“You’d think with how few people are on campus they’d have a poll about what we actually want in our vending machines,” sighs Akiho to Inori, on one of these errand runs. “Who’d even want some of these?”

She’s looking at you, butterscotch soda. Why do you exist, and why are you taking up important real estate in the vending machine.

It is an important part of the senpai-kōhai system that the kōhai run errands for the senpai. It's only fair, Inori thinks.

"Very few people are allowed in to work on these so we only get a handful of choices."

Then he blinks and looks to the left, where two people seem to have arrived, quietly enough to be almost completely silent. "What are you doing here, Zen'in-senpai?"

One of the two does indeed look like Maki... But she's definitely not Maki.

"Don't call me that, Inori-kun... You make me sound the same as Maki." She winks. "Just call me Mai."

"So these are the first years filling in for Okkotsu and the third years," says the giant of a man standing next to her. He looks to be almost 200 centimeters tall, and is absolutely brimming with muscles, to an absurd degree.

... Akiho doesn't quite know what to do with the irrational jealousy she feels towards Zen'in Mai here, but she definitely does feel it. Is it because she's hot? It might be because she's hot. Some combination of the slinky dress Mai is wearing, with long legs bare and quite exposed, the pretty way she purrs her words, and the confident and playful wink at Inori. She has the urge to puff up like an angry cat and hiss. Which is dumb, clearly Inori doesn't even like her.

Still, she knows what manners are, and on principle she doesn't have anything against the students from Kyoto.

"Yes, we are. Hello. Welcome to our school."

"We came here with the principal because we were worried about you." She says, purring as she speaks. "Your classmate died, right? Was that rough?"

"Or did you think nothing of it?"

"...what are you trying to say."

Oh. Oh, she sees. Well, if it's a bitch contest then bring it.

(Going on the offensive is much nicer than lingering in the land of ow, where Itadori is still dead and everything sucks.)

"Does Kyoto not foster close relations between its students?" she wonders, almost innocently. "Or is your inability to empathize with others more of a you problem?"

She narrows her eyes at Akiho but lets out a chuckle. "So defensive... It's okay if you feel that way, you know, you don't need to take it out on others... After all..."

"Vessel makes it sound nice, but it just means he was a half-curse monster, doesn't it? Having such a tainted, inhuman being beside you, brazenly calling himself a sorc—"

Inori isn't as fast as Itadori was, or as Sensei, but that doesn't mean he's not fast at all. He has been training.

Which is to say that it's just a blink of an eye before he's crossed the distance between them with a well-aimed punch to Mai's pretty face.

"A fine punch!" observes the large student next to her, who nonetheless catches it in one of his large hands before it can hit his classmate. "Mai-san, why do you always have to stir things up?"

He does not try to escape from Tōdō's grip, and merely keeps glaring daggers at Mai. "Do not," he says, glacially, "open that sewer hole you call a mouth to spew shit you know nothing about like that. Ever. Again."

"—excuse me?"

In another blink of an eye, Akiho is at Inori's side and smiling almost pleasantly. She does not draw her needles, but they are definitely within easy reach of her hand.

"Which part of that was too complicated for you to understand? I can use small words if it would help. Maybe define 'sewer hole' for you."

The giant hunk of muscle lets out a laugh, and drops Inori's hand.

"Maybe these two are fit to take Okkotsu's place. They've at least got the fire in them. And that's the only thing I, Todo Aoi, care about." He tosses his jacket aside, and fixes Inori with a look. "Fushiguro, was it? I have just one question for you..."

With utmost serious and gravitas, like he is asking the most important question in the world, he asks:

"What kind of woman's your type?"

...........................................................................................what.

Fushiguro drops his arm lamely and looks at Tōdō while his brain processes the question.

And then his brain does process the question but it's also not fast enough to prevent him from immediately looking at Akiho, blushing intensely, then looking away.

He finally looks up at Tōdō again and says, "Why do you presume I like women?"

(Mai, meanwhile, seems utterly disarmed. Metaphorically speaking, at least; in reality she has somehow managed to grab the gun she was holding in her thigh holster and it's dangling from her hand while she glares at both of the first years.)

Akiho would like to second that 'what,' actually, because. What. Why is that. Why is that even a question.

(Wait, did Inori just look at her and then blush immediately? Yes! Wait, no, focus! They have bigger problems, like the bitch and this apparent crazy person.)

"It's fine if you like men," he assures. "A person's taste reveals everything I need to know about them. People with boring taste are boring people themselves."

"And there is nothing," he continues, and then his fists clench his shirt and rip it apart to expose his extremely, absurdly muscular chest, "that I hate more than someone I find boring!"