In Transit, Train.

I watched the train pull away, taking Eijiro, Mina and Momo away to get off at a different station, mind stuck on the dinner party that would be taking place roughly four hours from now. Hayami wasn’t expecting me for about two more hours, but that wasn’t really enough time to do any significant preparation.

“I didn’t realise that you lived in Musutafu as well,” Tsuyu said.

It was the first real thing she had said besides the brief round of farewells since the argument on the train had concluded, and if I’d had to guess, I would assume she was still dealing with her feelings about it all.

“I’ve lived here for most of my life,” I said, “Were you born here?”

“I was born in Nagoya,” Tsuyu said, “My family moved us here last year.”

“Were your aspirations to join U.A. High School part of the reason they chose this location?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Tsuyu said, with a rumble in her throat. “They told me it was for work, but they don’t work for that company any more.”

“Are you still hesitant to talk to them about staying at school?” I asked.

“Yes,” Tsuyu mumbled.

I considered her for a moment, wondering if offering up unsolicited assistance would be received as well as my attempt to advise her earlier or if she would reject it out of hand.

“Tsuyu, I have several hours left before I have to meet with my aunt,” I said, “If you would like, I could accompany you to speak with your parents about this; I can’t promise I’ll be able to convince them, but I can assist you in alleviating some of their worries.”

“Today?” Tsuyu asked.

“If you intend to have a discussion about staying at U.A. High School, it would be beneficial to start it on your own terms rather than allow them extensive time to prepare for it,” I said, “If you wish to do it another day, we can choose a more appropriate time—if you do not want my help, that is perfectly fine as well.”

“I—do want your help,” Tsuyu managed.

I nodded, and she hesitated for a moment longer before turning towards the station entrance. I fell in step beside her, assuming that she would alert me to what method of travel we would be using to reach her home when it became necessary. The busy platform somehow felt empty in comparison to the density of people who had been crowding the Tokyo station. Musutafu was a built-up city, with skyscrapers, apartment buildings, and other towering structures packed up close together, but there were also blocks of land settled amongst those areas that were noticeably more green. Parks with large, healthy trees and also a few blocks where more traditional housing was present, with short, squat buildings surrounded by tiny yards whenever there was room for it.

“Do you live in one of these houses?” I asked.

“No,” Tsuyu said, sounding somehow nervous. “We live in an apartment.”

I watched her stretch out a finger, indicating one of the taller apartment buildings on the edge of the house area. It was a close enough approximation to my own apartment building that even if she hadn’t pointed it out, I could make the comparison on sight alone.

“My own apartment building is similar,” I said.

“Do you live with your aunt?” Tsuyu asked.

“No, it’s a single-bedroom apartment that she purchased for me at the start of the year; it’s much closer to U.A. High School than where my aunt lives,” I said before pausing. “I don’t think I could imagine her living in an apartment; her taste in accommodation is far more extravagant.”

“Oh, I see,” Tsuyu wondered. “I didn’t realise that you came from an affluent family.”

“I wouldn’t expect anyone to notice,” I said.

A silence began to grow between us as we approached the building proper, but it seemed likely that she was preparing herself for the conversation to come, so I made no effort to break it. Just as we reached the elevator, she stopped, and when the doors slipped open, she made no effort to step inside.

“It’s not very big—the apartment, I mean,” Tsuyu said, wringing her hands. “Just so you know what to expect.”

“Thank you for the consideration,” I replied, “But I’ve been inside an apartment before, so I think I will fit just fine.”

Tsuyu croaked at the words, unsettled perhaps, as I stepped over the threshold and into the elevator; she hesitated for only a moment longer before joining me. As the doors sealed shut behind us, I turned to face her, taking in just how nervous she appeared to be.

“I’ve never brought anyone home before,” Tsuyu said.

“Neither have I,” I said, as a point of common ground. “Is that the only thing making you nervous?”

Tsuyu fumbled with her keys at the question, almost dropping them onto the floor of the elevator, if not for a rather impressive display of reflex. The doors slipped open a second later, and I stepped out first, almost certain that if I didn’t, she might well remain in the elevator forever. Tsuyu started down the hall but had only taken about four steps before she came to a stop in front of a door, looking troubled. I could hear the sound of voices coming from inside, seeping out from beneath the crack in the door—a boy’s voice, high, young and assured, speaking with a man whose voice was far, far deeper.

“My mom doesn’t know that I changed my hair, so I’m wondering if she will like it,” Tsuyu said, finally speaking up to address my question. “I don’t think I’m ready for this—how do I bring up the school?”

If it had been me, I would have worked to engineer a situation where my responsibility and maturity would be highlighted in a naturally occurring way. From there, I would link the two situations together and use the previous praise that had been given to me as evidence to reinforce the impression they had of me as someone who routinely made rational and level-headed decisions. That would be the foundation from where I would begin my argument for U.A. High School being the only place in the city capable of protecting from an attack of that magnitude and how leaving now would reduce my future ability to defend myself from harm—but considering that we were only separated by the oncoming discussion by a single wooden door, there wasn’t anywhere near enough time to convey that kind of strategy to her in a useful way.

“I will frame the discussion for you,” I said, “The only thing you need to worry about is conveying the reason you want to be a hero.”

“But—” Tsuyu started.

That was as far as she got, as the door swung inwards, open just enough for a woman who looked remarkably like Tsuyu to stick her head out of the gap—the woman’s eyes were wide open at the sight of us.

“Tsuyu, I thought I heard your voice,” The woman said, eyebrows rising high. “You’ve brought someone with you?”

“Mom,” Tsuyu tried.

The door opened up wide enough for her to step forward onto the threshold, a large slice of the hallway behind her now visible from where I was standing. The voices immediately grew louder, no longer obstructed by the door, but they didn’t yet seem fully aware of our presence.

“Oh, look at your hair—it’s lovely,” The woman said, opening the door wider. “I thought you said your friend was the one getting it done?”

Tsuyu seemed to be struggling to figure out exactly which thing she was supposed to address first, and any momentum she might have had seemed to have been stolen from her completely. I could hear footsteps—light, rapid, and likely a child—coming down the hallway behind the woman, but she was blocking the line of sight.

“My name is Hisoka Higawara; I am one of your daughter’s classmates,” I said, speaking up. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you—my name is Beru Asui,” Beru said, the width of her mouth stretching from cheek to cheek as a smile swallowed her face. “Tsuyu, why are you being so quiet?”

The child I’d heard stuck his head out to one side, peering out from next to Beru’s arm, and Tsuyu straightened up at the sight of the sly expression he was wearing.

“Dad,” Samidare said, projecting his voice up the hallway. “Tsuyu brought a boy home with her, and you know what that means.”

“A boy?” The man cried.

You know what that means—had the boy correctly identified the topic of our upcoming discussion with nothing more than a single glance? It seemed an impossible feat for something that hadn’t even been mentioned yet, but perhaps he had a quirk that allowed for such ridiculous feats of induction. A young girl appeared, several years younger than the boy, struggling to see past what was most assuredly her brother.

“What does it mean?” The girl said.

“It means she’s having a baby.” Samidare declared.

“Samidare,” Tsuyu croaked in horror. “You—”

“A baby?” The man cried.

The sound of the man’s footsteps changed direction, thumping up the hallway to investigate the ludicrous claim.

“Mom?” The girl asked. “There’s not enough room for a baby.”

“Don’t worry about that, Satsuki,” Beru said, sounding far too amused by it all. “Your brother is just being silly—Tsuyu.”

Tsuyu acted without warning, stepping forward to herd her mother back inside the hallway, and Beru croaked in surprise as the door was pulled shut in front of her face. There was a brief but decidedly one-sided battle of strength to keep the door shut before the man pressed his wide, toad-like head through the crack to loom over them.

“Why’d you shut the door, Tsuyu?” The man said before turning his attention completely on me. “A boy indeed.”

“This was a terrible idea,” Tsuyu said, flushed as she strained to squash her dad’s head between the door and the frame. “I’m going to be busy killing my brother now; you should probably go home.”

“No killing in the house,” The man said before using his much greater physical strength to open the door all the way. “Who are you, and what’s all this about a baby?”

“My name is Hisoka Higawara,” I said in greeting. “I am one of your daughters—”

“Boyfriends,” Samidare called. “He’s one of your daughter’s boyfriends—eat him, Dad.”

“Samidare,” Tsuyu managed. “I’m going to put you in the oven.”

“Yikes,” Samidare laughed.

The massive man emerged fully, rising to his full height and towering over both of us as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Hm,” The man noised.

It came out as a hum in his chest, deep and reverberating, a noise of clear consideration, along with a demand for something more—Tsuyu had given up entirely at this point, her face flushed as she stared up at her father.

“As I said, I am one of her classmates,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hmm,” The man noised.

It was longer than before—deeper as well, somehow—and the man now appeared to be standing on the tips of his toes in order to loom better.

“Dad, stop it,” Tsuyu said, indignant now. “Hisoka, this is my dad, Ganma Asui.”

“I think you should let them in,” Samidare decided. “It would be rude to eat out there in the hall.”

Tsuyu made an attempted grab at the boy but couldn’t seem to get around her dad’s bulk to manage it, so the boy fled up the hallway, giggling to himself the entire way. Satsuki gave chase, caught up in the laughter but perhaps not really understanding what had caused it. Ganma shook his head for a moment before clearing the doorway to let us in, and I allowed myself to be pushed inside by Tsuyu, her attempt to get me past the man as quickly as possible, driving her to rush. I found myself stepping into a small kitchen, dominated by a table that was perhaps one size too big for it and where Beru was waiting for us.

“How was it in Tokyo?” Beru asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve last been there—they still had the station sectioned off back then.”

Tsuyu lingered right in the doorway to the kitchen in what was a clear effort to prevent the rest of her family from joining us.

“There were so many people everywhere that we didn’t have any room to move around,” Tsuyu said, “It was really fun; we went to a lot of different places.”

Beru’s eyes flashed back up to her hair when Tsuyu was finally herded into the room by her father’s attempt to enter before the woman swooped in and snagged a lock of her hair between her fingers.

“Your hair looks so different in the light,” Beru said, beaming. “It’s so bright and evenly spread—it doesn’t even look like dye at all.”

“It’s not dye; it was done with a quirk,” Tsuyu said, “It will last until I go back to change it, and the roots will stay the new colour as well.”

“It’s permanent?” Beru said with interest. “I might have to go there myself; I’ve been finding more and more grey hairs over the last couple of months.”

Satsuki had threaded her way into the room now, moving to investigate her sister’s hair with an innocent sense of amazement, but Samidare was staring at me from the doorway, eyes naturally sharp but narrowed even further by the expression of puzzlement on his face.

“I like it with the little greys,” Ganma said, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s dignified.”

Beru flashed him an amused glance, and there was something weighty about the barely-there exchange, a well of quiet but securely attached meaning that seemed to flow beneath the surface of the words. It was a flavour of communication I had never encountered before, and it left me wondering exactly which part of their experience had informed it. Beru made an offer of tea, and I accepted because it gave me a better grounding to the still ambiguous nature of my presence—I was less out of place now, and with that came a more secure foundation to attack from.

“Satsuki, stop staring at him,” Samidare said, “Tsuyu will get jealous.”

I’d attributed the partial smirk on his face at first glance to an expression of deliberate trickery, but it soon became clear that his face was naturally aligned in a way that made it almost always present—although he did seem to have something of a penchant for trying to stir things up, so it seemed well integrated. Tsuyu stared at the younger boy across the table, and I could almost see the sparks.

“Why?” Satsuki mumbled.

“Ignore your brother, sweety,” Beru said, “Actually, it’s about time the two of you go play in your rooms.”

“Lame,” Samidare complained. “I wanted to see Dad eat him.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Satsuki tried, “Right, dad?”

Ganma, who had placed himself directly behind my chair and then resumed his looming, grunted at the words, sounding like he wasn’t entirely sure himself.

“I’m not hungry right now,” Ganma said, hedging his bets. “I can wait until dinner.”

I took another sip of the tea, surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it; whatever they were using was threefold better than the one that Sajin had stocked in my cupboard. At some point, before I left, I would need to ask after the brand.

“Dad,” Tsuyu croaked. “Stop it.”

Ganma let out a deep hum of a laugh, dropping his mostly feigned attempt to intimidate me like he’d never even tried it before clapping his hands together with clear authority.

“Go on, you two heard your mother,” Ganma said, rounding the table. “Rooms, now.”

Satsuki was quick to listen, clambering down off her chair, but hovered near the door to make sure that Samidare was actually coming with her—the older boy grumbled the entire way. There was the sound of two different doors smacking shut with more force than was warranted, and then Ganma finally moved to sit down next to his wife. The man took his own cup in hand, the tiny mug dwarfed by his massive hands, and then he sipped at it for a moment before letting out a blissful sigh.

“I’m loving the time off,” Ganma said before taking another sip. “It’s so much more lively here—we miss you guys, you know?”

“I know,” Tsuyu said, smiling. “It’s only been a couple of weeks, though.”

Beru looked like she wanted to linger on the topic—

“It feels like months,” Beru said, cutting whatever she had wanted to say short. “Tsuyu, do you still have credit? You didn’t call me this morning.”

“I have credit; there was just a lot going on, so I forgot to call,” Tsuyu said, “Hisoka reported a villain who was stealing wallets just outside of the station.”

“Brazen, these villains,” Ganma said, uneasy. “Seems to be a lot of them lately.”

Beru met the gaze of her husband again, but neither of the two of them said anything, and for a moment, the entire room was quiet. It was clear to me that I was intruding on what must have been an infrequent but cherished moment of family time and that my presence in this room was affecting the normal dynamic and cutting off the easy pathways to topics they might have moved straight towards had I not been here. They were attempting to avoid the topic, which meant that it was the absolute best time for me to drag it screaming into the light. Tsuyu seemed to have sensed it as well because she was watching me from the corner of her eye—I smiled.

“I apologise for bringing this up so suddenly, but I have something I would like to discuss with you,” I said into the silence. “During our trip today, our group discussed the recent attack on U.A. High School, and I had the opportunity to hear how each of our parents and guardians reacted to the event.”

Tsuyu straightened up at the drastic shift in conversation, perhaps not expecting me to be so direct in initiating the discussion she had been so concerned about. Beru glanced over at her daughter, eyes flitting across her face as she attempted to figure out why a strange boy wanted to discuss anything with them at all.

“Tsuyu has expressed a concern with me that you may attempt to convince her that removing herself from U.A. High School is the best course of action,” I said, meeting her father’s gaze. “I think that would be a terrible mistake.”

“Direct, aren’t you,” Ganma said, placing his cup down. “Tsuyu, what is this all about?”

“Last night, after you put Satsuki to bed, I heard you talking about removing me from school, and I’ve been worrying about it since then,” Tsuyu said with a nervous rumble in her throat. “I talked to everyone about it today.”

Beru tapped on her long, thin fingers against her bottom lip before she let out a quiet sigh.

“You are right, of course; we were talking about it last night,” Beru said, leaning forward in concern. “After everything that happened, I think you should consider it because it’s clearly too dangerous to keep staying there—two boys died.”

Silence reigned for a moment, and Tsuyu swallowed ostensibly at the words that she had been worried about the entire day—I waited a beat as a test to see if she could muster a response, and when she couldn’t, I spoke up to alleviate the pressure.

“I think that speaks to the strength of U.A. High School and the swift response of our instructors,” I said, unrushed. “The invasion was an attack on an unprecedented scale, and the fact that only two students died is remarkable considering that over one-hundred-and-fifty villains participated.”

“Hisoka,” Ganma said, taken aback. “The school completely failed to protect the students.”

“I disagree,” I said without heat. “There isn’t a single place in the entirety of Japan that could protect against an assault of that magnitude when delivered directly into the building by way of instant teleportation.”

“That’s not the point,” Ganma said, off-balance. “The fact that all of those villains managed to even do this—it’s a travesty.”

“I agree with you, but this was a terror attack that came without warning and which would have taken months to plan,” I said, “The villains have a lot to answer for, which is something I imagine they will be doing now that ninety percent of them have been transported to Tartarus.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Ganma said, blowing a breath out of his nose. “Look, if they can’t guarantee Tsuyu’s safety, then why on earth would you expect us to let her stay?”

Tsuyu had clearly wanted to avoid the legal situation I had painted for her on the train, and so I avoided mentioning that he no longer had any real bargaining power—because it wasn’t letting her stay anymore, it was Beru and Ganma trying to convince her to leave. I watched Tsuyu’s face from the point of perspective that emerged from the back of my hand and noted that she was staring at me now—I turned to meet her gaze and smiled again.

“A normal school can’t guarantee my safety against anything,” Tsuyu said, speaking up. “Let alone something like what happened at U.A.”

Beru ducked her head low until she had caught her daughter’s eye, and then she leaned forward, reaching across the table to take hold of her hand—unconscious weaponisation of genuine felt comfort and support. It was convincing body language, but not the sort of thing that would lance Tsuyu’s desire to become a hero; it would only make her feel bad for going against the woman who loved her.

“Normal schools don’t get attacked because All Might is working there,” Beru said, voice quiet. “It’s not safe, Tsuyu; we don’t want you to get hurt.”

Sand slipped beneath the table, twisted up into the air behind the two of them, and then spelled out the words ‘Pasana Middle School Incident’ in the air, just long enough for Tsuyu to catch sight of it—the sand vanished back into nonexistence, and Tsuyu swallowed.

“It doesn’t matter if All Might is present or not because normal schools do get attacked by villains all the time,” Tsuyu said, “Don’t you remember the attack on Pasana Middle School last year? Normal schools are even less safe than U.A.”

There was a visceral flash of satisfaction that cut through me at hearing how well she had converted those brief floating words into a well-targeted point that bolstered our entire side of the argument—I barely managed to hold back a smile.

“There is a difference between one villain and one hundred and fifty of them,” Ganma said, “It’s dangerous there.”

It sounded convincing enough on its face, but it fell apart when you compared both the size of the attacking groups and the casualties that had resulted from them. I spoke up again, well aware that I was rapidly burning up my welcome here and that soon they would aim to remove me to continue the conversation without me being present—something that they probably should have done right at the start.

“The outcomes of both of those attacks, while scary, actually support Tsuyu’s statement; one villain attacked Pasana Middle School, and the casualties were six children and three teachers dead, with close to a hundred injuries.” I said, “The invasion of U.A. High School was orchestrated by roughly one-hundred-and-fifty villains and the casualties were two students dead, two teachers critically injured, and seven injuries.”

There was a moment when I let them sit with the numbers, but I made sure to speak up before they could rally.

“The reason why U.A. High School is safer is multifaceted, but it is also very clear; we have a strong contingent of heroes protecting us at all times while we are on campus, and we have access to world-class training and equipment,” I said, building upon the point. “Removing Tsuyu from that environment would actually decrease the probability that she would survive if a villain were to target one of the many other schools in Japan—she is undeniably safer here.”

Another word wrote itself into the air behind them—dream—and I watched as her eyes flicked up to read it. Tsuyu took in a shaky and audible breath, but when she spoke up, her voice didn’t waver.

“I know it’s dangerous, but that doesn’t change how I feel at all,” Tsuyu said, “I’m going to become an amazing hero, and I’m going to stop these terrible things from happening to anyone else.”

“Tsuyu,” Beru managed.

“I want to be a hero,” Tsuyu said, “That means I need to stay at U.A.”

Beru barely managed to fight down a sob, her eyes watering as she clutched her daughter’s hand, and Tsuyu turned her hand over, returning the gesture of comfort for the first time. Ganma let out a long breath, steadying himself against the sight of it all before he spoke up.

“I can’t believe I’m losing an argument with a pair of teenagers—I guess I’m starting to see why you brought him along,” Ganma said, “Hisoka, thank you for looking out for my daughter, but I think this discussion is something for us to finish in private.”

I deliberately turned to look at Tsuyu again to make sure that she wouldn’t consider me leaving her in the middle of the discussion as a betrayal of some sort.

“Thank you for coming with me, Hisoka,” Tsuyu said with a watery smile. “I think I can handle it now.”

“Very well, I apologise for my rude behaviour and for overstepping boundaries,” I said, bowing my head for a moment. “Thank you for the tea; it was lovely—I’ll see you at school on Monday, Tsuyu.”

I stepped away from the table and out into the hallway without another word, eyes flickering down to where Samidare and Satsuki were peering out from the bend in the hallway, having shut their bedroom door without actually going inside—it was like clockwork.

“See ya’ at school, he says, like it’s already a done thing,” Ganma complained with a good-natured huff. “Samidare was right—I shoulda eaten him.”

“Darling,” Beru said with a waver in her voice. “Your accent is slipping.”

The front door shut behind me, sealing the family inside their apartment, and I let myself fall apart—there was only one hour left until Hayami arrived at my apartment, and I had no intention of being late.

#

Yaoyorozu Manor, Hamamatsu.

I often found myself wondering what my life would have looked like if I had never met Nanami Kureta in that park. I’d learned so much from our interactions and from our friendship—too much, perhaps, when I acknowledged the fact that every single one of my goals was nothing more than a derivative of her own. It was like I had subsumed her, that I was living what her life could have been if it hadn’t been stolen away from her before she’d had a chance to even pursue it. Nanami had wanted to be like All Might and all of the other famous heroes that had been splashed across our media; she had wanted to be popular, well-liked, and a shining hero that everyone could look up to.

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Nanami wanted to be good, in that strange way that people perceived the truly good to be, and she had wanted to conquer the challenges in her path head-on, to live a life filled with excitement—and most of all, she had wanted to save the world. I was nothing more than a strange boy who didn’t want much of anything, just living out a twisted echo of her life, checking off all of the boxes she had drawn one after another like I had any sort of claim to them. I was walking the path of a hero in falsity, not to save the world as she had or in aspiration of becoming truly good. I attended the most famous hero school in the country under false pretences, and I was actively working towards becoming a licensed hero for a singular and selfish goal. I’d met with, spoken to, and been confided in by All Might, the greatest living hero in Japan, and I hadn’t, even for a single second, felt a fraction, of a sliver, of a shadow of what Nanami Kureta would have felt had she been standing in my place.

My life was nothing but going through the motions of a stolen dream, even as my hopes of finding her alive crumbled beneath the unfailing march of time.

“It’s even larger than their last home,” Hayami said, smiling. “There is even a third floor this time.”

The Yaoyorozu residence was locked behind a wrought-iron fence that ran the length of several blocks, and the structure itself sat within the middle of the perfectly manicured grounds, surrounded on all sides by long stretches of vibrant green. The gate opened up onto a wide driveway that split the lawn down the middle, shooting straight from the fence line up to the concrete foundation that sat beneath the mansion. Several stonework staircases bordered the foundation, leading up to a paved area with a large fountain resting at its centre. As Hayami had said, the building was three stories tall, with the third floor made up mostly of a single large room that sat right in the middle. Tall, rectangular sheets of glass made up the walls of the bottom floor, split by patterned wood cross-sections and edges by thick blackout curtains that had been tied to each side, allowing the interior lights to spill out and illuminate the area—it was an order of magnitude larger than even the Higawara manor, and the scale of the grounds dwarfed it entirely.

“Momo said they would be waiting for us at the front entrance,” I said, “Shall we go meet them, Aunt Hayami?”

Hayami’s excitement only seemed to grow the closer we came to the building, but my attention was split between the two dozen lines of sand threading their way through the grass. They raced ahead of us, unseen and all-seeing, as they established complete surveillance over the grounds—there was another man present, sitting on the porch of a small building that sat at the back right corner of the property, the shed beside it filled with tools and gardening equipment making it clear as to his purpose. There was a hedge garden with stone benches sitting directly behind the mansion, something that could have been called a maze if it hadn’t only been waist height.

There were trees spread out across the grounds, large, beautiful things that had most assuredly been placed there at the whim of some designer and not by nature’s hand. There was a multitude of security systems in place, spread across the exterior walls of every floor, cameras hidden amongst the detailing, in the shadow of architraves or beneath the thin balconies that littered the second floor. The fence and the deadbolts on the inside of every door seemed to be the only real preventative measure present, and there was no sign of electronic locking mechanisms on the exterior—something I expected to change once I’d gained entry. There was no sign of an external basement or storm shelter present, nor any other hidden vault across the grounds that I could detect from the surface. Everything I’d thought up in preparation for this moment flashed through my mind, but almost all of it was now useless, dull, or otherwise unable to be used with the new information at my disposal.

I needed only one thing from Minato Yaoyorozu now, and that was to determine what his connection to the blue-skinned man was. I needed to determine if he was a real person that Minato had actually seen and not just an uncannily familiar description invented during a tense moment. I need to determine if he was working alongside the man or if he was just a person he had seen in passing. If the blue-skinned man was real, if he really had appeared on the exact hour, in the exact port, within the exact city, the exact same day that Nanami, Hiroshi and Kana went missing. Then, once I knew for sure, the shadowy figure that had haunted my dreams for all these years would finally develop a face, and there was a very useful thing about people with faces—they usually had names.

“Hisoka. Miss Higawara.” Momo said, smiling. “Thank you both for coming.”

“Little Momo,” Hayami said, delighted. “You’ve grown so tall, and just look at you—oh my, you’re the spitting image of Ume.”

Momo looked more than a little embarrassed at the nickname making a reappearance again, and I tracked the two adults as they stepped out of the doors behind her, my sand sliding along the pattern etched into the archway above—I’d spent so much time studying them in pictures and video that actually seeing them felt almost mundane.

“Hayami,” Ume said, stepping past her daughter. “It’s been years; where on earth did you vanish to?”

“You haven’t aged a day,” Hayami said.

Ume slipped an arm into the woman’s own and then swept her out to the side, gently guiding her to a brightly lit spot several meters away for what appeared to be an impromptu private discussion. Their voices were pitched low, and the conversation flowed almost without pause, a rapid exchange of information slipping between them.

“Dad,” Momo said, “This is Hisoka Higawara—Hisoka, this is my dad, Minato Yaoyorozu.”

There was so much happening inside of me that I couldn’t even begin to detect what I was feeling—but somehow, it felt so very, very easy to pull a smile onto my face. Minato placed his hand down on Momo’s shoulder, a gentle touch of gratitude for the introduction.

“Hisoka, it’s nice to finally meet you,” Minato said with a smile of his own. “Momo has spoken very highly of you—you were one of the students who took the Recommendation Exam.”

I met his gaze for the first time—the man’s eyes were a muddy brown—and I wondered if this man would be the one to turn me from a hero to something that could never be one again.

“Yes sir, I am,” I said, “Thank you for inviting me into your home; I must apologise, however, as I have an ulterior motive for coming here tonight.”

Minato laughed out loud at the words, and Momo reached up to cover her smile, her eyes briefly flicking over to the two women who could probably still hear us.

“You’re making it sound like you’re infiltrating my home,” Minato said, “But yes, Momo mentioned your request; I’ll make sure to take you aside at some point tonight so that we may attend to it in private.”

“That’s a relief,” I said, “Momo, it’s interesting that you would speak so highly of me to your father when your own talents far outstrip the vast majority of our class.”

“I didn’t say that much, really,” Momo tried, shooting the man a narrowed-eyed glare. “We only spoke about the Battle Training, and the more recent incident at the Unforeseen Simulation Joint.”

“That business with the invasion is very worrying,” Minato said with an appropriate amount of gravity. “Perhaps when we sneak off later, I can ask you some questions about your experience that day.”

“Dad,” Momo warned.

“I’m not going to harass him, Momo,” Minato said, amused. “I’d just like an account of what happened without all of the cushioning that you gave it.”

“Cushioning?” Momo managed. “I didn’t lie about any of it.”

“I am more than willing to have a private conversation about that,” I said, seizing the opportunity. “In fact, I would like to ask you some questions as well—I suppose we’ll make a trade of it.”

“Fantastic,” Minato said, “See, Momo—why have you gone all red?”

Momo crossed her arms before turning her head away from her father; nose pointed upwards and unwilling to look at the man.

“Momo,” I said, “Perhaps you can tell your side of the USJ to my aunt; I think it would help put her mind at ease.”

“I—of course,” Momo said. “I don’t mind.”

Hayami and Ume seemed to be wrapping up their private reunion, and with it, their conversation broadened to include all of us once again—Hayami’s eyes were practically glittering now; the discussion had brought a vibrancy to her that I couldn’t remember seeing before.

“Hello, Hisoka; I’ve heard a lot about you,” Ume said in belayed greeting. “Momo hasn’t stopped talking about you since she got home today.”

“Mom,” Momo said, mortified. “That’s not true.”

Momo was drawn into the group when her mother linked arms with her in passing, and soon, the three women were stepping through the entrance. Minato shot me a look of commiseration at the sudden attempt at abandonment, and I fell in step beside him as we moved to follow. The interior of the mansion was just as beautiful as the outside, with vaunted ceilings that matched the ludicrous nature of the ones in U.A. High School. Pieces of dark furniture were pressed against the walls, cabinets, and dressers in close alignment—a large ornate mirror dominated the wall, heavy, old and made from oak. I caught sight of my reflection in it as we passed, the dark circles that hung under my eyes somehow more visible than they had been only an hour ago—this last week had ruined my sleep entirely, and it was obvious to anybody who could so much as see my face.

“What made you decide on a third floor, or was it already part of the design?” Hayami asked.

“Minato wanted a more permanent office space to keep for himself,” Ume said, a sly smile on her face. “That’s what the third floor is used for.”

“That’s not at all how I remember that conversation going,” Minato said, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Wasn’t it you who wanted more space downstairs to build a bigger library?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve brought even more books,” Hayami said, smothering a smile with her hand. “Your old home had at least twenty bookshelves.”

“Momo turned out to be just as voracious of a reader as I am,” Ume said, throwing her daughter under the bus. “But her tastes are far more eclectic; there’s now an entire shelf of romance novels sitting right next to the environmental sciences.”

“Mom,” Momo accused, “Don’t tell them that.”

Fiction next to science—whatever method they were using to sort the shelves sounded like it could use some work.

“Hisoka is almost as bad, I assure you,” Hayami said, laughing. “The number of times I used to catch him on the computer reading the most bizarre things on the Internet—most of those times were far past his curfew.”

I sent her a glance, slightly wary about the topic; whatever she considered bizarre was probably something that I could do without being shared in a setting like this. Most of my attention, however, was focused on spreading myself throughout the entirety of the mansion. There was a basement, after all, situated directly beneath the main staircase, the gaps beneath the doors just large enough to slip beneath them and continue on—but I quickly found myself nonplussed. More furniture, art pieces, and other exotic things were in abundance, but there was nothing that could be considered incriminating or that I could use as immediate blackmail. The office upstairs was home to a multitude of cabinets, all filled with entirely mundane paperwork, and none of it seemed to hold any immediate connection towards anything criminal. There were four safes located throughout the first floor, but there was no way for me to check the contents of them without tearing the door off, and that would leave an obvious trace.

“Momo,” I asked, “Do you read a lot of romance novels?”

Momo sent her mom another look at the question, the betrayal still far too fresh for her to be forgiving of where it had led her.

“Only because—well, most fantasy fiction tends to be written from the male perspective,” Momo said, tugging at the hem of her skirt. “Romance is one of the genres where it’s the opposite.”

It was strange that her answer to my question was an attempt to justify why she was allowed to like the genre instead of explaining what she actually liked about it. Perhaps she was embarrassed about her reading proclivities, but I held no condemnation for her; people would read what they liked.

“There is probably a disparity there, but I wonder if it is a lack of audience or a lack of authors,” I said, “I know of several predominantly female perspectives within young adult fiction, but that’s more of a target demographic than a genre.”

“I think it’s both,” Momo decided, scratching at her cheek. “Most of that shelf my mom is talking about is actually romance with fantasy backdrops.”

“Do you read a lot of fantasy novels?” I asked.

The question was deliberately phrased in the exact same way as the previous one to see whether or not she would lead with another justification or if it was socially permitted for her to enjoy fantasy for what it was rather than what she thought it said about her. My expectation was that her actual enjoyment lay there and that romance was simply the window by which she could experience it through the lens of a character she better identified with.

“Yes; adventures, saving the world, helping people,” Momo said, voice bright. “Fantasy has so many interesting situations that the characters get to interact with—I always get so caught up in it.”

Having adventures, helping people and saving the world; at that moment, she sounded so very much like Nanami that my chest began to ache—was this the origin of her desire to become a hero as well? Minato reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, the gesture a friendly one.

“Excuse me,” Minato said, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’m going to borrow Hisoka here for a little while; I hope you don’t mind.”

Momo was looking suddenly hesitant again, but once again, I found a smile far closer to the surface than I would have expected, given the situation, and the sight of it seemed to be enough to reassure her that I would be fine.

“Hisoka?” Hayami questioned.

“I’ve been conspiring against you again,” I said, “But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it is about yet—it’s a secret.”

“Have you?” Hayami laughed. “Oh, Hisoka.”

I wonder what she would have thought had she known why I had really brought her here tonight; the warmth, excitement and affection that she had been radiating would have found itself in conflict with the cold reality that I wasn’t doing this for her. All of this was just a conveniently affected purpose to sate my rancid selfishness and fill the aching pit in my chest—Hayami Higawara deserved better than to be saddled with a monster like me.

“Let them go; I’m sure they won’t be long at all,” Ume said, guiding her away once again. “Come along, Little Momo—you can go back to mooning over him when he returns.”

“Mom,” Momo squeaked.

“I am sorry to pull you away like this,” Minato said, with what sounded like genuine sentiment. “It’s rude, I know, but I’m sure you can understand my worry.”

I closed my eyes as I followed him up the staircase; there was so much sand around us, crawling through the details carved into the walls, the gaps in the floorboards, and behind the paintings that hung above the stairs. It was a pervasive observation from a thousand different perspectives, taking in every exacting detail of the man’s form, and such was my focus in that razor-sharp sliver of time that I was certain I could have walked the man's shadow blindfolded and deafened.

“Momo is my only child, and the invasion was an unmistakable show of force from the criminal elements of our society,” Minato said, “I’ve spoken to both Nezu and Vlad—those are both members of the faculty at your school if you haven’t met them yet—but neither were willing or able to give me the full story, there is a deliberate information blackout from all official sources.”

We reached the third-floor platform, and Minato opened the office door with a moment’s attention. I entered behind him, watching myself from every shadow in the room—the smile I wore looked as out of place on my face as it always had.

“Please take a seat,” Minato said, gesturing to one of the many chairs lining the wall. “I won’t keep you for long, I promise.”

I watched as he slipped down into one of the seats without waiting for me to choose one, a clear attempt to reduce whatever level of intimidation he probably thought was present in dragging me up into his domineering office and away from my guardian. It was something I would have expected a kind man to do, but the reassurance the man was attempting to provide was entirely lost on me.

“I spoke of a trade earlier, but that was more serious than you may have first believed; I will answer all of your questions truthfully and in as much detail as I can provide,” I said, watching him from my standing position. “In exchange, I’d like you to answer my own questions truthfully, without asking why I require the information, and to avoid taking any actions with the information you gain from answering.”

Despite the fact that I hadn’t changed my tone of voice in the slightest, Minato noticed the change in the atmosphere immediately—although I would have assumed anyone to have grown suspicious after having such a structured request delivered during what should have been a very casual conversation.

“You sound far more serious than I had expected, and I suppose I cannot ask you why that is without violating the rule,” Minato said, eyes searching my face. “I hope you are very careful about what you ask me because there are many things I will not say.”

I studied the man in return, dozens of perspectives raking over the man’s face in search of some undercurrent of ruthlessness.

“Very well,” Minato said, “I will answer whatever you ask me—within reason, of course.”

A caveat that didn’t matter because it was already clear to me that this man’s mind had latched onto something outside of the category I was searching within. He wasn’t thinking about hiding a crime from me; he was thinking about protecting the secrets of the people he’d had political dealings with, and in this, I doubted there was much overlap.

“Thank you,” I said. “Please, ask your questions.”

Minato took a moment to compose himself, some of his uncertainty seemingly vanishing as I made it obvious that I intended to fulfil my side of the bargain first.

“Despite what I said earlier, I do believe Momo was pretty forthright about what happened,” Minato said before shaking his head. “Two students dead, two teachers critically injured, and a bunch of students needing a visit to the hospital—I just want to know the true scope of it.”

“That is accurate; two boys from our class, Koji Koda and Rikido Sato, were killed by one of the smaller strike teams that had been waiting for us to arrive,” I said, “Did Momo explain the strategy employed by the villains?”

“There was a main force and several smaller ones,” Minato said, eyes sharp. “Could you go over that for me?”

It was obvious that he would be checking for disparities between the two versions, but Momo didn’t seem to be the type to lie to her parents for no reason, so whatever differences did exist between our retellings would only be borne from divergent perspectives.

“Reconstructing the events makes it obvious that the strike teams—groups of five to fifteen villains each—were already inside the USJ before we arrived at the building,” I said, “Each group was located in a different part of the building, one group per biome.”

“They were there before the main force,” Minato asked, leaning forward. “How do you know that?”

“I had a visual on the main force as it was arriving, and at no point did the villain transport any part of the main attacking force away, which means they were already in place before I had a line of sight,” I said, “The portal villain opened a gateway directly into the main area of the USJ, and my personal estimate was of roughly one-hundred-and-forty villains coming through.”

“The main force was there to pull the attention of the heroes,” Minato guessed, holding his hands together in front of his face. “The strike teams were there to kill the students.”

“Correct, the mass of villains was there to wear out All Might in preparation for their counter to fight him on a more level playing field, but since he wasn’t present, they instead decided to move straight onto killing everyone in the building.” I said, “Eraserhead gave us instructions to leave the building with Thirteen as our escort while he stayed behind to fight the invasion force by himself, but we were ambushed by the portal villain before we could make it to the exit.”

Minato was silent, and so I continued to speak.

“Katsuki Bakugo and Eijiro Kirishima attempted to take the portal villain down when he arrived, blocking Thirteen’s own attempt in the process, and then the villain decided to scatter everyone to where the strike teams were already deployed,” I said, “I attempted to move everyone out of the portal before it could close, but I only managed to push five of them out of the way—I tried to catch everyone, but I lost connection when the portal closed.”

“I’ve heard about that from Momo,” Minato said, “She said you gave her enough time to catch her balance.”

I just nodded at the words before continuing on, unwilling to linger on the point.

“It’s clear that the mastermind behind all of this did an advanced assessment of our individual quirks because the locations each of them were dropped put them in environments that made them far less effective,” I said, “One team, in particular, had all three of their quirks outright nullified by the biome they landed within.”

“The two boys that died?” Minato asked.

While all three of them would have had their quirks countered by the desert biome—Toru Hagakure wouldn’t have been able to make use of her invisibility when it was obvious where she was standing, Rikido Sato wouldn’t have been able to make good use of his strength without a stable foundation to push against, and there were no animals anywhere near the desert zone for Koji Koda to call upon—they weren’t the ones I had been talking about.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That was my fault.”

“What do you mean?” Minato asked.

“There was a moment when the portal villain first scattered everyone, where I could have moved to the desert zone to assist them, but instead, I remained at the entrance with Thirteen,” I said, “She gave me instructions to leave the building, and then alert the rest of the faculty about the invasion. I did what I was told, but by the time I returned to help—Koji and Rikido were already dead.”

There was a small silence in the wake of my words, and Minato reached up to touch his chin in thought.

“That’s a difficult burden you are taking upon yourself,” Minato said, voice quiet. “I don’t think the fault there is yours to own; it belongs to the villains that chose to attack a school full of children.”

“Even so, I still feel responsible,” I said, “Do you have any further questions, Minato?”

The man started a bit at the sound of his name, or perhaps just my attempt to relentlessly move the conversation forward, but he seemed to shake himself free of it.

“Did you see who was leading this attack?” Minato asked.

“There were initially two candidates that came to mind; the first was a white-haired man whose costume was covered in a series of mannequin-like hands,” I said, “The other was the unresponsive creature that the police arrested after All Might removed him from the area during their battle—they were calling him Nomu.”

“I saw it on the news; its brain was exposed,” Minato said, “You don’t think that the portal user was the leader?”

“The way he spoke and the words he chose to use indicated that he was assisting someone else, not leading the invasion,” I said, “From what I’ve heard, the white-haired man was using verbal commands to direct the Nomu, and he remained detached from both the strike forces and the main invasion force—he was most likely the leader.”

“Tell me,” Minato said, “How safe would you say U.A. High School is right now?”

“That depends on the threat, because those villains came primarily to kill All Might.” I said, “The vast majority of the invasion force is now in Tartarus, so they do not possess the numbers to recreate an attack on that scale—but they still have the portal villain.”

“It’s a grim situation,” Minato murmured.

“It’s worth noting that the exact same attack could occur anywhere else: a stadium full of people, an office building, a shopping centre or a mall,” I said, providing Momo with the same defence I had given Tsuyu. “All of those would work just as well as a school full of children to lure All Might out.”

“The implication behind your words is that U.A. High School is safer than all of those places,” Minato said, seeing through the facade. “Are you going to remain there?”

“Yes,” I said.

“All Might claims to have defeated the main threat, and I’m assuming that was this Nomu,” Minato said, “Did you witness any of that?”

“I was not present for the entire battle, but I did see some of it after I returned to the building; Nomu was capable of fighting All Might head-on for several minutes, and they destroyed a large section of the building.” I said, “From what I’ve seen and from what my classmates have reported, the creature was confirmed to possess super strength, super speed, impact nullification, and high-speed regeneration.”

“The exact spread of abilities you would need to fight someone like All Might and actually stand a chance,” Minato murmured. “How is it possible for him to have so many unrelated quirks?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” I said, “But considering its appearance and its inability to make decisions on its own, it may be some kind of biological automaton.”

Minato sat back in his chair for a moment, considering everything he’d learned, and I watched him, waiting to see if he’d exhausted his curiosity or if there was still more he desired to know about the events that had happened at U.A. High School.

“That was far more than I already knew, but it does match up perfectly with what Momo told me,” Minato said, “I suppose I’ll have to apologise for that comment about cushioning.”

Minato lifted his head to meet my gaze, and then, for a moment, he just watched me. All of my research suggested that this was—at least outwardly—a man who did exactly what he said he would do. He never lied in public or made promises that he couldn’t keep. This meant that he would only ever agree to a deal that he intended on adhering to, and now that I’d fulfilled my side of it—

“Thank you for answering my questions, Hisoka,” Minato said, “I believe you had some questions of your own.”

I took a deliberate and unhurried step away from the bench, turned on my heel until he was facing my back, and then reached for my quirk. Minato drew in a sharp breath as my sand surged upwards from where I had just been standing, twisting in on itself before compacting in an instant—

“A family of three were abducted on the thirteenth of March, in the year twenty-one-forty-one; you were interviewed about this case on several occasions regarding the presence of your yacht in the harbour during the time of the abduction,” I said, enunciating each word clearly. “In one of those interviews, you mentioned seeing a man at the docks in Shimoda, drinking coffee at a café; he was well-dressed, with blue skin and a pair of serrated fins emerging from his elbows—this is that man.”

I could see the man’s face in my mind, sitting at a table with a group of other men and women on the night of Nanami’s tenth birthday. The statue I had built in the middle of Minato Yaoyorozu’s office was as perfect of a likeness as I could manage, and for a single, breathless moment, the thread of tension was pulled tight across the room—

“That’s the man I saw,” Minato said without even having to think about it. “I remember mentioning him to one of the detectives—it looks exactly the same as he did that day, the same suit and all.”

I didn’t respond, unsure of how to deal with the confusing mess spiralling through me—and when I glanced down, I found that my hands were shaking.

“There was a young woman talking to him, the waitress of the café if I were to guess—listen, I know I said I wouldn’t ask any questions,” Minato said, sounding bothered by it all. “But this man must be important for you to be asking about him all these years later.”

It was a deduction that anyone could have made, but it wasn’t something I had any interest in answering, and if I had, it would only cause problems for me later. The truth was, right now, he was the most important man in the world.

“Thank you for your assistance, Minato.” I said, “That was all I needed to know.”

“I see,” Minato murmured, “Then perhaps we should make good on our other task and procure these photos before the three of them come up here looking for us.”

I vanished the statue and all of the sand I had spread throughout the house, allowing it all to dissipate at once, before turning back to face him.

“Yes,” I said, smiling now. “If Hayami finds out before it’s ready, then it will ruin the surprise.”

I followed the man out of his office, and it took no more than a handful of minutes to find and take the pictures of the sculptures that Hayami had carved for them all that time ago. We returned to the ground floor to find that the three of them were already seated at the dining table, and by the time we joined them, I had almost managed to force my hands into a tightly controlled state of stillness.

“Are you okay?” Momo asked in concern. “I hope he didn’t say anything weird.”

Minato looked amused at the lack of confidence his daughter had in him, but the man made no mention of our discussion, nor did he attempt to defend himself.

“Not at all; he just wanted to make sure you were safe,” I said in answer. “Momo, when Aunt Hayami said that you had a big library, I think I might have underestimated what that meant.”

For a moment, I pretended to look around their dining room as if in comparison to the other room in question—as if I hadn’t already investigated every inch of the building—and while the topic shift was about as far from subtle as could be found, Momo didn’t seem to mind too much.

“We brought all of the books from our original collection, so most of what’s here now came from the old one,” Momo said, “Our family has been collecting them for generations now.”

“It’s our version of the Great Library of Alexandria,” Minato said, speaking up. “Except with far more romance novels.”

Momo seemed to pout at the continued prodding from her parents.

“I thought I told you,” Ume said, smiling. “It’s called the Great Library of Yaoyorozu.”

Minato hid a smile by taking a sip of his drink, and I found myself momentarily distracted by the reappearance of that same weighty undercurrent I had noted earlier in Tsuyu’s apartment.

“Well, I’m just flattered to have my work displayed in such a grandiose library,” Hayami said with a smile. “Thank you again for having us; this really has been lovely.”

“I haven’t had this much fun in years,” Ume said, “I would love it if you would come to see me more often, Hayami.”

Hayami looked more than pleased with the idea of returning here in the future, and when she turned to look at me, I tried hard to give her my best smile.

“That’s lovely, and I will make sure that I do,” Hayami said, delighted. “I have to ask—what have you boys been up to?”

“We talked about school, for the most part,” I said, speaking up. “Did you know that your father knows Principal Nezu?”

“Really?” Momo said, glancing over at her dad. “I didn’t know that.”

Minato hummed at the words, and I was left to wonder exactly how he felt to have that tiny little fragment of information plucked out of our conversation and then be used to represent the entirety of it.

“Hisoka is a very interesting young man, and I must say that I find myself looking forward to speaking with him more in the future,” Minato said, catching my eye for a moment. “I hope that you will consider that our home is always open to you, and you are welcome here at any time.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Hayami seemed to shift in her seat, hands linked together as she was overcome by some unseen surge of emotion, and I ducked my head at the man’s extension of unwarranted kindness—I really was the worst.

#

Hisoka’s Apartment, Musutafu.

I stepped over the threshold and into my apartment, the click of the lock latching shut like a gunshot in the silence of the night. For a moment, I stood there in the dark, my focus turning inward as I attempted to take stock of everything that I was feeling. There was a muted sense of horror, I knew, for the things I had almost done, but it was the fact that it was so distant that disturbed me the most—

—at some point during the dinner, I found myself distracted by the array of odd people sitting at a table directly behind Hiroshi. The only thing they really shared in common was the expensive-looking business suits they were wearing, each one a different, dark shade of colour. Two women and three men, all shapes and sizes, represented amongst them—

—there were a dozen different flavours of fear for myself, and the idea any of them would have discovered what I had been planning and for just how justified I had felt in committing myself to a path that had ended up leading to nowhere at all. I’d had a theory that Minato Yaoyorozu was involved, and that had been enough to start reaching for violence, blackmail and torture—it didn’t matter that I hadn’t actually done any of it because if I hadn’t seen that one little fragment of a conversation, then I would have torn him apart in search of an answer that didn’t even exist—

—the first person stood out purely because of his ridiculously bushy moustache and his noticeably short stature. This man’s facial hair was entirely wild, and it stuck out to both sides, covering most of the bottom of his face while ensuring that the expression of his mouth was truly unreadable. Despite sitting indoors at night time and with relatively low light in the room, he was wearing a thick pair of sunglasses over his eyes—

—I would have ruined the life of an innocent man and, in turn, left a shattered mourning family behind—one of my own classmates. I had been willing to place myself on the same level as the villains that had murdered both Koji and Rikido. My hands were shaking again now, and though I tried to stop them, this time I couldn’t manage it. The fingers of my hand crumbled to the floor, the sand pooling there and beginning to spread outwards into my apartment—

—the second person I could see was a woman with bright pink hair that reached all the way down below the table and far out of sight. Her mouth had clearly been affected by her quirk because it was pulled into a permanent, face-stretching grin with a series of sharp, perfectly interlocking teeth—

—I fell back against the door and slid to the ground, my face buried in my still-crumbling arms as the sand swelled up and over my head. All this time, I’d been grasping at every little thing I could to find a suspect, a culprit, or just someone to blame. I’d retread the same pathways that detectives far smarter than I would ever be had already walked, and I’d thought that if I could only be more thorough, more single-minded, or if I only spent more time and broke things down into smaller parts, that eventually, I would find the thread that led back to something everyone else had missed—

—the third was a mammoth of a man with dark skin and angular sunglasses perched on his nose, an overlapping series of tattoos visible on his hands, fingers, neck and face. I’d never seen anyone quite as large before, and I was certain that if he’d stood side by side with All Might, he would have dwarfed even him—

—years of sleepless nights and blurry eyes spent pouring over the same materials, searching for the key that would unlock everything—but there had never been one, had there? It wasn’t that the police, the private investigators, and the heroes hadn’t been exhaustive or that they hadn’t tried their best to find out what had happened; it was that the ones who had taken them hadn’t left any evidence behind—

—the fourth was a teenager, short, with tanned skin and a pixie cut coloured in dual tones of gold and black, the split occurring straight down the middle. Unlike the others, the sleeves of her suit had been scrunched up to her elbows, and it was clear that despite being the second smallest person at the table, her arms were lined with definition—

—the only thing that had ever connected any of them to Nanami Kureta was a moment of prolonged eye contact in a restaurant, and how could any of them have known? I had spent years blaming a group of people for not trying hard enough when I had been the only person with the information to solve it. I felt like the greatest fool in the world—

—the fifth was a tall man with exceptionally sharp eyes. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he sat, slumped back in his seat with a bland smile on his face. The most startling thing about him was that his skin was actually blue. It was the first time I had seen something like that before, and as I continued to study him from the point of view emerging from my neck, I noticed that he had a pair of serrated fins striking out of his elbows, angled behind him and passing through a custom hole that had been stitched into the suit—

—they had been sitting at a restaurant in Musutafu on the night of Nanami’s birthday, watching us for hours on end, unable to stop themselves. They’d heard everything we had said about her quirk and her appointment. It had never occurred to any one of us that we should have been wary—because what was the danger in speaking about the details of a single quirk in a society that was dominated by them? But the danger had been right there, staring me in the face on what might have been the happiest day that Nanami had ever had the chance to see. That exact same man had been present at a dock in Shimoda around the same exact time as when Hiroshi and Kana had been killed. Minato Yaoyorozu had seen him there, sitting at a cafe drinking coffee, and nobody had so much as blinked at the presence of a well-dressed killer—

—In an odd display of timing, the blue-skinned man glanced over, catching my gaze. The two of us stared at each other for a very long time, and neither of us looked away—

—I had looked the man in the eyes, and all the while, he’d been planning how he was going to tear a family apart. Air and noise and pain tore their way out of my throat, and the sand swallowed it all, just like it did everything else. The pressure increased, sand pressing inwards against my still crumbling body until it grew too much to withstand—my body shattered into a million tiny grains. My mind stretched outwards, fragmenting amongst it all, desperate to escape the overwhelming nature of what I was feeling. It split again and again, far beyond anything I had tried since the very first time my quirk had unlocked, and soon I became lost; my consciousness spread too thin until, finally—I couldn’t feel anything at all.

I’m not sure how long I stayed like that; my mind turned inward until the only thing I could experience was the dark, but when I finally found the will to begin reassembling myself, the early morning light was already starting to shine through the window into a room of glittering sand. I came back slowly, just as I had that very first time, dragging myself together piece by painstaking piece until I rose up into a loose but familiar form. The sand drained inwards, returning to that strange place inside of me where it always hid itself away, and the details carved themselves into my existence until Hisoka Higawara stood in the middle of the room once again. The sunrise overtook the window completely, and as I watched it, I made a promise to myself.

I would find every single person who had sat at that table, I would find out what they had done to Nanami—and then I would wipe them from the face of the planet.