Kenji
The work was mentally grueling, repetitive, and extremely familiar. Kenji fell into a rhythm, his body moving with a finesse and skill born from years of hauling packages.
'Who knew this skill would come in handy one day?'
The only difference now was the weight. He activated a low, steady 10% of One For All, just enough to make the several-hundred-pound crates of medical equipment and power generators feel like simple cardboard boxes, though he still needed to be careful to not break anything. The energy hummed beneath his skin, turning an impossible task into a simple, monotonous one.
He didn't notice the stares at first, too lost in the rhythm of lifting, carrying, and stacking. But as he returned to the convoy for his tenth crate, he caught the eyes of a group of local firefighters. They were watching him, their faces a mixture of awe and utter disbelief.
One of them nudged his partner, who had been struggling with a much smaller box, and pointed. Kenji quickly looked away, a faint blush creeping up his neck. It wasn't just them. Other service workers and even some of the survivors would pause to watch him, the lone trainee who was single-handedly moving a mountain of supplies.
'Right, superhuman strength isn't exactly normal,' he thought, a familiar awkwardness settling over him. He forgot that before awakening One For All, the only time he actually saw a superhuman face to face was with Rita's demonstration.
He grabbed the next crate, a large, metal-banded box labeled "Emergency Water Purifier," and hoisted it onto his shoulder with an ease that belied its immense weight.
"Aoyama-kun," Ms. Anzai's voice called out. He turned to see the supply coordinator pointing towards a large tent on the far side of the district, marked with a red cross. "That one goes to the medical station. They've been waiting on it."
"Got it," Kenji nodded, adjusting his grip before setting off. The path to the medical tent took him away from the main distribution area and through a quieter, more desolate street. The silence here was heavier, the damage to the buildings more pronounced.
It was on this street that he ran into a familiar face. Kiana, and oh boy did she look grumpy.
She was heading in the opposite direction, carrying a single, much smaller box filled with what looked like toys and candy. She was grumbling to herself, kicking a loose piece of rubble with her foot.
"This is so boring, whose idea was it to have Valkyries carry boxes of candy…" she muttered, before finally spotting him.
Her eyes lit up. "Kenji! Look at you, showing off with the big boxes. Hope your job has been more interesting than mine."
He smirked, shifting the weight on his shoulder. "Well, I was a delivery worker for a few years, so interesting wouldn't be the word I would use. Anyways, what's with the box? Didn't know you liked toys this much."
Kiana rolled her eyes. "It's for the kids, smartass. Morale support, remember? It's a very important part of the mission." She puffed out her chest, though her bored expression didn't change. "Way more important than your heavy lifting."
"Sure it is," he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. He was about to trade another jab when Kiana suddenly froze, her playful demeanor vanishing in an instant. Her head snapped towards a narrow alleyway between two crumbling apartment buildings.
"What is it?" Kenji asked, his own senses going on alert but not sensing anything.
"Shh," she whispered, her eyes narrowed. "Look."
/ — /
Kiana
'Finally, some action!' The thought flared in Kiana's mind the moment she saw them. While trading insults with Kenji, her sharp, Valkyrie-trained eyes had caught movement in the alley.
It wasn't the slow, weary shuffle of a civilian. It was skittish and quick. Three figures, their faces obscured by hoods, were crowded around the back entrance of what looked like a small convenience store. One of them was trying to pry the door open with a crowbar.
Her first instinct screamed at her. Bad guys. What else could it be?
Her hands twitched, her fingers itching to reach for the pistols holstered at her hips. This was it. A chance to do what she was trained for. A simple takedown, and she could get back to the mission.
"Looters," Kenji's voice was a low murmur beside her, pulling her back from the edge. "Hold on, Kiana."
She glanced at him, annoyed. "What do you mean, hold on? They're breaking the law. We should stop them."
"Look at them," Kenji firmly said, eyes locked on the looters. "They don't look like gang members. They look... scared."
Kiana looked again, forcing herself to see past her initial "enemy" assessment. Kenji was right. They weren't aggressive or confident. Their movements were clumsy, panicked. They kept looking over their shoulders, as if expecting to be caught at any moment.
They looked… desperate.
Suddenly, Rita's words echoed in her mind. "Your evaluation will be based on your discipline, your compassion..."
Kiana gritted her teeth. Beating them up out of nowhere would definitely land her bad scores… and another lecture with Auntie.
She let out a frustrated sigh. "Fine," she whispered, reluctance obvious in her voice. "No punching. Not yet, anyway." She carefully set down her box of toys. "Let's follow them. See what they're after."
Kenji nodded, placing his massive crate on the ground with a quiet thud. Together, they crept towards the alley, their movements silent as they hugged the shadows of the ruined buildings.
Kiana looked at Kenji, who had somehow quietly gotten to a rooftop. She cursed when she remembered that he used to be a vigilante, staying hidden would definitely be in his skillset.
'Just you watch, I'm gonna catch up to you soon enough!'
They watched as the looters finally managed to force the door open, slipping inside the dark store one by one.
Kiana and Kenji exchanged a look before following, their footsteps silent on the broken glass that littered the ground. The inside of the store was a wreck, shelves overturned and goods scattered across the floor. In the dim light filtering through the grimy windows, they saw the three figures frantically stuffing items into a large duffel bag.
Kiana tensed, ready to intervene. But then she saw what they were taking.
It wasn't money from the register or expensive electronics. It was baby formula, canned food, and bottles of clean water. One of them, a man who couldn't have been much older than Kenji, was carefully wrapping a box of fever reducers in a cloth before placing it in the bag.
These weren't criminals. They were survivors.
Kiana stood frozen in the doorway. Her duty as a Valkyrie told her to uphold the law, to stop them. But her heart ached with a sudden pang of empathy.
These people were just trying to survive, just like everyone else here. There's no way she could just beat them up for trying to survive!
But why didn't they just wait to get supplies like everyone else? Why risk going out here, risk meeting a stray honkai beast or actual criminals?
Something wasn't right.
"Kiana, I think we should just let them be—" But she had already made her decision and walked forward.
"Hey!"
/ — /
Kiana
"Hey!"
The word ripped out of her throat before she could stop it. Her voice, though not a yell, cut through the quiet desperation of the store like a gunshot.
The three figures froze, dropping cans that clattered loudly on the floor. Their heads snapped towards the doorway, faces pale with terror as they saw her Valkyrie battlesuit illuminated by the light from the street.
Their heads snapped towards her, and even in the dim light, Kiana could see the sheer terror in their wide eyes. They looked less like criminals caught in the act and more like startled animals trapped in a cage.
"It's a Valkyrie! Run!" one of them shouted, scrambling for the duffel bag.
"Kiana, what are you doing? Wait!" Kenji whispered from just behind her, but she ignored him. Her focus was locked on the three looters.
Taking a slow step forward, her hands held up in a placating gesture she'd seen Mei use a hundred times. "Wait! Stop!" she called out, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible. "I'm not going to hurt you! I just want to ask you some questions!"
The looters hesitated at a back exit, glancing nervously between the door and the strange Valkyrie who wasn't attacking them.
They saw Kenji now too, standing by the entrance, his arms crossed. Kiana wondered why he was so quiet suddenly, but focused back on the looters.
They were trapped. The leader, a young man around Kenji's age, made the decision to stop, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
'Okay, they stopped,' Kiana thought, her own heart pounding. 'Now what? Mei would be all calm and graceful. How do I do this?'
She took a slow breath, forcing down the urge to just grab them and demand answers.
She pointed to the duffle bag of supplies, her approach as blunt as her personality. "Why are you guys looting this place?" she asked, her tone genuinely confused. "There's a whole distribution center being set up a few streets over. You can get all this stuff there, for free. So why risk breaking in here?"
The looters were silent, their eyes darting between her, Kenji, and the exit. They clutched their bag defensively, clearly not trusting her.
Kiana felt a flicker of her usual impatience, but she bit it back. This wasn't working. She tried again, focusing on what Kenji had pointed out. "Look, you're desperate. I can see it," she said, her voice a little softer this time.
"If you could just wait in line, you would. So there must be a reason you can't. Just tell us. We're here to help everyone. If there's a problem, we can't fix it if we don't know what it is."
The leader of the group finally looked up, his voice shaky but laced with a bitter resentment. "Help everyone? That's a lie." He spat the words out. "We can't go there. They won't give us anything."
Kiana frowned. "What do you mean? The supplies are for all survivors." Kenji also lifted a brow in confusion, but otherwise said nothing.
"We're not on the list," his voice cracked slightly. "We're not from this district. Our homes on the west side… A distribution center is being set up there too, but it's still far off from being complete"
His tired eyes stayed focused on the floor. "We didn't have enough supplies to go around, we came here looking for more, but the registration is based on old residency records. We're not on their list, so we don't count."
Kiana felt bad for him, she really did. But if they already got supplies, asking for more is just… greedy isn't it? She's still missing something, the people at their district also had limited supplies but they didn't go out to loot stores. So why did they?
Another looter, a woman, spoke up, her voice trembling as she clutched a box of medicine. "We understand we might sound greedy… But we have many sick people in our district. Without more supplies, many of us won't make it. My son... he has a fever. He's burning up and.. I couldn't just wait."
'Ah, so that's why.'
Usually with disasters this big, the government is usually quick to rebuild within a few months, and survivor aid is handled quickly. But this time it was different.
She remembered what she heard from the news. For some reason, the rebuilding and aid for this eruption was much slower than the ones before.
Kiana clenched her fists, she knew that wasn't the full story. She heard Auntie complaining a lot about some groups making it harder for Schicksal to operate. It wasn't hard to make the connection that someone was deliberately making it harder to recover from this eruption.
But they were looting someone's store, someone's livelihood. Even if it's broken now, some things could still be salvageable for them. At the same time, when she looked at the looters— no, these people's eyes. She didn't see criminals, just desperate survivors.
She looked the leader in the eye, her expression now firm with a new kind of resolve.
"Take it," she said.
The looters stared at her, stunned into silence. "What?" the leader whispered.
"Take what you need for your families," Kiana repeated, her voice steady and clear. "And then get out of here before a real security patrol comes by." She turned and nodded to Kenji, who had been watching the entire exchange with a look of growing respect. "Help them with the bag. It looks heavy."
Kenji chuckled, "Always shifting the responsibility to me huh?" But his words held no sharpness, and he quickly stepped forward to help the stunned civilians. While Kiana helped them gather more things that they were searching for.
When all was done, they mumbled their thanks, their gratitude and disbelief warring on their faces, before hurrying out the back door and disappearing into the ruins.
They stood in silence for a while, before Kiana exhaled a heavy sigh. Even if she helped those people, it didn't do anything to ease the weight she felt in her chest.
"Didn't know you could act so mature. Good job back there." Kenji commented beside her, a soft smile etched on his face as he patted her back.
Seeing his expression, she couldn't help but smile herself. "I'm always mature, you know. Both in personality and body!"
He smirked, "Well, one out of two isn't bad, I guess."
"Why you—!"