Chapter Text
He should’ve never become a lawyer.
There wasn’t really a sole reason for his choice of profession; a lot of it was the pressure and conditioning he’d faced from his father since he was a child, just beginning his journey on that preordained path. He supposes he also kind of has an innate knack for... lawyering, in a way. Being as rebellious as he was against his father during adolescence, coming up with reasons to go against him at any turn, it fit him. Sometimes.
But the cases he hates, absolutely hates, are the ones where Shoto is the only one who knows his client is guilty from the moment they step into Any Endeavor Law and Co. — The clients that cover up their tracks so well and hide behind their wealth, acting as if they’d done nothing wrong.
It’s different from the cases where his client might’ve gotten caught up in the wrong crowd, or the ones who were forced into the role of criminal by society. He could understand them, maybe even feel a little bad. For some of them, depending on the crime and circumstances, lessening their would’ve-been-sentence felt morally good.
But then there are times like the present.
Kai Chisaki is a bad person. As a multimillionaire CEO, who obtained that position as a result of the mysterious death of the only surviving founder of the Shie Hassaikai corporation, he‘s suspected of having some part in the death.
However, Shoto can handle defending a corrupt business man that bends rules to his whim. He doesn’t know if the previous CEO was just as corrupt. Maybe with wishful thinking he could believe they were just as bad as Chisaki, and one dead meant one less person to ruin lives.
But it isn’t only that.
With no living relatives, Chisaki had been granted provisional custody of the late CEO’s granddaughter, Eri, else she be put into a foster home. He brought her along like a warning — a way to tell Shoto to take note of this girl with fear in her eyes and bandages around her arms. This young child was being pulled taut by an invisible leash, siphoning the life out of her with his very presence. His transience for the display is accompanied by a chill running up his spine.
Shoto Todoroki knew from the second Chisaki brought her into his office that she was a bargaining chip, and nothing more.
And now, Shoto has to defend the man, because if he doesn’t, Chisaki’s leer says that the next mysterious death will be hers. Sure, people would suspect him, but Shoto’s looked through the case files, and the prosecution doesn’t have enough evidence to charge him for much. He’s clearly hidden his involvement well enough. He could do it again, Shoto has no doubt.
It brings to light the imbalance of justice, where two can commit the same crime and one can get away with it because of their money and power. It’s not right, but it’s how the world works. Shoto knows this, because his father does the same exact thing.
In a world where innocence can be bought, is anyone not guilty?
So now he’s scouring over all the information about this case as Chisaki walks out of the door, already having been released on bail until the trial. His head hurts, and all the words of business transactions and autopsy reports blur together under tired eyes. He’s got an appointment with his optometrist in a few hours; the vision in his left eye has been getting progressively worse. Even with the contact he wears, the eventide makes it harder to see road signs from a certain distance.
Maybe he’ll stop and surprise his mother before his appointment. He usually only visits her on Saturdays, and she promises him she’s always glad to see him. He really does need a distraction, and talking to her often makes him feel remotely better.
So he tucks away the manila folder into one of the boxes with the rest of the case information, locks up the building, and heads towards the hospital. There’s a little flower shop on the way that he always stops at on Saturdays, for his mother, and he can do that today too. He hopes his visit won’t be too short notice for her, though. He calls, just in case, and tells the nurses to leave her a message. He doesn’t want to trouble her.
The plant nursery he goes to is slightly tucked away, a brick building with a very plain sign that says Urban Agriculture on it. The outside of the building is unremarkable, but it does have very nice flowers inside.
He likes that the employees know what he’s looking for whenever he comes, so he doesn’t have to spend more time there than necessary. He can’t remember any of them off the top of his head, but they’re polite and forthcoming all the same.
“Hello?” He calls out once he’s inside. It’s weirdly quiet, but he’s also used to coming on Saturdays. It makes sense why it’s not as busy on a Wednesday.
Nobody answers him, though. No cheerful ‘hello! Another bouquet today?’ from anyone, no quiet chatter coming from the archway that says STOCK ROOM in blocky letters. He walks around, wondering if they’re closed for some reason, but reminds himself that the door wasn’t locked. He wanders into the area where they keep the bigger plants, like trees starting to grow, and those vines that climb up trellises. He hadn’t really realized how big the building is, never having gone far past the entrance.
The room with the trees connects to another entirely with glass walls, green benches and tables with small vegetable plants under bright lights, it almost feels like a maze, and Todoroki should probably find his way out, but now he’s curious where it leads to. How far does it extend?
He takes a right into a room that kind of looks akin to a butterfly garden without the butterflies. The floor is grass except for the stepping stones that navigate through the foliage. Vines hang from the ceiling here too. He hears falling water, possibly a fountain of some kind— and... is it getting colder in here?
“Hello?” He tries again. Surely someone wouldn’t leave the entire shop unattended? The distant noise of falling water stops. It’s eerily quiet, and Shoto’s not sure that he’s awake anymore. Maybe he never woke up today. He could still be sleeping.
There’s a rustle of leaves to his left, and he snaps his head towards it, defenses raising. He shouldn’t be on such high alert, but he’s probably still got some residual adrenaline from his encounter with Chisaki. It feels colder, arm hairs defying gravity, but Todoroki can’t be sure that it’s not just some side paranoia from his lingering unease.
He follows the rustling and finds the fountain at a dead end. He’s got a strange feeling, and it takes him a second to realize that the fountain is frozen. The ice is in an unnatural state, looking like it crystallized mid-spray, connected from the top of the fountain all the way to the pool of ice at the base. What?
He’s leaning over the statue, examining this dream-like phenomenon when some humming comes from behind him, and he once again snaps his head around. He must be really on edge, because the air feels really thin and he can’t seem to inhale enough of it.
This time, there’s not nothing there though. He recognizes this person as one of the workers, the blondish one, with many cups of coffee separated between two coffee holders and headphones covering his ears. “Doo doo-doo doo- Oh Midori-! ah shit!”
Todoroki’s presence must’ve startled him, because he spills the coffee all over himself. He was walking with his eyes closed while holding eight cups of coffee, so that tracks. Still, Todoroki can’t help but wince in sympathy. Hopefully they weren’t too hot. And, speaking of hot, Todoroki is cold. Very, very co-
“Shit!”
Todoroki doesn’t remember going to sleep, or even getting home, but he must’ve, because now he’s waking up from a really weird, frankly unexplainable, dream.
He feels way too cold to be comfortable, so he should probably definitely change clothes. Maybe he has a fever. He opens his eyes, expecting to see his white ceiling, but he’s not in his bed. The ceiling is metal here, with hanging vent shafts spanning from the left side of his vision to the right.
“He’s returned from the darkness” an unfamiliar voice intones. He jolts. Everything’s echoing like there’s water in his ears.
“Oh! Todoroki! Are you feeling okay?” A slightly more familiar voice asks. That’s right, they’re talking to him. He’s Todoroki. He should answer but he can’t think of the words to say right now. He’s really tired... did he pull all-nighter again? No... he met with Chisaki and then—
Oh. There are hands on his neck. Not alarmingly, but more of a slight press of fingers below his jaw. It isn’t a bad feeling. Then they’re on his face, right above his eyes, a warm palm on his forehead.
The voice is much closer now, “His pulse is a little bit slow, but he seems to be warmer.”
“So it seems the estranged ether hasn’t bled him of all of his life source just yet...”
“Yet?! It won’t escape again! Kaminari is already working on fixing the device and Iida has it contained!”
“Perhaps. It was fortunate Kaminari returned when he did.”
A new voice enters the conversation, “If Kaminari hadn’t left the door unlocked, this man wouldn’t be here in the first place!”
“No, it’s my fault. I should’ve tested the device first.”
He takes this moment to finally open his eyes. The left one is feeling especially dry. He needs to take his contact out as soon as he can. The thought gives him a sense that he’s forgetting about something, but it’s out of his reach. He blinks a few times and sees dark green hovering over him with a face and eyes. A little light is shone into his each of his eyes consecutively, and he squints in response.
“He’s awake?!" the newest voice shrieks.
“Hardly...”
“I need to make sure he’s okay. This is our fault, it’s the least we can do.” The familiar voice with the green hair speaks, touching his forehead again, gently.
It’s kind of comforting, comforting enough to fall asleep to, and he does.
Everything feels a lot less like it’s floating when he wakes up the second time. He’s still in the room, but no one’s talking anymore. Todoroki looks around the room, and gets a more clear picture of the blurry figure that was hovering over him earlier.
“Oh! You’re awake!” He rushes right over to Todoroki’s side. It’s one of the florists he usually sees when he buys flowers for his mother. “That’s good, not that I was very worried- no, of course I was worried, but what I mean is that you weren’t in danger- well that’s not exactly true, you were in a little bit of danger, but once you were with all of us we knew you’d be okay! So what I mean isn’t that I wasn’t worried, but more that there wasn’t anything to worry about! I made sure your temperature went back to normal and monitored your heart rate while you were sleeping, and your pulse returned to normal pretty quickly too. I’m glad. It could’ve been really bad and it would’ve been all my fault and-“
He decides to cut off the rambling, seeing as he doesn’t exactly know what the other is talking about in the first place, “Where am I?”
The florist looks side to side, tapping his fingers together in front of his chest. “Oh, well, that’s a little hard to explain but-“
“Alright, then how did I get here?”
It’s silent for a moment. The green-haired man bites the inside of his cheek and his voice gets a tiny bit quieter when he asks, “how much do you remember?”
And if that isn’t an odd question... “I was looking for someone I could buy flowers from but no one was around. Everything froze and then that blonde florist-“ He cuts himself off this time, when he notices the man’s eyes veering off to the side. He looks behind him, but nothing seems amiss so he turns back. “What are you looking at?”
He’s moving his hands now, in a calculated sort of way. “How is this possible?” He mutters, like he’s not talking to Todoroki anymore. He mumbles a few more things but Todoroki can’t decipher any of it. “Sorry Todoroki!” He looks back at Todoroki, movements halted.
Weird behavior aside, how does this florist know who he is? “How do you know my name?”
He seems surprised by this line of questioning. “H-huh? T-Todoroki, you come in every Saturday. Of course I know your name. I think everyone that works at UA does...”
“But I don’t know your name.” He feels a little bit of shame that follows the admission. He’s been buying from this place for months and he hadn’t even bothered to learn any of their names. In hindsight, it feels like something his father would do, and that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
“O-oh...” he looks towards his shoes, and Todoroki has the sudden urge to apologize. Before he can say anything though, the resolve of the florist strengthens, and he sticks out his hand. Todoroki takes it. “I’m Izuku Midoriya! And um... you’re here because you passed out from hypothermia.”
He scrunches his brows. “But it’s not even winter, and I wasn’t outside. Isn’t hypothermia caused by being exposed to cold for too long?”
“W-well, usually-! But, this was a little different because the temperature drop was much more drastic, like a short burst, around negative 30 degrees celsius.”
That’s- “Not possible. You expect me to believe the temperature dropped over fifty degrees in a flower shop of all places in less than five minutes?”
He- Midoriya, is avoiding eye contact again. “Well, this isn’t just a flower shop...”
Todoroki blinks. “This? Are you saying that we are still in the flower shop?”
He startles. “That’s-“
The door opens. “Heyyyy, Midoriya! We put that ghost back in containment! It took a while to figure out how to transfer it over without letting it escape this time but we-!” oh it’s the blonde.
“Ghost?” Todoroki repeats. Where, exactly, did he end up?
Now, Midoriya looks frankly terrified. He’s doing more of those hand movements.
What?
The blonde florist looks over to where Midoriya’s gesturing wildly. “Oh, is Hagakure here?”
Midoriya squeaks, and at that moment, the lights flicker twice before burning out completely.
A woman’s calls from where the blonde must still be holding the door open, “Kaminari, stop making our resident ghost feel self-conscious! Lightbulbs don’t grow on trees!”
What?
“I only asked if she was here!” He yells back.
What?
Todoroki never believed in ghosts, as a child.
Toya used to drag Natsuo to his room on the rare days where Enji would fall asleep first. He’d grin and make faces under the light of the contraband super hero flashlight he’d smuggled into the house a few years ago (anything with fun, cartoony designs had no place in the home of Enji Todoroki). Toya was good at hiding things. Shoto knew that much because he had looked everywhere for the little stuffed bear that mom gave him before she went away (Toya stole it during one of his mood swings). He never did find it.
“And then, the man opened the casket, but the body was nowhere to be found.” The stories he told were silly, each centered around monsters and demons and ghosts and murderers. Toya would smirk in delight whenever Natsuo clutched his blanket in fear but Shoto would just listen on, bored. Why should he find these fake monsters scary when there was a real one sleeping downstairs?
He was jealous of Natsuo sometimes. Being able to be scared without being scorned. He couldn’t say the same for Toya though, Toya’s fear had been trained out of him too, and he had the scars and lingering resentment to prove it.
He didn’t believe in ghosts, because he figured that Toya would have probably broken his stuff or something to spite him as a ghost after he died, just to watch him frown, ‘cause Toya was like that sometimes. Or maybe he’d sneak in some cookies for him on the days where his father was at his worst, ‘cause sometimes he was like that, too. Thinking about it though, that Toya was free, made Shoto realize he wasn’t only jealous of Natsuo and Fuyumi anymore.
But here Shoto is now, questioning everything in his life. He’s in the dark, figuratively and literally, and Midoriya-- the florist? Or not exactly florist, if this weird, underground base thing was anything to go by. What exactly do they do here?
After the first bulb went out, every respective bulb in the hallway seemed to follow one by one. The blonde-- a woman called him Kaminari, left to get the spare light bulbs from the supply closet.
“Sorry to get you involved in this Todoroki!” Midoriya’s voice reaches him in the dark. He knows Midoriya is standing on his left side because he can feel the body heat from the other with how close he is.
“What’s going on?” He just wants to know. “You talk about ghosts as if they exist. It doesn’t make sense.”
He can practically picture the sheepish expression on Midoriya’s face in his mind’s eye as he answers. “Even if I did tell you, you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
He pauses for a second, because he honestly can’t guarantee he will believe Midoriya. He knows nothing about him aside from his name, and he is simply a skeptical person when it all comes down to it. He knows to never take someone at their word, because if he did, then as a lawyer, he would pay dearly for it. “I might not, but isn’t that a good reason to tell me, so you could try and convince me?” He asks.
Midoriya sighs. “You’ve already seen too much.” That sends Shoto into a bit of a panic. “N-not, not like that! That’s not what I meant! Let me rephrase. Your life isn’t in any danger, from us, but today you’ve experienced things that normal civilians don’t typically experience. You also now know that this place exists, which means any additional information we give you won’t make a difference, since the protocol that follows would be the same. A simpler way to explain it would be, now that you know the secret to the magic trick, you might as well be taught how it’s performed. Well, not that I’m asking you to join us or anything. Though it might be helpful-- Ah! I’m rambling, sorry.”
“I think I understand. So, what is this place? A weapons base or something?” Or maybe a TV show set.
“Nothing like that! We-” Midoriya is cut off by the hallway lights turning back on.
“See!” Kaminari sounds as if he’s shouting to someone in the hallway. “Light’s are back, no problem!”
Someone else claps. Slowly.
“Um… it might be easier to just show you.”
Todoroki is feeling a bit off base. He nods to Midoriya, feigning understanding, but truly, he’s out of his depth. He still follows Midoriya along, and notes that there are exactly six people here if he includes Midoriya, and the two other voices in the room when he first woke up. They pass a brown haired woman talking to Kaminari and a green haired woman in another room, through the transparent glass walls of it. Though, there are a lot more rooms, interior not visible for those, so there could be more. Still, if this is a government facility, he would expect many people inside, but the number six seems very small.
If needed, he might be able to fight his way out to escape, but he doesn’t know how well-trained they are, or where the exit is. His options are limited.
Midoriya opens the door to a room with a lot of machines. They’re nothing he can recognize… probably top secret. There are also many monitors on one of the walls, above another machine with an array of buttons.
With the press of a button, the screens fill with words. He squints at one of them and sees,
INCOMPLETE FILE
00671
Date of Death-2XXX
Class B
Manifestation - Dipladenia
Registry - Wandering
Reactants - Stairs, brass, polyurethane, plaster, water
FW - ???
Status - Captured
Midoriya changes the status to processing before he directs Todoroki’s attention to something that looks like a cluster mailbox but the units are square shaped.
“Would you mind… putting these on?” The florist-or-possibly-agent hands him a pair of… goggles? They look pretty high tech, nothing like swimming or safety goggles.
He nods and loops them over his ears. It makes everything look blue and green, with no distinctive features to it. He glances over at Midoriya and he’s just a red figure that’s shaped like the man. He furrows his brow and takes them off. “What’s the point of this?”
“Oh, that’s um! You’ll need to keep them on for me to explain. Here—“ he reaches to lower the goggles over Todoroki’s eyes once again, and then presses a combination of buttons on one of the units.
Immediately, Todoroki notices how cold it is. It’s not that cold, but it definitely feels like he’s walked into a refrigerator. Midoriya removes a cube from inside the unit and does some sort of mechanism with it that he can’t exactly see with just the basic red figure through the goggles.
Whatever is inside of it looks purple, and takes on an unidentifiable shape. It kinda just… floats there, beside Midoriya, until he does some hand gestures towards the thing. Then it reforms its shape to look vaguely humanoid… unsettling in the uncanny of the proportions that aren’t quite right.
“The goggles you’re wearing are called Metagoggles. They’re similar to thermal goggles, but their spectrum is expanded to sense and focus more on lack of heat instead of presence…” he points to the figure before continuing, “and this is an ether… but you’ve definitely never heard of that so it would probably be easier if I called him a ghost.”
He’s honestly ready to write this off as some convoluted prank with virtual goggles to trick him into it, but then the figure reaches out for him and he can feel the touch on his arm. He rips the goggles off and there’s nothing there, but he can still feel its presence. It’s world-shattering in a way, to learn that there have been things he cannot see just… around without him having any knowledge of their existence.
Midoriya opens the cube again and presumably returns the… creature? back to its place. He’s in the middle of changing the status back to captured when a bespectacled man walks in.
“Iida,” he greets, but Iida ignores him, gaze altering between Todoroki and the screens.
“You showed him the Meta-files?! But those are confidential! This is a serious breach of contract.
“Iida… It was already a serious breach of contract to let one of the units under our supervision escape and especially to allow them to come into contact with a civilian! This happened under our watch, so it’s the least we could do.”
The man dubbed Iida doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. He presses his lips together and concedes, giving them the room to themselves.
Midoriya smiles with his whole face, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry about that, he means well.”
Todoroki just gives an indifferent nod. He doesn’t know what to say in this situation.
Midoriya taps his fingers together for a moment, looking around aimlessly. It’s not a moment though, more of a slightly awkward, extended pause, before he speaks, “so… um… would you want us to erase your memories? Because we can definitely do that, like I said. It’s completely safe and there are no side effects, if you were wondering— well actually, the side effect would be the memory loss, so there is one side effect, but-“
Todoroki clears his throat.
“Right! Sorry! Tangents! We can remove your memories of this place if you want… would you… want that?” He looks hesitant, as if he’s worried Shoto might get offended or something.
“No.”
Midoriya looks surprised, if the widening of his eyes and pursing of his lips is anything to go by. “Oh, that’s great! I mean, not that I mind much, but I wanted to give you something.” Todoroki watches, confused, as the florist (secret agent?) takes a business card out of his pocket and hands it to him. “If you ever want to do something new, it would be really helpful if you joined us, with your ability. No pressure or anything! But, on the off chance you are interested, the starting salary and all the necessary contact information is on the back.”
Todoroki honestly just wants to leave. He nods though, to appease the worker, and slips the card into his pocket. He has no intention of using it, and it’s a shame that he’ll probably have to find a new florist after this… and they had really nice arrangements too.
Midoriya beams at his simple nod and leads him to the exit, where they emerge from the employees only door at the front of the shop.
It’s just then that something occurs to him. “Midoriya, what did you mean when you said “someone with my ability”?”
“Oh! You’re the first person I’ve met that the ethers can understand when speaking. I’m not sure why, but they can hear your voice. I usually just communicate with them by using sign language but not many ethers understand sign language and mouthing words doesn’t always work great.”
Huh… “
Midoriya sort of stares at him for a moment, as if waiting for him to speak. He doesn’t really have anything else to say in this situation, so he stares back. Midoriya twiddles his fingers, a nervous habit possibly. He’s avoiding Shoto’s eyes when he speaks up, “…well, um, I guess that’s all… I wouldn’t want to keep you any longer, and you were out for a while! I’m sure you definitely have important things to do and it’s also getting really late so you're probably hungry too-”
“Yes.”
”Have a good night Todoroki!”
”…You too, Midoriya.”