In a shopping mall in New York — in the world of the Marvel Iron Man film series — Ryū sat on a bench by the wall, a small bag at his feet containing several newly purchased single-player ga discs that had apparently been doing well in this world recently.
He was in the won's clothing section.
Inevitable, when you went shopping with Yukari and the others. Clothing stores were simply where won went. An immortal youkai sage who had lived for at minimum several thousand years, and her primary entertainnt was buying cute outfits. The explanation was simple: she was pretending to be young. She had always been pretending to be young. This was not news.
New York at least had the decency to stay lively even past 3 AM. The mall still had custors, the streets outside still had people. Not like dayti, obviously — most of the city's population had sensible sleep habits — but enough activity to make the place feel inhabited.
"After this, the ani disc shop. I could download everything to a hard drive, but physical editions are worth having — dual purpose, usable and collectable."
He'd been sitting here for nearly twenty minutes.
Why did won buying clothes take this long?
His own approach to clothing: see sothing acceptable, pay, leave. No trying things on, no negotiating. Any ti spent bargaining was ti better spent eating.
The Chat Group pinged.
Kaguya-sama: @RawrSoFierce — Admin, do you want to buy any clothes? If so, we can help pick sothing out! Trust our taste — it won't be wrong!
RawrSoFierce: Pfft — you're about thirty tres away and you're tagging in the group?
RawrSoFierce: As for clothes, I bought five or six outfits last month. I'm good.
Kaguya-sama: Alright then. Oh — I just found and destroyed a hidden micro-cara inside one of the fitting rooms. So creep actually set up a peeping device? Disgusting.
Kaguya-sama: Observation Haki sweeps pick up that kind of thing easily.
RawrSoFierce: Are you in a Uniqlo?!
Kaguya-sama: Hm? No… what's this one called again?
Eternally Seventeen: Admin, I've selected a pink princess dress for you~!
Eternally Seventeen: [Image] — are you touched or not?!
RawrSoFierce: …Absolutely not. Put away your depraved ideas imdiately.
Eternally Seventeen: Other group chats have their Admins do crossdressing fanservice for the mbers during Mid-Autumn Festival. Surely the Admin would consider putting on the princess dress, so sheer white stockings, cat ears, and a wig?
RawrSoFierce: The only thing I'd achieve in that outfit is damaging people's eyesight.
Little Sakura of the Tohsaka: I feel like Onii-chan Admin would actually suit it though…
My True Form Is Cola: Mm… with a wig, the Admin would just be a cute girl.
RawrSoFierce: Am I correct in interpreting this as you calling feminine?
"…"
Ryū opened one of the ga cases and looked at the disc — the kind of cover art that would have had a certain category of dedicated shut-in reaching for tissues. His expression did not change. He turned it over and caught his reflection in the mirrored surface.
He was reasonably fair-complexioned. Not to the point where a wig automatically produced a girl. That particular suggestion was being filed under "Yukari" and ignored.
Female costuming. For him. For free, for the entertainnt of group mbers. The only scenario where this was even theoretically conceivable involved approximately ten thousand Points as incentive, and even then the bar was high. There was no worldbuilding that produced this outco from first principles.
The scheming old youkai. Every part of her, cut open, was so shade of ulterior motive.
He put down the case and shifted his attention to the wide corridor to his left.
Two people had been working that stretch for a while now — wandering, occasionally buying small things, keeping up a casual-looking conversation. Doing it well enough to fool an ordinary observer.
Not well enough to fool Observation Haki.
And their whispered exchange was well within his hearing range.
"—do you think the Asian kid noticed us? He looked this way again—"
"The directive from above is to monitor this group. They didn't give us anything on who these people are or what they're capable of. Which in itself is information — it ans even our superiors can't trace them."
One of them frowned, keeping their voice low. "There's sothing off about this whole group. Above says they're Stark's guests. A playboy's guests wouldn't normally trigger this kind of response."
The other one didn't answer, just gave a subtle look and made the smallest possible "quiet" gesture with one hand.
As if being twenty-odd tres from Ryū made the conversation private.
Every word had reached him.
And the mbers currently shopping — Kaguya and the others — almost certainly knew about these two as well. None of them were ordinary. The only reason nobody had done anything was that the surveillance agents hadn't done anything threatening yet. If they had, they'd be watching a sunrise they hadn't expected.
S.H.I.E.L.D., probably. Could be FBI. But the posture reads more like small-scale field operatives — S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on a soft surveillance run.
We've been in this world for a few hours and they're already on us. Not surprising. Tony is permanently in the public eye, and a group of people with no traceable identities who are suddenly in close contact with him — S.H.I.E.L.D. would absolutely flag that as worth examining. They'd be failing at their job if they didn't.
He picked up the ga disc case again and turned it over idly.
Let them watch.
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