Chapter 134: Keeping Connected

Summary: A peek into the changes for the ordinary people...

IMPORTNAT NOTE: READ THE FIRST A/N FOR THIS CHAPTER. It contains information about the update cycle for this story!

Warning! Chapters 132-134 were all posted back-to-back, make sure you don't miss any of them!

Chapter 134: Keeping Connected

The streets of Tokyo were dirtier than the last time Izumi had last walked them. Yet, they were also conversely more alive. While it had certainly always had its back alleys and niche areas, the core of Tokyo had always come off as almost too clean. Sanitized windows and soulless steel. Now, with the numerous ways that the city had been forced to adapt in the wake of the Invasion, that sanitization had been replaced by a thrumming chaos. The city was living and breathing in a way that it hadn't been before.

The people were a part of it, of course. A large part, it had to be said. The city had always had a lot of people in it, though the population plunge of the Quirk Wars and Era of Chaos had thankfully caused some of its pre-Quirk era reputation as cramped and overcrowded to abate. The rebuilding afterward, helped along by Quirks, had resulted in far smaller crowds than someone of the 21st century would have been accustomed to. Likewise, the days of overpriced tiny apartments you could mistake for a shoebox with running water had largely vanished.

Had.

That sort of thing was, unfortunately, making a return now. The still-limited numbers of RADS arrays meant that cities like Tokyo that had priority coverage due to being mass population centers, were now the safe place to go. Not even Shizuku, home to UA and now the central hub of Heroics for the entirety of Japan, could claim to be as well-covered of a safe zone. Meaning that space was, once again, at a premium in the larger cities. Something only made worse by some skyscrapers and other large complexes being converted into vertical stack farming, trying keep the city fed with unreliable access to farmland.

So, crowded streets with people moving in blocks was a normal sight…in the daytime. The nights, such as the one where she and her two girlfriends were now enjoying a lazy stroll, were a bit of a different story. Oh, the streets were anything but empty. In fact, they were far more alive with people than they would have been before the Invasion. In a practical bid to alleviate the strain on the city, the powers that be had relaxed ideas about curfew on things like street markets, food carts, and pop-up service stands. By allowing such things to continue into the night, at least some of the population took advantage of the non-peak time to avoid the dense crowds.

The portion of the population who did so, however, were rarely salarymen and schoolteachers. Oh, it wasn't all ner-do-wells and thugs either, of course. But the sort of people that were comfortable out at night, with monsters potentially lurking in the dark if you got unlucky enough, were definitely on the more colorful end of the spectrum. Laborers, with plenty of muscles earned via hard work and little to fear from the rest of the crowds, were one of the most common members of said crowds. The Invasion and the need to supply both overcrowded cities and defenders alike had made for a lot of long hours for such people, making their late-night excursions the most mundane of the lot. Getting hot food, running errands, or just trying to drink away their stress.

The young, brash, and foolishly overconfident made up another large chunk. Though they were kept from causing too much mischief by the plentiful off-duty military and militia that were also sprinkled everywhere. More colorful than those groups, and somewhat more interesting to Izumi's eyes, were the wide array of more 'counterculture' type movements that had always been present in Japan. The livelier nights had brought that underground element to the surface in a way that had the night air of the city feeling very different.

Neo Gyaru girls cheerfully mixed with the latest 'punk' movement, which had brought back neon mohawks and lots of leather. Various flavors of the more social otaku subsets were everywhere, often running booths and small businesses. Idol cosplayers, pop-up maid cafés, and more. Neon lights seemed to have become the theme of Tokyo at night, even if that neon was now produced by LED strips rather than the tubes and gas of yesteryear. The entire night had a bit of a chaotic madness to its liveliness. Not one that was actually dangerous, for the most part, but one that felt like it had just a bit of an edge to it.

Momo, of course, was utterly riveted and had been practically vibrating with overstimulation at all the new things as they meandered through the streets. Jirou, meanwhile, fit right into the entire scene in a way that helped steer her less informed girlfriends, a small smile on her lips as she watched them goggle at all the things. Izumi was somewhere in between, with greater exposure to the 'real world' in general, but with only limited experience with the various counterculture movements.

"There. You'll like that one, Momo. Or, at least, the contents will look amazing on you."

The words, accompanied by a pointing finger, came from Kyoka. She was pointing at one of the larger setups in the market area they'd seen so far. It was a series of clothing racks, along with a changing booth and a pair of punk-goth girls with bright pink and blood red hair respectively manning it. The girl with bright pink hair was smiling and waving, chatting with anything that moved and possibly a few things that didn't, if they didn't grow legs and flee in self-defense. The other was dark and frowny looking, though that was ruined a bit as her lips kept twitching up at the corners whenever the perkier girl found a new victim to inflict herself on.

As the trio approached the booth, Kyoka knowingly steered Momo into the pink haired girl's path. Already having a good idea what was to come, both of them took cover behind their taller girlfriend, causing the frowny looking one to outright smirk for just a moment. Sure enough, the pinkette's eyes lit on Momo and she bounced right into Momo's face.

"Oooohh, woowie! You're super pretty! Oh, oh, I bet you'll look really good if we get you into leathers! Oooorr, or maybe some fishnets instead? How do you feel about eyeliner?!"

Momo was only taken aback for an instant, before her own current energy levels and her half-secret bubbly nature bounced back some of the energy.

"I don't know, but I want to try! What do you think I should go with first?! Kyoka goes with darker colors, but I'm not sure if that's me or not!"

The perky girl was stunned for just one glorious instant, before throwing her arms around Momo.

"New friend! Come, we must save you from the boring clothes!"

The two were off a second later in a whirlwind that left Izumi and Kyoka wide-eyed. An outright giggle came from the previously-frowny girl, whose face had finally broken into an outright grin.

"Oh, this is going to be a riot to watch. Just try not to get too close to those two, or you'll end up with splash damage."

Kyoka was faster to bounce back than Izumi, her face forming into a smirk.

"I'll save the splash damage for when we get the clothes back off of her later, I think."

The redhead blinked, then grinned again.

"Oh, you three are like that, huh? Well, we might just get along, if Kiki doesn't kill us all with secondhand sugar rush, that is…"

The three of them fell into an easy back-and-forth, Kyoka picking out a few items at Akira, the redhead's, recommendation. Both of them got a little into it when it came to fitting Izumi in turn, though thankfully not to anywhere near the degree of Kiki and Momo, who were still going strong seven entirely and radically different outfits in. In the end, all three of them came out with a matching new style for the rest of the evening. Which, Izumi had to admit, looked damn good on all three of them, even if it wasn't too much of a leap for Kyoka.

Momo…Izumi and Kyoka were stuck drooling for a long moment, or minute, or possibly half an eternity. A red corset dress with a slit practically up to her thigh, a fishnet covering for otherwise bare cleavage, added to a black frilly collar and sleeves. The fact her hair was down for once, some dark lipstick and eyeliner had been added, and thigh-highs were putting her long legs on display didn't help one bit either.

"Holy fuck, can you ride my face please mommy~?"

Oddly, the comment didn't even come from Jirou and Izumi, instead having slipped out from a stunned Akira as she stared along with them. The slowly reddening face of the girl as she realized what she'd just said startled a snort out of Kyoka, letting her shake herself out of her stupor. She grinned as she lightly elbowed the redhead.

"Not that I blame you, but ours. Get your own."

The sheer level of possessiveness in that comment got a blush out of Momo, which broke the image just enough for Izumi to shake herself loose too.

"You look amazing, Momo! We're absolutely letting you loose on some poor helpless vendors for the rest of the night! Imagine all the free food~."

The comment got a dazed look from her girlfriend, who grinned oddly. Sure, she didn't have to worry about money ever, but something about Free food just tasted different! Laughing at Momo's expression of longing, Izumi quickly paid for their combined purchases, before looping an arm through Momo's and pulling her along. They had more of this strange new version of Tokyo to see!

… … …

It was three hours later, as they lounged in a VIP room of The Blue Nova, that the trio talked about what they'd seen. They'd reserved the room through normal channels, this time, so as not to disrupt its operation in the busy city. Though admittedly they'd done so with preferential treatment for an owner, since that's exactly what Momo was. Well, co-owner with Thirteen at this point, anyway.

"I admit, I admire the resilience of people. I think I understand why Mel and the others insisted we do more than 'retreat into our apartment and fuck each other silly' for our break weekend. This time, at least. Not giving that up on every break, thanks."

Momo nodded as Izumi's comment, while Kyoka blushed a bit at the memory of that comment. Still, she was the one who spoke next, the changes to the city having surprised her the least.

"I've seen a lot of the changes as they've happened, while out working with various Heroes on city investigations. Not in Tokyo specifically. There are entire teams just dedicated to keeping Tokyo clear, given how many people are here and how much of the government is running out of the city. But most of the larger cities are like this…sort of. They are each a different mix and flavor, really. Both day and night. Tokyo is sort of developing a neon-punk vibe overall, I think. I kinda love it, honestly."

Izumi snorted, not bothering to comment on that. Kyoka had fit right in with a lot of the crowd, even before they got their collective makeover from Kiki and Akiria. She'd ended up with some brighter purple highlights in her hair, along with a new choker and some glowing armbands, but it all matched well with her normal vibe. Instead of commenting on that, though, she continued her earlier thought instead.

"Did either of you notice how much more…innovation, I suppose is the right word. How much more innovation was on display? There were a bunch of places where amateurs had managed to connect buildings in skybridges for more space, and the calculations I did on all of them said they were remarkably well-made and stable. Not to mention a lot of the odd food mixes, new styles, and…well everything, really."

Momo straightened a little from where she'd eaten herself into a mild food coma. Despite having indeed gotten free food from dozens of stunned stall owners, she'd been the only one of them really up for more eats. Jirou and Izumi had ordered drinks and appetizers to munch on, but Momo had gotten multiple full meals. Her unreal metabolism and the strain she'd been putting on her body with such insanely heavy use of Creation lately had left her feeling hollowed out. Something she hadn't even properly realized until she'd started gorging herself on the street food.

Izumi had noted it, deciding that they needed to do a check-in with Recovery Girl on Monday, before they went back up to get to work on Forge 1. Despite One for All boosting Creation, she was worried Momo was hitting the end of her ability to keep up this level of production without consequences. For now, she pushed it off and listened as Momo spoke on an old topic for them. One that had a dangerous chance of running away if Izumi didn't step in at the right moments.

"I know a lot of people say Quirks sort of killed off creativity and development. I think they were wrong, though. Even before Quirks, the world was sort of…stagnating. If you look at history, humanity had somehow started accepting tiny, marginal improvements was all that was left. It was bullshit, outright bullshit. But before Quirks the world was sliding toward a sort of dystopia where planned obsolescence and marginal improvements were built into the economy. Innovation was, more and more, being viewed as unnecessary and too expensive to bother with. Not when you could just fleece the public with the same devices and designs over and over with barely anything but new paint!"

Kyoka looked startled, apparently not having seen someone push this particular button of Momo's before.

"Uhhh…isn't that basically where we were before the Invasion, too?"

Wanting to save poor Kyoka's sanity, since if Momo really got started the charts and graphs would come out as she got more and more worked up, Izumi was quick to speak up before Momo could.

"Yes, exactly. It's something that's bothered both Momo and I for a long time. It's like, after the Quirk Wars and Era of Chaos, everyone was so obsessed with getting 'back to normal' that they restored all the bad things along with all the good. That includes restoring a certain lack of…institutional creativity. Take the HSN for example."

Kyoka blinked but straightened, realizing she'd stumbled on something both of her girlfriends were apparently passionate about.

"What about it?"

Momo, thankfully not summoning the graphs, jumped in to explain.

"We shouldn't have had to make it, that's what. While our encryption and hardware are better, the basic idea was something that should have, could have, been done with off-the-shelf pre-Quirk electronics. Not as well, maybe, but almost all of the basic functions could have been put together and run off the processor in a pre-Quirk era smart phone. Yet, something so useful to Heroics and police work just…didn't exist until Izumi made it."

Izumi, just as invested in the topic but a little more able to restrain herself on it, interjected again as Momo started to look frustrated.

"It wasn't as bad as it had been pre-Quirks. There was, at least, a lot of innovation in Heroics gear. But when was the last time you saw that sort of innovation make its way over to the civilian side? I mean, there's like two or three hundred versions of jetpacks worldwide. So where's our flying cars? Even just one person automated airtaxis that can hop across a city?"

Kyoka's expression slowly morphed to a frown as she worked through that. Finally, she tentatively pointed out Izumi's initial comment that had started them down this chain of conversation.

"You said there seems to be a lot more innovation now, though? Right? So…that's a good thing?"

Izumi nodded, and both she and Momo deflated a bit. Izumi, since she'd been the one to start the topic up, responded first.

"Yeah, that's why I said something. I'm…not sure why it changed. Is it because humanity is under threat? Or because a lot of the big industry is focused on war materials and people are all stuffed into one space? Necessity is the mother of invention? Or is it something else?"

Momo hummed, running her hands through her hair. Few people knew that the reason she kept it in updos most of the time was that she tended to play with it when it was down. It was something her parents had discourage slightly, as it 'gave away her thoughts.' Now, with an audience of just her two lovers, it didn't really matter.

"That's probably part of it. Most of it even. I want to say that some of it is that the current situation broke down a lot of the standard models of behavior too, though. We saw all those counterculture movements casually getting along with normal day laborers, right? I think the current situation just sort of…broke down a lot of barriers and mixed everything up in a blender. Some good with all the bad that's happened, I guess? Who knows if it will stay or be lost again, if we manage to stabilize the situation enough."

Izumi nodded to that, even as Kyoka seemed to mull it over. As much as Izumi would never voice it aloud due to all the pain and fear the Invasion had caused, she wondered a little just how long the world would have been stuck on a treadmill, without such an extreme push. An ugly thought, one she didn't even like having to herself. But one she couldn't help wondering about once it had wriggled its way into her brain. Shaking the dark thought off, she clapped her hands together.

"Well, enough of that! Who wants ice cream?"

Both of her girlfriends perked up at that. No matter how much had already been eaten, there was always more room for ice cream…

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: I'm sad to announce that this fic is no longer getting guaranteed monthly updates :-(. Don't panic! It's not being abandoned, or even but on 'hiatus' (which everyone knows means abandoned but the author doesn't want to admit it). Instead, this is a case where one of my other stories has become more popular than this one, and my Patrons made that abundantly clear in a poll vote. I currently only have time to update three stories a month, for a rough total of about 45,000 words. Two of those stories are always 'locked' as guaranteed updates, with the third one being subject to a patron poll for which of my other works will update in any given month. Fortunately or unfortunately, One Piece: Halfway Broken has become significantly more popular with patrons than My Hero Auotmata. I finally gave in to pressure and ran a poll to see how true that was...and Halfway Broken took 75 percent of the vote. With such a stark difference in popularity with my supporters, I decided I needed to swap Halfway Broken in as one of the guaranteed update slots. That means that, as of next month, One Piece: Halfway Broken and Can One Displaced Hero Save the Galaxy? will be the two stories in the guaranteed monthly update slots. My Hero Automata, tragically, will be demoted into the monthly poll and need to complete against all my other active stories in order to get updated. Rest assured, those polls have a built-in mechanism to make sure every story gets updated eventually, by giving vote boosts to any story that doesn't win after a set period. Meaning that, one way or another, this story isn't dead and will be updated again. At least, assuming nothing happens to me :-). It just isn't likely to be as often...

A/N 2: That said, there is still another 15,000 of this story in Early Access On My Page.  Note that NONE of my fanfiction works are paywalled permanently. If you don't feel like supporting me, that's just fine, it will end up here eventually :-). If you DO feel like supporting me, currently chapters 135-139 are available over on , adding another 15,000ish words to the fic! As well as similar amount of early access content for my other fics. All for just a single dollar a month! I'm not trying to be super greedy here, just trying to support the writing time I need to maintain several ongoing fics ;-).