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Chapter 197 - Escape

"Tch, if you mess with me again, you'll regret it." Ignoring all the people around them who were nervously sweating, Tohka sneered at the raccoon clutching his aching teeth in pain.

"Are all Asgardians made of steel and iron? How are you so tough?" Star-Lord forced an awkward laugh as he looked at Tohka. He'd clearly heard the sound just now—the unmistakable crunch of teeth on solid metal.

"Ah." But before he could finish speaking, Tohka let out a pitiful yelp, staring miserably at the bite mark on her arm.

"Uh…it's not like that. It's still normal skin." Just then, Miku's voice piped up. She looked as if she were checking to make sure, licking her lips.

"…"

"Wait—I'm really not what you're all thinking! My teeth are normal! I just wanted to be certain!" Seeing everyone's strange looks, Miku hurriedly tried to explain. She was just an ordinary person, okay? Not some creepy little nun.

"What are you doing? Why did you suddenly bite me?" Tohka's aggrieved voice came out. First, because she hadn't expected Miku to actually do that, and second, because what could she do about it anyway? She couldn't exactly smack Miku around like she had the raccoon.

"Then what about this raccoon? That noise was terrifying." Ignoring Tohka's cute, sulky expression, Miku asked curiously.

"All you have to do is wrap your spirit power around your hand, and you can do the same thing. My god—have you never trained your powers at all?" Hearing Miku's question, Tohka practically wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. What was wrong with this girl? Even she, as lazy as she was, had at least tried practicing her spirit power a bit. But this one? Apparently she'd never so much as tried to control it.

"Ah, haha, so you can do that, huh…" Watching Tohka nearly lose her mind, Miku could only laugh weakly. She wasn't about to admit she'd never really explored her powers. But in fairness, most spirits didn't chase after strength—that's why they ended up getting sealed by Shido Itsuka in the first place.

"Sigh, never mind." Tohka gave her a helpless look, deciding not to keep arguing. Since everyone was finally assembled, it was time to get out of here. As for why she was planning to take all these people with her—mostly, she didn't want to disrupt the story too much. Who knew what would happen if she started changing everything randomly? Though, honestly, she'd already changed quite a lot.

"All right, let's go. And remember: I said I get at least half. You can split the rest however you want." Glancing at everyone, she repeated the deal she'd stated before. Only she might have forgotten that in the original story, the Collector never actually ended up taking the Orb.

"But we're in prison. Maybe you two could just walk out, but for the rest of us, it's not that simple." Hearing how casually Tohka spoke, Star-Lord rolled his eyes. Honestly, there weren't many people who liked being stuck in here. Least of all an adventure junkie like him.

"Leave that to me. We'll just bust our way out. So, which of you wants to come with me for one big score?" She shot Miku a look—she didn't want her to reveal her powers just yet. They were too frightening. Of course, she was only asking as a formality—nobody here was exactly a law-abiding citizen.

"Deal." The moment Tohka said it, everyone nodded. Please—who wouldn't jump at a payday like this? Plenty of them had their own reasons, too.

Seeing them all agree, Tohka didn't waste words. She and Miku went back to their room to rest for a bit, telling the others to wait. Then she led them over to a certain section of wall.

"According to our information, the other side of this wall is the storage area." Seeing everyone's confused expressions, she explained. Originally, they'd planned to follow Rocket's scheme. But she'd vetoed that—it was way too much trouble. In her words: too noisy and too messy.

"Yeah, so what?" Everyone blinked at her, nodding blankly, still not understanding what she was about to do.

"Watch. Leave this to me." Seeing their puzzled faces, Tohka drew her massive sword. With a single slash, a wave of sword energy blasted out, cutting through several walls in a row and exposing the storage room on the other side.

"Mm. Just right. The attack stopped exactly where I wanted it." She nodded in satisfaction and turned to the group.

"This is what you call 'less noisy'? It feels way louder than our plan…" Star-Lord's eye twitched as he looked at the giant hole she'd made.

"Less talking. Can't you hear the alarms? Let's move." Ignoring his complaint, Tohka grabbed Miku and dashed through. By now, the prison's alarms were blaring. If they waited any longer, the guards would be here in force.

"Come on, come on—let's hurry up." Seeing Tohka leave, the entire ragtag Guardian crew followed. At the same time, now that Miku had lifted her mental control, the prison staff were finally gathering in earnest. A squad of aircraft came swooping in, guns blazing. But of course, there was no way they could pierce Tohka's barrier. Still, she didn't need to act: Miku fired off a few sonic blasts, smashing the ships into the walls and reducing them to smoking wrecks.

"OK—get in." Soon enough, thanks to Tohka's leadership, the group reached one of the ships. As they climbed aboard, Star-Lord spotted his ancient, long-retired cassette player and headphones.

"You risked your life for this outdated junk? Talk about nostalgia…" Tohka shook her head in exasperation as she watched him cradle the thing. Then she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a sleek device.

"Here—take this. It's a new Stark Industries model. Not only can it play music, it does 3D video playback, too. I've got tens of thousands of songs from every language on Earth stored on it." Sure enough, it was from Stark Industries. Pepper had given her a few of them as gifts. She'd just tossed them in her bag, and there were still two spares—so she wasn't stingy about offering one now.

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