"Can't you put down the comics for a second!" Ando demanded, just before one gloved hand snatched Hiro's Shounen Jump out of his hands. "And you wonder why we call you Page!"

"I thought it was more like 'Paging Dr. LOVE,' " Hiro said in his best soap opera voice, then laughed and dodged a kick from Ando. "And maybe if you didn't love your cubicle so much, we wouldn't call you Box-kun."

"Look, we're having a crisis," Ando said, tossing the manga into Hiro's cubby. "Taiko just called, and apparently the Cosplay Infiltration Operation isn't going so well."

"That’s impossible!" Hiro scoffed. "We planned the whole thing!"

"Well, I TOLD you that they shouldn't go as Kyou Kara Maou maids!" Ando snapped. "You know that Izumu can only hold that form for three minutes at a time! Even Daruma's fashion-designing skills can only hide so much!"

"We never should have made Akira Yozak," Hiro mumbled to himself. He tugged thoughtfull on the ends of his scarf, then hopped out of his chair. "Yosh! We'll just have to go and rescue them!"

"Rescue them?" Ando crossed his arms and stared Hiro down. "And just how to you plan to do that? They're inside one of the biggest cons in the greater Tokyo urban area, and we needed to register two months ago!"

"It's PLANNING TIME!" Hiro shouted, completely ignoring him.

******

"You are the worst leader ever," Ando informed Hiro as they stepped off the subway and headed up to the street, bags with their costumes clutched protectively, or in Ando's case disdainfully, to their chests. "And I hope you get run over by a cosplay neko-maids. With stiletto heels."

"It's going to work just fine," Hiro sniffed, pausing to blink in the daylight for a moment before heading down the sidewalk, not bothering to check if Ando was listening or even following him. "We'll just say we lost our group. And don't forget your emergency line."

"That security uniform makes your shoulders look so broad, sir," Ando repeated dutifully, glad for his longer legs to keep up with Hiro's determined trot.

"Good man," Hiro said, and then he said, "Hmm," because they had just come around the corner and found a line of roughly two million otaku lining up in front of the convention center. "Well, let's just change."

"Out here?" Ando demanded. "In the open?!"

"I've got a plan for that too." Hiro set down his bag and yanked it open, then tugged out an old Sailor Moon sheet. "I call it 'Page's Screen of Ultimate Concealment!' "

"You are the worst leader EVER," Ando growled.

******

"Okay, transformation complete!" Hiro announced, and Ando was very thankful to drop the sheet, untie the other side from a convenient street sign, and shove the whole thing back in Hiro's bag. When he straightened up, Hiro was adjusting his glasses, which he had fit pieces of white paper in. "Just tell me which direction I should go."

"Hiro, you can't possibly walk around like that," Ando said.

"But I'm Murata! No one should be able to see my eyes!"

Just then, Taiko, Izumu, Daruma, and Akira ran up, looking dishevelled but triumphant.

"We're back!" Akira reported. "Now run as fast as possible!"

"MISSION COMPLETE!" Hiro shouted, then promptly ran right into the street sign.