Izumi Miyamura: Xover - Chapter 10

"Where are we going?" Taylor asked as we walked out of the train station. Taylor had dressed in the clothes I had left for her, she had 0 fashion sense so if she didn't she would have thrown on the first thing she found and that would have been some baggy pants and a sweatshirt, normally I didn't mind but this was a special occasion. It was fun to dress Taylor up, I could put any outfit on her I wanted her to look in and she wouldn't complain, all the fashion chatter my group of friends rambled on about stayed in my head so it wasn't a bother really.

"There." I pointed to where we were going, she looked in that direction and frowned before opening them.

"An insectarium?!" I almost squealed with a huge smile, turning and winking at her.

"They have a special selection and a very important event in a few hours today, I thought you would enjoy it." Taylor's smile grew bigger, normally I was the one carrying Taylor on my back, but this time it was Taylor who was the first to grab my hand and pull me along.

"Let's go! Let's go! " She practically bounced in place, the entrance tickets had already been purchased online so we simply walked in after showing the vouchers, once inside Taylor walked over to the first available exhibit.

The next two hours were spent looking at all the exhibits available, I let myself be dragged along by Taylor and listened to her ramble on about practically every insect, Taylor was not a person who babbled much, but throughout the entire tour she was hardly silent for more than 20 seconds at a time.

At one point she even overshadowed the insectarium guides, Taylor knew a lot about insects, like, a lot, she almost never rambled on about them, but the moment she let herself go she spat out fact after fact, even more so because she could control the insects, she knew things that weren't really on the information plates, her control allowed her to learn almost anything about insects and she was enjoying it.

The few insects she didn't know made her smile widely as she read the plates with great attention, she still had difficulties reading quickly, but that didn't stop her at any time, she simply wondered the words of the kanji she didn't know and continued to ramble while comparing the new information she had, with what she felt about the insects with her quirk.

She looked… beautiful in her element, oh she was alluring when she was focused and determined and doing that whole omnipresent act where she knew everything that was going on around her without the need to move her head, the way she would stay completely still when she pushed all her feelings into her swarm only to move explosively towards her target, it was… sexy, hot.

But here? With the bugs? She was in her element and she shined at it, she had a huge, carefree smile of happiness as she talked tirelessly, she really loved bugs and it showed, a shame to have to stop her.

"Taylor?" I cleared my throat.

"Yes Izumi?" she asked me with a big smile.

"Come, we have somewhere else to go." Her smile froze slightly before she nodded, her smile still remained but had been reduced several notches.

"You're right, we've been together for a long time," she said nostalgically, as if we hadn't already been together hours ago, I rolled my eyes.

"We're still staying at the Insectarium Taylor." Taylor's eyes brightened "but there's an event we need to attend, come on." I wrapped one of Taylor's arms around mine and started dragging her, we walked around for a few minutes while I tried to find where I should be and- bingo, I approached a security guard guarding a staircase, she was actually a hunter, her aura gave her away but I wasn't going to tell her that, I just took out two special tickets and handed them to her, the guard grabbed them, glanced at them quickly before nodding and moving to the side.

"Izumi?" Taylor asked as we descended.

"We're almost there." I smiled at her, not wanting to ruin the fun. It took me a few texts to find this place and I was thankful that it was still open. If it had taken a couple more weeks, they would have already moved.

Once we finished going down a large room greeted us filled with people and even more exhibits, but instead of terrariums with live insects or displays in jars, it was filled with cages and glass prisons.

"Wh-where are we?" Taylor asked, eyes wide.

"Welcome to the Hidden Insectarium." I smiled widely at her. "As you know, the doors spit out all sorts of monsters, and there's a category for insects, in fact, they're quite common, there are hunters who capture these monsters and then they're displayed to the public as an exhibit." I pointed to the room as Taylor looked around, insect monsters everywhere. "And it's completely legal, by the way, there are hunters to keep civilians safe and it's sponsored by the Japan Hunters Association, although it's a bit underground."

"How… how did you know about this place?" she asked surprised, I smiled at her amusedly.

"Now, that's not important, let's go take a look." I dragged Taylor by the arm, I had to thank Hachiman for the information and have him thank Yukinoshita for me "these are Grimms." I said as we approached the first reinforced glass cage.

"They're… from Ozma's dungeon, right?" I nodded.

"Yeah, Grimms are pretty special monsters, they don't have a physical body as such, once they're killed they don't leave a body behind, they just vanish into thin air" Taylor hummed.

"how Babel?"

"And like Aincrad, although these last two are confirmed to be the dungeon itself that absorbs the monsters back into itself to generate more monsters." I explained "Grimms are really unknown if they just fade away or return to the Grimmlands." I shrugged "though it's actually a blessing, there are an abnormal amount of monsters, both Grimms, and in Babel and Aincrad, if they didn't fade away we'd be covered in corpses of them." Taylor snorted amusedly.

"What a luck, they just drop items like in a video game." she said sarcastically, I chuckled, truth be told, it was completely weird that just the three major dungeons that were broken just dropped random drops while the common dungeons still dropped monster corpses.

"Getting back to the Grimms, there's not much known about them other than that negative emotions attract them in large numbers." I pointed at the caged Grimm "this is a Death Stalker, although, a young variant from what I see, an adult would be several times larger than an adult person." I said as I looked at the Grimm scorpion, it was barely bigger than me, when an adult, just one of its pincers would be able to completely cover me.

" oohh , they share names with a real race of scorpions, but…" Taylor frowned slightly in confusion "it doesn't look much like the real thing." Taylor tilted her head cutely, snorting in amusement.

"Don't expect much from people who name monsters, that one is called lancers , it has two versions, the warriors drone which is the one that is caged, and the larger variations known as King Lancers ." I pointed at the hornet Grimms, Taylor's grimace of disgust as she looked at the lancers due to the names almost made me laugh out loud.

This time I was the one guiding Taylor through the various exhibits, although Taylor also kept talking and comparing the monsters to real insects, although I must admit, they had a wide variety of insect monsters, from the killer ants of Babel to the mutant ants of Jeju Island.

"I was wondering, can you control them?" I asked quietly in curiosity as we looked at the human-sized ant in front of us, Taylor paused momentarily and tilted her head.

"I don't think so." I wrinkled my nose. "I would have done it if I could have. My quirk is automatic, as long as I'm in my area of effect the insects are under my control." I hummed softly.

"What if it's different for the ant monsters?" Taylor frowned before looking at the ant closely, nothing happened for a few seconds as she saw both Taylor and the ant tremble.

"I… it's okay… if I can do it." she said surprised with a rather high dose of disbelief "and it's… quite weird." Taylor blinked a few times to get used to the new sensation, the ant did exactly the same before moving, this time calmer than its agitated and almost violent way it had before. Taylor looked away from the ant and focused on the other insects, one by one they trembled as they fell under Taylor's control "I can't control the Grimms." she wrinkled her nose.

"Make them act violent like before." I murmured in her ear "Hunters can get suspicious if they become docile out of nowhere." Taylor nodded before controlling them to act with their normal behavior, I nodded in her direction "Awesome, something different with your normal insects?" Taylor let out a small smile as she nodded excitedly.

"In fact, they are better than my normal insects, they have better processing capacity so their senses are transferred much easier and of better quality." I chuckled.

"Too bad we can't steal any." Tylor pouted, I looked at her amusedly, "We just need to get into a dungeon and get you some strong bugs, monster tamers do exist so it wouldn't be that strange, though you'd need some extra licenses." Taylor opened her eyes and nodded.

"Well, I understand that bug dungeons are pretty common, I might be able to get one that's worth it." Taylor said happily, I chuckled as we looked at the bug monsters again.

The rest of the date went pretty quickly, Taylor was keeping track of all the monster bugs in the special area of the insectarium so she was more familiar with them than I was now and the information plaques in front so we didn't stay in there too long.

Taylor looked wistfully at the insects as we left, but eventually gave up and left the insectarium with me.

By the time we got out it was already quite late, just in time for the dinner reservation I had made, I guided Taylor to the chosen restaurant and we had a leisurely dinner while having light conversation.

"Thanks Izumi, I enjoyed it today." Taylor smiled beautifully as she thanked me, I smiled back.

"It was a pleasure Taylor." I pulled her closer with my arm and snuggled up to her, I knew she wouldn't do it the other way around and it didn't really bother me.

"When is your birthday?" she asked suddenly.

"April 17th." Taylor's eyes widened slightly.

"That was like... a week after we met?!" she exclaimed in surprise, I nodded.

"less than a week, but yes, I turned 18, 2 days before you called me." I said amused, Taylor sighed.

"Are we going home?" she asked as she settled against my body.

" Nope , one last stop." This time Taylor didn't ask and just let herself be led, she stopped stiffly when we arrived in front of a motel, I smiled widely at her as I pulled away.

"Happy birthday Taylor, do you want to open your birthday present ?" I purred in her direction as I lowered the sound of my voice an octave as I pulled down the collar of my shirt leaving my collarbone on display, Taylor burst into a blush as she shuddered and her eyes widened, I giggled amusedly as I grabbed her wrist and dragged her inside since it looked like she wasn't going to respond anytime soon "let's have some fun." I purred at her once again, Taylor gulped audibly.