Train Station, Shizuoka Prefecture.

The platform was less populated than I thought it would be, but so too had the streets—the unprecedented scale of the attack in Musutafu was already having a negative effect on the people who lived in the city. Part of that was probably caused by the informational blackout that had come down regarding the details of the attack, although enough of the details had already leaked to cause a visceral unease amongst the population. Sajin was now a part of the investigation, as was the police force, and that was now fully underway to determine exactly how everything had come to pass. I’d also determined from what little he had been able to share with me that they were pulling in detectives, hero agencies and every other resource from the surrounding prefectures to get a full handle on things.

The main issue they were dealing with right now was that there weren’t enough secure cells on hand to jail all of the villains that had been caught, and that was with accounting for all the ones who still hadn’t made it free of the hospital. Roughly one-third of the invasion force had quirks that made it difficult to contain them in a normal cell, and so those were already being transferred to the maximum security prison known as Tartarus. Actually performing all of the interrogations to a thorough enough level was something that was going to take months to accomplish.

The tight grip on the information flow to the public was probably in place to starve the villains of the notoriety that they so clearly desired, but in turn, it had fueled a sense of quiet panic and caused an eruption of speculation that ranged from strikingly close to the truth, to outright ludicrous—I spotted a flash of bright pink, and when I turned to check, I found Mina standing by herself a dozen or so meters across the platform, the two of us previously blocked from seeing one another by the throng of bodies. The colour of her skin was like a lamp to a horde of moths, and just about everyone within line of sight was staring at her—I wondered if she could go anywhere in public without being constantly stared at.

It was interesting just how at ease she seemed within the wash of attention, and if anything, she appeared to be leaning into it rather than shying away. There was a small child waving his hand in her direction, the boy tugging on his mother’s arm in an attempt to make her look, and Mina stuck her tongue out at the boy. The mother spun the boy away from her, and Mina seemed to huff at the reaction before she planted her hands on her hips. I watched as she continued her search of the surrounding faces, clearly looking for the others that had yet to appear, and her gaze swept over my position without recognition—her eyes snapped back onto my own, doing a double take after she had almost dismissed my presence. I felt the odd urge to brace myself as she started forward in my direction, the directness of it triggering some heuristic inside of me to prepare for danger—

“Hey,” Mina demanded, “Just how long have you been standing there?”

“A few minutes,” I said.

“That’s totally weird—you should have said something earlier,” Mina said, “If you hadn’t been staring directly at me, I might have actually missed you.”

“I apologise for staring; I was lost in thought,” I said, “May I ask you a question, Mina?”

“Sure you can, but you don’t need to ask first, you know,” Mina said, leaning forward. “Did you think I was going to bite your head off for asking a question?”

That seemed like an absurdly violent reaction to asking a question, and it wasn’t something I had considered at all—the way she was clacking her teeth together now made me wonder if she wasn’t going to attempt it anyway.

“You are experiencing an abnormal amount of attention from the people around us,” I said, “Has this always been the case?”

“They’re stuck on the way I look: the hair, the eyes, the horns and the skin,” Mina said, scratching at her cheek. “I’ve had all of that since I was born, and since I look so different to them, they tend to stare.”

“I assumed as much,” I said, “You were born with your heteromorphic traits, but when did your quirk manifest itself?”

“When I was like—uh, three or four?” Mina guessed, “Something like that.”

I made a mental note to ask Fumikage about his own experience at a later date, curious as to whether he was born with his heteromorphic features or if they had developed later.

“Were you bullied for looking different from your peers?” I asked.

Mina smacked her fist into her palm, eyes narrowed down to angular slits.

“Yeah—well, they tried to anyway,” Mina said, visibly mad. “There was this one jackass who wouldn’t quit pulling on my horns when I was in second grade, so I had to beat the crap out of him just to make him leave me alone.”

I nodded in understanding; it would seem that she’d had a Haru of her own.

“I had a reputation as a troublemaker for a while after that, but it got better in middle school,” Mina said, grinning a bit. “I was super popular right before I came here, so that was cool.”

That mirrored my own experience of my last year, the result of the Pasana Middle School Incident causing a drastic change in how much attention I had begun to receive—Mina probably hadn’t had the same exact experience as I had, so it was likely caused by some other change.

“Was that a result of puberty?” I wondered.

“Whoa—no way it was that—well, maybe a little,” Mina said before laughing out loud. “What the heck are you trying to say?”

“Boys and girls our age start dealing with a greater level of hormones during this time,” I said, “There is a strong correlation between puberty and developing romantic interest in your peers.”

“You’re saying everyone at school fell in love with me,” Mina said with serious consideration. “That’s absolutely what happened.”

“It’s really not,” Eijiro said, looking alarmed. “What are you two even talking about?”

“When did you get here?” Mina cried.

“Like—right now, I guess,” Eijiro said. “Hey guys.”

“Hello, Eijiro,” I said, “We were talking about how Mina came to be super popular in her last year of middle school.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Mina said.

“Everybody knows that story,” Eijiro said, reaching up to scratch at his cheek. “This giant asshole tried to scare the crap out of a bunch of girls one day, and Mina forced him to leave them alone—she was kind of amazing.”

“It was totally embarrassing,” Mina said, looking flustered for the first time. “I was so scared that I cried like a little kid right after he finally left.”

“It’s a very common and expected response to fear, especially in stressful or violent situations,” I said, “Everybody cries, Mina, so you shouldn’t ever feel embarrassed by it.”

“Oh,” Mina managed. “Thanks.”

“That’s the manliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Eijiro said, impressed. “You’re so quiet all the time, but whenever you speak up, it’s always really cool.”

That was more of a validation that Sajin Higawara was really cool because he was the one who had told me those words, but there was something warm in seeing other people appreciate them in the same way that I had come to.

“The others have arrived,” I said.

Mina set off the exact second she had a bearing to follow before catching Momo and Tsuyu around the shoulders in an impromptu hug that neither of them had been ready for. Tsuyu protested as her head was squished into the girl’s neck but seemed unwilling to detach herself from the unexpected affection.

“Thank god you’re here; these two were saying all kinds of crazy things,” Mina complained, “What took you so long?”

“Hey,” Eijiro protested.

“I hope you weren’t waiting for us for too long,” Momo said as she attempted to straighten up her jacket. “We were actually looking for you both at the entrance.”

“It was only for a little while,” I said.

There was a distant hum as the train began to pull into the station, and the crowd seemed to shift in response to the sound, preparing to approach once it had come to a complete stop.

“Let’s do this,” Eijiro said, “Tokyo, here we come.”

By the time the last call for boarding had rung out, the five of us were already inside and seated across from one another, somehow divided entirely along the lines of gender, with Mina, Momo and Tsuyu taking up one of the bench seats, while Eijiro and myself filled the other. The train rocked to life, the motion gentle despite the sheer bulk of the machine we were riding within, and I listened as they spoke to one another. There was an unmistakable difference in how each of them spoke today when compared to what they had been like before the attack. The words they chose to avoid and the small hesitation whenever something shone some brief, tenuous connection to any of it.

This situation was invaluable, in a way, because it gave me a chance to see how each of them would act when they were attempting to deceive one another. None of them wanted to be the one who shifted the topic back to the death of our classmates, and it had affected the entire flow of conversation, gifting it an undercurrent of care. I was picking up the small tells, fake smiles and affected energy with every exchange and matching it all against the things I had come to expect from them—but it made me wonder just how much of my own struggle I was leaking out in turn.

“I almost had to cancel my appointment,” Eijiro admitted sometime later. “My mom was super worried after everything, and I had to argue with her to even let me out of the house—it was pretty bad.”

It was the first acknowledgment of anything related to the subject since we’d entered the train, but it was an experience that seemed to be represented across the entirety of the group.

“So did I,” Mina said, letting her head bang back against the seat cushion. “It was my dad, though.”

Neither Sajin nor Hayami had gone so far as to try and stop me from going, but there had been far more warnings about caution delivered than I would have received before. Hayami had spent most of her life with a family member who was entering and exiting constant states of danger and, as a result, had built up some level of resilience to that kind of worry. Sajin practically lived at the workplace, and as a result, his tolerance for danger and the breadth of his professional skill set had probably blunted him to it as well. Hayami’s learned distance and Sajin’s solution-mindedness had curbed the type of reaction the others were still going through with their own families. Without having spoken to either, I had a pretty solid guess that Shoto Todoroki and Tenya Ida were in a similar situation to myself, their families far more entwined within the hero realm than the rest of our class.

“My parents were very critical after the invasion, and I’m not sure if they are going to try withdrawing me from U.A.,” Tsuyu said, with audible unease. “They were talking about it last night after they put my siblings to bed—I’m not sure how to deal with it.”

Her hesitation, the way her eyes had fallen to rest on her lap, and the complete divergence from her usual unyielding eye contact were enough to establish just how much she was bothered by the thought. Tsuyu had always seemed refreshingly open compared to everyone else I spoke with, saying exactly what she meant and unafraid of confrontation, but it was clear that her family appeared to be an area where that side began to falter. I could see flashes of that same difficulty echoed within the rest of them as well. Eijiro’s smile felt more like an accessory he’d picked out to wear for the day rather than an outward expression of his feelings. Mina’s energy seemed artificially bolstered beyond that of her normal level as if she was overplaying her reactions in an effort to reach the normal range she usually just existed within. Even Momo seemed affected, far quieter than usual, and seemed to be avoiding contributing her own experience with her parents when the natural flow of conversation had dictated that she should have spoken—the moment hung in the air, and Mina spoke up instead.

“No way, can they actually do that?” Mina asked. “We had to sign all those forms, so they’d have to get that overturned first somehow.”

There had been a massive amount of paperwork to fill out both before the enrollment process and during it just to be accepted into U.A. High School, and a lot of that had to be co-signed by their individual parents and guardians. The one Mina was referring to involved injuries, danger, and the guardian signing away their ability to forcibly withdraw the student against their will. It was a contract designed specifically to prevent the parents from growing concerned with the dangerous training or injuries that they would be hearing about all year round and then taking action to remove them from the danger. It was something that had probably happened many, many times in the past, and from the direct result of things like what had happened during Battle Training between Izuku and Katsuki. Repeated combat scenarios and quirks being pushed into direct conflict were bound to result in injuries—I could remember just how upset Yukiko Sarada had been back when I had broken Haru’s arm.

“It would be a difficult process for them to enact, but it’s not impossible to have those documents overturned if they were determined about it; your own decision to stay would be weighed highly, and U.A. High School would attempt to represent your interests if you wanted to stay,” Momo said. “But this is a completely different situation than what was described inside the injury-in-training waiver, and a full-scale villain invasion would most likely be enough to satisfy the legal requirements for it to be overturned.”

It was telling that she was more comfortable taking on the more distant legal argument instead of offering up her own home situation, and the fact that she had already considered it all in this much depth was more than enough to figure out that she was concerned about it. The legal process wasn’t really the main issue in this kind of situation, though, at least, I didn’t think so—there was a far more pernicious threat lurking just out of sight. Depending on their living arrangements, their parents could easily act to enforce their will on the situation in other ways. We had little to no fiscal ability at this stage of our lives, and our independence was basically non-existent. All of us were living under the coverage of our parent’s wings, and those wings could be manipulated to allow for all kinds of pressures to slip through. I wasn’t sure if any of them had the ruthlessness required to go against the people who had loved and raised them, and I was certain that none of them had considered it in full—nobody wanted to believe the adults they trusted were capable of such things.

“If a disagreement over enrollment turned into a legal battle with your parents, it is very likely that the comfortable home environment you are used to would change for the worse,” I said, working through the hypothetical. “I suppose that is something to consider if it ever came up.”

Momo managed to keep her face even, but Tsuyu looked shaken.

“What does that mean?” Mina asked.

“If you found yourself in that situation, the legal battle itself isn’t the threat you would need to worry about because the pressure you would be experiencing at all times would be crushing,” I said, explaining my rationale. “Every single interaction you had with your parents from that point onwards would be underscored by confrontation, arguments, or emotional manipulation—you would start to feel it everywhere.”

I thought about Sajin and the dozens of unrelated rules he had asked me to follow over the years—don’t make others cry, never break your promises, work towards your goals, watch how people interact with each other, try to understand, focus on your growth, move on—and how they were designed with the implicit goal of changing how I expressed myself. It was a set of restrictions with a positive goal: to bring me more in line with how others my age had been socialised and allow for a greater amount of integration. As a child, I’d been blunt to a fault, and my indifference to how others received my attempts at communication had led to nothing but mistakes and difficulties.

If I had denied his request and told him that I wouldn’t change how I expressed myself—that it was on everybody else to understand what I was saying, that I wasn’t going to do the extra leg work for them and that I didn’t care if I made them cry—then I couldn’t even imagine how disappointed he would have been with me. It would have ruined our relationship and changed every single interaction we would have had after that moment. I had fallen in line with that invisible pressure, the fear of disappointing the man who had tried so hard to understand me in a way that only one other person ever really had. That invisible pressure was exactly the thing I was trying to describe to them, and the idea that it had been leveraged against me to affect a positive outcome was entirely beside the point. I hadn’t even known it existed at the time; I had only known that I didn’t want to do something that would make him upset with me.

There had been countless echoes of that throughout my childhood, influences that it had taken a very long time to understand and identify—the aftermath of the injuring Haru had been one of them. The distance between Hayami and myself had grown suddenly large, the exchanges between us had become curt, and that small affection she had held for me had been withdrawn. That had been her genuine reaction, I was certain, but it had also been a pressure that I couldn’t have found purchase against. All of those tiny little things hadn’t been active manipulations on their part, and to some degree, I didn’t even think they were conscious decisions. It was a learned behaviour to bring others in line with what was considered normal by the greater society, each one inflicting a measure of negative reinforcement that acted to guide me in a direction more aligned with how they functioned within the world.

It wasn’t a bad thing or something evil; it was just how humans perceived each other and how they interacted. Even now, the fear of disappointing either of them was a constant curation that I had to fight hard against, and I’d had more than one sleepless night dreaming about the day that Sajin discovered that I had lied to him all those years ago. Would he hate me for going against his guidance? Would he call me a fool for trying to save a girl who had most likely died years ago?

“It’s a system that is built into all of us, and if you actually were trapped in that kind of toxic situation, you would be living with the constant push and pull of punishment and reward,” I said into the silence. “Every passing comment, every request, every uncomfortable silence drawing you closer to their point of view in an effort to have you drop out, to leave your dream by the wayside, and to find another way to live a fulfilling life—the worst part of it is that they wouldn’t even be wrong to do it.”

I opened my eyes.

“Protecting a child from harm is the responsibility of a parent, and they would feel as if they were doing the right thing even as they crushed you,” I said, “Dealing with that for months or years on end if you are particularly resilient would be a nightmare; it doesn’t matter that the contracts aren’t contestable legally, because a courtroom isn’t the place where that battle would be fought.”

Tsuyu was pale-faced at this point, and it was clear to me that the others were almost as shaken up. I hadn’t been talking about their situations in particular, but it was clear that I’d only made things worse. I had forgotten how easy it was to draw parallels between a described worst-case scenario and your own personal situation, even if they weren’t at all connected.

“That is a particularly horrible thought,” Momo managed, “I would—I don’t know what I would do, but going against my parents would be a very difficult thing.”

“I don’t think I could do it,” Mina admitted, pulling her legs up onto the seat. “Even just fighting with them over small stuff gets pretty rough sometimes—something that big would be awful.”

“If my mom really wanted to pull me out, I’m not sure I could keep fighting her over it, not if it stretched on for months; I really don’t like seeing her cry,” Eijiro said, his upbeat energy finally faltering. “I mean, I want to be a hero, so I’d definitely argue, but—what would you do, Hisoka?”

Hayami and Sajin were the stand-ins for my parents here, and they had raised me, guided me, protected me and done everything they were supposed to. I knew that disappointing them hurt me, and the thought of either of them being upset with me for such a long time was a painful one—but I had been going against them for a very long time already. Not openly, perhaps, as this situation would have dictated. But I had long since come to the decision that there were some things I just wasn’t willing to give up, regardless of how much I respected the person who was asking me. It was true that I hadn’t stood my ground or faced that pressure; I had ended up lying to both of them when I promised to leave it all behind me to focus on school and on my own growth. But, if I had been unable to bring myself to lie, or if Sajin had somehow known and I had been forced to face his disapproval—I would have made that trade in a heartbeat.

“I am selfish enough to put my own goals ahead of the wishes of my guardian,” I said, “As long as I got what I wanted in the end, I could deal with being crushed.”

There was a distinct silence in the wake of my response, my answer perhaps too difficult to empathise with given how strongly they all felt. Tsuyu still hadn’t managed to lift her gaze from her lap, obviously affected by what I had said and in fear of the outcome of her own situation—

“Tsuyu,” I said, speaking up again. “You haven’t asked for my opinion, but I would like to give it anyway.”

Tsuyu let out a rumble in her throat at the words, eyes flicking up to watch me through the cover of her hair, and for a moment, I thought about Hayami’s distance and Sajin’s rules.

“The parent’s role has always been to protect their children, even to the degree that it can become stifling,” I said, in summary of my entire point. “No human is perfect, and thus no parent can be either; they will attempt to carry out their goal of protecting you, and you will attempt to find a way to work towards your own goals—this is the natural process of growing up.”

Tsuyu lifted her head a fraction to help maintain her balance as the train rocked beneath us, and I found myself making proper, unobstructed eye contact with her.

“The depth of your need to become a hero is known only to you, and so you must learn to convey the strength of that conviction,” I said, studying her face. “You need to make them understand that you are willing to sacrifice a degree of that safety to build the future you want to live in—can you do that?”

It was something I’d thought long and hard about, and it was something I had already failed to do once already. I had taken the easy way out. I had seeped into the cracks and bypassed those same discussions instead of making myself heard. Much like my quirk, my mindset had settled at the midpoint between the solidity of the earth and the fluidity of the ocean. There would come a time in the future when I would need to own up to the lie I had told and convey the strength of my own conviction to those who had raised me. A time when I would need to push through that veil of protection and the invisible pressure that came along with it and force them to understand that my goal was far stronger than that—a time when I would show them how wrong they had been to ask me to leave Nanami in the past.

“I—” Tsuyu said, voice quiet. “I think I can.”

“I think so, too,” I said.

#

In Transit, Train.

The walls of the tiny bathroom weren’t quite enough to muffle the sounds of distant conversation coming, nor was it sufficient to block the hum of the train, but it still felt like a layer of protection. I washed my hands and then my face before studying the dark bags that were now visible beneath my eyes—I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I slid the door open before stepping out into the small space between it and the wall of the train to find that Tsuyu was now standing only a few feet away, near the closed door of our carriage. It was clear by the set of her shoulders and how she remained half-blocking the door that she wasn’t here to visit the bathroom.

“Do you have any siblings, Hisoka?” Tsuyu asked.

It wasn’t the immediate reprimand I had expected for my overstepping of boundaries earlier, but it also didn’t really seem to be the question she had originally intended to ask.

“I am an only child, and my guardian doesn’t have a family of her own,” I said, “How many do you have?”

I found it very, very hard to imagine what a sibling of mine would have been like. I was substantially different from most in our age group, and while it was possible that a sibling would have had the same struggles as I had, that probably wouldn’t have been the case—they would have been normal.

“I have a younger brother and a younger sister, ten and six, respectively,” Tsuyu said, smiling now. “I look after them whenever my parents go away for work.”

That was a large show of trust, even for a sixteen-year-old. My situation, living in an apartment with rules, guidelines and regular check-ins, was one thing, but being tasked with looking after actual living human beings—ones that relied on you for food, safety, support and structure—was something else entirely. It spoke well of her level of maturity and demonstrated that her parents clearly trusted her with a great deal of responsibility.

“That’s quite impressive,” I said, “Your parents must trust you very much.”

Tsuyu wrung her hands together for a moment, looking far more nervous.

“I suppose they do, but I don’t want to damage that,” Tsuyu managed before appearing to steel herself for something. “I don’t want to get pulled out of school, and I want to be a hero, just like you said—how do I talk to my parents about this?”

It was an impossible question to answer and one that should have been aimed at herself, not at someone who didn’t really know anything about the parties involved. I knew only fragments about her relationship with her parents, namely that they were protective of her, but they trusted her with an immense amount of responsibility. I knew that Tsuyu sat mostly within the standard level of behaviour I expected from someone our age; she wasn’t a bully, she was friendly and open to conversation when she was feeling comfortable—she was uncommonly direct compared to most. It was likely that her parents treated her well and that she had grown up in a relatively stable home.

That wasn’t really enough information to construct an exact method of attack for her to use to persuade her parents, but I didn’t need to know the exact details because she already did. She probably didn’t need a step-by-step guide on how to argue her parents down; what she needed was support and an acknowledgment that she wasn’t doing something bad by pursuing her goals, even if they did conflict with her parents. Tsuyu already had everything at her disposal to make her goal a reality; all she needed was the confidence to back it all up.

“Tsuyu,” I said, “Have you ever challenged your parents on anything before?”

Tsuyu let out a nervous rumble at the question, and after a moment of hesitation, she nodded.

“Once, but it was over something really stupid,” Tsuyu said, “There was a girl from school, and she invited me to her birthday party, but I didn’t want to go.”

Oddly enough, I had experience with that exact same situation because Hayami had spent a lot of time when I was little trying to force me into groups that never really appreciated my presence. My ability to infiltrate existing friend groups had been particularly unrefined back then, and it had taken more than a few failures—one spectacular one in particular—for her to stop.

“A bully,” I said.

“The other girls were the bullies,” Tsuyu said, “The girl who invited me was nice—some of the time.”

The details of the event didn’t really matter all that much to me because I wasn’t the one who needed to think about them; the goal here was to get her to remember that it had already happened once before and that she had survived the experience with her familial relationship intact.

“How did your parents react when you argued?” I asked.

Tsuyu let out another rumble, but she seemed far more distracted now, her mind shifting back to the event in question rather than the present.

“Dad was disappointed in my behaviour, but Mom was really, really angry,” Tsuyu said, “She tried to convince me for almost twenty minutes, and when I screamed at her, she sent me to my room—I got grounded for a week over it.”

“Your mom must hate you now,” I said. “After something like that.”

Tsuyu croaked in alarm, completely taken aback by the out-of-line assumption, and I spoke up just as she seemed to be rallying some kind of intelligent response.

“I doubt she ever treated you the same way again,” I said, studying her face. “Then, out of the shame of it, your dad struck your name from the family tree and then told all of your extended family members that you had never been anything more than a group hallucination.”

“Um,” Tsuyu said, “None of that happened.”

“But you ran headlong into a conflict with your parents, Tsuyu,” I said, “You didn’t want to do something that they wanted you to do—so why didn’t they crush you for going against them?”

“Because they aren’t like that,” Tsuyu said, sounding defensive. “They wouldn’t just—”

Tsuyu stilled, cutting herself off in the middle of the sentence, as she realised that I had baited her into defending against the exact situation she had been worrying about only moments before.

“The difference between the toxic home environment I described earlier, and your own situation is two-fold,” I said, “First, it was never going to reach that point in the first place because that was a worst-case scenario with the contract acting as the fulcrum, not a prediction of your circumstance in particular.”

I let the moment hang there as if I was finished speaking, the conversational bait once again dangling right in front of her.

“You said it was two-fold,” Tsuyu said as if I could have actually forgotten it. “What was the second thing?”

It was like clockwork.

“Your parents are good people,” I said, “Talk to them, stand your ground and show them how far you are willing to go to make your dream real—you shouldn’t give up on convincing them before you’ve even had a single conversation.”

“You’ve never even met them,” Tsuyu managed. “How could you know that?”

“I don’t need to meet your parents to understand them because I’ve already met you,” I said, “I can’t imagine a pair of ruinous, irrational individuals raising somebody like you, Tsuyu; it wouldn’t make sense.”

#

Train Station, Tokyo.

“We’re finally here,” Mina said, with an energy that had been missing for most of the train ride. “What should we do first?”

I was already in the process of spreading my sand out into the environment around us, using it to establish a rough zone of perception with our little group at the centre. Watching so many people from a series of overlapping isometric viewpoints made it seem as if they were a colony of ants flittering around, ferrying tiny resources back to their homes.

“Has everyone eaten already?” Eijiro said before pausing at the round of negative responses. “Seriously—I’m the only one who ate before we left?”

Tsuyu, the shortest among us, was practically invisible within the crowd, but I could see her presence from above, following in Momo’s wake and using the girl’s prodigiously tall hair as a tool of orientation—Lighthouse Momo guiding her safely through the storm of people.

“I thought that we had agreed to visit the novelty café first,” Momo said, “The one you told me about serves breakfast—I checked.”

I caught sight of a woman slipping through the crowd, only a few years older than we were, hands moving deftly into the coat pockets of those she held no ownership over, her actions highly visible to me from above as she moved parallel to the crowd. Without a hero license, I lacked the ability to arrest her and attempting to physically stop her would be difficult without incurring further trouble from the police, the heroes agencies, or U.A. High School—I was already on thin ice, but I also wasn’t willing to let her continue.

“I want to see the cats,” Tsuyu said.

“Yeah,” Mina said, “We should—”

“Excuse me for one moment,” I said, “I will be right back.”

“Hisoka?” Momo asked.

I pressed through to the edge of the crowd before breaking free entirely, angling directly for the hero who was currently in the process of posing for a phone with a middle-aged man. The hero wasn’t somebody I could recognise on sight, but he had an interesting mix of pink and auburn hair, styled straight upwards into a block, held there with what I could only imagine was copious use of hair product. The man’s costume was predominantly blue, with yellow lines on the front, and he spotted my approach just as the man with the camera was finishing up.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Hi there,” The hero said, adjusting his headband. “Would you like a photo as well?”

This close, I could actually smell the man; he seemed to be wreathed in an aura of some kind of very strong-smelling perfume.

“No, thank you, sir,” I said, “There is a villain amongst that crowd of people; I’ve witnessed her take seven different wallets already.”

I raised my hand, locking the tip of my finger in the direction of the villain and shifting my hand in time with her movements to provide something of a visual for her trajectory—the man’s smile vanished.

“You’re able to tell where she is even with all those people?” The man said but didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m going to need you to describe her to me if you can.”

“A woman, eighteen to twenty years old, five and a half foot, shoulder-length black hair,” I said, studying the woman’s clothing from above. “She is wearing a black tank top and a zippered hoody over the top of it; it’s covered in stars—she also had a shoulder bag with the word sport written on the side.”

“Fantastic description,” The man said, “Might I ask who you are? It will help make filling out the paperwork easier.”

“Hisoka Higawara, a first-year student of U.A. High School,” I said, “I’m not familiar with the heroes of Tokyo as I am only visiting; could I have your name as well?”

“How rude of me—my name is Young Spice,” Young Spice said, “I work for the Genius Office Hero Agency; thank you for your assistance.”

I watched as the man jogged off in the direction of the crowd before he vanished into the mess of people, and I was left to return the way I’d come, joining the mess of people crossing the street and angling back towards the others. I found them standing still on the sidewalk, partially blocking the flow of traffic as they tried to figure out where I had gone. There was a loud yelp in the crowd ahead of us as Young Spice snagged hold of the villain’s upper arm, and I stepped out of the crowd to rejoin our group.

“Hisoka,” Mina squawked. “Where did you go?”

“There was a villain ahead of us pickpocketing people, so I reported them to the hero on patrol,” I said, “His name was a bit strange, but he smelled nice.”

Tsuyu rumbled out a noise of alarm, either the presence of a villain or the knowledge that the man smelled catching her off guard—I couldn’t determine which.

“Is that what all that yelling is about—how did you even spot them?” Eijiro said, standing up on his tiptoes in an attempt to see ahead of them. “Which hero and villain was it?”

“If you keep asking him questions,” Mina said, smacking her hand flat onto his head. “He’ll never have a chance to answer any of them.”

Eijiro gave a protest as she attempted to mess up his carefully spiked hair, and I spoke up to address the questions.

“The hero was called Young Spice, the villain I didn’t recognise,” I said, “I—also skipped breakfast, we should eat.”

“You too?” Eijiro said, exasperated. “Come on, man.”

#

Train Station, Tokyo.

“Jump,” Mina said, voice pitched bright. “I’ll catch you, really, and you can come home with me.”

The girl wobbled on her tiptoes; hands stretched all the way above her head as she attempted to lure the cat down from the perch bolted high upon the wall. The cat, nose high in the air, watched her struggle from the corner of its eye with an inherent feline smugness.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to take them home,” Eijiro said, “Not that this one seems like it’s going to come down any time soon.”

“It hates me,” Mina cried in dismay. “Why am I so hateable?”

One of the waitresses came to stand with the girl, her attached cat ears sticking up straight from her head, falling forward a bit as she muffled her laughter. I stared at the animal that had come to sit in the middle of my table, its tail flicking up for a moment before rolling back down through the air to slap noiselessly against the smooth surface—it was a clear challenge, or perhaps a declaration of ownership over the space, and so I withdrew my hand from beside my plate to rest in my lap.

“I haven’t seen you or the cat blink once since I sat down,” Eijiro said, “Who’s winning?”

“I am,” I said.

The cat’s tail came back up in warning—a sharp click rang out, and I broke eye contact with the cat for the first time, turning to find that Eijiro was now holding his phone up in front of him. He’d taken a photo of me, something which only Hayami had ever really done before. I glanced back at the cat and found that it was now licking at its paw, not at all interested in restarting the contest—I’d lost the battle.

“This was a wonderful idea,” Momo said, sipping at her tea. “I’ll have to convince my mother to come here; I’m certain she would love it.”

“I wish I were born as a cat,” Tsuyu said, chin pressed against the table as she studied the cat. “It’s cute—really cute.”

I turned the thought over in my mind but couldn’t find the same magic that she was capable of seeing; being born a cat could only be considered a terrible fate. The likelihood of being born on the streets or abandoned to them soon after was extremely high, and the lifestyle of a stray cat would be challenging. Constantly looking for your next meal amongst the waste bins of a concrete jungle dominated by a far more powerful species that you had no chance of comprehending. Being unable to communicate your desires and forced to compete with other animal species just to stay alive.

The cats that lived in Neko Ame were probably luckier than the average stray in that they had a permanent shelter along with daily food and water, but this life had a set of obvious downsides as well. The café was a clean, bright and positive place, but this room wasn’t where the cats lived; it was where they were placed during opening hours. I had already spread sand throughout most of the building, and it was clear that these animals spent most of their life in a cage, to be taken out as a novelty to entertain those they didn’t even understand. An unending chain of unfamiliar humans entering and exiting their lives, never staying long enough for a bond of familiarity or trust to be established. Touching, grabbing, picking up, prodding, cooing, and being moved around without consideration for their own autonomy.

Attempting to mentally place myself in that kind of circumstance was difficult, and it left me feeling genuinely uneasy. I broke off a tiny piece of my cinnamon roll and pushed it across the table with my finger; the cat investigated the terms of the ceasefire before snapping it up with its tongue—perhaps peace was an option after all. The cat must have determined that our transaction had been completed because he moved on, leaping up onto the first of the low-hanging rungs beside the table and then turning back again to investigate the massive funnel of black hair that was sticking up out of Momo’s head.

“I was—thinking,” Momo said, sounding hesitant. “Do you think that Koji would have liked this place?”

I hadn’t spent anywhere near enough time around the boy to accurately guess the answer, but nobody else seemed to want to touch the question, so I spoke up.

“Koji’s quirk was strange, and it most likely caused a significant divergence in how he interacted with animals,” I said. “It’s unclear to me whether he was forcibly taking control of the animals he spoke to as a mindless extension of himself or if he was instilling some measure of intelligence and loyalty in them so that they would act autonomously.”

“I hadn’t thought about the implications of his quirk,” Momo admitted, “I saw him playing with a bird once—he was smiling.”

“That’s evidence towards the latter, and if that was the case, then he may well have enjoyed spending time with animals,” I said, “I never had a chance to participate in a proper conversation with him, so I can only guess at what kind of person he was.”

That was the crux of the situation, though, wasn’t it? None of us would ever have the chance to actually ask Koji about it, and none of us would ever get to see what kind of hero Rikido could become. The cost to engineer a strike against All Might had been two young lives, and those four villains had paid it willingly. Momo was staring straight down at the table now, mouth in a tight line, and I had more than enough practice with Nanami to know when someone was on the verge of crying.

“Regardless of his quirk,” I said, envisioning the two boys in the room alongside us. “I think that both Koji and Rikido would have liked to come here with us.”

“Yes,” Momo managed. “I think they would have.”

Mina rubbed at her face for a moment, making a big show out of it, and then sucked in a deep breath to draw all of the attention back onto herself.

“It’s time to blow this joint, cats.” Mina said, “Eijiro wants to get his nails done soon, and we don’t want to be late.”

“Whoa,” Eijiro said, “Who said anything about nails?”

Momo ran her fingertips across her cheeks for a moment, dispelling some of the moisture that had spilled down her face, and I did my best to pretend that I hadn’t noticed.

#

Train Station, Tokyo.

“If you ever want to change it back, you’ll have to come back to Tokyo to do it,” Mina said in her own defence. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Eijiro clasped one hand around his bicep and then tensed it—the skin of his arm hardened into a series of angular ridges as he partially activated his quirk.

“That is a sacrifice I’m willing to make,” Eijiro said as if he were the protagonist of an anime. “No more playing around, this is it—I’m not going to spend one more cent on hair dye.”

A one-off payment now would likely save him a large amount of money in the longer term, and I nodded in support of such a fiscally responsible decision.

“You’ve committed yourself to this choice then,” The receptionist said in a stage whisper. “Gather your courage because there’s no going back after this.”

“Yosh,” Eijiro cheered. “I will walk this path—”

Mina pushed him from behind, sending him stumbling forward to brace himself against the counter.

“Okay, okay—I paid in advance anyway, so it’s not like I can back out now,” Eijiro laughed, “Do you need to see my ID?”

The rest of us milled about in the front of the store as Eijiro was taken into the back by another woman, and I spent a moment considering whether getting my own hair colour changed would be worth the cost—a beige colour closer to that of my sand would allow for much better camouflage than the current black. But I could accomplish the same thing by shifting it partially into sand or simply covering it, so perhaps there wasn’t much of a point.

“We should all switch hair colours and then turn up to class without saying anything,” Mina said, “It would totally freak everyone out if we pretended nothing had changed.”

“I find it difficult to picture you with black hair,” I said.

Momo was smiling at the thought, perhaps picturing herself with pink hair. Tsuyu reached up to lift a lock of her own hair in front of her face, close enough that she almost went cross-eyed looking at it.

“Would I look strange with brighter hair?” Tsuyu asked.

“I think it looks lovely now, but you could try for a shade closer to your hero costume,” Momo said with a critical eye. “Yes, a few shades brighter would look wonderful.”

“It’s dark enough that I actually think it’s black half the time,” Mina said, leaning forward. “Going a bit lighter would be cool.”

There was a pause, and I found myself as the sudden recipient of three different stares, all of which were expectant. It was clear that, for some reason, I was now to contribute my own opinion on her hair colour.

“I think it looks nice the way it is,” I said.

Tsuyu let out a rumble of discontent at the words, and Momo lifted a hand to conceal her smile.

“Boo,” Mina crowed. “That’s something a dad would say.”

“If Tsuyu’s goal is aesthetic or for improving overall cohesion, then a bright shade of green would leave her hair at odds with her current eye colour,” I said, “Black eyes and dark green hair work quite well together.”

“Bright green totally looks good with black,” Mina argued. “It’s a thing.”

“Bright green eyes look good with dark hair,” I refuted, “A splash of colour within an otherwise dark background is a more complimentary combination than a sea of bright colour with a dark spot.”

“Wait—I think I actually agree with that,” Momo said, in quiet consideration. “It’s completely subjective, of course, but still.”

“Traitor,” Mina complained.

“So you are saying I shouldn’t do it?” Tsuyu asked.

“Tsuyu,” I said. “I think you should do what you think is right.”

“Another dad answer,” Mina cried, “Pick a side, you coward.”

“If you want more actionable advice, I suggest you try out several shades of temporary colour first,” I said, “Once you’ve found the one you want, come back here and make it permanent.”

“We do temporary previews here, so you can check the entire palette if you would like,” The receptionist said, hovering close by. “Why don’t you come try some out with me?”

Tsuyu vanished into the back room, and our group shrunk to only three. I had a feeling that if I stayed in this store for too long, I would end up passing through that curtain as well—this woman was dangerous. Eijiro stepped out a moment later, his hair the same shade of red as it had been before.

“Anticlimactic,” Mina accused. “It looks exactly the same as before.”

“It’s supposed to be the same,” Eijiro defended, “That was the entire point of coming here in the first place, weren’t you even listening?”

“I didn’t even get the chance to tell everyone you were reinventing yourself,” Mina complained, “How am I supposed to embarrass you now?”

“I thought you were joking about that,” Eijiro said in genuine alarm. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

“What was he like before coming to U.A. High School?” Momo asked. “Kirishima seems very energetic in class.”

Eijiro looked horrified by the direction of the conversation.

“He used to run around and get beat up by everyone,” Mina grinned, “If he saw a bully, he always tried to stop them, but it always went wrong.”

“It didn’t always go wrong,” Eijiro said, a bit flushed. “I stopped heaps of them.”

“I made sure to forget all the times you won,” Mina admitted, “That way, it’s way funnier when I tell people.”

Tsuyu soon stepped back through the curtain, her hair noticeably different, three or four shades brighter than before, and no longer ambiguous in colour. I had argued for it to stay dark, but seeing it now—

“I was wrong,” I said, “It does look better like this.”

“I want to touch it; come here,” Mina decided, “Holy—it even feels green.”

By the time we had actually managed to leave the store, we had almost lost Mina to the oddly persuasive woman behind the counter. Eijiro led us into Akihabara, familiar enough with the area that he’d done it from memory alone, and I was taken aback at just how much hero merchandise was on sale.

“I’m curious how many students in our class have stories similar to Kirishima chasing down bullies,” Momo said, speaking up. “I know that both Bakugo and Midoriya had their names in the news for fighting off the Sludge Villain early last year—All Might was involved in that as well.”

I hadn’t heard about that at all, but it was an unexpected confirmation that the three of them had a relationship prior to coming to U.A. High School.

“Really?” Mina said. “I missed that one.”

“Katsuki was unaware that Izuku had a quirk during the test on our first day of school,” I said, “Which means that he fought the villain without using it.”

“He must have,” Momo admitted. “There was no mention of his quirk in the article.”

“Fighting without a quirk?” Eijiro said with a whistle. “Now that’s manly.”

“I’m going to ask Midoriya when we get back,” Mina decided, “He seems a bit skittish around girls, though—think he’ll run away?”

“If it was you that came up to him?” Eijiro needled. “I know I would—whoa.”

Eijiro swerved wide, feinting out to one side with a bit of fancy footwork, before sliding back to put me directly in front of Mina’s path and using me as an obstacle to block her advance. I remained in place as she scrunched her face up, apparently unwilling to assail me in her attempt to get to Eijiro.

“Idiot,” Mina said.

Eijiro clapped his hands together in thanks.

“There was another article last year,” Tsuyu said, studying a lock of her hair. “The bamboo villain attacked Pasana Middle School but was stopped by a single student—one with a sand quirk.”

I leant down to the rack of merchandise beside us, taking note of the XL figurine of a very familiar figure in a rather revealing alternate costume. The price wasn’t visible, so I lifted it up off the shelf and found the sticker adhered to the bottom of its left foot. I blinked at the ludicrous number, unable to reconcile just how much a plastic model of Midnight could be worth when compared to the materials that had gone into its creation—

“That was me,” I admitted, still distracted by the figurine. “I got into a lot of trouble for that, but I was also offered the chance to take the U.A. Recommendation Exam because of it.”

There was no real reason to deny it at this point because even a cursory search only with my name was enough to reveal my attachment to the event.

“You’re kidding,” Eijiro said, “I didn’t see anything about that.”

Seeing this figurine felt like a new pathway had just opened up within my mind—it was an alternate costume, but the dark colour of her hair contrasted against the light tones of her skin made it instantly recognisable as her, even before I’d had time to take in the more minor details. If I studied the forms of heroes who were extremely easy to recognise and then used my quirk to make copies of them during combat, I could mislead my opponents into thinking that they were present. If I picked someone like Midnight, whose power was a well-known, close proximity sleep quirk, then it would force my opponent to stay at a range to avoid it—I excelled at ranged combat, which would directly contribute to an advantage in combat.

I could use them to lure my opponents into traps or to panic at the sight of reinforcements. The problem, of course, was colour, but I knew that there existed different coloured sand, and if I purchased enough of it, I could carry it on my person in specific containers and then multiply them as needed to create a fairly accurate representation of Midnight—I would need to study her in class to get the colours right, but it was certainly possible. It was a more cost-effective solution than purchasing this figurine, as I was pretty sure I could have filled a sand pit for the same price as what was being asked. I would have to ask Sajin if he had ever tried anything like this in the past and then have Hayami critique the end result to ensure it passed the threshold of believability. How had I never considered this before? I had been making statues since I was a child, and the idea that I could introduce colour into it was such a simple idea that for the first time in a very long time, I felt as if I had failed to consider something that must have been obvious for every else—the feeling was just as unwelcome as it had always been.

“Um,” Mina said, “Do you—uh—have a crush on Midnight or something?”

“Don’t ask him that,” Momo said, flustered. “That’s rude.”

The word ‘rude’ caught my attention enough to bring me back from my thoughts, although I wasn’t sure what it had been in response to. I glanced between their faces for a moment before speaking up.

“I apologise—I have a bad habit of getting lost in thought when I’m concentrating,” I said, holding up the figurine so they could better see it. “I was considering how I could use different coloured sand to create a realistic clone of Midnight.”

“Why do you need a realistic clone of Midnight?” Momo said, flushed. “Wait, I shouldn’t have asked that; you don’t have to answer that, Hisoka—”

“He absolutely needs to answer that,” Mina said before pausing. “But I think I know what this is actually about—Hisoka, do you want me to give Midnight a letter for you? Don’t worry; I’ll make sure to keep your identity a secret.”

I was starting to get the feeling that I had missed something important. Eijiro was wincing now, cringing away from some part of what she had said, while Tsuyu seemed to be frozen, eyes locked on the XL figurine in my hand. Mina was fumbling around in her pocket for something, but I assumed that she was still paying enough attention to hear my answer.

“I don’t think anonymity is a concern here,” I said, trying to figure out the context I was missing. “It would also be inappropriate for you to deliver a letter to Midnight at my behest when I can easily accomplish the task myself.”

Mina lifted her phone up in front of her, and the click of her camera application rang out, and for the second time in a single day, a photo had been taken of me—this was becoming such an odd day.

“Dude, you can’t take pictures of him with that thing,” Eijiro said, floundering. “Hisoka, you’re a student, man—Midnight is a teacher.”

I had no idea why her status as a teacher would prevent me from communicating with her if I needed to, and beyond that, I still had no idea why I was sending Midnight any kind of message to begin with. At this point, I was in far too deep to ask them to restart the conversation without making it obvious that I had failed to keep up with them.

“I could use some assistance with the content of the letter,” I said, “As it stands, I have no idea what I am supposed to write.”

Mina seemed invested in trying to assist me, so this would give her the opportunity to tell me how to word the mystery letter, and through that, I should be able to determine exactly what we were talking about—

“Aren’t you scared of her reaction?” Momo squeaked. “You’re being far too confident.”

Midnight’s reaction to what—I straightened up a bit and put the full force of my focus towards unravelling the discussion. The only individual interaction I had with Midnight had been the reprimand I had received after breaking the rules, which meant that they must have discovered that somehow. The obvious answer was that our conversation in the hallway had been overheard by one of them, and now they were trying to address it. The letter we were discussing must have been an apology letter for breaking the rules, and they were under the impression that I would be too intimidated by the previous conversation to speak with her again—hence the format being a letter and not a face-to-face discussion. The theory seemed to fit, except for Mina’s suggestion that she deliver the letter to avoid revealing my identity because the apology would mean nothing if she didn’t know who it had come from.

“Mina, thank you for the offer, but I have already met with her in private once before, so I believe that I have everything well in hand,” I said in an attempt to put the issue to bed. “Midnight was very patient with me despite her obvious frustrations with my inexperience.”

“You met with her in private?” Eijiro tried.

“Inexperience?” Tsuyu croaked.

“There is no way,” Mina said, stunned. “I don’t believe it—”

“Stop—everybody, just stop.” Momo managed, face bright red. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing anymore.”

They had figured out that I hadn’t been able to follow the conversation, and there was a pang of discomfort rising up at the thought that I’d demonstrated myself as incapable of keeping up with them. This was why I needed to keep a tighter reign on my attention and keep it from wandering when I was with others.

“Well, I was talking about what you’ve been doing with Midnight,” Mina said, sounding embarrassed to have to say it. “You all heard him; he’s been doing it with her in private—they’re having sex.”

The absurdity of the comment was enough to wash away the discomfort because there was no way I could have ever imagined that she had been talking about something like that. It was so far from the realm of possibilities that I wasn’t even sure how to address it directly.

“I had a private meeting with Midnight in which she reprimanded me for returning to the USJ when I was supposed to stay in the main building—that is what I was talking about,” I said, “The idea that Midnight would risk her professional reputation and her teaching career to sleep with a student she has only spoken to once is absurd.”

“Oh, thank god,” Eijiro said in genuine relief. “I thought I was going to have to report her.”

“What about that?” Tsuyu said.

I glanced down at the figurine in my hand; the fact that the almost naked model was only covered by a few tiny pieces of string was no longer something I could ignore.

“Once we obtain our hero licenses, we will be able to sell merchandise using our image, and it will become a significant portion of our income,” I said in answer. “I wanted to know how much this was being sold for.”

I twisted the figurine until they could see the price attached to its foot, and Eijiro’s eyes went wide at the sight of it—he snatched it out of my hand and then placed it back on the shelf as if merely touching it was enough to start siphoning away our money.

“May I—” Momo tried, having a hard time looking at me now. “You also said you were going to make a realistic clone of Midnight?”

“I came to the realisation that I could use clones of other heroes as distractions during combat,” I said, “I am already adept at making statues out of sand, but using them in that way would require they pass well enough to be confused for being the real thing.”

“So you didn’t have sex with our teacher?” Mina asked.

Everyone turned to look at her, and the girl laughed awkwardly at all of the attention.

“I haven’t had sex with anyone,” I said, “I think it might be time to leave—we’re starting to draw a crowd.”

“Yes,” Momo managed, “I agree.”

#

Train Station, Tokyo.

Finding our next destination was a simple task, considering how it loomed over everything within the area, and as we grew closer, I found myself tilting my head back in an attempt to see the top of the Sky Tree. The entire structure was surrounded by a tubular cage; the core sat within, thick, metal and grey.

“It’s so much larger in person,” Tsuyu said.

“It’s supposed to be quite the sight when night falls,” Momo said, “The structure is covered in lights, so you can see it from just about anywhere.”

“That’s what it looks like from the outside,” Eijiro agreed, “But it’s the view from the inside that’s the real deal—it’s been ages since I’ve been here.”

We completed the entry process before heading straight for the elevator. I entered first, stepping over the barely visible gap in the floor, and then turned to face the others as they followed. The sand I had left outside of the building rose as we did, its elevation locked to my position and providing a rising view of the city that the cold walls of our little box prevented. At some point during our little trip, the other four had stopped pretending to be happy, and while I couldn’t identify exactly when the transition had occurred, each of their moods had begun to feel less like an accessory they had put on that morning.

Eijiro’s energy levels had increased with each location we visited, and he’d made deliberate physical contact with me three separate times within the last hour alone—something that had, without fail, startled me each time. In contrast, Mina seemed to be even less energetic than normal, but the façade of brightness that she had wreathed herself in had settled down into a contentment that seemed far more genuine. Momo was speaking more now, eyes glittering as she diverted her attention between taking in our surroundings and then studying each of us whenever she thought nobody was watching. As a test, I had made an effort to lock eyes with her when that same interest had fallen upon me, but her only response had been to flash me a smile that I had no way of determining the cause of.

Tsuyu was perhaps the least changed of all, her attention continuously falling back to the lock of green hair whenever it fell in front of her eyes, but the quiet unease she had been swallowed by back in the train seemed at least temporarily forgotten. I was having trouble discerning whether I had experienced a similar change in mood or behaviour since this morning, but that was something I’d been having difficulties with since I was a child, so it wasn’t unexpected. Even if I had seemed more open—or perhaps more closed off—there was little motivation for them to have been paying close enough attention to notice. The doors of the steel cage opened, and I followed them out onto the first of the observation points. It was a room lined with windows, large glass panes that had been kept remarkably clean—by remarkably brave window cleaners—and through the translucent sheets, the world stretched out before me. The monstrous structures of metal and concrete that had seemed too large before now prostrated themselves to the titan of steel that had swallowed us whole.

“It’s amazing,” Tsuyu murmured, eyes wide. “I can feel the floor moving.”

“I feel like a queen surveying my kingdom,” Mina said, arms stretched out wide as if to encompass the entire city below. “It’s all mine.”

“How does it feel, your majesty?” Eijiro asked.

“It is good,” Mina declared.

The node of sand outside split before it began to elongate, crawling up the steel dividers separating each window to remain out of sight from within. It continued upwards without pause, reaching the flat circular zone at the very top, the wind tugging at the grains in an attempt to wrench it all up into the air and cast me out into the city.

“It’s a beautiful sight,” Momo said, eyes glittering. “I do wish we had come when it was dark—such a shame.”

I could almost imagine the millions of lights spread out beneath us, mirroring the night sky above, and that alone was enough to bring me into silent agreement with her. Eventually, the group ascended to the galleria, the uppermost observation deck, a room made of nothing but windows and the warm natural light flooded it entirely.

“Okay, now I’m beginning to feel a bit nervous,” Momo admitted, eyeing the space between her feet. “This is really high—and I think I can feel the floor moving now as well.”

I watched the four of them talk quietly amongst themselves, but the bulk of my attention was peering out from the unmoving statue that stood atop the roof of the Sky Tree, staring out at the city. Today was perhaps the most important day of my life, and the last three nights had been spent rushing to prepare for it. I had spent months watching every interview, podcast, and talk show appearance that had Minato Yaoyorozu present—even when he hadn’t been the primary focus of the event—in an effort to understand the man. I had read every article where his words had been quoted, and I had studied every charity his name had been stamped upon.

The invitation from Ume Yaoyorozu inviting us into their home for dinner had been something I hadn’t expected to arrive when it had, and what had felt like all the time in the world before had been reduced to only three days. I’d used the address Momo Yaoyorozu had given me to find their home, and I had taken a composite spread of public mapview images to create a blueprint for the grounds. I had located every visible window, door, chimney, vent and access point that could be seen from the street. I had spent those three days working out the optimal approach—in order of elevating action—starting from the position of simply talking the man into admitting his involvement before rising all the way up to abducting the man from his home and grinding away parts of his body to force him to answer my questions directly—and all of that preparation had been turned on its head when I realised that the archive blog that contained all of the publicly available information regarding the case—and my primary source of information—had been updated twenty-seven days ago.

It was a single admittance of old evidence that had been lost in storage and had not the unidentified person who maintained the archive been so meticulous as to update the page upon its discovery, I would have never seen it. On that archive was every single transcript of every single interview the police had with anyone who had at any point been a suspect. They were collated in both text format and as an audio recording. There were almost a hundred of them in total, and I had read through every single one of them half a dozen times each. Ume Yaoyorozu had an interview in evidence, and Minato had three—but now, after the better part of a decade had passed, there were four. Seeing the change had been jarring in a way I hadn’t really understood at first because it wasn’t obvious what was the cause of my unease until I started to go through them.

The file size was minuscule in comparison with the others, and the reason for why had quickly become clear; the transcript was a very small snippet that had been taken from a short conversation with a detective outside of the actual recorded interviews. There was a small note that described its origin as a note once written by the detective to reflect the conversation he’d had with the man. It had no audio file, the detective’s name was not listed in full, and it wasn’t even a one-to-one transcript of the words that had been exchanged—and for all of that, it changed everything. I had spent all night reading and rereading the note, over and over and over, to the point where if someone had asked me, I could have recited it by memory alone.

#

“You’ll have to be more specific than that—it’s not like I can read minds; how am I supposed to know why anybody else was in Shimoda?” — Minato Yaoyorozu.

“Was there anyone carrying heavy luggage, or were there people arguing on the docks, that kind of thing,” — Ld. Detective.

“I didn’t see anything like that, but it wasn’t as if I was searching for it,” — Minato Yaoyorozu.

“You didn’t see anything at all? Are you telling me you got on your fancy yacht with your eyes closed?” — Ld. Detective.

“I was on vacation with my family; forgive me for not noting everything down,” — Minato Yaoyorozu.

“You must have seen something,” — Ld. Detective.

“There was a little boy wearing overalls and crab claws for hands who was chasing the seagulls. There was a well-dressed man with blue skin and serrated elbows sitting at a cafe drinking coffee. There was an elderly man with really tall ears arguing with a girl with a mohawk about his insurance. Listen, unless you think just existing is suspicious, I don’t know what to tell you.” — Minato Yaoyorozu.

“There is a family of three missing right now, including a little girl about the same age as your own; you could try a little bit harder to help,” — Ld. Detective.

“I’ve already made a very generous donation to the rescue fund. I’ve let you search my yacht twice, and I’ve come in for three separate interviews—you even questioned my wife. If you want something else from me, tell me what you need, but don’t tell me I haven’t tried to help.” — Minato Yaoyorozu.

#

It was nothing more than a fragment of a discussion with a hundred times less detail than the other transcripts. It was a conversation that could have occurred on the street, in the office, and in any other place. The fact that it hadn’t been included in the rest of the casefiles was probably a result of its informal nature or because it was nothing more than a recreation of a half-remembered conversation. It wouldn’t have mattered to all of the detectives and heroes who had read it. They wouldn’t have seen anything inside of it worth looking at because they didn’t have the right context. Even now, almost a full twenty-four hours after I had first seen it, my heart started thumping in my chest, and something like dread began spreading throughout my body.

A single offhand—sarcastic, perhaps, or a subtle hint that he was involved—comment in the middle of a moment of frustration shared by the lead detective and Minato Yaoyorozu. A remark that had gone unviewed, unrepeated, and then lost, only to be found years later and added to the greater picture, long after the three victims had faded from everyone else’s mind. Even if they had seen it, there wasn’t a single man or woman in the world who would have been able to make the connection between a blue-skinned man drinking coffee at a café and a girl named Nanami Kureta—but there would have been a boy.

“Hisoka,” Momo said, smiling again. “Are you ready to go?”

I’d spent almost an entire day in her company now, outside of the highly structured environment of U.A. High School, and in that time, I had been able to ascertain a great many things about her. Momo Yaoyorozu was well-spoken, observant, and inarguably the most intelligent person in our class; she was warm, kind, and when she smiled at me for too long, I felt something begin to ache in my chest. There wasn’t a single observable quality that seemed to detract from my impression of her, which was something that was making this all the more difficult for me—because I really didn’t want to kill her parents.

#

In Transit, Train.

“Wait, did you really go outside?” Eijiro said, startled. “Like—outside.”

“Technically, I never left the Sky Tree,” I said, “It was just my sand that was outside of the building.”

“But you could see it,” Eijiro said. “What was it like?”

“There was a lot of wind,” I said, pausing for a moment. “But the view was nice.”

“You should have brought us all up there,” Mina complained, “Then we could have saved money on the tickets.”

“Come on, we’re supposed to be heroes,” Eijiro said, exasperated. “We can’t go around stealing free tours.”

“I would have been fine staying inside, I think,” Tsuyu said, “The movement of the building was starting to make me feel sick.”

“Yes, that part of it wasn’t very nice,” Momo said, shaking her head. “Even with how well constructed it is, I don’t like the thought of all that metal shifting around.”

The hum of the train beneath them seemed to have somehow escaped their notice, or perhaps the fact that they were barreling across the land inside of a metal monstrosity didn’t register as the same type of situation. After a full day of walking around, talking, and buying things, the energy levels of the group seemed to be dropping, with the conversation growing sluggish, interspersed with increasingly longer periods of silence.

“Today was awesome,” Eijiro said, breaking the silence. “Thanks for coming with me, guys.”

Mina gave him a smile at the words but said nothing in response, apparently in full energy-saving mode now.

“Thank you all for inviting me,” Momo said. “I really enjoyed myself.”

“I hope we do something like this again,” Tsuyu said.

“There’s a whole bunch of places we could go next time,” Eijiro said, “I got to choose this time, so maybe you guys can pick the next one.”

“I call dibs,” Mina said, sticking her tongue out. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick something way cooler.”

I hadn’t even needed to suggest a second trip; they had naturally decided on it without any type of prompting on my part. Beyond that, we’d naturally fallen into a system in which, at some point in the future, I would be able to suggest my own choice of location—meeting Eijiro Kirishima really must have been fate.

“Hopefully, next time, I can get Bakugo to come with us because that guy needs to lighten up a bit,” Eijiro said, folding his hands behind his head. “You guys should ask whoever you want to come with us as well.”

I listened as they discussed who else in the class would be receptive to coming along, and then the conversation devolved into trying to figure out what kind of clothing they might wear during a casual setting. Unfortunately, the discussion soon trailed off into silence again, and I was beginning to see some of the cracks that came with spending too much time together in a single setting. It was a natural thing because eventually, everyone would grow tired, leading to a quiet, building annoyance and then, eventually, a clash of personalities. Eijiro seemed to be feeling it in particular, shifting awkwardly in his seat as Tsuyu continued to stare directly at him—

“Eijiro,” Tsuyu said, frowning. “Why do you keep looking away from me?”

It was clear enough to me that a single day wasn’t enough to immunise any of them to how direct she could be, and the confrontation seemed to cause a ripple of unease amongst the group. Eijiro seemed entirely caught off guard by the call out, and he suddenly seemed incapable of meeting eyes with the girl at all.

“Oh—sorry,” Eijiro said.

“I wasn’t asking for an apology,” Tsuyu said. “I wanted to know why you were doing it.”

With her refusal to take the apology, the tension failed to dissipate, and Momo let out a quiet, nervous laugh. This wasn’t the first time Tsuyu had said something similar in nature today, although in all of those previous cases, someone else had spoken up to distract her from whatever she was pointing out, and the topic had slipped away—usually, it had been Mina that was leading the charge, but this time, she didn’t speak up, likely too tired after maintaining her high-energy throughout the day, and the silence stretched.

“You don’t have an issue looking at Hisoka, Momo or Mina—it’s just me,” Tsuyu asked, wringing her hands together. “Did I do something wrong?”

Eijiro opened his mouth, then closed it, seemingly unable to find the words to settle the situation and looking entirely trapped by the conversation. Momo shifted at her own inclusion in the discussion before managing to partially stifle another nervous laugh. Mina just watched it all in silence, unwilling to place herself in the hot seat once again.

“I didn’t even realise I was doing it,” Eijiro tried.

Eijiro was a terrible liar, by any standard, and from what I could discern, Tsuyu had absolutely zero problems with detecting the evasion—I spoke up before the situation could deteriorate any further, unwilling to let the trip end on an uncomfortable note that might endanger a future repeat of it.

“You have a tendency to make extended eye contact even outside of conversation, and it can be hard to dismiss it entirely once you have noticed it,” I said, studying her face. “You haven’t done anything wrong, but that is most likely the reason he keeps looking away.”

Tsuyu turned to meet my gaze; her feathers ruffled enough that even the direct answer to her question didn’t seem to be enough. Eijiro winced, and that was enough to make me realise that I had been correct in identifying what the issue had been.

“Mina has been doing the same thing all day,” Tsuyu said, “Eijiro doesn’t look away from her.”

“They went to the same middle school, so they have a prior relationship,” I answered, “Eijiro is most likely used to making extended eye contact with her, but it may take some time before he is comfortable with someone new.”

Mina wrinkled her nose at my explanation, and I wasn’t immediately certain of which part was responsible.

“You’re making it sound like we were dating, but we just hung out sometimes,” Mina said, scratching at her cheek. “Besides, if anyone has a staring problem, it’s probably you right—I caught you giving me the thousand-yard-stare this morning.”

I nodded in acknowledgment because she had caught me watching her, but bringing that up right now wasn’t exactly useful for solving the miscommunication that was occurring—unfortunately, it seemed to give Eijiro the perfect opportunity to derail the conversation away from himself.

“Hisoka did that to me as well,” Eijiro said, “I turned around, and—bam, he was right there.”

Tsuyu’s hurt feelings lingered on, still unaddressed by their attempt to shift the conversation away from the point of contention, and I watched as her fingers tightened, crunching the folds of her skirt in her grip.

“I have noticed that you do that as well,” Momo said with great care. “Of course, there isn’t anything wrong with doing that.”

I was more than aware of my predilection towards getting lost in thought, but the goal here wasn’t to discuss my issues; it was to keep the group functioning at a level that preserved cohesion, destroying any chance of a second trip before the first one had even finished was something I wasn’t willing to allow.

“My flaws are irrelevant to our current discussion,” I said, “I believe Tsuyu was waiting for Eijiro to address why he was having trouble looking at her.”

Eijiro must have realised that I wasn’t going to let the conversation deviate because he took a deep breath and then clapped both of his hands against his cheeks. It was loud enough that the sound carried up the train car—then, he did it a second time, louder than the first, and leaving a flush of red behind at the sight of the impact. Satisfied, he turned to make proper eye contact with Tsuyu for the first time in a while and then spoke.

“Okay, look—I’m sorry, but you don’t really look away, and it was starting to freak me out a little bit,” Eijiro said, owning up to it. “I kept thinking you wanted me to say something, but I couldn’t figure out what.”

“I make too much eye contact,” Tsuyu managed, glancing around at each of them. “That’s all it is?”

“That’s all it was,” Eijiro admitted, “I didn’t want to say anything because I thought it might make you feel bad if I did.”

“I feel bad now anyway because now everyone thinks I’m stupid,” Tsuyu said, eyes dropping to her own lap. “Can you just—tell me to stop staring next time?”

Momo turned on her seat and reached down to place a hand on the other girl’s forearm, startling her into looking back up.

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Tsuyu,” Momo said, “I promise.”

“Neither do I,” Mina said.

“I’ll tell you next time—count on it,” Eijiro said, “Now, can we talk about something that doesn’t make me sound like a jackass?”

“Topic not found,” Mina said with feigned sadness. “Please widen the search parameters.”