulation, but the rest are normal. If push comes to shove, the esper will definitely be the biggest problem."


As Takashi thought out the scenario in a sort of trance, his thoughts were broken by Mirai practically yelling "What are you doing?!" He looked up to see Mirai yelling at Kohaku who was walking up to a group of six absolutely thuggish looking people. However, Takashi noticed that they were all injured. Even so, he feared Kohaku's safety and so he quickly jogged in front of Kohaku and put a hand on her shoulder. After looking at Kohaku with a perplexed and rather accusing look, as if he was saying "What were you thinking?", he looked back at the hurt group with as serious a look as he could muster.


"Listen, we can just go our separate ways. No one needs to be hurt today, especially you in your current condition. Let us leave without any resistance. If you don't, we will fight back and none of us wants that." Under the surface, though, he knew that a fight was about to occur. He got himself mentally prepared to go home that day with a few bruises, scrapes, and burns.

"Money, huh."

Such a common reason to do something as gutless as ganging up on the weak. Gunha had seen robberies several times and stopped nearly as many (some times others beat him to it, or the victim him/herself would exact their own justice). If they were clearly able enough to attain the means to threaten someone else, why not put their efforts towards getting what they want the normal way?

Like these deviants who were coming for them now. Tension rose in the group as Mirai and Murakami prevented the other girl from making her own approach.

Mirai was right: They weren't listening to reason. Not even Guts listened to reason, anyway, so he assumed that was what Mirai was talking about (despite her voice hinting otherwise). These people came to finish what they started. Was it pride? Greed? Purebred Revenge?

Didn't matter. He returned their grin with one of his own.

"Coming to finish what you started, eh? I'd complement you if you weren't trying to steal by ganging up. That's totally not guts, but you all got potential." His voice was clear, unlike Mirai's trembling voice or Murakami's that attempted to reconcile. No, this was a clear 'join my faction instead' sort of proposal. Trying to put them on the right path. Even if their minds were set on violence, he'd at least try once: to their merit, they weren't like some other gang who pulled guns on him.

"Yeah, that is them alrig-" Toshiro started to say until he noticed Kohaku walking towards them, he rushed towards her with Mirai. "Y-yeah, very bad idea you do not want to even attempt that. They would more likely take you hostage to get some swings at me. So you might want to back up...quite a bit." He said as he stepped in front of Kohaku. He was worried that she could get hit, and that would not leave a very nice feeling in his stomach. Takashi also rushed over as well, that was a good thing as well. Though after he heard what he said, he had a feeling that he knew that a direct confrontation was inevitable.

He could play the attention card, try to keep them occupied for a little while so they could get Kohaku-chan a little bit farther away. "Yeah, money go figure. Well that, along with revenge. I think they have...blown their top per se, it might work on people that are clear headed, but not these thugs." He commented on Gunha's attempt on trying to get them to change sides in a sense. He saw one of the thugs start to create a ball of fire in his hands, as his 'friends' closed the distance. "Ah...crap. Kohaku-chan you might want to move away or  take cover or something." Was his only reply when he saw the fire ball being made.

All of the others in the group had scolded her and were trying to protect her. In the end, she understood why. Delinquents like the ones she were approaching were not the most…safe people to approach.

Even so, they were injured and she did not like seeing an injured person walking into a situation where they could get more injuries.

Things got worse as she noticed the fireball forming in the hand of one of the delinquent's hand. It irritated her. With injury, there was always a chance for an Esper to lose control of his power. So, she shouted a warning to the fiery delinquent before taking a few steps back. "You know there is a chance of you losing control of that fireball and hurting yourself if you lose focus, right? I just wanted to warn you before you take any drastic actions."

She took some steps back. In the end, she was no combatant. She was a girl with a power that fell more on the side of support than anything else. Even so, she was not the type to fight. It just was not in her nature.

"... Potential? Uhhh..." Mirai raised an eyebrow. No. No potential at all. Was it really a good idea? It was not like she would handle this situation any better, but really? Complimenting them? She did things like this all the time; Offering friendliness and help. But it never worked. She gave up on people like them some time ago. Still... Sogiitas clear voice sent a shiver down her spine. Even though she questioned his attempts, he was just... “so cool” in her eyes. He was cool, while she already started to loose her nerves. She had so much to learn...

The gang came closer, while their leader... Yeah, Pyrokinesis. Like this Toshiro-guy said. The fireball looked menacing in her eyes, and if she were alone, this would be the perfect moment... to run like crazy. But the middle-schooler didn't look really fazed. They had one of the few highest-ranked espers on their side; Mirai knew what Sogiita Gunha was able to do. He would protect them. There was no way these drop-outs could do them any harm.

"You know there is a chance of you losing control of that fireball and hurting yourself if you lose focus, right? I just wanted to warn you before you take any drastic actions.”

Mirai looked at the white-haired girl, who she considered pretty in a totally not weird way, and smiled. "Aww~ You still worry about them. That's so sweet of you! But if they are really going to attack us, they will get beaten up in absolutely nooo time anyway~! If you worry about them so much, then you might consider to call an ambulance after the fight.” She said in a way too friendly voice and pulled out her own phone.
"I personally think it's just a waste of time.  Also, I will need my own phone to...” She selected the camera-app and raised her phone enthusiastically. "...to totally record this, yaaay! Oh my gosh, this could be my first footage of Sogiita-san in a battle! I'm soooo excited!”

While still standing by Kohaku, Takashi saw the esper form a fireball in his hand. Takashi's eyes furrowed. "Not good...". He took a step to get in front of Kohaku and started charging a burst. While he wasn't ready to use it because of how weak it was, he attempted to talk the thugs down again, despite everyone complimenting and/or worrying about them and so he put out a hand and began to speak.

"Kohaku's right. You may lose control of that fireball, so please back down while we are still giving you the chance! I do not want harm to befall any of you but if you continue, you will leave us no choice!"


Despite his attempts, he knew that his words were going to fall on deaf ears. "Here we go..."

Toshiro watched the thug holding the fireball very closely, after what Kohaku-chan said it could very well happen. Even though he doubted it, he could lose control of the fireball, then what would happen after that was anyone's guess. It could char the thug, and his friend's bodies or could cause the street to somehow catch on fire. "Well I am hoping he does not lose control then, else there could be a lot of havoc caused." He said commenting his hope to Kohaku's insight.

He heard Takashi trying to talk the thugs down again, well he gets points for trying. "From seeing the look in that guy's eyes I think he is quite confident that he will not lose control. Then again his target is me... man it feels like I got a target painted on my back." He said after he focused on the thug's eyes.

But before he could really react to the current situation suddenly he heard Sogiita shout out 'Amazing Punch!' The result was... well jaw dropping when he saw the entire gang of thug go flying into the wall. "Well... that was somewhat anti-climatic, but it works for me. Now if you excuse me for stop talking for a few moments Sogiita-san, I have to pick up my dropped jaw." He said commenting on the short burst of mayhem that ended this little confrontation. After a few moments of looking at what happened he finally opened his mouth again.

"Sogiita-san, thanks for the help with this little conflict. It helps with the rest of us not getting hurt, so... what now we going to call Judgement or Anti-Skill to take care of this?" He said thanking Sogiita-san before asking what they should so now before they moved on to possibly helping Kohaku-chan get a gift.

The entire scuffle went by incredibly quickly. It was surreal. One would think that a back-alley scuffle involving multiple teenagers would take a while.

In the end, the fight was incredibly anti-climactic. It ended with only one move and all of the delinquents seemed to have been knocked out. In the end, that was just the overwhelming power difference between a Level 5 and common thugs.

It seemed like none of them even got injured badly, just knocked out. Still, it would probably be a good idea to check. She ignored Toshiro's comment and made her way to the delinquent who landed closest, the one who was preparing a fireball, and bent over next to his body.

"Sogiita-san, thanks for the help with this little conflict. It helps with the rest of us not getting hurt, so... what now we going to call Judgement or Anti-Skill to take care of this?"

"That would probably be a good idea. I'm just going to do a quick check-up on these guys to make sure they were not injured too badly. It should only take two or three minutes to do so." She said as she put her open palms on the first delinquents wrists and began to read their condition and do the back-projection calculation on the output readings.