If the shopping mall was purgatory, the "Game Station" arcade was the ninth circle of auditory hell.
Techno music at full volume, strobe lights, and the ceaseless sound of falling coins. A sensory attack designed to fry the dopamine receptors of teenagers.
"That's the one!" Toga squealed, pressing her face against the glass of a claw machine.
We stopped. Inside the machine, buried under a mountain of generic All Might and Endeavor plushies, was something different. A white plush rabbit, but with thick black stitches, a button eye, and a splash of red paint on its ear that looked like blood.
It was ugly. It was creepy.
"I want it," Toga declared, turning to me with big, sad puppy eyes. "It looks like me."
I sighed, shoving my hand into the pocket of my cargo pants.
"Those machines are a scam, Toga. The claw tension is programmed to be weak 80% of the time. It's a payout algorithm, not skill."
"But..." She looked at the ugly rabbit. "It looks lonely. No one is going to want it because it's weird."
Damn it. Emotional low blow. She was projecting onto the doll. If we left it there, she felt like she was abandoning herself.
"Fine," I growled, pulling out a 100-yen coin. "One try. If I miss, we leave."
"Yay!" Toga jumped and hugged my arm. "You can do it, Katsuki-kun! You're good at everything!"
I approached the machine. My ego, fed by the vampire's praise and my own arrogance, took control. I am Bakugou Katsuki. I have perfect hand-eye coordination. I can calculate flight trajectories in milliseconds. A mechanical claw is no match for me.
I inserted the coin. The circus music started playing.
I moved the joystick with surgical precision. The claw positioned itself perfectly over the zombie rabbit. I pressed the button.
The claw descended. The metal teeth grabbed the plush firmly.
"Got it!" I said.
The claw rose. And then, right at the highest point, it opened languidly, like a tired hand, and dropped the rabbit back onto the pile.
Toga let out a moan of disappointment.
I felt a vein throb in my forehead.
"Damn machine..." I hissed.
"It's the algorithm," Izuku said, appearing at my side. He had his hands behind his back and was looking at the machine with that terrifying intensity he used to analyze villains. "Kacchan, you can't beat it with grip strength. The machine is configured to release if it detects weight before reaching the dispenser."
"And what do you suggest, Deku?" I growled, pulling out another coin (forgetting my "one try" rule). "That I blow it up?"
"No." Izuku pointed at the glass. "Look at the rabbit's tag. It's a nylon loop on the left ear. It's rigid."
I leaned in to look. He was right. There was a small, hard plastic tag loop.
"If you try to grab the body, the claw will slip," Izuku explained, entering mutter-mode. "But if you use one of the claw's teeth like a hook and insert it into that loop... the machine won't be able to drop it even if it opens the pincer, because it will be physically hooked."
I looked at the nerd. Then I looked at the machine.
"The angle is difficult," I said, analyzing the geometry. "I need to rotate the claw 45 degrees to the right and lower it with a two-centimeter offset."
"Exactly." Izuku stood next to the control panel. "I'll guide you on the Y-axis. You control the X-axis and rotation."
I looked at Toga. She was watching us both with her hands clasped together, as if we were about to defuse a nuclear bomb and not retrieve a 500-yen plushie.
"Let's do it."
I inserted the second coin.
"Right... right..." Izuku muttered, nose almost touching the glass. "Stop! Now rotate. Just a tap. There!"
I moved the joystick with the delicacy I used for my detonators.
"Lowering..." Izuku announced.
The claw descended. I didn't aim for the rabbit's fat body. I aimed for the ear. The metal tooth slid millimetrically through the small plastic loop of the tag.
"Hooked!" Izuku shouted.
The claw rose. The mechanism, faithful to its scam programming, opened the pincers to drop the prize. But physics, faithful to my calculations and Izuku's eye, won. The rabbit hung by the tag, dangling precariously from a single metal tooth.
The claw moved toward the chute.
Plop.
The rabbit fell into the compartment.
"YES!" Izuku and I shouted in unison, instinctively high-fiving.
It was an absurd victory, but it felt as good as defeating a B-rank villain. We had beaten the system.
Toga crouched down and pulled out the plushie. She hugged it against her chest, burying her nose in the synthetic fabric.
"It's mine!" she squealed, spinning around. "It's ugly and has scars and it's mine!"
She stopped in front of us, eyes shining.
"Thanks, team." She gave us each a quick kiss on the cheek. To Izuku, who turned red as a stoplight, and to me, who stood paralyzed for a second. "I'll call him... Zuzu-Baku."
"That's a terrible name!" I protested, wiping my cheek (though without much conviction).
"It's perfect! He has Zuzu's smarts and Baku's angry face." Toga lifted the rabbit's paw and waved at me with it. "Hello, Papa!"
Izuku burst out laughing, covering his mouth.
"He does look a bit like you when you wake up, Kacchan."
"You want to die today too, right, Deku?"
We walked out of the Arcade. Toga walked in the middle, hugging her zombie rabbit like it was a national treasure. Izuku walked to her right, still chuckling softly. And I walked to the left, hands in my pockets, pretending to be annoyed.
But watching the rabbit dangling from Toga's arm out of the corner of my eye, I couldn't help a half-smile.
Brute force and analysis. Execution and strategy.
That slot machine didn't stand a chance. And the world of heroes wouldn't either.
"I'm hungry again," Toga announced. "Can the rabbit eat fries?"
"It's plush, idiot," I said.
"Don't tell him that! You'll hurt his feelings!"
Yeah. We were a weird team. But we worked.