Work Text:
Rei fingered a strand of her faded pink hair as she watched a young couple walking down the street. They held each of their young daughter’s hands, swinging her back and forth between them. The little girl squealed with delight, kicking her legs wildly every time she was lifted. They were a cute couple with an equally cute child, all smiles, so full of life and happiness.
It was strange, considering the horrors that had been inflicted upon Deika City not too long ago, but she supposed people were resilient if nothing else, something she’d learned firsthand.
Plus, the members of the organization formerly known as the Meta Liberation Army were so...delusional.
For the first time, as she watched the happy family, Rei understood what Shigaraki had meant when he’d declared that he wanted to destroy everything – that he hated everything. At the time, she had been quietly horrified but knew better than to speak up. The others already thought her soft and too weak – even her own son – so she didn’t want to give them any more ideas. But the thought that Shigaraki wanted to shatter everything in the world…
Her children were still in this world. Logically speaking, she knew Shouto was a direct enemy to Shigaraki and the League’s plans – to hers and Touya’s plans – but she wanted him to live. She wanted him to be happy. Could she accomplish both goals? Not if Shigaraki had anything to do with it. He’d told Toga that he would spare whatever made them happy – and oddly enough, she believed it or at least that he believed he could – but she didn’t know. The whole thing terrified her.
And yet, as she watched that pretty mother and handsome father play with their adorable child like it was just a normal day in the neighborhood, Rei hated everything .
It was a beautiful day, sunny and bright, with only a slight chill in the air, the kind of day she would normally love. She was drinking a cup of tea on the patio of a small cafe that had managed to be spared by Shigaraki’s destructive onslaught and her son’s fight with Geten. Out here on the outskirts of Deika, she could almost forget that half the city was destroyed and pretend like she was living a normal life.
Almost.
Pulling her eyes away from the family, she eyed the end of her hair, frowning at the discoloration. She hadn’t dyed it in a while, but Touya had convinced her to do it again shortly after they met Ujiko. It wasn’t difficult, considering how unsettled she’d been upon seeing the quirk specialist that had broken the news about Touya’s quirk to them when he was six. Years might’ve passed, but that memory had been burned into her mind. Enji had never felt so cold as he had in that moment.
She would’ve preferred a boring color, but Toga had swiped “the most beautiful pink” instead. Being on the run and slumming it again, she couldn’t afford to be picky, so she’d dyed her hair without complaint. She hadn’t grabbed the quirk-enhanced dye that Touya used, so it had faded quite a bit since then. The only reason the color had managed to last this long was because she couldn’t wash her hair regularly. Now that showers were a normal thing again, the color was being washed away to reveal her natural white.
No matter what she did, she could never run away from who she was.
“Such a sad face for a pretty woman.”
Rei startled, pulling on her own hair, and turned to face her visitor. “Oh, Sako, I thought the meetings were supposed to last all morning.” She hesitated, watching as he took off his hat. “Or should I call you Mr. Compress still?”
“No, Sako is fine.” He sat down at the table across from her and flashed her one of his debonair smiles. “I’d like to think we’re beyond such formalities.”
A smile of her own crossed Rei’s face, much more demure. She bowed her head, but there was no hiding from him. He saw it anyways and chuckled. There was no getting anything past him, not anymore. They’d spent too much time together after the loss of his arm and subsequent recovery with his prosthetic. Sidelined and considered broken, they’d only had each other to rely on until they made their move against Overhaul.
They hadn’t been much help during the fight here in Deika, much to her consternation, but Sako was the one leading a group while she, yet again, had pushed to the side.
There wasn’t much room in an incredible and large villain organization for a hurt woman past her prime.
“You look sad,” Sako noted, peering at her curiously.
“Do I?” Rei looked out to the street again. The family was gone from sight, but there were other people out and about. As they rebuilt the city, life moved on. People with their children, their loved ones – at least those that had survived the onslaught. Even then, no one seemed devastated over the losses. They’d been so brainwashed into believing that this cause was worth dying for. Those that had died were honored.
( “You should be honored that I chose you–” )
Rei hummed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be.”
“You had that look about you,” Sako told her.
Tilting her head curiously, Rei asked, “What look?”
Sako planted his elbow on the table and propped his chin in his hand. “Like you want something that you can’t have – and you don’t like that you want it.”
Oh. Well. That was a terrible look to have.
Rei wrinkled her nose in displeasure and looked away from him. The awful thing was that he wasn’t wrong. She had seen that happy family and wanted it so terribly; she wanted to live in that delusional world where everything was perfect and she had a loving, happy family. Back before Touya’s training got really bad, when Fuyumi was clinging to her skirts and Natsuo was a baby, and she could make herself believe that, yes, they were a family, they loved each other, they were happy.
She’d been deluding herself just like these MLA-turned-PLF civilian members, except she’d only had herself to blame. Touya must have resented her for so long for turning a blind eye to his growing injuries in order to keep living under the lie that things were good. She was trying to do right by him now, but it was too little too late. She would never be that happy mother with her sweet baby boy again.
“Do you ever think about what you’ve lost?” Rei asked.
Sako flexed the fingers of his prosthetic hand. “Quite often.”
Rolling her eyes at the playful twist of his lips, Rei said, “It’s hard not to see these people going about their regular lives and think of what we don’t have. Maybe we can pretend to live a boring, normal life in Deika since they’re all delusional members of a cult–”
“Don’t let Yotsubashi hear you say that,” Sako snorted.
“–but we’ll never actually have what they have,” Rei continued, choosing to ignore his word of warning. She could not care less what that man that. He had all of Enji’s arrogance and none of the bluster to back it up. Touya had cackled when she bitterly mocked Yotsubashi for speaking to her like she was some delicate doll. “They’re still playing family, going to work, helping their children with their homework. Half their city is destroyed and countless are dead, and they’re smiling and laughing.”
“I think you’ve spent too much time cooped up with Shigaraki,” Sako mused thoughtfully.
Rei sighed. “Perhaps I have. I don’t remember being this bitter before.”
“Well, before you and Dabi joined the League, you could ignore what you were missing,” Sako pointed out. He pulled his elbow off the table and leaned back in his chair. “You could pretend too. That little apartment, the odd jobs you did to make rent and put food on the table, eating dinner and watching movies with your son – you carved out a normal life in between your vendetta against heroes, just as these people do.”
“But they’re just so…” Rei waved a hand about as if she could capture the word out of thin air.
It turned out she didn’t have to because Sako found it for her.
“Whole,” he finished for her. She turned back to look him in the eyes. “They’re not broken. They’ve never been beaten down, at least not until we joined the fray.” And that was on their leaders for threatening the League. Despite the wreckage they’d caused, almost all of the members had welcomed them with uproarious delight. “They don’t have a reason to hate heroes like we do. They don’t know what it’s like to be betrayed.”
“No, they don’t,” Rei murmured.
“And you want that,” Sako said. “You want that ignorance. It must be nice, don’t you think? To want to change the world simply because you think it’s the right thing to do and not because you know what’s wrong?”
Rei shook her head. “That makes me sound petty, doesn’t it?”
“On the contrary, I like a woman with a little bite to her,” Sako teased.
“Don’t let Dabi hear you say that,” Rei shot back, a bit more playful than she should have.
But Sako only laughed. “I’m positive Giran has said worse to you.”
He had, which was why Rei allowed a giggle to escape, the mood growing lighter. They didn’t live a normal life by any means, but it was the one she had chosen, unlike her marriage to Enji. That much she could say. She’d chosen to be here, to be with Touya, to side with the villains. Ah, but they didn’t go by that term anymore. They were liberators, destined to free the world of heroes.
Ignorance might have been bliss, but she was tired of turning a blind eye. She’d done it for too long, but no more, and that was enough for now.