Chapter 27: Media and Patrol
It's already been a week since my first patrol, looking back, I spent most of this time training/sparring with The Big 3 and visiting Rumi. Figured I might as well, the authorities didn't really try to stop me.
My outings have turned from asking for permission to go out to just saying that I'm going out. I still wear the tracking bracelet though. The main reason they leave me this much leverage is because of my presence in the media.
The second I returned to the streets the police made sure every news station and journalist knew about it. They proceeded to spread this information on every screen possible. That coupled with the growing presence of All Might in Musutafu made the city almost crimefree, again.
Nothing is perfect, the usual detractors will always be there, but most of the city was safe.
This kind of influence was already too much, if they didn't give me any liberties after my work then the public might be outraged. Since this was a very public case, most people know about my stay at UA.
They also know that I'm working here, sometimes I could sense a few reporters at the gate, probably hoping to catch a photo of me leaving UA. News about me were already quite hot. Imagine the swarm that will come when they learn about All Might working here.
Regardless, patrolling the streets here wouldn't be much fun or productive, there weren't many villains left to catch in this place. Therefore, I started to plan on patroling other cities. Most people wouldn't really be out late at night, it was a world filled with villains most knew better than that, there shouldn't be anything other than thugs on the streets.
One place I had in mind was the Kamino District. But I think I should hold off on that one for now. All for One had Kurogiri and that annoying warp, I didn't want him to escape. I also wanted to see how my presence affected the storyline.
After talking with the police for a bit they agreed. They would inform Rumi about this change and prepare a method of transportation, train most likely.
Now I am once again at my favourite place, the canteen. After eating I plan to go out on patrol, it will be much slower this time. I don't really want a repeat of last time.
I haven't seen my sparring partners around this place, only that one time, I guess they're still training. Our timetables don't collide often, we only meet occasionally for training, about three times this past week.
After quickly finishing my meal and thanking Lunch Rush for it, I left towards the entrance. I was still a bit early, about half an hour to be exact, but I wasn't against waiting for a while.
What I wasn't expecting to see was Rumi, she was already waiting at the gates. I wasn't expecting her to come late again. But my expectations of seeing her early were much lower. It reminds me of her weird acting during the first days of her hospital stay.
I wasn't going to ask much about it. I don't know what is going on inside her head. I flashed behind her and tapped her shoulder and greeted her.
"Hey! Hello Rumi, have you been here long?" I had stopped calling her Mirko in conversations, it just seemed weird for me to do. Since she didn't call me by my hero name either.
She was startled a bit by my sudden appearance. But she recovered almost instantly.
"Hello Allan, I just arrived here myself, figured I'd be a bit early today. Especially since I was really late last time." At least she was acting more confident than in the hospital.
"Were you informed about the location change?" I hope I don't have to fill her in about this.
"Yeah, let's start heading towards the train station. We're still early so there's no need to rush." She said that while waving some train tickets in front of me.
We slowly made our way to the train station, the train we were supposed to get on was in two hours, we had ample time. We didn't even bother running. It was more like a jog on rooftops.
When we reached the station we just sat down for a while. We still needed to wait for an hour and a bit.
"So, how are you feeling lately?" I couldn't just ignore her this time, she seemed to be quite nice this time around.
"Oh, I'm fine. It wasn't that big of a deal anyway. I was mostly recovered 3 days after waking up. They kept me there for tests mostly." I already knew most of that, I did visit her the entire week.
We made some small talk for a while. But most of the time was spent in silence until she had this idea.
"Hey, we should start training together!" I didn't really know what I was expecting. She had this wide smile on her face. She wasn't really asking, this was more of a proposition than a question.
I couldn't help but smile while seeing her like that. "Sure, I still have quite a lot of free time on my hands." I wasn't going to train with The Big 3 all the time anyway. Rumi was also stronger, she would prove to be a better workout than them.
Seeing me accept her proposal made her quite excited, she was likely excited to fight someone strong. At least I think so, she's quite a complicated person.
We didn't talk much after that, she seemed to be in her own world for a while. I also had my own thoughts, like what to do when I was bored. I still had a lot of stuff I could do.
But one thing on my mind lately was recreating One Piece in this world. It is the only story I have any confidence in writing. I'm still worried about the ending, but I think I can make some stuff up. It won't be the same quality.
I wanted to become a mangaka for a while now. Not the greatest profession, but I want to see how a story about piracy would be received in this climate. In this world, most stories were about heroes and villains. Mostly because people without strength fantasized about being heroes.
I'll probably start writing it later, the drawing doesn't have to be perfect.
The patrol itself wasn't anything new. The only different thing about it was that I didn't know the streets that well. Today was much slower, it was quite relaxing even. There weren't that many villains in this city. There were even less after news about our patrol started circulating.
During this time Rumi and I exchanged few words. She is probably looking forward to our training. Her opinion on teams didn't change one bit, she still preferred to do her own thing. But at least she didn't see me as a nuisance anymore.
The night ended without any events, quite boring in my opinion. Saying my goodbyes to Rumi and heading home.
Going to sleep remains the highlight of my day.