Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cathleen Bate is clearing off her desk, nearly ready to finish up work for the day and warp herself over to Japan when there’s a knock at the office door.

Cathleen raises an eyebrow. It’s not one of her brothers in arms, she knows that much from the fact that they bothered to knock.

“Come in,” she says.

The door opens and in strides a broad man with short dark hair. Cathleen smiles.

“I hear congratulations are in order?” says John Henry, the current and long-standing Number One Hero of West Virginia.

“John!” Cathleen says. “I could say the same about you! I hear they’re predicting you at Nationwide Number Two this year. But what’re you doing here? I figure you see enough action on your own coast.”

John shrugs with a shit-eating grin. “Just because I couldn’t make the wedding doesn’t mean I can’t congratulate you, y’know. Someone has to keep you on your toes.”

He’s not kidding.

The American Hero Rankings are sorted between the State and Federal levels. While the Hero rankings within each state tend to fluctuate wildly, the national rankings are damn near set in stone. Only the top Hero in each state is considered for the Nationwide Rankings. States with higher populations by nature have more situations—not only crimes, but accidents and disasters—resulting in more Hero activity, and by extension higher rankings. As such, the Nationwide Hero Rankings are based less on which of the 51 State Leaders is the best and more on whether they operate out of a populous state. Almost every year you can predict where everyone’s rankings will end up based solely on total population of their state.

Except for John Henry, who despite operating primarily out of the 40th most populous state is so damn good he has a habit of wandering into the surrounding states and dealing with problems there too.

If anyone is going to dethrone her rank, it’s John Henry.

“I appreciate it,” Cathleen says. “None of these upstarts have given me a good challenge lately.”

John laughs. “You know rookies talk about Blazing Sun like a cautionary tale, right?”

Cathleen shrugs. “He shouldn’t have talked shit.” That only makes John laugh harder.

“Who knows?” he says. “If Captain Celebrity ever pulls his head out of his ass, he stands a decent chance.”

“I’m not exactly holding my breath,” says Cathleen.

“Me neither, but you never know.”

Cathleen glances down to her watch, the one set to Japan time. “Sorry to cut this short, John, but…”

“No, I completely understand,” says John, holding his hands up placatingly. “Go see your girl.”

As John moves to step out into the hall, Cathleen pauses.

“Actually, can I get your autograph for Izuku?” she says.

John rolls his eyes fondly but obliges, pulling a signed Steeldriver collector’s card from a case in his pocket.

Time feels weird.

Cathleen’s entire world shifted on its axis and yet the planet keeps spinning.

She spends more time at the apartment now, sometimes even days at a time, but for the most part being married to Inko isn’t all the different from dating her. Other than that they’ve sworn themselves to each other, something Cathleen can’t help but remember every time she sees Inko’s face.

Soon enough, it’s already April.

Inko sets a cup of tea down on the table besides Cathleen. She sags in relief, looking up at her wife.

“You are a goddess,” she says.

Inko laughs like chimes. “So says the reality warper.”

Cathleen’s face heats up the same way it always does when she hears Inko’s laugh. Two years of dating and months of marriage hasn’t yet inoculated her against the power of how wonderful Inko is, and Cathleen doubts she’ll ever truly be used to it. She takes a quick drink from her absolutely heavenly tea so she can hide her face.

She glances down at the papers strewn across the table. Flyers, mostly, with a handful of online printouts. Inko’s been working on something big for almost as long as Cathleen has known her, something she’s remained tight-lipped about. Cathleen is hardly in a position to judge, what with carrying national secrets and all.

But recently, that project has started taking more and more of Inko’s time. Which has left them both with the problem of supervising Izuku.

Cathleen can teleport, but she still works in the states, and spends a considerable amount of time there. Mitsuki and Masaru—who insist on having Cathleen call them by their given names now that she’s married Inko—have somewhat unpredictable schedules from their work in the fashion industry. They have enough trouble keeping an eye on their own kid, let alone Izuku.

Inko presses a kiss into the back of Cathleen’s neck, sending a jolt down her spine.

“I think you’ve been at this a little too long,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Cathy, that’s a martial arts instructor.”

Cathleen blinks down at the packet in her hand.

Oh.

It’s a research packet on of her brothers put together for her when she expressed interest in finding a trainer for Izuku. If he’s going to be a Hero when he grows up, getting started early is important. It can affect his growth in ways starting later can’t help with, and he’ll need every advantage he can get.

But it’s also not a babysitting service.

Cathleen sets down the packet. “…I see what you mean.”

“I know you can do this, Cathy,” Inko says sweetly. “But please remember that I’m here too?”

“How could I forget?” says Cathleen.

“Then maybe take a break for a moment. You aren’t going to get much done if you’re too tired to think straight.”

“Inko, you know I can’t think straight.”

Inko rolls her eyes but her smile gives her away.

“Go on, take a break,” says Inko, wrapping her sturdy arms around Cathleen. “I’ll take a look and see what I can do.”

Cathleen smiles, leaning her head against Inko’s arm.

“Okay,” she relents, slowly getting up to let Inko take her seat.

Cathleen doesn’t quite stumble over her own feet as she makes her way down the hall, but it’s a close thing.

The apartment hasn’t changed much after the wedding. There are new photos on the walls of the three of them, as well as several from the wedding, but otherwise it’s exactly the same.

Truth be told, it’s almost insulting how the world didn’t seem to react at all to their marriage.

Cathleen knows she’s partly responsible for that. For the time being, there’s been no indication that she’s in any kind of relationship, much less married. She knows full well that once the news breaks there’s a good chance the paparazzi will descend on her demanding to know answers.

Star and Stripe is no Underground Hero; she’s the American Hero right now. Number One Hero of California, and a strong contender for Number One of the whole country this year. She can’t avoid dealing with the media, no matter how inconvenient that can be. But Heroes have long since learned how to keep certain things quiet. With any luck, no one who wasn’t present at the wedding itself will ever find out about it.

And while that’s a good thing for all of them, Cathleen still feels weird that something so monumentous can go so completely unnoticed.

She pauses at the door to Izuku’s room, glancing in.

Izuku and Melissa take their newfound cousinhood very seriously, as it turns out. Cathleen is just happy that Izuku has someone close to his age he can talk to about his Quirklessness. Neither she nor Inko have any personal experience with Quirklessness, and she knows that Izuku might need outside assistance with his struggles, or at least a shoulder to lean on.

The two of them mostly talk through a digital chat program, letting them ignore time zones in much the same way Inko and Cathleen text each other. From the way Izuku’s tiny fingers are dancing across the keyboard, it looks like they’re having an intense conversation. Cathleen smiles.

Her son is so cute when he’s excited!

Cathleen fails to stifle a yawn and takes the hint.

Whenever Cathleen has the pleasure of staying overnight—or ideally, several days—she shares the master bedroom with Inko. She crosses the hall to the bedroom, stretches her arms over her head, and plonks herself onto the bed.

In moments, she’s out like a light.

“Mama!”

Cathleen groans as sleep leaves her, but she can never begrudge Izuku when he calls her that.

She cracks open her eyes and shifts along the bed so she can look down at Izuku. For his part, Izuku bounces in place.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Mom found a babysitter!” he says. “She’s got a really cool Quirk! Oh, and Mom wants you to come and meet her to see if you like her!”

“I’ll be right out,” Cathleen says. Izuku nods rapidly and darts out the door down the hall.

Cathleen knows Izuku well enough to know that ‘she has a cool Quirk’ is the same as him saying ‘she has any Quirk at all,’ but hey, thinking about Quirks seems to really make him happy, and he figured out how she can teleport herself, so there are easily worse hobbies for Izuku to have.

She just hopes he isn’t rude about asking this sitter any questions.

Cathleen steps out into the hall, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, but feeling significantly better than she was earlier.

“I’m here,” she says, blinking. “It’s a pleasure to meet…”

It isn’t all that often that Cathleen meets people much taller than her.

Cathleen looks up.

“Um,” says the girl, because despite having at least two feet on Cathleen, she’s clearly only a girl. Her posture is tight. Restrained. Pulled in on herself. She’s covered in a teal fur, with a long, smooth snout extending from her face and perky ears on the top of her head, giving her the appearance of a fox. “Hello. I’m uh, I’m Ippan Josei.” She fiddles with some of her white-blonde hair, the same as the fur on her hands.

Cathleen smiles. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ippan. I’m Bate Cathleen. I hear you might be Izuku’s new babysitter?”

Ippan nods, but doesn’t say anything right away, choosing to wring her hands instead.

“Ippan here is a first-year at UA’s Management Course,” says Inko, evidently sensing the girl’s anxiety.

Ippan nods again. “We have to, um, we have a project where we need to—to work part time.”

“And your hours won’t conflict?” says Cathleen. “And please, have a seat.” She’s brushing against the ceiling as it is. That cannot be comfortable.

“Well, um, I take my classes, uh, online,” Ippan says quietly as she sits down in one of the chairs around the table, lowering her to roughly the same height as Cathleen. “I… I don’t, uh, fit.”

“That seems like an oversight,” Cathleen murmurs, taking a seat herself next to Inko. Ippan’s ears twitch. Right, animal mutation Quirks like hers tend to enhance hearing.

“It’s… they can’t remodel because then all the other students wouldn’t be able to go,” Ippan says. “It’s fine! Principal Nedzu promised he’d set something up for me between terms!”

Cathleen has never had the pleasure of meeting Nedzu, but if half the rumors she’s heard about him are remotely true, he’s probably planning on somehow remodeling the entire school in those few weeks of break. Though Ippan looks like she’d faint if Cathleen actually tells her that.

“Your Quirk is so cool!” Izuku says, darting around Ippan like a hummingbird, standing on his toes to get a better look at her head. “How strong are you? Can you breathe super well? Do you get hot easy?”

“Um,” says Ippan.

Cathleen glances at Inko. “Should I be worried that our six-year-old son understands Square-Cube Law?”

“He learned about it while researching Godzillo’s Quirk,” Inko replies. “You know how he gets with his research when he’s interested.”

Considering the kid is nearing fluency in English, yes, Cathleen does know.

“Well, uh,” Ippan says. “Yes, the doctor who examined me for my Quirk when I was a kid found that I have, um, my heart and my lungs are stronger? And my bones and muscles are, uh, structured a bit differently to compensate for the weight.”

“Awesome…” Izuku says, eyes shining.

“It’s, um, nice to meet you, Izuku,” says Ippan. “What’s your Quirk?”

“Oh, I’m Quirkless,” Izuku says.

Ippan blinks, “O-oh. Okay.”

“I’m gonna be a Hero!”

“Oh! Does that mean, um, are you aiming for UA?”

“Uh-huh!” Izuku pumps his fists in the air. “That’s where All Might went!”

Cathleen lets out a silent breath she didn’t know she had been holding. That’s one major concern they don’t have to worry about. Not that Cathleen was expecting Quirkism from someone with such a strongly expressed Quirk, but you never know.

“It doesn’t hurt that it’s only a short train ride away,” says Inko. “But I can assure you that All Might is the biggest reason.” Inko shakes her head fondly. “My family are the biggest All Might fans you will ever meet, Ippan.”

“Hey now,” Cathleen says, bumping her shoulder against Inko.

“Please refute me,” says Inko. And, well, Cathleen did base her entire Hero persona on All Might, so…

“Yeah, yeah.”

Ippan quietly clears her throat. For someone of her size, she seems to do everything quietly, which leaves Cathleen feeling cold. “So if I’m, um, if I get the job, what would my responsibilities be?”

“Mostly you would supervise Izuku,” says Inko. “He has a lot of energy, but he’s rather well behaved; don’t worry about that. But we can’t always be here to keep an eye on him. It might be comparable to a chaperone. You’d make sure he gets to and from school safely, help him with homework if he needs it. We also intend to look into options to help him start preparing for UA, and you might be the one to take him to a dojo or a gym for example.”

“I see.” Ippan looks thoughtful.

Cathleen personally vets all the applicants for support staff at her Agency. It isn’t strictly necessary for her to do so with all the security in place, but redundancy never hurt anyone, and it keeps her skills sharp.

She lets Inko guide the interview, interjecting with her own thoughts or opinions on occasion, rarely voicing a question of her own. Mostly she sits and observes.

Eventually, they thank Ippan for her time and wrap things up so that Inko and Cathleen can talk.

“What do you think?” Inko says.

“She’s a bundle of nerves,” says Cathleen. “But she was paying attention to everything we said, and she kept a careful eye on Izuku the entire time.”

“I thought so too,” Inko says. “About the nerves. I’m worried about her.”

“She didn’t have any physical injuries. I’m guessing that she gets trouble from her looks and her height. Not a lot of public spaces are equipped for Quirks that make you so tall.”

“You think she’s being discriminated against.” says Inko, as though she thinks that herself.

“Probably. Hopefully not from anyone at UA. I doubt Nedzu would allow that to happen. But in general, there’s a pretty good chance that’s the case. How’d you find her?”

Inko shrugs. “I knew about UA’s policy of having their management students find some kind of work study. I see interns like that all the time at law firms, though admittedly, those are almost always third years. I figured it was easier than running our own background check; or at least, easier than me doing it. I wasn’t expecting the first years to do it too.”

Cathleen hums to herself but doesn’t voice her suspicion. Ippan’s finances are none of her concern. But at the very least she’ll be sending an email to Nedzu about this. It could be a concern he needs to be aware of.

“So were there any other applicants from UA?” she says.

“No,” says Inko, “Only her.” There’s a pause. “So, should we keep looking or do we think that Ippan is a good fit?”

“I like her!” Izuku says. “And I gotta know what her parents’ Quirks are! One has to be a fox, but I think the other is a water animal!”

Cathleen snorts and ruffles his hair. “I think she’ll do an alright job.”

“She didn’t even care that I’m Quirkless,” Izuku says, hopping up onto the couch beside Cathleen and Inko.

“Izuku,” says Cathleen. “You aren’t getting a hard time at school, are you?”

He pauses like he’s thinking. “No?  Not really.”

“If that ever changes, let us know, alright?” says Inko.

“Uh-huh.”

Still, as much as Cathleen hates to admit it, he has a point. Ippan doesn’t seem the type to treat him like he’s glass, and while she was surprised, she didn’t insult him about it either. Cathleen knows her perspective is skewed by American Quirk regulations, but she has done the research about having a Quirkless child in Japan.

(It mostly boils down to, ‘if someone says they’re part of the Hearts and Minds party, run.’)

“What did you think?” Cathleen says. Inko purses her lip.

“I think,” she says, “That Ippan needs to have more places that she feels comfortable, and that she might be worried about money. I think she’ll do a good job…” Inko trails off for a moment before pulling out of whatever thought she’s having. “I think she’ll do a good job.”

“So it’s agreed then,” says Cathleen.

“And just in time,” Inko says, leaning back on the sofa with a sigh. “These next few months are going to be very important.” She looks over at Cathleen and grins slyly. “If all goes well, I might even be ready to finally tell you what I’ve been working on.”

“Yes!” Izuku cheers, flopping onto them. “Mom, Mama, you gotta call Ippan now! Then it won’t take as long for your thing, right?”

Inko laughs like chimes. “Alright Izuku, I’ll call her.”

Chapter Text

“Kacchan, you’re being mean!”

Kacchan rolls his eyes, repeatedly nudging Yokota with his foot. Not really a kick but enough to be uncomfortable. Yokota fidgets under the pressure of Kacchan’s ire, tears forming in his eyes.

Bate Izuku is no stranger to his friend’s… antics. Kacchan likes making sure everyone knows exactly how strong he is, and that means establishing his pecking order.

Izuku himself used to get the brunt of this. Being Quirkless got most of his classmates to start mocking him, and Izuku learned pretty quick that the teachers won’t side with him about this. Something about how they aren’t really hurting him. Sticks and stones and whatever. Even Kacchan stopped wanting to hang out with him most of the time. He’d say mean things and got everyone at the school to start calling him Deku instead of his name.

(Sure, when Izuku can’t pronounce ‘Katsuki’ it’s annoying but when Kacchan can’t read the kanji for Izuku he’s a genius.)

But Kacchan stopped really bothering him after his moms’ wedding. Hopefully that means that he’s learning that he shouldn’t be such a jerk to people.

Unfortunately for their classmate Yokota, it’s been… slow progress.

Yokota’s red hair is even more disheveled than usual. He’s clutching his arm where he fell on it when Kacchan shoved him a bit harder than he should’ve. School let out a few minutes ago, and Yokota had the bad luck to be in Kacchan’s way out of the classroom, so Kacchan moved him aside. And because Kacchan can’t stop until he’s satisfied, he started berating Yokota for being in front of him.

“He’s already crying!” Izuku says. “Knock it off!”

“Oh, does the Quirkless Wonder think he can play the Hero?” Kacchan says, letting an explosion loose into his palm. Izuku huffs. It’s been a long time since Kacchan ever really hurt Izuku. He knows he’s full of hot air.

Which is pretty typical for Kacchan, honestly.

“And if I’m playing the Hero, what does that make you?” he shoots back. Kacchan pauses, then sneers.

“Should we teach Deku a lesson?” Tsubasa says, looking to Kacchan.

Now Tsubasa and some of the others on the other hand are a bit more willing to get physical. But they won’t do a thing while Kacchan’s around without him giving the word.

Kacchan has everything: a strong Quirks, good grades, confidence, the works. He’s basically a Hero in the making, and they all know it. Everyone looks up to him. It’s no surprise that he has friends who wait on his every word before they act.

“Izuku’s not worth it,” Kacchan says. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

As they saunter of down the hall, Izuku extends a hand to Yokota.

“Are you okay?”

Yokota hesitates, then takes Izuku’s hand and Izuku pulls him to his feet. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Good!” says Izuku, but Yokota’s already taken off.

Ah well.

Izuku can just walk home by himself then.

He steps out the main doors, leaving Aldera Elementary behind him. The sun is warm on his face, and he smiles, adjusting his backpack straps. It’s a beautiful day outside, with a clear blue sky and a warm sun, but with enough of a breeze that it’s not too hot, either. Perfect weather for walking home.

Izuku hops down the stairs from the door when he hears someone call out.

“Izuku!”

Oh! He almost forgot!

Izuku jogs down the path to the school gate, not that he really has to. Ms. Ippan is easily visible over the school’s outer wall. She’s tall enough that she could probably step clear over the wall if she really wanted to. At the very least it wouldn’t be a difficult climb for her. Several other students stand around gawking at her. Izuku doubts they’ve ever seen anyone as tall as Ms. Ippan.

“Hi, Ms. Ippan!” he says, waving at her.

It’s her first day as his new babysitter while Mom and Mama are busy. Looks like she’s arrived right on time. Izuku falls into step beside her, barely coming up to her knees. It’s so cool! Her Quirk makes her so tall! And that isn’t even the main thing her Quirk does!

“So, uhm, how was school today?” Ms. Ippan says.

“Good!” Well, other than Kacchan being mean to Yokota, but he’s certainly been worse than today. “What about you, Ms. Ippan? How were your classes?”

“Oh, um,” Ms. Ippan scratches her cheek. “They were good! I’m learning a lot! I never knew how, uh, how complicated management could be…”

“Wow…” Izuku says. “So, is that what you’re gonna do when you grow up? Are you gonna work in a Hero Agency?”

“I—I don’t know. Maybe?” says Ms. Ippan. “I think that’s something I’ll figure out, uh, in, um, in my second or third year.”

“Cool!”

Ms. Ippan’s online classes take place at about the same time that Izuku himself is at school, which is perfect because it means that once she’s done, she can come pick him up too! And she’s taking class at UA! Which is only the greatest school in all of Japan and the one that All Might went to!

“Ms. Ippan?” says Izuku. “What’s it like going to UA?”

She hums for a moment, which for her is a fun, echoy noise.

“It’s… well, it’s everything I was hoping it would be and more,” she says. “My homeroom teacher, um, Mr. Chiba—or I guess you’d, um, you would know them as Saberleaf—he’s nice.”

“Saberleaf?” Izuku bounces. “You mean that really cool Hero who can control leaves? The one who was in the Top Fifty last year? Oh his Quirk is awesome! He doesn’t just control the leaves, he can make them stronger and sharper so they’re like tiny flying knives!”

Ms. Ippan giggles. “That’s him! And do you want to know something secret?”

Izuku perks up. “A secret?”

“Well, not really a secret,” she says. “But it’s not something you’d know if you only see him on TV.”

“What is it?”

“Mr. Chiba really likes puns. Like, really likes puns.” Ms. Ippan shudders. “He has so many of them…”

“But he’s so serious when I see him on the news,” says Izuku.

“Well, um, when he’s not on patrol, or when he’s uh, teaching us, he’s kind of goofy,” Ms. Ippan says.

“Wow!” How cool it is that she gets to see Heroes when they aren’t on patrol and act so different! Izuku can’t wait until he gets to go!

“And all my teachers are really good! The lectures are so fascinating! I just—” Ms. Ippan stops for half a step before lowering her head. “I just wish I could be there in person.”

“Don’t worry!” says Izuku. “You said the Mr. Principal was gonna help you! So it’s all gonna work out!” Ms. Ippan smiles softly at Izuku and reaches a hand down to ruffle his hair. Her palm is about the size of his head, so his hair goes wild. Izuku laughs as he fixes it.

After that they fall into a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Izuku hears a few birds chirping and glances over. It’s still early enough in the springtime for there to be blooming buds on the trees. With the gentle breeze, it really is a beautiful day outside.

The two of them reach the underpass and Ms. Ippan has to duck low to pass through.

She’s almost a meter taller than the underpass allows. The sign says it’s not big enough for trucks either. Luckily the overpass isn’t very long, but still.

“Are you okay?” Izuku says.

Ms. Ippan smiles at him as she straightens back up. “Yep! Don’t worry, I’m used to being too tall before.”

“You aren’t too tall.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, but I am taller than most places allow.”

“Well that’s stupid,” says Izuku. “They should get taller for you.”

For some reason, Ms. Ippan laughs at that, but it’s a warm laugh.

“Oh, I almost forgot to ask!” Izuku says. “You got a fox Quirk from one of your parents, right? But your snout is really smooth, and you don’t really have the nose for a fox, and your fur is all blueish! What’s the other Quirk? Does your other parent have a fish mutation?”

“Uh, yeah,” says Ms. Ippan slowly. “My mom has a shark Quirk…”

“Awesome!”

“You really like Quirks, don’t you?” Ms. Ippan says.

“Quirks are the coolest!” Izuku pumps his arms up in the air. “They’re all so incredible and people do so much with them! And Heroes all have really cool Quirks, and they’re really creative with them!”

“What about your moms? What kind of Quirks do they have?”

“I’m not allowed to talk about Mama’s Quirk,” Izuku says seriously. “It’s a secret! But I can tell you all about Mom’s!” He misses the flash of surprise and confusion from Ms. Ippan that he can’t tell her about Mama’s Quirk.  “Mom can pull small stuff towards her! It has to be small, though, she can’t move big stuff, and I think it’s by volume. But she can pull really little stuff! Oh, and the way she pulls it is cool because it can make the stuff float there until she pulls it the rest of the way!”

“That is pretty cool,” says Ms. Ippan.

“Yup! My moms have the most amazingest Quirks! And Kacchan has a really awesome Quirk! He can make stuff explode!”

“E-explode?”

“Yup! His sweat is like netro… nitro… nitroglycerin! That’s it! And he can make his hands all sparky so it makes the sweat go boom!” Izuku pantomimes the explosion.

“Oh,” says Ms. Ippan.

“He’s gonna be such an awesome Hero!”

“From what I’ve heard, the UA Hero Course is, um, it’s really tough,” Ms. Ippan says.

“Mm! That’s why I gotta get strong!”

Izuku’s apartment appears as they round the corner. It isn’t very far from school to begin with, so it’s never a very long walk. Even so, Izuku prefers being able to walk home with someone else keeping him company. He misses Mom doing it, but he understands that she’s busy right now.

The building is tall enough for Ms. Ippan to come in, but she’s still cramped up against the ceiling for the most part. She tries to hide it, but Izuku can see how relieved she is when she finally gets the chance to sit down and stop brushing her hair against the roof.

“Do you know when your mom will get home?” she says.

Izuku shakes his head. “She said it tonight was gonna be a late night.”

They both know that Mama is going to be in America for several days so there’s no need for her to ask.

As usual, the homework isn’t all that hard. It takes him maybe half an hour to breeze through it. By the time he finishes, Ms. Ippan is getting ready to start making dinner. Since Mom is out late at her job tonight, it’s Ms. Ippan’s job to get Izuku fed. Though he wasn’t expecting her to actually cook dinner. He was expecting something frozen and reheated, or maybe takeout. That would be fun!

“Does Mom know you’re using the kitchen?” says Izuku, draping himself over the back of a chair to watch Ms. Ippan try to stir fry vegetables.

“Y-yeah,” she says. “She told me that if I wanted to, I could cook dinner. I, um, I need the practice.”

Does she? It smells tasty to Izuku. Like when Mama takes over cooking duty. Not quite like Mom’s though. Though given how tall Ms. Ippan is, maybe she has trouble cooking because all the stuff is too low? She has to sit in front of the stove instead of standing.

Izuku sits and watches patiently, legs swinging gently.

Dinner that night is really yummy, and Ms. Ippan seems really happy when he says so. And, later that night, after the sun has gone down, Mom comes home and says the same.

Chapter Text

Ippan Josei adjusts the angle on the camera. It’s still weird to her that she attends her classes via a proxy. Nedzu gave her access to one of the robots that help staff UA, so she attends classes by driving the little bot around and facing its camera at her teachers. It’s an odd way to go about schooling, but it’s much better than what she used to have to do.

Josei knows that UA is one of the best schools in Japan, but she was still taken off guard by how intensive the curriculum is. Even the general education subjects can be brutally hard! Ectoplasm is not joking around when it comes to math. The quadratic formula makes her want to cry.

But all of those classes are important for her—math especially. The Management Course almost exclusively runs on math.

Calculating the finances of an agency, tracking expenditures and damages caused by a Hero fight? Math.

Taking a survey of the public to better plan the marketing campaign for an upcoming merchandise? Math.

Actually planning the production of that merchandise, as well as shipping and distribution? Math.

Not to mention the human geography, something that Josei hadn’t even heard of but is apparently a specific kind of anthropology. Almost everything that isn’t math is human geography.

And that’s just her classes. The actual assignments she’s given are even more ridiculous.

She’d felt bad having to turn down the Bate family invitation to their annual Sports Festival watch party, but the Management Course has to watch their year’s event in person and simulate marketing deals based on their performances.

That event is only three weeks into the school year!

By the end of it, she felt just as exhausted as the competitors looked. The rest of her classmates weren’t much better. Having to figure out the basics of someone’s Quirk within a few minutes is one thing, but figuring out dozens in that span of time takes a lot out of her. And that’s before figuring out how to come up with a brand identity for that kid based on that information!

Josei will never again make the mistake of assuming that Plus Ultra is reserved for the Hero Course.

Though at least the stadiums at UA were tall enough that she could actually attend in person. It was her first time getting to see her classmates with her own eyes instead of a camera feed. It was also the first time any of them had seen her, and she has to admit she enjoyed their reactions to her legitimately being too tall to use the main building.

“Ippan,” says Mr. Chiba, forcibly pulling Josei out of her memories. “Can you tell me the main differences between an American Hero Agency and a Japanese one?”

“Oh! Um, uh,” she says, trying to remember the reading from two nights ago. “While both Japan and America pay a Hero Agency based on the number of situations resolved, um, in Japan, uh, a committee reviews the performance of the responding Heroes and determines how much to pay them based on, uh, based on how much they contributed, but in America, Hero Agencies are paid monthly at a flat rate per incident. And, um, there’s an internal review of those situations to determine if a Hero—if a Hero is artificially inflating their resolved situations.”

“That’s correct,” Mr. Chiba says with a nod. “There are two more. Any takers?”

“American Hero Agencies have a dedicated phone line separate from the police, which is not the case in Japan,” says Hidaka, a classmate with long hair that always reminds Josei of how kids draw wavy lines around the sun.

“And the final one?”

“Uhh… in Japan, civilians are allowed into certain public areas of Hero Agencies, such as the lobby and reception area, while in America, agencies are required to have more public-facing areas,” says Noguchi, a boy with green skin. “Though some Japanese Heroes have them anyway, the big one being Might Tower.”

“Excellently done. I leaf to see it when you all do your reading,” Mr. Chiba says, ignoring the groans from the entire class. “Speaking of public accessibility, today’s case study is on the Star-Spangled Agency in Los Angeles, which you may recognize as the agency belonging to the Number One American Hero, Star and Stripe.”

Mr. Chiba pulls out his holographic projector and displays a few images in front of the whiteboard. The first is a large concrete complex that would be intimidating if it wasn’t so brightly colored. The second is a picture of the Hero herself.

Huh. She looks a lot like Mrs. Bate.

Like, a lot like Mrs. Bate.

They’re practically dead ringers for one another.

If Josei didn’t know any better, she’d say that is Mrs. Bate.

“The Star-Spangled agency was designed and built by the military,” Mr. Chiba says. “The short version is that America has two different organizations governing Heroics, which is something that we’ll talk about in detail later in the year. First is the Ministry of Heroics, which serves a similar function to our Heroic Public Safety Commission, and the second is the Department of Specialized Heroics, previously the Department Meta-Combatants under the Ministry of Defense. Both are, of course, overseen by the World Heroes Association.”

Josei doesn’t pay much attention to the spiel. It’s eerie how similar Mrs. Bate looks to Star and Stripe. She swears that she’s seen Mrs. Bate make the exact smile that Star and Stipe has in that photo.

“Star and Stripe is rather nontraditional for a part of the Department of Specialized Heroes,” continues Mr. Chiba. “Which makes the Star-Spangled Agency particularly interesting. It’s a lot like having two different agencies in one. The original—designed by the military—and the public-facing areas that Star and Stripe added on within her first year. In interviews, she’s stated that she took inspiration from All Might and Might Tower regarding these areas. You might say that she’s creating an American equivalent of his agency.”

Josei stiffens in her seat, not even processing her teacher’s latest terrible joke.

“Oh no,” she whispers.

Didn’t Izuku say that Mrs. Bate’s Quirk was a secret he couldn’t talk about? And Josei noticed that while she speaks Japanese fluently, it’s clearly not her first language.

She bites her lip, trembling. Unable to look away from the projection.

They aren’t lookalikes at all.

Her boss is Star and Stripe! She’s babysitting the son of Star and Stripe!

Josei only barely manages to mute herself before letting out a low whine.

What is she supposed to do now!? She’s—she’s barely a first year! She can’t babysit for a Pro Hero! Much less the Number One America Hero!

Josei knows that she’s not… a conventional choice for a babysitter. She too tall to go most places and she’s awkward. Nervous. Stuttery. How could she have been hired by Star and Stripe? Why didn’t they pick someone far more qualified? There had to be better options!

She shakes those thoughts out of her head. The Bates aren’t like that. They’re kind, and they aren’t afraid to speak their minds. If they didn’t like her, they would have told her—would have fired her—would never have hired her.

Oh no she cooked in Star and Stripe’s kitchen!

This is it; Josei is going to die of shame.

“Ah, we’re nearly out of time,” Mr. Chiba says. Josei raises her head slowly to look up at her screen. “For today’s assignment, you’re going to be comparing several floor plans proposals for a fictional agency and deciding which of them best meets the standards set by the HPSC.”

While her classmates put their notes away, Josei plants her face in a pillow and groans.

Mrs. Bate steps out of the office still disoriented. Now that Josei’s thinking about it, in hindsight the fact that she teleports home should’ve tipped her off that there was something more going on here sooner.

“Oh, Ippan,” Mrs. Bate says with a smile. “How’s Izuku?”

“Good!” she says. “He’s, um, he’s in his room, so I, uh, got started on my homework.”

Mrs. Bate nods, glancing down at her assignment. She frowns for a moment before she seems to realize something. “Ah, HPSC regulation. Right.”

“Mm. We talked about the, uh, the differences between American and Japanese agencies today.”

“Ah, yeah, I think Japan sticks tight to the WHA regulation, but the American system got a bit weird thanks to the split,” Mrs. Bate says.

“Um… we talked about the Star-Spangled Agency.”

“Did you now?” Mrs. Bate says, her warm smile becoming much more smug. Josei nods slowly. “I’ll bet that was fun.”

Mrs. Bate chuckles to herself and walks off towards the kitchen. Josei stares after her for a moment.

It’s several minutes later that Mrs. Bate walks back in, brow furrowed, and says, “We did tell you, right?”

“Tell me that you, um, that you’re Star and Stripe?”

“Yeah.”

“Um… not… exactly…”

Mrs. Bate blinks a few times. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Oh. Well! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ippan, I’m Bate Cathleen, or Star and Stripe.” Mrs. Bate’s smile is significantly more strained than Josei has ever seen. “I’m so sorry. It must’ve completely slipped our minds.”

“No, no! It’s alright!” Josei waves her hands. “I—I can understand why, um, why you wouldn’t want to tell anyone about that!”

“Well, yeah, it’s a bit private and there’s a security issue, but you were screened by Nedzu. From his reputation, there’s not a whole lot I could do that would be worse than what he’d do if you told anyone about us,” Mrs. Bate says. “And besides, you interact with us on a daily basis. You’re going to find out somehow. Even if it’s just my face on the news.”

Josei has to admit to herself that that’s basically what happened.

“I know we had meant to tell you after you were hired, but I guess we never got around to it and assumed that it happened.” Mrs. Bate laughs. “Inko’s gonna get a kick out of this.”

“Mama!”

Both of them look up to see Izuku’s come out of his room while they were talking. He runs over and hugs Mrs. Bate.

“Hey, Izuku,” she says fondly, ruffling his hair. “Did you know we forgot to tell Ippan here who I am?”

Izuku gasps. “Mama! What if she saw you on TV? She’d be so embarrassed!”

Under her fur, Josei blushes at Izuku guessing her reaction with decent accuracy.

“I’m sorry again, Ippan,” Mrs. Bate says sheepishly.  “I hope you weren’t too distracted in class then.”

Josei shakes her head. “Um, it wasn’t too bad, once, uh, once I realized that you weren’t just, um, that you didn’t just happen to look like her.”

“Well, if you ever need any help with your Management homework, Inko and I can probably help. I have to talk to my staff all the time, and Inko’s been studying up on Hero law. We’d be happy to help.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you, Mrs. Bate.”

“Call me Cathleen. It’d be too confusing with me and Inko otherwise.”

Josei has to take a second to process the idea that Star and Stripe of all people told her to use her first name. The takes another second to process all of her previous interactions with Mrs. Bate—with Cathleen and realizing that in all of those she was interacting with the Number One American Hero.

“Don’t worry about it so much,” Cathleen says. “I can see you freaking out from here. You’re a family friend now, you don’t have to worry so much about formality.”

Josei only nods, not trusting herself to speak.

“Ooh!” Izuku says. He’s gotten up on a chair to get a better look at what Josei’s been working on. “Are these Hero Agencies?”

“Well, um, sort of?” Josei says.

Izuku gasps and his eyes light up. Explaining her assignment to him and how this isn’t a real agency is almost as stressful as her actually doing the assignment.

Chapter Text

It’s another late night for Bate Inko when she comes home from the office. Her personal plans take a lot of time away from her job, which means putting in the hours somewhere. And sadly, that tends to mean that she doesn’t get home before sunset very often.

“I’m home,” she says quietly, so as not to wake Izuku, and places her umbrella in the bin by the door. The light rain is audible against the balcony door, tap-tap-tapping rhythmically and soothingly.

Cathleen is in America for a few days, so the only ones who are here are Izuku—who should be in bed—and Ippan if she hasn’t gone home yet. Since she didn’t come greet her, Inko figures that’s the case.

She slides her jacket off with a sigh, hanging it up in the hallway closet. The air inside the apartment makes her shiver. The rain isn’t heavy, but it’s left a chill to the air that seems to have persisted indoors. She rubs her arms and resolves to make something warm to drink.

Inko takes a deep breath and walks past where Ippan is asleep at the table to fill the kettle.

She pauses.

Yep. Ippan is still here, head resting on the dining table, snoring softly. Her notes and homework are loosely scattered around her. She must’ve fallen asleep in the middle of an assignment.

While the kettle heats up the water, Inko creeps past the girl and fetches a soft blanket from the living room. She gently sets it over Ippan. On her taller frame, it looks more like a bath towel.

A minute or so later, while she’s waiting for the water, Inko hears a buzzing sound. She glances over at Ippan, and sure enough, her phone—which is closer to a tablet, really—is vibrating on the table. The caller ID reads ‘Mom’, so Inko hits the green button and holds the device up to her ear.

“Josei!” says Mrs. Ippan. “Are you alright? You were supposed to be home half an hour ago!” Inko has spoken to her on a few occasions before, but only enough to recognize her voice.

“Hello Mrs. Ippan,” Inko says quietly.

“…Oh, Mrs. Bate,” she says. “Did Josei fall asleep again?”

“Right into her homework.”

Mrs. Ippan snorts. “I’m not surprised. She’s been working so hard lately.”

“I can relate to that,” Inko says, the corners of her mouth pulled up in a smile.

“Could you make sure she makes it to the trains before they shut down? I know it’s still a few hours away, but she can be a sound sleeper when she wants to be.”

Inko nods, even though Mrs. Ippan can’t see her. “I will.” She sets the phone back on the table. The water reached temperature while she was talking to Mrs. Ippan, which means it’s time to make it into an actual tea.

She’s pouring the finished tea into her own mug when she hears a soft groan from Ippan.

“Sleep well, dear?” she says, setting the pot back down so she can get out a second cup.

“Mm…” Ippan says. “Mrs. Bate…? Mrs. Inko?” She sits up, early knocking the blanket off her back. She blinks at it a few times before adjusting it to sit on her shoulders.

Inko sets a cup of tea on the table beside her. “You still seem a little out of it.”

Ippan yawns, showing off her teeth before she quickly covers her mouth with a hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Did you eat anything?”

“Um, yeah,” she says. “We had dinner.” Ippan carefully picks up her tea and takes a sip. She visibly lights up.

“Nothing quite like a warm drink on a cool evening,” Inko says. “Not many of those left. It’s almost summer.”

Ippan nods slowly, taking another drink. “Did… did Mom call?”

“She did.” Inko smiles softly at her. “She wanted me to make sure you made it before the trains close for the night.” Ippan’s eyes blow wide, so Inko holds up her hand. “Don’t worry. We’ve still got another four hours until then.”

Ippan’s sigh is so relieved that Inko has to force back a laugh.

She carefully slides into a seat besides Ippan and sets down her tea. “Is UA hard?”

“Yeah.” Ippan nods. “It’s… it’s so much more than I, um, than I was expecting. It’s, uh, a step up from Junior High by a lot. I thought the entrance exam was—was harsh, but it’s the baseline for everything I’ve done since.” She whines softly. “So much calculus… At least Statistics is easy…”

“You sound like me when I was studying Law,” Inko says.

The two of them sit in a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the sounds of them sipping on their tea. It’s still hot from the kettle, so neither of them drink very much at once.

Inko takes a deep breath. She needs to stop being a coward. It’s a simple question, all things considered. But she can’t help but feel like it’s invasive to ask. But she needs to.

“Are you doing alright?”

“Huh?” Ippan blinks owlishly at her, her bushy eyelashes only making her eyes seem rounder.

Inko looks at the girl and lets out a quiet breath. She’s already done the easy part. Now comes the part that is substantially harder.

“Ippan,” she says. “I know that the Management Course don’t usually start their work studies so early in the year.”

Ippan stiffens in her seat. “I, um, I asked my teacher if—if I could start early.”

“I know,” Inko says. “Principal Nedzu told me.” Ippan seems to pale even through her fur. “Cathleen and I talked about it after your interview. That it was… unusual for you to be doing this. But mostly we were worried. I’m not going to pry. If you want me to drop it, I will. I promise.” She waits for Ippan to acknowledge her. After a few moments of silence, Ippan nods. “I just want to know: are you alright?”

Ippan’s bottom lip quivers, something that Inko has never seen on a snout before. Her voice comes out nearly silent. “I…” Ippan swallows. “Mom and Dad… always struggled to find work. I don’t remember the last time Mom had a job.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Inko says slowly, but Ippan shakes her head.

“I—you’re very kind, Mrs. Inko, but… but I want to.” Ippan closes her eyes. “We’re… um, well, Mom and Dad are both, uh, tall. Like me. So I might even—even get taller. And… you’ve seen that I don’t… that I’m too big for most places.”

“I’m sure that’s hard on you,” says Inko. “You already told me that you can’t attend UA in person.” And many other places, she’s willing to bet. Not to mention how some people get weird around Quirks that substantially change someone’s physiology.

Ippan nods. “Um… Mr. Nedzu lets me use a robot so I can still come to class, but I don’t get to—to see my friends and classmates myself. It’s all through a screen. And… and I don’t know how, uh, how hard it will be to find a job after I graduate, so…” Ippan trails off, wringing her hands. Inko pats her reassuringly on the side of her shoulder.

“…so you wanted to use your work study to start saving,” Inko finishes for her. Ippan hesitates, then nods. “I can tell you this, Ippan. Izuku adores you, and Cathleen and I are happy to have you around. You have a place here. You’ve been working for a few months, but you’re a sweet girl, and we care about you.”

Ippan blinks away the wetness Inko sees forming in the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Mrs. Inko. That—that means a lot.” She wipes the still-present tears away with a finger, running her hand down her snout. “I’m sorry Mrs. Inko, I didn’t mean to get so emotional. How, uh, how have you been?”

“Well enough,” Inko says with a smile. “I’ve been a little busier than normal lately, but hopefully things will settle down for me in June. Oh, and that new trick I learned with my Quirk.”

She may as well show off a little. Inko reaches out towards a small plate sitting out and makes a beckoning motion with her hand, as though she’s reaching out to pull at a string. The plate slowly slides through the air towards her, pausing in between her gestures. Once it’s close enough, she stops and the plate stops as well, hovering in the air beside her.

Inko takes a sip of tea and sets the cup on the floating plate, which doesn’t so much as tremble.

“Whoa…” Ippan says quietly. “I thought you could only attract things towards you?”

“Mhmm. But… if I stop using my Quirk, the effect remains,” Inko says. “And Izuku noticed that when I use my Quirk on his figurines, the capes are still affected by gravity, which means that my Quirk’s limit isn’t measured in weight.”

Ippan’s eyes widen. “So you can add weight to the floating object…”

“Exactly.” Inko lets out a quiet sigh. “My son is a little genius, isn’t he?”

“He’d be brilliant in Management,” Ippan says with a shaky smile. “Sometimes I, uh, I think he knows the material better than I do.”

“He’s obsessed. If it has to do with Heroes in some way, he probably knows it. Though it’ll do him well once he’s in UA.”

Ippan laughs. “I think his English is better than mine!”

“He has Cathy to practice with,” says Inko. Ippan softly snorts, then grimaces. “I’m sorry again that we forgot to tell you.”

“It’s alright. I was just surprised is all.” Ippan takes another drink of her tea. “You, um, you were right. About a warm drink on a cool evening.”

“It’s one nice thing about rain,” Inko says, glancing at the water streaming down the glass door.

“I’ve always like it. Um, rain, I mean,” says Ippan. “Maybe it’s because Mom, uh, because I have a bit of Mom’s shark Quirk, but I’ve always liked how it feels on my fur and skin.” Ippan smiles wistfully. “And it makes, um, it makes all the plants so vibrant.”

“You’ve got me there,” Inko says. She goes to take a sip of her tea, only to find her cup empty. She huffs under her breath. “Do you want any more?”

“No thank you. I—I should be getting home. I’ve kept Mom waiting long enough. But thank you, Mrs. Inko.” Ippan sets aside her own empty teacup. “The tea was, uh, nice.”

“I’ll take that, at least,” she says, taking Ippan’s empty cup. She grabs her floating plate out of the air, breaking the spell of her Quirk, and carries the dishware into the kitchen.

By the time she returns with a fresh cup, Ippan has most of her papers sorted again and slips everything into her bag. She folds up the blanket Inko has covered her with and set it back on the sofa.

“Stay safe out there,” Inko says. After dark, in the rain, she’s allowed to be a little worried about a girl heading home alone. Though she knows Mustafu at least is a good city.

“I will,” Ippan says. “Thank you, Mrs. Inko.” She gives a polite bow, slings her bag over her shoulder, and retrieves her umbrella from the stand. “Have a good night!”

“You as well,” Inko says.

Ippan has to duck under the doorway, and the top of her head rubs against the hallway ceiling of the apartment complex even with her hunched over. It always makes Inko sad to see that so many Quirks remain unaccommodated. Especially since she herself hadn’t given it a single thought before she met Ippan.

Soon, the young woman is out of sight, and Inko slips quietly back into the apartment.

She should probably start getting ready for bed herself. It’ll be a bit cold tonight though, like it always is when she doesn’t have Cathleen beside her.

Chapter Text

The last thing that Cathleen Bate expects when she warps into her family’s apartment is to find her wife on the kitchen floor, sobbing.

Cathleen doesn’t hesitate to drop down beside her.

“Hey, hey,” she says softly, gently rubbing a circle into Inko’s back. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Inko shakes her head, sobbing louder.

Cathleen has spent quite a lot of time around Inko and Izuku. She knows that they’re both emotional people. It doesn’t take much to get them to turn on the waterworks. But something about this is different.

Inko is curled up around herself, clutching something tightly to her chest. Both of her hands cover it so that Cathleen can’t see it. It’s clearly the source of Inko’s current distress.

But Cathleen still thinks something is different about this time.

Cathleen pulls Inko into a tight embrace. Inko shudders for a moment, before untangling herself enough to wrap one of her arms around Cathleen.

“Inko, please,” she says. “I swore that I’d always stand with you. Please let me help you.”

“Can’t.” Inko rasps. Cathleen opens her mouth to interject when Inko finally looks up at Cathleen.

And suddenly the problem clicks. The reason something felt off.

It was their wedding day the only time Cathleen had ever seen Inko happier.

“Inko?”

“Cathy,” Inko says, cupping Cathleen’s cheek in her hand, “Cathy.”

Cathleen puts her own hand on Inko’s. “What happened?” she repeats, but now without the harshness of panic. “I never see you like this!”

“Good news,” Inko manages. “Really good news.” She sniffles. “Had to—had to make it home before…”

Cathleen can fill in the blanks. She refused to let herself fall apart like that in public, so she held it in. And when the emotions finally caught up with her…

From the state of her, they hit Inko like a train.

“What kind of good news?” says Cathleen. She shifts her position on the floor from a crouch to a sit. “Did you win a big case? Get a raise? A promotion?”

Inko shakes her head, wiping away at the tears soaking her face. One of her hands stays balled up, clutching something.

“Nothing like that,” she says. “I—I’m going to have to leave, I need a—oh God, Cathy, there’s so much to do!” Inko laughs giddily. She leans over, resting her head on Cathleen’s shoulders and closes her eyes.

Cathleen doesn’t want to press yet. Inko’s damn near hysterical and she doesn’t want to accidentally send her back into an emotional response. Giving Inko time to catch her breath and collect her thoughts is the least she can do.

She looks down at Inko, and lightly brushes some of her hair out of her face. Inko hums contentedly.

“I had a pretty good day,” Cathleen says quietly. “Patrol’s been quiet lately, but today was that meet and greet event—you remember, the one I told you about? From that local school? Got to have a bunch of little tykes running around the Agency.” Cathleen laughs. “They reminded me of Izuku, with how excited they all were.”

“I hope you paid attention to their Quirks,” Inko says. “Or Izuku will ever forgive you.”

Cathleen laughs. “C’mon, Inko! Don’t you have any faith in me?”

“Nope.”

Cathleen clutches at her chest. “Ah! Betrayal! How could this be?!”

The two of them break out into a fit of quiet giggles.

They stay like that for a while. Making small talk. Listening to each other’s breathing. Cathleen loses track of time completely. As such, she jumps when she hears the door open.

“Mama!” Izuku calls. “We’re home!”

“Over here, sweetie!” Cathleen calls, refusing to move.

Izuku pads into the kitchen, Ippan carefully following him, mindful of the ceiling. His eyes widen when he spots them.

“Mom!” Izuku leaps at Inko and wraps her in a hug. “I didn’t think you were gonna be home until tonight!”

“Neither did I, Sunshine,” Inko says, ruffling his hair. “I guess I misjudged the time.”

“Um, hello, Mrs. Inko,” Ippan says, looking at Inko. “I—I hope I’m not intruding.”

“Not at all,” says Inko.

Cathleen smiles at the girl. “You can sit down, you know. You don’t have to wait for our permission.” Ippan bites her lip and nods, taking a seat at the table.

Inko looks around at the three of them and clears her throat.

“I…” she says. “For a while now, I’ve been working towards something. And—and I told you all, I said I wanted it to be a surprise. That I didn’t want to make promises.”

“Should, um, should I be here?” Ippan says, holding her hand up.

“Yes,” Inko says. “I want you here for this.”

Inko leans her head back, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

The silence stretches out across moments.

Slowly, Inko opens her clenched hand. Cathleen can’t help but glance down at it. Her eyes widen. The angle isn’t the best, and it doesn’t look quite like what she’s used to, but she’d recognize that card anywhere.

“Inko…” she says. Inko smiles at her.

“Why are you so shocked, Cathy? After all, it was your idea.”

Cathleen gapes, mind racing. She does her best to think through the thousands, millions of talks she’s had with Inko, but she doesn’t have the slightest idea what she means.

“Cathleen,” says Inko, surprising her with the use of her whole name. “I love you so much.”

And how can Cathleen not kiss her?

After their brief moment of passion, Inko pulls back, and turns to face Izuku and Ippan.

“Did you know, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a Hero?” Inko’s smile softens. “Who doesn’t? But I didn’t think I could.”

Cathleen… does remember. Inko told her that on their first date.

And after that interview with Endeavor, she’d joked about Inko actually doing it.

And Inko actually listened.

Fuck, Cathleen loves her wife so goddamn much.

“But. But!” Inko says, eyes starting to water again. She holds up what is unmistakably a Provisional Hero License. “I’ve never been happier to be wrong.”

Izuku blinks at Inko. “Mom…? You’re… you’re a Hero?” There’s no small reverence in his voice.

Inko nods. “Provisionally.”

“Congratulations!” Ippan says, clapping her hands together.

Cathleen pulls Inko in and kisses her on the cheek.

“We are celebrating this later, you understand,” she purrs into Inko’s ear. Inko’s face heats up, and she nods with a smile.

“You’re a Hero!” Izuku cheers, pumping his arms into the air. “Is that why you kept asking me about your Quirk?”

“I can’t believe you,” Cathleen says fondly. “How long have you been sitting on this?”

“It’s only been two years,” says Inko.

“‘Only’ two years,” Cathleen huffs. “You’ve just casually managed to work your way into one of the most demanding jobs on the planet, while still doing your legal work might I add, in only two years.”

Inko blushes and looks away.

“Not to, um, not to ruin the moment,” says Ippan. “But you, uh, why did you want to tell me this?”

“Well,” Inko says, straightening herself out. “This impacts my schedule, and by extension, when we might need you to babysit. And also…” Inko smiles sweetly, “I thought that you’d want the connections for school.”

Ippan sucks in air. “You—you would do that for me?”

“Why not?”

“I—I… Thank you so much!” Ippan says, bowing quickly.

“I can’t promise anything,” Inko says. “I’m unaffiliated. I had to do all my studying myself. And I’m… a bit out of the age range for most people looking to take on someone with a Provisional License. There is…” she swallows, “There is a good chance that I never work up enough hours to qualify for a full license.”

“I know the risks,” says Ippan. “They’re part of my curriculum. But… but even so… thank you!”

Cathleen resists the urge to roll her eyes. She meets Izuku’s confused gaze and surreptitiously motions for him to not say anything. She’ll explain to him later that while Cathleen could easily hook up both Inko and Ippan with just about any agencies she wanted to, doing so would bring uncomfortable levels of scrutiny on both of their performances. Having connections in the industry is a double-edged sword, and that conversation is far too long to have right now.

Izuku gasps suddenly. “Kacchan! And Aunt and Uncle! We gotta tell ‘em!”

Inko reaches over and ruffles his hair. “We certainly do.”

“Ah, Ippan,” says Cathleen, “Have you met the Bakugous before?”

“Um, well, I spoke with their son once,” she says, pushing the tips of her index fingers together. “He thought, uh, he wanted to know why I was waiting outside his school. He’s… loud.”

“That’s Kacchan alright,” says Izuku. “His parents do fashion work! They’ve known Mom for ages.”

“You know they’re going to throw you a party, right,” Cathleen says.

“Let them,” says Inko. “They have impeccable taste in champagne.” She looks up at Ippan. “Honestly, we should have introduced you to them sooner. Katsuki and Izuku practically grew up together.”

“Uh huh!” Izuku says. “Kacchan is the coolest!”

“He’s certainly, um, dedicated,” says Ippan.

“We gotta tell him that you’re a Hero! He’ll love it!”

Inko leans back against the cabinets.

“I’m a Hero,” she whispers. “I—I’m a Hero.”

“Welcome to the industry,” Cathleen says, grinning like an idiot.

“I’m a Hero,” Inko repeats. “I—I need a costume… I’ll need to find an agency to take me on as an intern so I can get the work hours… There’s so much to do!”

Cathleen plants her weight, making sure that Inko can’t get out from their embrace. Makes sure that weight can be grounding.

“Come on, Inko,” she says. “We’ll work this out together. You know this. I’ll call up David if I have to, he’ll whip you up something incredible.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d get this far; I don’t have any designs –”

Cathleen laughs. “You’re acting like Mitsuki won’t drag you off and design you a costume herself the moment she hears the news.”

“I can’t—I can’t ask her to do that for me—”

“So we’ll pay her,” Cathleen says. She kisses Inko on the cheek. “I know you’re smarter than this, Inko. Take a deep breath and calm down.”

“…You’re right. You’re right.” Inko nods slowly. “But… this is literally a childhood dream. Now that I’m here… it still doesn’t feel real.”

“You get used to it,” says Cathleen.

“Oh,” Ippan says suddenly. “Oh. I—I got a job as a babysitter from two Heroes.”

“Never underestimate how you can make industry connections,” says Cathleen. “There’s not enough time in the day for all the crazy anecdotes I have about how I’ve met people.”

And she knows All Might has even more. That one vinegar sponsorship he did for a while comes to mind. Heroics is a very weird job, and the sooner you accept that you will meet people in ludicrous ways, the better.

Ippan nods slowly. “We, uh, we actually talked about in class once. But I—I didn’t expect it to happen to me.”

“Nobody ever does, the first few times,” Cathleen says. “I’ll bet that’s exactly why they tried to tell you.”

Ippan actually laughs at that.

Inko rises to stand off the floor, pulling herself up by using the counter as a support. “I… I think I need to start making dinner at some point.”

“Nope.” Cathleen stands up, freely abusing their height difference to make her point. “You don’t get to cook tonight. Tonight I’m on dinner detail. This is a special occasion, and you will enjoy it, damn it!”

Inko snorts, giving way to full body laughter.

“Thank you, Cathy, that would be wonderful. I guess I’ll…” she yawns. “Oh, maybe I’ll take a nap or something.” She turns to leave.

“Inko, I think you’ve forgotten something very important,” Cathleen says. Inko turns to her with her head tilted in confusion. Cathleen smiles. “You still haven’t told us your name.”

Inko’s eyes widen for a moment, and she beams at Cathleen.

“You’re right!” Inko bows. “It’s a pleasure to formally meet you all. I’m Starbright.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, Inko!” Mitsuki says with a grin. “It’s been too long!”

Bate Inko smiles softly. “It has,” she says. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately, but…”

That’s an understatement, really. It’s been tricky to balance her various legal consultations while working towards getting her Provisional License. That meant not only training her Quirk to be something useful, but also studying Hero-related laws and regulations, and reading essays on morality and Quirk use.

It makes her nostalgic for her time in law school.

“No need to apologize,” Masaru says, following Mitsuki into the apartment with Katsuki. “We all know how unpredictable life can be.”

Inko holds in a snort. Unpredictable certainly summarizes her past few years—ever since Izuku quite literally bumped into Cathleen.

“Oh, it’s you,” Katsuki says, looking at Ippan. She curls in on herself slightly and smiles sheepishly. Inko can practically feel Mitsuki’s brain whirring, and places a hand on her shoulder.

“Ippan is a bit shy,” she says. “If you’re going to ask her to model or whatever you’re planning, be gentle.”

“I can be damn gentle when I want to be,” Mitsuki says. “But I’ll be damned if she doesn’t have the potential to rock the runway.”

“But that’s not why you wanted us to come over, I’ll bet,” Masaru adds, just as used to Mitsuki’s habit of seeing models everywhere.

Mitsuki takes pride in her work and views Quirks as a particularly exciting challenge to design around. Inko already knew going into this that Mitsuki would start mentally tailoring a dress to accentuate Ippan’s mutations the moment she saw her.

“It’s not, no,” Inko says. Down the hall, she hears Cathleen start pouring tea and smiles. “I wish I could say that I want to catch up, and I do, but there is some business we need to discuss.”

She closes the door after them, following them into the apartment.

Cathleen has already started served the tea by the time Inko reaches the kitchen. Inko smiles graciously at her as she takes her own cup and sits down across from Masaru and Mitsuki.

“You never come to us about business, Inko,” Mitsuki says. “So I have to assume this is a special job you have in mind.”

Inko nods slowly taking a deep breath.

“I hate to use our friendship like this for a professional favor,” she starts, “but you two really are the best I know.”

“Pfft.” Mitsuki rolls her eyes. “What are friends for?”

“She’s right; we’re happy to help,” Masaru says.

“Well… okay.” Inko closes her eyes and thinks about how she wants to word this. “The client is a newly licensed Provisional Hero who went through a post-schooling Heroics program. She’s unaffiliated and has no costume.”

Cathleen sits down beside her. “I can call up David Shield and have the actual production done, but we wanted your opinions on the aesthetic design of the costume.”

“You’ve done that before, right?” Masaru asks. “I think it was a few years back, with… oh what was their name? Hopscotch?”

“Crisscross,” Mitsuki replies automatically. “Yeah, I’ve done that before. You got any references? Costume ideas? Hero name? And I’d like to meet this client, too.”

Inko smiles slyly. “I think we can handle that.” She reaches into her pocket, running her finger along the edge of her license. She still struggles to believe that she has it—that she’s a Hero now. “Her name is Starbright.”

“Sounds like you got a fan, Cathleen,” Mitsuki says, not looking at the card Inko hands her.

“I’d hope so,” says Cathleen, and Inko loves her so much. Cathleen always seems to get what Inko is doing and runs with it, and Inko can’t help but be amazed every time her wife seemingly reads her mind.

Unless…

No. Cathleen wouldn’t use her Quirk for that. Can she even do that?

Questions for later. Possibly from Izuku.

Instead, Inko nods. “Starbright is currently unaffiliated, and homaging another Hero won’t be necessary.”

Mitsuki doesn’t respond. She’s too busy staring at the piece of plastic in her hands. Plastic Inko values more than gold. Inko’s smile stretches slightly wider.

“Inko…” Mitsuki says. “You…”

Masaru blinks in clear confusion, glancing between Inko and Mitsuki. Finally he glances down at the card Mitsuki is holding in shaking hands. His eyes widen.

“God damn it.” Mitsuki snorts, the noises escaping despite what is clearly an attempt at physically reigning them in. Soon Mitsuki descends completely into hysterics, her laughter echoing through the apartment as her legs swing. “You—you—!"

Katsuki finally perks up, having tuned out of the conversation the moment he realized it was about his parents’ jobs. “What?” he demands. Masaru has to take the card from Mitsuki so that he can hold it where Katsuki can see. It doesn’t take him long to process what written on it. He’s always been a quick study. “What!?”

At last Mitsuki manages, “And you didn’t tell us?”

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” says Inko, feeling quite pleased with herself.

“You little shit!” Mitsuki says, fighting to breath between her bouts of laughter. “You’ve been holding out on us! First Cathleen and now this! God damn!”

“Auntie, you’re a Hero?” Katsuki says.

Inko nods. “Provisionally. I still need to work as an intern under a Pro Hero before I can receive a full license. And to do that…”

“You need a costume,” Masaru finishes, deep in thought.

“Oh you’d better believe I’m making this a priority job,” Mitsuki says with a manic grin. She wipes tears from her eyes, wheezing lightly.

“I can’t ask you to—”

“Inko,” Mitsuki says, leaning over the table. “This is the fucking dream job right here. I’m gonna design you that costume so fast your goddamn head will spin. But first, you’ve got to tell me about it! How’d you go and become a Hero on me? I want all the details!”

Inko smiles into her tea, the tips of her ears warming from memories. “Well,” she says, “It started a few months after Cathleen and I met...”

“Tell me which of these you like the most,” Mitsuki says, handing the folder over to Inko.

She thumbs through it slowly. When Mitsuki had said she’d make this a priority job, she meant it. Inko does’t remember the last time she’s seen her working so fast on a job before, and yet even at a glance she can tell that she didn’t compromise any of her skill for the time.

The folder is filled near to bursting with Mitsuki’s sketches alongside cutouts from magazines or prints of pictures of various Pro Heroes from around the world, only some of whom Inko recognizes. As usual, Mistuki’s sketches alone are breathtaking for simple mockups. All of them have different things about them that completely stuns her in some way, but none of them feel right. This is the costume she’ll be wearing in public, the definition of her Hero persona.

And then she stops on one, and the gasp escapes her mouth.

The costume is a simple emerald jumpsuit with a lighter green for the leggings and gloves, cut off from the main color by a twisted white mark wrapping around the limbs. Around the waist is a forest green belt with pouches. The shoulders are covered in a pale green capelet that extends around the back into a hood.

“This one,” Inko says, raising her eyes to look at Mitsuki.

Mitsuki hums, glancing at the design that Inko’s decided on. “I wondered if that would be the one.”

“Did you now?”

“Well, okay, I thought that about every damn one,” Mitsuki says, raising her hands defensively. “But I also know you, Inko. I figured you’d go for one of the simpler designs over something elaborate.”

Inko snorts. Sometimes she forgets that Mitsuki knows her just as well as she knows Mitsuki.

Of course, settling on the initial design is only the first step. They spend another hour or so discussing different shades for all of the pieces of the outfit, how long certain elements should be, and other minutiae dull enough that even Izuku doesn’t bother sticking around to listen to it all.

Eventually Inko and Mitsuki arrive on their finalized version of the base design.

Mitsuki leans back in her chair with a sigh and a stretch. “It’s weird. Normally I’d still have weeks of pre-design to go, but I’m not doing the work this time.” She pauses. “David Shield, huh? Can’t believe I actually got to meet the bastard. Scientists on I-Island don’t usually get to leave, you know?”

Inko nods. “Cathy was a real miracle worker there.”

“Well, no rest for the wicked, I guess,” Mitsuki says, getting to her feet. “After all, we gotta celebrate, you know?”

Inko already knows it’s a losing battle, but on instinct she protests, “You don’t have to—”

“Sure fucking don’t, but I got the money and you’re my best damn friend, Inko. And I am not gonna sit here and let you not celebrate becoming a Hero.”

Mitsuki’s grin and the glint in her eye tells Inko that she’s already got something in mind, and Inko surrenders to the inevitable.

Inko isn’t exactly surprised by the venue that Mitsuki chooses for her party.

She’s elected for a single fancy dinner, a compromise she and Inko settled on a long time ago because otherwise Mitsuki would go completely off the rails with the details, from the catering to the time of day. Especially the fashion.

She’s chosen an upscale restaurant in downtown Mustafa—one of the fanciest places in the prefecture with an absolutely stunning overview of the city. The kind of place that you’re expected to show up wearing something nice or the other patrons will judge you.

The Bakugous are already there when the Bate family and Ippan arrive. Mitsuki must’ve recently been to some other kind of social engagement, as she’s wearing a tuxedo matching her husband’s. It’s a long-standing tradition of hers to alternate between dresses and tuxedos when she personally dresses up. The idea is to make a statement about the nature of fashion and the market you’re designing for.

Mitsuki calls it “Performative Fuckery.”

She tuts seeing Ippan, who elected to wear a nice blouse and a skirt. “You are just dying for a dress,” she says, slowly scanning the girl over, and Ippan shrinks in on herself a little.

“Behave, Mitsuki,” says Masaru.

“Ugh, fine,” Mitsuki says. “But I am making her one eventually. She would look so good—”

Masaru nudges her sharply and she cuts off.

Cathleen pulls out Inko’s chair for her, and she sits down as Izuku hops into a seat near Katsuki. Both of them are young enough that they can get away with less effort somewhere like this, but both of them know to be on their best behavior. Even Katsuki can be quiet when he wants to be.

Inko is grateful at least that this place is more than tall enough to accommodate Ippan, though she still wishes the girl’s parents had been able to attend.

Cathleen sits down beside her, and Inko reaches over and takes her hand under the table. Cathleen gives her hand a gentle loving squeeze.

“I still can’t believe it,” Mitsuki says, reading over the menu.

“I can hardly believe it myself,” says Inko.

She also can’t believe how good all the food here sounds. She hasn’t been here before, but she thinks she knows exactly where she and Cathy are going for their anniversary.

“So what’s next? Opening your own place?” Masaru says.

Inko shakes her head. “Not yet. Not with a Provisional License. The next step is to get in time as an intern working somewhere more established. I need a certain number of hours before I qualify for a full license.”

“How long will that take?” Mitsuki says.

“Not as long as if I was a student,” says Inko. “I can work more hours a day, after all. I think by my math, it’s about nine months, give or take?”

“Not that long then. That’s next March or so, right?”

“About, yes.”

“Ah,” Mitsuki grins sharply. “Plenty of time to plan the next milestone celebration then.” Inko rolls her eyes fondly.

 “Any thoughts about what you’ll be getting to drink?” Masaru says.

“I was promised that you had excellent taste in champagne,” says Cathleen. Mitsuki smirks.

Chapter Text

Cathleen Bate startles at the knocking on the door. She’d known to expect visitors, but she’d gotten so caught up in her research that she’d lost track of time. Taking another last glance at the picture of the fine residence, she closes her laptop and stands up.

“I’ll get it!” Izuku says, rushing past.

“Don’t trip!” Cathleen calls after him.

“I won’t!”

Cathleen shakes her head with a soft smile. She scoots the chair back so she can stand up, stretching her arms. She really has been using the computer too much in a single sitting.

“Cathy,” Inko says, leaning in from the kitchen, “Could you go help Izuku greet our guests? I’m making tea for everyone.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Inko,” Cathleen says, giving her a quick kiss.

Inko giggles. “That’s my job, after all.”

Cathleen rolls her eyes and lightly swats her beloved wife on the shoulder.

By the time she makes it down the hallway to the door, Izuku has his hand around the knob. He throws the door open and has no time to react before Melissa rushes forward and wraps him in a hug.

“Izuku!” she says.

“Hi Melissa!” Izuku responds in English. He squeezes her gently.

Melissa looks up at the approaching Cathleen. “Oh, Aunt Cathleen!”

Cathleen reaches down and ruffles her long blond hair. “Hey, Mel! Good to see you!”

It’s only been a few months since the wedding, when she last saw Melissa in person, but it doesn’t happen very often to begin with. And for once it’s not because of Cathleen’s perhaps overly enthusiastic work schedule. I-Island takes their security extremely seriously. Cathleen’s pretty sure that even with the artificial island’s unpredictable movement across the ocean she could teleport herself there, but she’d lock down the entire island and probably get shot for good measure.

Luckily, Izuku and Melissa have been calling each other once a week or so on video chats. The two of them take their declared cousinhood very seriously, the way that only an almost-seven-year-old and a eight-year-old can. It’s been great practice for his English-speaking skills. As it is, you’d be hard pressed to tell it’s his second language most of the time.

Of course, Melissa didn’t fly all the way out to Japan on her own.

“Hey, David,” Cathleen says, “Come on in! Inko’s making tea; she’ll be out in a moment.”

David nods respectfully, a soft smile on his face. He adjusts his grip on the large metal case he holds at his side

“Melissa,” he says, “Shoes.”

“Oh! Right!” Melissa steps back and takes her shoes off, setting them off to the side. Fortunately, she hadn’t quite gotten past the genkan yet. By contrast, David seems entirely at home taking his shoes off before coming into the apartment. Cathleen hides a snort. It seems that spending his whole life in America or I-Island wasn’t enough for him to lose any social graces All Might taught him. Or maybe it’s him being respectful to the culture of any potential clients, like a good businessman.

Inko joins them in the living room, cups of tea carefully balanced on a large serving tray.

“Thank you,” David says, accepting one.

“Oh, tea?” Melissa says as Inko puts one down in front of her.

“Mhmm! Mom makes the best tea!” Izuku says as Inko takes her own seat beside Cathleen.

Cathleen takes a sip from her own cup, unable to hide her smile at the familiar taste of one of Inko’s blends. “I appreciate this. You going out of your way to deliver it yourself.”

“I was certainly surprised when you said that’s what you were doing,” Inko laughs. “David Shield, world famous scientist, coming by to personally see an old housewife.”

Cathleen can’t stop her loud snort. “Please, Inko. You? A housewife? Old?”

“You know what I mean,” Inko says.

David chuckles. “I’ll admit, this is hardly typical. Usually, we have a dedicated delivery service for any of the hardware we ship out. But, well, this was a personal favor for Cathleen. Besides, Melissa wanted to see Izuku again.”

“We hardly ever get to leave I-Island,” Melissa adds, bouncing in her chair. “I know it’s so daddy and everyone can be safe and not tell any secrets, but sometimes I wanna see things!”

“I-Island is pretty incredible,” Cathleen says. “A mobile, artificial island. The pinnacle of human engineering.”

“Yeah, but I was born there,” she says with a sigh. “I’ve already seen it all. I wanna see Mt. Fuji! Or Niagara Falls!”

It’s hard for Cathleen to argue that point when she has in fact seen both of those places. Mt. Fuji is actually visible from several places in Mustafa.

David smiles down at Melissa for a moment, placing a gentle hand on her head. Melissa closes her eyes and beams up at her father.

David clears his throat. “Well, I guess I should hand this over.” He reaches down beside him, picking up the case, and carefully passing it over to Inko. She takes it gracefully, setting it on the table. She turns it around and unlatches it, making sure that the lid doesn’t bump into any of the cups of tea sitting out on the table.

Inko gasps sharply, brining a hand up to her mouth, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, lifting the emerald green jumpsuit from the case. David did an excellent job translating Mitsuki’s sketch into an actual costume—not that Cathleen doubted for a second. The main body is a deep green, with the lighter yellow-greens below the elbow and thighs, cordoned off with curved white stripes. The palms of the gloves are darker, matching the base color. There’s a bright green utility belt with a vivid clasp in the middle, and a very pale shawl that goes around the shoulders.

“It’s incredible, David,” Cathleen says, lightly rubbing the fabric between her thumb and index finger. “This is the same quality as mine!”

“Of course it is,” David says. “You think I’d cut corners on your wife’s costume? I quite enjoy existing, thank you.”

Cathleen laughs.

“So you’re a Hero now, Aunt Inko?” Melissa says.

“I told you all about it!” says Izuku, clutching his chest in mock offense. Cathleen smiles at how cheeky her son can be.

“Yeah but I want to ask about it!” Melissa replies. “I wanna see your Quirk! What’s your Hero Name? Are you gonna open an Agency?”

“Where’d all this energy come from?” David chuckles, taking a drink of tea. “This is excellent; thank you Inko.”

“My pleasure, David,” she says. “It’s the least I could do, really. I can’t thank you enough for going out of your way for me—”

“Not at all. This is my job, Inko. I’m a support technician, this is how I’m somebody’s Hero.”

“Uh huh!” Melissa says. “Uncle Might said so!”

Melissa pauses and looks down at her feet for a moment. It doesn’t last long, though, as Izuku pulls her into a hug. Melissa is startled for a moment before reciprocating.

Turing back to Inko, Cathleen says, “Have you found anywhere to intern at yet?”

“Not yet,” Inko says, eyes still glued to her costume. “Though I have found somewhere that I think would be a good opportunity for me. The lead Hero has a Quirk somewhat like mine, and he’s recently breached the Top 50, so I think he might be able to teach me a lot.”

“There’s no training quite like field experience under a mentor,” says Cathleen, though she has no idea who Inko’s looking at. Sadly, her knowledge of the Japanese Billboard Charts is rather lacking—she’s not that invested in ranks, and the ones she does care about are mostly back Stateside. And, of course, All Might. Not that she expects him to ever dip below his Number One spot before he retires.

Cathleen smiles, thinking back to her very first meeting with him. She still has that photo of All Might holding her, David standing awkwardly off to the side. It’s hard to believe that any Pro Hero has been around as long as All Might has. He’s practically invincible. No one else even comes close; not even her.

“Mama, why don’t you get Mom an internship?” Izuku says, eyes wide.

“That’s complicated.” Cathleen sighs. “I’m, well, I guess you could say that I’m too famous. If I recommend Inko anywhere, then she’ll be held to a higher standard than any other new hire. Neither of us wants to put that kind of pressure on her.”

“Ohh…”

Cathleen still feels weird about being the Number One American Hero. Ranks never mattered to her, especially after listening to All Might talk about why he first became a Hero. Her brief mentorship under him only reinforced her belief that ranking was less important than the actual job at hand—one of the reasons she’s still not satisfied with the Star-Spangled Agency. She knew it was part of the price of her road to Heroism, but she’d have preferred more control over the agency’s original layout. Adding in all the amenities present in Might Tower has her caught in enough red tape to drive her off the deep end.

Cathleen has never minded her rank. True, how much she deserves it is debatable considering that American Billboard System is so population skewed, but she’s never resented being the Number One.

Right up until it’s started to interfere with her ability to help her wife.

Inko beams at Izuku, ruffling his wild green curls.

“I have to do that part on my own,” she says.

“Being a Hero is so complicated,” says Izuku.

“But worth it!” Cathleen says.

“Uh huh! And I’m gonna be a Hero too!”

Melissa blinks a few times.

“Even—even though you’re Quirkless?”

“Yup!”

“Ah, speaking of which, I still need to find a martial arts instructor,” Cathleen says. She’d gotten distracted lately, but Izuku is old enough to really start that kind of physical training.

Melissa stares at her with wide eyes. Cathleen isn’t sure what thoughts are swirling in her head, but whatever they are, they’re captivating.

David chuckles, setting his cup down on the table with a soft clink. “I guess your heart really is set, huh?”

“Huh?”

Melissa pauses, then nods once.

“Mel, do you want to be a Hero too?” Cathleen says.

“Mhmm.” Melissa shuffles her foot. “But… but I can’t be a Hero and help people like Uncle Might. Not without a Quirk.”

“There isn’t anyone with a Quirk who can be a Hero like All Might,” Cathleen says. Not even she herself is that good. “But you don’t need a Quirk to help people.”

“Uncle Might said something like that once,” Melissa says. “That Daddy is his Hero because he makes him costumes that can keep up with him.”

“But it’s not the same,” Inko says.

Melissa shakes her head.

“I should have noticed,” says David. “But… well. I never really wanted to be a Hero. My Quirk’s not suited for it, so it never occurred to me. I don’t have that experience, what you’re going through. I didn’t realize you felt like you were settling.”

“I’m not settling!” Melissa says. “You’re so cool, dad! You help so many—”

“But is that what you want?” David says.

Melissa’s long silence is all the answer that they need.

She opens and closes her mouth several times, earning worried looks from Izuku, who wraps a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“…I do like inventing,” Melissa says. “I—I like how my stuff is gonna help people—help save people. But… but I want to save people.”

Cathleen knows she needs to handle this carefully.

“I told Izuku here it was possible,” she says. “Heroics is dangerous for everyone, but what dangers you face is based on who you are and what kind of Hero you are. And both of those are largely influenced by your Quirk, for better or worse.”

David nods slowly, flicking his gaze to Cathleen. “If you like inventing,” he says, “There are many Heroes who also dabble in Support.”

Melissa beams almost as brightly as Izuku can, and Cathleen can’t help but smile softly at the sight.

“Well,” Inko says. “It looks like there are three aspiring Heroes here.”

Chapter Text

The building looks unassuming enough. A fairly standard office building, only a few floors tall. It’s modern but not brutalist, and lacks many of the personalizations that Bate Inko is used to from the Agencies of the higher-ranked Heroes. It isn’t a towering monolith like Might Tower or the Endeavor Agency, and the exterior isn’t decorated like a Hero Costume.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think it really was only an ordinary office building.

She checks her watch for the third time in thirty seconds. Surprisingly, she still is not late. Inko sets down the metal case so that she can wipe her palm on her pencil skirt.

What the hell is she doing here?

Okay, yes, she is here to interview to get a work study under a Pro Hero, something that she scheduled in advance. She needs a work study so that she can meet the requirements to get a full License and become a proper Pro Hero.

But she’s never done anything close to this before. Nothing in her career in law has prepared her for the monumentous task of walking into a Hero Agency and pitching her services as functionally a sidekick-in-training to a Pro Hero. This is something that will go on to have a major part in the definition of her career. Not only her career, but her abilities will reflect on the Hero in question, meaning that hiring her is a risk.

She is going to have to convince an experienced Pro Hero that she as an investment worth that risk.

Inko has no idea how to do that.

She’s still not certain if her choice of dress is appropriate. Don’t get her wrong, the dress shirt and pencil skirt look is perfect for any occasion that requires professional attire, but she isn’t here to apply as a secretary. Even now she’s debating if she should’ve worn her costume instead. She hasn’t used it at all beyond the fitting, and she’s only licensed provisionally, so she doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea when they see her dressed as a Hero, but even so.

Inko bites her lip, glancing down at her watch. It seems so easy in theory: walking into the building and having a conversation. But now that she’s here in the shadow of the building she’s starting to feel queasy.

She doubts Cathleen ever had this problem. Cathleen actually went through a proper Hero education and training program instead of constantly playing catchup to people half her age.

Though, if Inko had been brave enough to chase that long-buried childhood dream in her own high school days, she may have never had Izuku, never met Cathleen. She wouldn’t trade her life for the world.

She just wishes that chasing after this career opportunity weren’t so nerve-wracking.

But Inko is not a quitter. She didn’t give up when she was studying law and she is not going to let some pre-interview nerves stand between her and becoming a Hero. If not for herself, for Cathleen and Izuku.

She summons her courage, takes a deep breath, and walks through the door with the confidence of a lawyer about to force someone to drop their case.

The inside of the agency is much different from the outside. Almost as though the building itself is some kind of modern art installation. The ceiling is uneven, with different heights throughout the room cutting off as abruptly as stairs. Circular lighting fixtures cut holes in these platforms, further abstracting the room with these pillars of negative space.

“Welcome!”

Inko manages to avoid jumping in surprise, but only just.

A man floats in from further in the office, resting on an iridescent disc. He smiles lazily from behind his high gray collar, his eyes covered by a bandana and the large, red pointed hat on his head. A frayed orange shawl covers much of the loose black bodysuit beneath.

He salutes, showing off the arm-length glove that goes to his middle finger but leaves the rest of his hand exposed. “Kannagi Enma at your service. Gotta say, little intimidating seeing someone come in for Work Studies who’s older than me. And you’re Bate Inko, alias…?”

Inko chooses to let the remark about her age slide. She’s well aware that her method of acquiring a license is hardly what anyone would call typical, and that Heroes have a rather low age of retirement. She doubts he means anything by it.

“Starbright,” she says.

The disc practically shatters into sparkling lights as Kannagi unfurls his legs, planting his feet on the ground as casually as if he had hopped up from a couch.

“So, why me? Of all the agencies in Japan, coming straight to the Number 45 is a bit ambitious, isn’t it?”

“Your ranking did not factor into my decision as much as your Quirk,” says Inko. She holds out her case in front of her so Kannagi can see and sets it down on the floor. She’s lucky that Hero Costumes come in cases not much larger than a business briefcase. As it is, it’s only barely within the volume limits of her Quirk.

With a simple wave of her hand, the case lifts off the floor. When it’s about a meter off the ground, she stops, leaving the case to freeze in midair. Inko moves around in front of the case and sits down on it, letting her legs bend underneath like a stool.

“The way you use your Quirk is very similar to mine,” Inko says. “Once I had narrowed my decision down to someone who would have the experience I need, then I selected from the higher-ranks.”

“Pretty sensible.” Kannagi cups his chin, peering around and examining the hovering case. “Yeah, that’s a lot like how I use Magic. If you wanna Work Study where you can get a lot of good practice with a Quirk like that, you’re in the right place. But that’s what you get out of this. What can you bring me?”

Inko swallows.

“I intend to specialize in Rescue work. Statistically, Rescue Heroes do not place within the upper 500 Heroes the same way as Limelight Heroes, but are more consistently within the top 1,000, which is still impressive. I am, in that way, a safe investment for your future image as my mentor.”

“Safer,” Kannagi stresses.

“Additionally, I have experience in a legal setting and am knowledgeable about both civilian and Quirk law. And, as someone with a non-destructive Quirk, as an intern, I will avoid collateral damage that might reflect poorly on you.”

“Mm… those are some good points. Any others?”

She could bring attention to her existing network, but she has no desire to bring that much attention to herself and her family. Inko swallows again, shaking her head. Kannagi’s smile widens slightly, and she begins to suspect that there was an answer he was looking for.

She has no idea if she gave it.

“Alright,” Kannagi says, clapping his hands together. “Sometimes you gotta put some action ahead of words. So here’s the deal: go get changed into your costume, and we’ll go on patrol.”

“…just like that?”

“Nope. You’ll be on a trial period for… a week should be good. If you can impress me in that time, you’re hired.” He pauses. “Oh, and don’t worry. Even if you don’t make the cut, I’ll be sure to pay you for the week.”

Even though Inko is a provisional Hero, she’s still technically licensed, and as such anything she does as a Hero is being done professionally. While Heroes are paid by commission based on their involvement in situations, even Hero students receive financial compensation during their Work Study period, although that money is typically handled by their parents.

This also means that if he chooses not to hire her on after this, then the hours she does work this week will still count towards her total.

Inko bows. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Kannagi says. “You’re a bit earlier than my usual patrol time for today, so feel free to take your time with your costume if you need to. Most first costumes need a lot of adjustments, and even then pretty much every Hero goes through several iterations. Like how All Might’s got his ‘Bronze Age’ and ‘Silver Age.’”

Inko chooses to say nothing, simply nodding. She is already aware of how Heroes frequently rebrand themselves for a variety of reasons, from marketing to practicality. Studying up for her own Provisional Exam made that clear, especially with Ippan frequently working on her Management coursework at the apartment.

Changing into her costume properly for the first time is a surreal experience. It’s such a simple act physically speaking, but it adds so much weight to all of the work that she’s been doing for the past few years. It’s all suddenly so much realer. And she’s about to go out on her first ever patrol.

The jumpsuit fits her perfectly, as she knew it would. She marvels at it, at how much she really does look like a Hero now. Not for too long, though. Regardless of how early she may be for a patrol, if she is to act like an employee of this agency, then changing swiftly is one of the most important parts. In a crisis, every second counts.

As soon as Inko confirms what she already knows about how the costume fits and that all of the pouches on her belt have her equipment, she returns to the lobby. Kannagi is waiting for her, sitting on one of his discs again. He lets out a low whistle when he sees her.

“I don’t know what I expected when I saw you already had a costume,” he says, “but it wasn’t something of that quality.”

“Thank you, sir.” She’s pretty sure that was a compliment anyway.

“Better than my first costume, that’s for sure.” Kannagi’s disc floats over to her, giving him a closer look. “Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’d expect from a Third-Year from a Hero School, or a debuted Pro. If you don’t mind me asking, where’d you get it?”

“My wife has a friend on I-Island,” says Inko, turning herself so that he can see more of it.

“Not bad. Industry connections make our world go round.” He claps his hands together, “So! You ready for your first patrol?”

“Of course, sir.”

Kannagi smiles lazily. “You’re the picture of professionalism.”

It’s a quiet patrol, thankfully.

Inko wasn’t really expecting a bank robbery or a major disaster to happen on her first day of work study, but she hadn’t counted out the possibility either.

She lets Kannagi—or, Majestic, she should refer to him by his Hero Name while on the job—take the lead. It’s almost a normal stroll around the city, if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s walking next to the Number 45 Pro Hero, or the glances she herself receives.

Occasionally, a child or two will run up to her and ask her who she is. The first time it happens Inko nearly gives her name before her brain catches up to her and she introduces herself as Starbright. Some of them are disappointed to hear that she’s only a Provisional Hero when she’s not in High School, but most are impressed.

“Just think,” Kannagi says after the third time it happens, “One day, they’ll know you on sight and ask you for an autograph instead of an introduction.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to think about having fans,” Inko says with a chuckle. “Still. It’s wonderful to see kids are so… inspired.”

Kannagi becomes wistful. “The primary purpose of Heroes isn’t a deterrent to crime, or as a civil servant, or anything like that. No, we’re a promise. That no matter what, no matter how bleak things are, there are people out there who will always extend a helping hand. That the world can be a better place than we found it.”

Watching those kids chatter excitedly about her and Majestic and other Heroes as they turn the corner, Inko thinks she understands what he means.

Chapter Text

The apartment is quiet without Inko.

It’s not a very large place to begin with. Inko probably found the place with only herself and Izuku in mind, maybe one more considering the size of the bedroom she shares with Cathleen Bate.  It’s cozy and warm and wonderful, but it can also be small and empty.

If Izuku is in his room—doing homework, researching Heroes, playing games, or whatever else—then there isn’t any other noise in the flat. It leaves Cathleen longing for Inko’s laugh, her touch. And that’s exactly where he is right now.

Cathleen is very rarely in Japan sitting the house compared to Inko. She wonders if Inko feels the same way when she’s off in America doing her Hero work. Ippan is truly a blessing for helping to have someone around, keeping an eye on Izuku. Cathleen has no idea how other Hero families handle their own kids. Perhaps that’s why so few Heroes have families, and fewer still have children—at least to her knowledge.

There’s another part of Cathleen that worries. Inko is a Hero now. Her license may be Provisional but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still going on patrol, doing Hero Work. Rescues.

Villain Fights.

Cathleen has never had to worry about her wife before. Inko has always been safely doing office work, sometimes from home. Or, as it turns out, studying up on Hero Law and practicing her Quirk for the Provisional License Exam. Either way, she’s never been in the proverbial line of fire before. She’s known, intellectually, that Inko has worried about her being in danger from her own Heroics, even if Cathleen is practically a reality warper. Being on the other end is different.

Cathleen has no doubt that Inko will put in the work to get the full License as soon as physically possible. She has complete trust in Inko, and she’s so proud of her. But that doesn’t make the emotional part of her worry any less.

Cathleen sighs. At least it’s not as bad as it was two days ago. Today is her third day of working under Majestic. That first day, once the rush of Inko getting the position wore off, was by far the worst. Cathleen is still adjusting.

The silence, the lack of presence within the apartment is unnerving. With any luck, a little work will get her mind off of things.

She scans over the papers in her hands closely.

Jieitaikakutōjutsu. The Self-Defense Force Martial Arts. Useful in a variety of close-quarters situations with moves and tactics for single or multiple opponents. Emphasis on grabs and quickly subduing opponents. Considering her own military background, Cathleen could easily find Izuku a teacher if this is the style she was to go with, but she’s hesitant. The style is generally meant as a supplement to armed combat, incorporating the use of a rifle and bayonet. The odds of Izuku using a rifle in combat seems… unlikely. Considering how much he idolizes All Might—and who wouldn’t—he’s probably not planning to go for heavier weaponry.

For that matter, Cathleen can’t think of any Heroes with such weapons. Armed Heroes aren’t completely unheard of, even in a country with the tight firearm control of Japan, but the way that Izuku talks about Heroics makes her think that he’s probably not going for a sharpshooting aesthetic.

Cathleen rubs the bridge of her nose and sets the packet to the side, atop the packets on Karate and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Her brothers really went Plus Ultra compiling different potential styles for Izuku to use, but she’s beginning to think they might have been too enthusiastic about it. Including Fight Sports is more careless than they usually are. Maybe she should’ve asked Commander Agpar?

She scrunches her face a bit. Probably not. He’s still upset about the last time she ran off to help someone without alerting him.

As Cathleen reaches for the next packet—Krav Maga—Izuku wanders into the room, holding a notebook and pencil.

“Mama! Wanna draw with me?”

She can’t help but smile at her son’s beaming face. “I’m not that good at it,” she says, “But I’m down for arts and crafts time.”

Somehow, impossibly, Izuku smiles brighter.

While Izuku scratches his pencil against the page, Cathleen fetches a coloring book—Inko had bought several of them for herself one time back when they were dating, only to bounce off of the hobby. She offered the unused books to Cathleen, and she had been sucked in.

She has about half a dozen in her collection at the moment, ranging from aquatic life to plants or animals or geometric designs, but Cathleen takes her current favorite, one containing fully illustrated somewhat whimsical scenes.

Izuku, meanwhile, has a simple looseleaf notebook filled with various sketches of Heroes he’s seen on TV. Of course, his drawings consist mostly of rectangles with circles for the head and hands. Considering that at his age, Cathleen was still drawing stick figures, that’s still better than what she could do.

Cathleen turns to the next unfinished page, finding a picture of a young girl sitting in a flowering tree. Something about the scene suggests it should be at night to her, so she takes her blue colored pencil and begins carefully filling in the branches. It’s slow work, especially since she has to be careful not to crush the pencil and or stab it clean through the book, but that’s what makes it so rewarding for her. Coloring books are supposed to be exercises in mindfulness after all.

“Mama, mama, look!”

Cathleen does so, and is greeted by Izuku holding up another drawing for her. The blocky person is clearly in her colors, with eight yellow crayon lines scratching away from the head.

“It’s me!” she gasps. “Aren’t you the little artist?”

Izuku giggles. “Now I’m gonna draw Mom!”

“I’m sure she’ll love it.”

Izuku goes back to drawing, and Cathleen returns to her own art.

This flower here would look excellent in a faint pink, but how can she get that across with the nighttime lighting? Oh, of course, purple! The bird next to it… it looks a lot like a dove. She could leave it white, but then it wouldn’t contrast against the faint tips of that flower. Perhaps she can take a few creative liberties with nature?

Cathleen holds in a snort. That’s an apt description of her Quirk.

She carefully mixes in a touch of purple with the orange for the monkey-like creature hiding in the tree, doing her best to keep the coloring delicate as best she can with strength like hers. Sure, she could remove the empowering Order, but she leaves it on so frequently that it’s generally more convenient to learn how to live normally like this. Besides, her master must have done the same once upon a time, so why shouldn’t she?

“Here’s Mom!” Izuku says, showing off a picture of a green figure. Cathleen smiles.

“Why don’t you hang that one and the one of me on the fridge? We can surprise Inko with it when she gets home tonight.”

Izuku gasps in delight. “What about this one?” he says, showing her another drawing of his, one she hadn’t noticed. This figure has short green hair, and colors like both his picture of her and his picture of Inko.

“Is this you?” she asks. “Your Hero Costume?”

“Yeah!” Izuku says, nodding faster than Cathleen thought possible. “I’m gonna be a Hero like you and Mom!”

Cathleen wipes at the corner of her eye, wondering if marrying into the family somehow made her inherit some of their habits.

“Yeah, let’s hang that one, too.”

“I should ask Melissa what her costume will look like!”

He hops down from the chair, drawings in hand, and sets out for the kitchen when they’re both startled by a single shrill whistle from Cathleen’s phone.

Her blood goes cold at the sound. It’s a very specific noise from a very specific app.

The Hero Network.

Established by the World Heroes Association around the same time as All Might’s debut, the Network is easily the most useful means of information sharing in the entire Heroics industry. Each country has their own private ‘channel’ so to speak, and the Network itself can’t be accessed without a valid License.

Activity reports, persons of interest, information libraries, everything a Hero could need to know made easily accessible.

Including requests for assistance.

The sound that comes from Cathleen’s phone means that someone has specifically asked for her presence. While many Heroes will defer to higher-ranked Heroes, directly asking for the Number One Hero in America is practically unheard of.

The situation must be truly dire.

Cathleen swipes her phone out of her pocket before the alert plays the second beep.

Hero Network Request

ID# 5872211

Starbright

Attached are a set of coordinates.

Cathleen pales.

“Izuku,” she says quickly. He’d already turned his full attention to her from the moment she got the notification. “Inko needs me, so I’m going to step out. Stay here, and don’t do anything that me, her, or Ippan wouldn’t let you do.” Izuku nods seriously. “Good kid.”

Cathleen doesn’t have her costume on her, and frankly, she wouldn’t bother wasting time changing if she did.

With a quick Order, she lets reality unravel, warping and twisting around her until she is somewhere else entirely.

The first thing she notices is the heat. The moment she appears, it slams into her like a train. Anyone without the durability that comes with her empowering Order would’ve staggered from it. Even with that Order active, it’s hard on her to breathe.

She coughs, waving away the second thing she notices. The billowing wall of smoke pouring everywhere.

Which leads her to the third thing she notices, what she is certain beyond a shadow of a doubt is the reason that Inko called for her.

An entire mountainside blazing in an inferno.

Chapter Text

Only three days in and patrol is already becoming something of a routine. Bate Inko is starting to recognize the area around Majestic’s office, and even a few familiar faces out and about at the same time as when she and Majestic are patrolling.

Nothing has happened during any of their patrols, for which Inko is grateful. If there was never a situation that needed Heroes, the world might be a nicer place. But while she’s glad that the people are safe, she’s beginning to worry. Having a week to impress a Hero as high in the rankings as Majestic is already a tall order. She doesn’t know if there’s anything specific he’s expecting from her, or if he’s waiting for a moment to arise. Or is she supposed to take the initiative and do something herself? Probably not. He’s her superior. She should defer to his command. Her license is only Provisional. She could easily have it taken from her if she chooses to use it like a Vigilante.

In any case, the work itself is easy enough. Inko is not ashamed to admit that she was afraid. She knows the dangers that come with being a Hero. Cathleen may be so powerful that few things can truly put her in danger, but Inko’s Quirk is weak, and she herself is not exactly the most athletic of people.

Even so…

“Is it usually so… quiet?” Inko says. “From the way the media talks about Heroes, you’d think there’d be a Villain fight every day.”

“There is,” says Majestic. “Yesterday was in Toyama. The day before that was a car accident over in Miyagi. Get enough people in any one place, and a situation will happen eventually. The thing is, a purse-snatcher doesn’t make for good TV, so you only really hear about the big stuff. I keep tabs on some of my buddies from when I was in UA, and several of ‘em haven’t ever had a big debut. People will always love their local Heroes, but there’s a couple thousand Heroes in Japan. Takes one hell of a splash for someone to recognize you outside of your normal patrol route.” He shrugs. “It is what it is.”

Inko nods slowly. It makes sense. It also goes a long way to explain why Heroics is such a competitive field, if there are so many Heroes and only so many situations to get their names out there. Maybe if she were younger, in a Hero School herself, she would be daunted by the steep odds against her. But now, as an adult, she finds it doesn’t matter that much to her. She already knows she’s unlikely to get very high on the Hero Billboards. She’s doing this for herself, for Cathleen. For Izuku.

Majestic pauses, putting a hand in front of her.

“Do you smell that?” he says.

Inko furrows her brow, taking a few deep breaths to see if she can pick up what he has. Her eyes widen.

“Smoke…?”

Inko nearly stumbles as she rises into the air, one of Majestic’s magic rings under her feet. The grim determination on her mentor’s face tells Inko exactly how serious the situation is. Even so, she isn’t prepared for when they clear the buildings and see the source of the fire.

The mountain is burning.

The roaring flames climb so high they could lick the clouds if it wasn’t for the smoke rolling off of it in waves, thick enough that they begin to block out the sun.

Inko gapes at the fire. How could this have happened without them noticing? Did the trees go up that quickly?

“Holy shit,” Majestic murmurs. Louder, he says, “Starbright, we need to handle the perimeter!”

“Right!”

As Majestic flies them closer, Inko has to hold up a hand in front of her face from the sheer heat of the blaze, even here still within city limits—something that bodes poorly when the forest comes close to the edge of the city. Worse, a crowd is already forming only about a block or two away from the edge of the mountain.

She blinks rapidly, trying to keep her eyes from drying out. At the very least, the smoke is pouring upwards and away from them, especially as Majestic lowers them both down to the ground. The last thing she needs right now is to inhale a fraction of the thick plumes.

“Please, stay back!” Inko calls to the gathering crowd as she steps down from the floating disc. She takes a deep breath to slow her racing heart and tries to remember what happens in a situation like this. It’s rare for Heroes to directly involve themselves in active wildfires unless they happen to have a Quirk that could help. Otherwise it’s left up to firefighting efforts and airdrops, whenever they arrive.

“You aren’t safe here!” she continues. “Please evacuate to a safe distance and let emergency response work!”

“Well, you heard her!” says Majestic, stepping past her. “The alerts should be going out soon, so please get to safety!”

That seems to snap the crowd out of their horrified stupor, and the gawking people start to disperse away from the fire, much slower than Inko would like.

“What do you think?” she says. “Could this have been a hiker?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “We should’ve seen the smoke much sooner if this fire started small. It’s like the entire mountainside lit up at once. This has to be a Quirk.”

“Then, could they still be up there—”

“Touya!”

The shout comes from the crowd and makes Inko jump. She and Majestic turn, scanning for the source of the cry.

A man shoves his way to the front of the crowd, desperation etched into his features. It takes Inko a moment to recognize him. He hasn’t even bothered with the signature flames adorning his body.

“Endeavor?” says Majestic.

Endeavor, the Number Two Hero in Japan, collapses beside Majestic, seemingly unaware of his presence.

“Touya!” he yells again, voice cracking.

Inko swallows thickly, kneeling beside him.

“Endeavor, do you know something about this fire?”

He twitches when she speaks, as if surprised to be addressed. After staring blankly at Inko for a moment, he nods.

“My son, my Touya… he went up there to train his Quirk…”

A shiver runs down Inko’s spine as she looks up at her mentor.

It’s possible for Endeavor’s son to have a Quirk completely unlike his, but it’s not very likely. Which means that this fire was probably started by a child with an out-of-control Quirk… and who would still be up there.

“He—he doesn’t—he can’t take the heat,” Endeavor says, at this point practically babbling over his own words. “He can’t handle his Quirk.”

“Shit,” Majestic murmurs.

Inko can hear the sounds of firetrucks, but they’re still distant. The fire’s been raging for several minutes already. They can’t afford to wait for what could be hours or days of battling back the flames to reach Touya.

How many Heroes are there in Japan who could feasibly quell this inferno? And of them, how many could get here fast enough to make a difference? The only one that comes to mind is All Might, and that’s only if he happens to be nearby.

Inko’s eyes widen.

All Might isn’t the only Hero.

“Majestic, sir,” she says curtly. “I’m requesting backup through the Hero Network.”

He blinks at her. “I’ve already put out the alert. Anyone who can help is already on their way.”

“I have someone specific in mind,” she says, already pulling her phone out from a pouch in her belt. “She may be our best chance to save Touya.” She may be their only chance to save Touya.

Inko doesn’t even have to think about it. She memorized Cathleen’s Hero ID ages ago.

Right as she sends the request, the fire bursts with a roar, the heat crashing into her. She and Majestic stagger under the force of it, and on the ground Endeavor flinches.

“Shit!” Majestic says, as he and Inko block their faces with their arms. “How the hell is it still getting hotter!?”

The crackling and popping of the flames grows louder, drowning out any response she could’ve given. Inko grits her teeth.

Then, clearly even through the noise, she hears it.

“Air within 5 miles of me cannot burn!”

The fire roars again, climbing higher into the sky for a brief moment, before shattering into embers and flickering away to nothing. Even so, the oppressive heat remains.

Inko lowers her arms slowly, squinting against the scorched air.

“Ink—Starbright!” says Cathleen—Pro Hero Star and Stripe, dressed in civilian garb. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she says, as Majestic glances between the two of them. “Thank you for coming.”

“What happened?” says Star. “A sudden wildfire?”

“A Quirk accident, we believe,” Majestic says. “You—you are a Pro Hero, yes?”

She chuckles. “I guess I’m not that recognizable out of costume. I’m the American Pro Hero Star and Stripe.”

Majestic’s jaw drops, but before he can say anything else, Endeavor practically falls on himself clinging to Star and Stripe’s shirt.

“My son, my Touya, he’s up there,” he says. “He—he can’t handle heat!”

Star’s eyes widen in dawning horror.

“Air within 5 miles of me will steadily cool to 80° Fahrenheit,” Star says. Inko holds back a surprised expression. Cathleen can only keep two Orders going at once, and with the heat and the kindling on the mountain, there’s a very strong chance of the fire starting again if she releases her Order suffocating it. Which means she’s dropped her self-empowering Order, the one she almost never drops.

“That should do it,” she says. “Hopefully that won’t cool too quickly and start a windstorm or something.”

But Endeavor isn’t listening. The moment the Order leaves Cathleen’s lips, he scrambles away, half-stumbling, half-crawling as he picks himself up from the ground.

Inko turns to Majestic, who looks thoughtful.

“We can leave the clean-up to the fire team,” he says. “We’re Heroes; we can do the rescue. Besides, my Quirk is excellent for moving someone without aggregating injuries. Let’s go, Starbright.”

“Yes, sir.”

The mountain is dead as they ascend.

What little grass still exists crumples into ash as her boots brush against it. The trees have been reduced to charcoal, the leaves and branches long gone. The dirt has cooked and hardened, and in several places burst from when the air in the cracks expanded from the heat. It’s practically apocalyptic.

With each step, the oppressive heat lessens as Cathleen’s Quirk steadily adjusts the temperature around them back to bearable levels.

Ahead of them, Endeavor staggers mindlessly forward.

“…I used to come here to train.”

It takes Inko a moment to realize that it’s him who spoke.

“It was secluded,” he continues. “Away from people—from unwanted attention. The trees… the trees made perfect targets. And—and there’s streams and lakes all over the mountain. But then I got into UA, got better places to train, and I never looked back.” Endeavor’s voice cracks. “Touya—he had the same idea. He heard about this place from me, came here even when I forbade it. He wanted me to watch him…”

As Endeavor trails off, he crests a hill and cries out, scrambling down. The three of them pick up the pace after him.

Endeavor crouches over a charred figure at the edge of what might have once been a lake, but so much of the water has evaporated into the steam drifting aimlessly away that it’s barely a puddle anymore.

The body is so small.

Star drops down beside them both.

“Endeavor, sir,” she says, “I can help, but my Quirk needs his full name.”

His throat is wet when he speaks. “…Todoroki Touya.”

Star nods, placing a gentle hand on the body.

“Todoroki Touya will heal.”

The effects are immediately obvious, even ignoring how the temperature stops dropping. The blackened, burnt skin slowly smooths as color returns to the areas worst affected. Star watches the process carefully.

“Endeavor,” she says softly. “My Quirk can only heal the physical damage. He’ll be unharmed when I’m done. But the memory of—the memory of burning alive… he’ll still have that. He’s going to need a hospital.”

Endeavor does not move, does not make a sound. He’s a statue for almost an entire minute, before at last his lips part and with his weak voice, he concedes.

Chapter Text

Todoroki Touya burns.

He can’t hear his own screams.

Touya has felt fire before—has burned before.

Back when he was younger, he’d felt his father’s flames lick his skin, back when the man trained him, believed in him, looked at him.

When father had abandoned him for his masterpiece, Touya had sworn to burn even brighter. Every time he pushes his Quirk further and further, the pain gets worse.

He’s felt the heat sear straight into him and igniting his nerves. Felt the air around his skin turn into an oven and cook him.

Touya is only fourteen years old, but he is intimately familiar with how painful a fire can be.

Never before has he felt anything even half as excruciating.

The pain burns away all thought, all memory. Touya can’t remember the mountain, the training, that father once again refused to look at him, the inferno that he never learned how to control.

All he knows is pain.

His throat is hoarse from the screams that he cannot hear.

He thrashes unwillingly, his body curling and convulsing as the endless burning fries him alive. Despite his best efforts, his body refuses to move the way that it should, and he pulls against it in his desperation to make it all stop.

Eventually, something slams into him, and the pain vanishes. Touya however has only a moment to process it before he fades into dreamless sleep.

Touya awakens eight more times.

Eight more times, he has to be sedated.

Touya blinks slowly back to awareness, squinting against the golden light pouring in through the windows. Everything burns, and he tries to will himself to snuff out his Quirk, but nothing happens. His breathing picks up in intensity. If he can’t stop the fire—

The fire.

He doesn’t hear fire. No cracks or snaps as it bursts against the surrounding oxygen. Nor is there any light flickering against his eyelids.

Touya forces his eyes open.

There’s no fire.

There is no fire.

The pain instantly starts to fade away to numb irritation. Compared to the agony he awoke to, Touya can hardly tell that he still feels it at all.

Attempting to get up is useless—his limbs have been bound to the bed. Even if they weren’t, there’s an IV connected to his arm, and Touya has no idea how those are supposed to come out. Probably best not to touch it.

The pain flares for a moment, and Touya winces. He can deal with it. Like Father would. Gathering information is what’s important now.

The room is one he’s never been in before, but he can hardly call it unfamiliar. It’s clearly a hospital room, with flat white walls unlike the traditional dividers of the house. Instead of hardwood flooring, the ground is smooth, like it was paved over. Father would call it modern. He never liked modern.

Touya blinks slowly.

Father wouldn’t have let him into a hospital at all if there was any other option. He’s always complained about how public they are, how the doctors try to give orders. What could have happened for him to have put Touya here?

He racks his brain, and the answer comes quickly.

“Oh,” says Touya, voice shattering from how raw his throat is. “Sekoto… peak.”

A moment later, a nurse comes in, takes one look at him, and sags in relief.

“Hello, Todoroki,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Everything burns…” he manages. “But there’s no fire.”

The nurse nods as if she’d expected this answer, and she quickly gets to releasing his locked limbs.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says. “You woke up several times, but you weren’t… here. You were thrashing around so much we were afraid you’d hurt yourself.”

“Oh.”

He’s suddenly seized by a coughing fit. By the time it passes, the nurse has a small cup of water for him. He reaches for it, but another flare of pain stops him. The nurse offers it anyway, helping it to his lips for him. It’s humiliating, but he’s grateful.

“What—” he says at last. “What happened?” He remembers going to Sekoto Peak, and that father never arrived. He remembers a spark igniting, hotter than before, and that he couldn’t get it out. He’s only ever learned how to turn up the heat. But after the trees caught… everything else is a blur.

The nurse pauses.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “Sekoto caught fire almost instantly. Some Heroes in the area were able to extinguish the flames, and they brought you in. One of them had some kind of Healing Quirk, and was able to treat your burns before you arrived. That’s all I know.”

Touya nods, numb.

Touya is cleared for visitors the next day.

Father never comes.

After a few days with the physical therapist, the burning in his flesh has died down even further.

He traces a finger over his unblemished skin. If he didn’t know better, he would never guess that he’d been in such a cataclysmic fire. There’s not a single sign of a burn anywhere on him. Even the burns on his chest from before are gone. He always knew they’d fade away over time as he mastered his Quirk, but he thought it would take longer.

It’s as though he’s never used his Quirk at all.

He hasn’t since coming to the hospital, not once, though he’s been tempted. He doesn’t know what happened that made him lose control of them, but he isn’t eager to repeat the experience. There are no such thing as miracles, and Touya isn’t counting on being saved a second time.

“Touya,” says a nurse—not the one who had seen to him when he woke up, but another one that’s helped him since— “You have a visitor. Should I let her in?”

Her?

Maybe it’s mother. He hasn’t seen any of his family yet.

Father must be busy. He’s working so hard as the Number Two Hero, it makes sense that he can’t find the time. He has to be worried sick.

But Mother… Touya had been so cruel to her. He needs to apologize. And to Natsuo, and Fuyumi, and Shoto.

He’d—he had tried to kill Shoto once.

The door opens, and Touya’s head snaps up. “Mo—”

The woman looking back at him is not mother.

She’s a bit taller than mother and has a wider build. Her curly green hair is pulled back into a ponytail, unlike how mother keeps her own hair down.

The only familiar thing about her is the concern in her eyes.

“Are you in the right room?” asks Touya.

The woman smiles sadly, nodding. “I’m Bate Inko,” she says. “Or, Starbright, if you prefer.”

That name—it’s obviously a Hero name but Touya’s never heard it before. He wonder what her rank is. It can’t be that high or father would’ve mentioned her at some point.

“I haven’t heard of you,” he says.

“I know. I’m still only Provisionally Licensed. For now, anyway. But I and my mentor were two of the Heroes that found you.” She steps slowly around to the side of the bed, taking a seat in the lounge chair by the wall.

“What happened?” It’s more of a demand than a question. “No one here knows anything!”

Mrs. Bate pauses before she speaks. “I was on patrol with my Mentor, Majestic.” Now that is a name he’s heard. “He smelled the smoke, and we hurried to the scene. By the time we arrived, the entire mountainside had already caught fire. It must’ve spread quickly. We were only supposed to handle the perimeter until the fire suppression units arrived, but then… Endeavor, your father, appeared. He—I’m not sure how aware he was, but he was desperate to reach you.”

Father had… been there? Had seen the fire and tried to get to him?  But then… doesn’t that mean he was in the area? Couldn’t he have swung by and seen him? Even if just for a few minutes?

“The fire was too intense for us to get close,” Mrs. Bate continues, unaware of Touya’s internal turmoil. “Luckily, I knew a Hero I could call who could extinguish the flames and let us safely approach. Endeavor led us to you—Todoroki? Are you alright?”

Touya blinks. “What?”

“You’re crying!”

He is?

Touya raises a hand to his cheek and his finger touches something wet.

He is.

“I—”

Touya shudders and breaks. The tears pour from his eyes as he wails.

He doesn’t understand.

Why didn’t father come?

Why won’t father look at him?

“I—I’m fine!” Touya says, uselessly wiping the tears from his eyes. “What happened?”

Mrs. Bate looks taken aback, but she continues anyway.

“The other Hero, the one that I called, she used her Quirk to heal your burns, and told Endeavor that you would… that you would likely need help from the experience of… burning.”

“…thank you.”

“Am I interrupting something?”
Touya jumps a little, but Mrs. Bate smiles at the doorway like she’s seeing the sun for the first time. “Not at all! Todoroki wanted to know what happened, because the doctors weren’t there.”

Touya doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it’s not a very tall, muscular woman to step into the room.

“Hello,” she says. “I’m Bate Cathleen, but you might’ve heard of me as Star and Stripe.”

Touya’s mouth drops open.

That… explains a lot about the things he heard. Star and Stripe could easily have dealt with the fire, from what little he’s heard about her. Father always paid more attention to the domestic Heroes than the foreign ones.

“Sorry I’m late,” Star and Stripe says to Mrs. Bate, “But I ran into some people in the lobby.”

“Touya!”

Touya’s eyes widen, and he barely has time to process it before he finds himself buried in his mother’s arms. The tears that hadn’t quite stopped return with a vengeance and Touya grips the back of mother’s shirt and presses his face against her and sobs.

 Touya’s jaw works, moving and shifting, but no matter what shapes his mouth takes, the only sound that comes out are the broken wails.

“Touya?”

Touya chokes on a sob at the concern in Natsuo’s voice, his brother standing at the foot of the bed beside Fuyumi and—and Shoto. Shoto looks so small.

 They’re all here. All of them except… except Father. Touya cries harder, squeezing his eyes closed.

“Mom, I’m so sorry!” he says. “I—I shouldn’t have said that! I shouldn’t have said that… that you and Fuyumi are good for nothing! And when you said—you said you were worried! I’m sorry! And—and Natsuo! I’m sorry for—for yelling at you! And Shoto!” His grip on his mother’s shirt tightens. “I’m so sorry!”

Something presses against his side, the surprise sending making Touya shudder. He manages to crack open an eye, shifting his head with ragged breaths.

Shoto, little Shoto, looks up at him from where he’s wrapped around Touya.

He… Shoto hugged him.

After everything that Touya did…

“Touya,” Mother says quietly. “You—you were right. I am guilty. I saw the fire he lit in you; saw how much you needed to surpass him… and all I did was tell you to ignore it! I tried to snuff it out! That—that’s what you want, isn’t it? To surpass All Might like he wanted you to? I’m so sorry, Touya!  You can do it! You can be that Hero! But please… I don’t know what I have to say to you to keep you alive!”

For the first time since he woke up, Touya feels cold. Ice crawls down his spine as the words process in his mind over and over.

His grip on her shirt slips loose and Touya slowly pushes himself away, not even noticing how Shoto continues to cling to him.

Mother’s gray eyes shine bright but firm. For several silent seconds, Touya stares at the reflection of himself.

He breaks first.

Touya hands his head, bringing up an arm to wipe the tears staining his face. “Why? Why does Father only care about me when I’m dying! He—he doesn’t give a shit now that I’m alive! Why won’t he look at me!?”

Mother raises a hand, gently brushing his cheek. Her smile is the saddest expression he’s ever seen her wear.

“That’s because your father runs away from his problems,” she says. Her voice is hard, certain.

Touya nods. There’s nothing else he can do.

“I am going to do it,” Touya rasps. “I’m gonna surpass him. Endeavor and All Might. That’s why I was born.” He grips the front of his gown, balling the fabric in his hand.

And then his grip relaxes.

“…someday.”

He’s not ready yet. He’s still so weak, so unpracticed. He needs to get stronger so that he can overtake his father and All Might. Those blue flames he created once… he’s so close. But that strength isn’t enough. That strength is what nearly killed him on that mountain. He needs to be better, to be able to wield his fire without killing himself.

Touya hiccups. Realizing that he’s crying again, Touya laughs, curling in on himself.

“I’m so sorry, everyone,” he manages. “I’m so sorry I made you all worry!”

No one says anything, but he feels Natsuo and Fuyumi join Mother and Shoto, wrapping themselves around him.

Eventually, the last of his tears dry. Touya isn’t sure if it’s because he’s feeling better or because he’s finally run out.

Someone clears their throat, and everyone jumps.

“Not to… intrude,” says Star and Stripe, “But… it sounds like you’re saying that Endeavor is… neglectful and abusive.”

Touya’s eyes widen, and he feels everyone but Shoto tense.

Mother looks down at the ground, biting her lip. The corners of her eyes shimmer. Touya turns to Star and Stripe.

“He—”

“Yes.”

Touya’s stomach drops. Hearing it said like that… and from Mother, who looks more determined than Touya has ever seen her.

“Yes,” Mother repeats. “Enji—Endeavor—there was once a time when he loved me. He… I know that he chose me because he wanted a Quirk Marriage,” Star and Mrs. Bate stiffen, “but even so… he could have chosen anyone. There was a time… we were happy, once. But then he saw Touya burned by his own Quirk… and instead of doing anything, helping him, he wanted me to have a replacement. Someone who could be his… masterpiece. He thought it would demotivate Touya. I knew better, but I still…” Mother shakes her head. “Eventually, he spiraled into obsession. Endeavor… he’s no longer the man I married.”

Star and Stripe looks at Mrs. Bate, and the two of them seem to have a silent conversation with each other before Star turns back to Mother.

“What do you want us to do?” she says. “We’ll help you, gladly, we’ll help you, but—” she swallows. “What do you want us to do?”

Mother nods slowly, thinking.

At last, she says, “Please… save my children!”

Mrs. Bate smiles kindly. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

The gnawing pit of anxiety in Bate Inko’s stomach has only continued to grow with every passing moment. She checks the clock on the wall for the nineteenth time in two minutes.

This is such a major operation to be a part of so soon. She’s barely been doing Hero Work for a few days at this point—Majestic’s one-week time limit for her to impress him doesn’t even end until tomorrow.

“This isn’t normal.”

She jumps at Majestic’s words, and immediately curses herself for her lapse in situational awareness. “What isn’t?”

“None of this,” he replies. “The major disaster response, the investigation… the arrest. I don’t think 99% of Heroes see this much action in their first month, let alone their first week. This is what I’d expect to be the highlights of someone’s year. So don’t freak out about how crazy this has all been; it’s not normally like this.”

She nods slowly.

Even in the middle of the day with sunlight streaming in through the windows, Majestic’s Agency feels cold and lifeless in a way that it never has before. Inko can’t tell if it’s because of the tension in the air or if everywhere would feel like this to her right now.

She glances at the clock again.

With a sigh, Majestic stands up from his Quirk, stretching his arms over his head.

“Speaking of clocks,” he says, pacing idly around the lobby, “I guess we should talk about that trial period I had you on.”

“Sir?”

“This is kinda embarrassing to admit under the circumstances, but I was… not entirely honest.”

Inko blinks and her heart roars. “What do you mean?”

“During your interview, I asked what you could provide to my agency. At no point did you tell me about any of your industry connections, or friends, or that you’re married to Star and Stripe.” Inko laughs nervously, but Majestic continues without acknowledging her. “It was all about what you could do. Even when I directly asked you about your costume, you kept yourself vague. You didn’t brag, or try to promise me any favors, or meetings, or whatever. You explained, plainly, why you would be a good Hero for my agency. I respect that.”

“Then the, um, trial week—?”

“I meant what I said about it only being a week. I wanted to get a good feel for you as a Hero, too. See if it was worth it in the long run. But I wasn’t judging you to see if I was gonna hire you, Starbright. I was watching you to see if I shouldn’t.”

Inko swallows, wringing her hands in her lap.

Across the room, Majestic stops pacing. Slowly, deliberately, he turns around and crosses the lobby so that he can crouch in front of her and meet her eyes.

“Starbright. Bate,” he says. “You surpassed any expectation I had for you. With functionally zero experience, you’ve kept a calm head in a disaster, called reinforcements, and handled the aftermath expertly.” He snorts. “I wasn’t expecting you do prove yourself so dramatically, of course.”

Slowly, Inko raises her head. “You mean…?”

“This is my formal offer for you to join my Agency for your work study full-time.”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. Even if Inko had another Agency lined up who could take her, she wouldn’t. “I… I want to see this through to the end.”

“…yeah.” Majestic stands up, looking away. “You and me both. Let’s see this through, then. As an Agency.” For the first time all day, Majestic smiles. “My first intern, huh? I guess that means this place is gonna be a helluva lot busier soon.”

The operation begins at 1:00 pm on the dot.

By then, pretty much everyone is set to go.

As a provisionally licensed Hero-in-training, Inko remains behind with the police squadron, observing from a distance behind the barrier erected around the Todoroki Mansion. The only reason she’s here at all is because Majestic requested to be part of this, since technically his Agency is the one that started the investigation.

Not that it was much of an investigation, or that the Agency did all that much.

Not with the testimony that Todoroki gave them in the hospital, something she was willing to repeat on an official record for Inko and Cathleen.

Cathleen was the one who contacted All Might in order to mobilize an official response faster. Sometimes, having friends in high places can be extremely useful.

It’s strange. The beautiful weather feels entirely out of place—bright blue skies, scattered, puffy clouds, and not too much sun. Even as she’s thinking that, a cloud rolls over, providing some light shade.

At exactly 1:00, the vanguard approaches the front door. A few officers escorted by All Might, Crust, and Yoroi Musha. Top Pros.

Inko tenses.

There are more Heroes with her in the back, though none that she recognizes. Majestic is providing aerial support above them, so she’s functionally alone down here, even around the dozen or so officers. All strangers.

All there in case something goes very wrong.

The moment All Might knocks on the door—pounds, more accurately—the breath leaves Inko’s lungs.

A second later, the door swings open. Out steps Endeavor, but Inko only recognizes him because she’s already seen him without the fire covering his face. There’s no sign of his Hero Costume in the loose black tank-top and track pants he’s wearing. His face is neutral, but not blank. He almost seems sad.

“Todoroki Enji: Pro Hero Endeavor,” says All Might with no hint of his usual boisterous personality. “You are under arrest.”

Wordlessly, Endeavor slowly raises his arms in front of him. The officer takes the unspoken invitation and cuffs him. Meaningless in the face of Endeavor’s Quirk, but an important gesture nonetheless.

As Endeavor allows himself to be escorted away, All Might says one word, full of sorrow.

“Why?”

“Because I’m weak,” says Endeavor.

He does not speak again.

As the car transporting Endeavor disappears around a corner, Inko finally breathes.

“All this prep for no action,” a nearby Hero says.

“What, did you want to fight Endeavor?” asks the Hero next to him.

“Wh—No! I just—”

“Then shut up.”

Inko looks up at her mentor, still hovering in the air over the yard. This was the best outcome they could have hoped for, but it still feels so… empty. Hollow.

Well. There’s always the next step.

With the situation under control, the police squad and the other Heroes start packing up to leave. Inko ignores them, slipping around one of the wooden barriers and crossing the yard.

Majestic drops down beside her. “It’s only a matter of time until the press show up, and they’re gonna go nuts about this one.”

Inko winces. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of this turning into such a public spectacle.

As Inko approaches, All Might’s eyes shine with recognition.

“Hello, Mrs. Bate,” he says. “Cathleen told me you’d had a recent career change. I wish this reunion could’ve been under better circumstances.”

“Me too,” she says.

“Ah, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” says Majestic, glancing between the two of them.

“Um.”

Ah. There it is. Inko looks over at the still-open door to the Todoroki estate, where a small girl peers around the frame. Fuyumi, if Inko remembers correctly.

“Is he… gone?”

“He is,” says Inko.

The girl sniffles, when a pair of arms wrap around comfortingly her from behind.

“I know,” Todoroki says softly into her daughter’s hair. “Despite it all… I’ll miss him too.”

Inko isn’t allowed into the courtroom, nor does she want to be.

While she was one of the Heroes that Todoroki testified to originally, she’s still a Provisional Hero. Majestic, as head of the Agency, takes the brunt of the case, including testifying in court. Seeing as he was present for Sekoto Peak, and Todoroki is testifying again on the stand, her presence would be largely redundant anyway.

The trial date is set swiftly, and the proceedings move ahead quickly—police thoroughly search the mansion and interview the family. Inko doesn’t know all of the details, but she knows enough from what Majestic tells her.

Cathleen says that Hero trials often move quickly—a way to bury the news as soon as possible.

Inko spends the day of the trial at home in bed, safely tucked in her wife’s arms, listening to the sweet nothings and anecdotes about Cathleen’s own cases like this.

Messy and complicated, every single one.

Thus, ironically, Izuku is the one who follows the details of the proceedings the closest. His Hero fan tendencies find even the prosecution of the longstanding Number Two Hero simply too fascinating to pass up. Inko is willing to acknowledge the historical significance of these events, but she has no energy to listen to it happening.

“You want to help them, don’t you?” Cathleen says.

“…yes. They’ve been through so much—And we are Heroes.”

“I thought you might say that.” Cathleen sighs, but her smile gives her away. “I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet and show you what I’ve been working on.”

“Huh?”

Cathleen pulls away, reaching for her laptop, sitting out on the nearby table. After grasping for it a few times, she manages to tug it close enough to pick up. She fiddles with the trackpad for a few seconds before turning it around to show Inko the open tab.

A house listing.

A listing for a big house.

Inko flicks her eyes between the webpage and Cathleen’s sly face several times.

“This is…”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, honestly. This apartment is great, Inko, but with three of us here we’ve started hitting some issues with space. Especially when we have guests over. Like Ippan.”

Inko winces. Ippan barely fits in the apartment, something she’s been very kind about, but she’s shared her fears about a growth spurt with Inko before. The dear deserves to be comfortable. In the few months that she’s been working as Izuku’s babysitter, she’s already become something akin to family to Inko, and she suspects Cathleen and Izuku feel the same.

“Not to mention Dave and Melissa,” says Inko.

“Or the Bakugous!” Cathleen says so defensively that Inko has to laugh. “But… well…”

“No, I understand what you mean.” Inko leans back into the bed with a soft sigh. “Melissa wants to be a Hero—there’s no way she wouldn’t go to UA. Not when that’s where All Might went. She’d need somewhere to stay in Japan.”

“We seem to have a habit of picking up strays.”

“Would that make you the first?” Inko grins. “Since Izuku found you?”

“Wh—hey!”

Inko lets her laughter fade, growing serious. “A house like that is… it’s not cheap, Cathy. Can we…?”

Cathleen raises an eyebrow. “Did you forget who I am?”

It takes Inko a moment to process. “Oh.”

She hadn’t forgotten.

Of course she hadn’t. The fact that Cathleen is Star and Stripe is the only reason they actually met that day in the park. Inko would die before she forgets that. But it sometimes escapes her that Cathleen is one of the wealthiest people in America, and that a house like this would be no problem for her.

“All I’m saying,” Cathleen raises her hands placatingly, “Is that if my beautiful, kind, wonderful wife wanted to have more room to potentially house guests, then we can easily afford to move to a new, larger place.”

Inko never has a chance to respond. While she’s thinking, Izuku calls out, “Mom! Mama! They’re announcing the ruling!”

Inko and Cathleen share a look before getting up and hurrying to the living room.

“—recognition of his many years of service, Endeavor will not be facing jail time,” the reporter states on the screen. “However, his license is suspended, and he is forbidden from seeing his wife and children again. Some are calling these measures inadequate, claiming that a Hero License has given Endeavor the ability to avoid the consequences of his actions. Fan support for Endeavor has dropped, but many are still firmly on his side. An expert will weigh in on the issue during a special broadcast later this evening—”

Cathleen turns off the television.

“You know,” she says casually, “I’ve never gotten someone a house for their birthday before.”

Izuku gawks. “We’re getting a what!?”

Chapter Text

“Whoa….”

Bate Izuku’s eyes sparkle as he leans back to take in the whole house. It looks a lot like how he imagines UA must look. Stretching out to either side with three different floors that Izuku can see—each one lined with walls that extend out to form balconies or around the windows. From what he can see from here, there’s an entire patio connecting to the second floor on top of the first. Large glass windows and sliding doors means that from here in the front yard he can already see into the house. It’s warm.

But what really excites Izuku is the height. It’s gotta be able to hold, like, five Ms. Ippans! Through the window, he can see how tall the ceiling is, and it’s perfect for her.

Izuku bounces on his heels.

“Glad you like it, kiddo,” Mama says, crouching down so she can ruffle his hair.

“All this is for us?” says Mom. “I know it looked big in the listing, but…”

Mama laughs. “Wait until you see the inside!”

Mama slips past them both, unlocking the door, and holds it open for them. While Mom is slow, Izuku doesn’t need to be told twice, darting inside and barely pausing to drop his shoes off at the genkan.

He takes his first step up into the main house, his socks sliding ever so slightly on the hardwood floor.

The living room somehow manages to be both large and cozy, with comfy-looking furniture around the sides, a nice fireplace in the wall, and a pretty coffee table in between. The walls are bare, but painted an inviting pale color. Even though it feels like he has plenty of room to cuddle his moms, the room itself is already about half the size of his apartment, and that makes Izuku giddy.

On the far side of the room, Izuku can see the back yard through the glass doors, putting the front yard to shame. He almost runs straight for it so he can sprint around the grass before he remembers that there are other rooms in the house, too.

As Mom and Mama walk into the living room—and Mom gasps at the sight of it—Izuku darts over to the next room.

His first thought is that the dining table could easily fit his family, the Bakugous, the Shields, and Ippan, and they’d still be able to have guests there too. Once Izuku drags his attention away from the center of the room, he takes in how much space there is elsewhere. Already he can imagine the parties Mom and the Bakugous tend to share at New Years happening here with lots of place to put out all the food.

Peeking into the kitchen, Izuku is again blown away. There are two whole islands, one of which has a sink attached to it, so that standing between them you can do pretty much all the food prep you need. One wall has several cabinets and shelves and the ovens, the other has two refrigerators and freezers.

“Oh my,” Mom says as she steps into the room behind Izuku, a hand to her mouth. Her eyes gleam in a way that Izuku isn’t used to seeing before. Mama chuckles as she wraps her arms around Mom’s waist.

“I knew you’d love it,” she says.

“You already saw this?”

“I didn’t just grab the biggest house I could find, you know. I was looking for a home, Inko.” She smiles softly. “Of course I made sure that we’d love every square inch.”

“So meticulous. You did this all by yourself?” There’s something teasing about Mom’s tone, but Izuku doesn’t get the joke. From the way Mama blushes and looks away, she seems to know what Mom is getting at. Grown-ups are weird.

Izuku tunes them out, wandering around and prodding the chairs around the island. So is this where he’s going to eat from now on? Or will they all eat at the big table in the other room? Or is this where they’ll have breakfast and eat other meals somewhere else? He doesn’t know. This whole place is so much bigger than what he’s used to.

Izuku’s been to Kacchan’s house before. He wonders if Aunt Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru ever felt like that, or if this was something that was already normal for them.

“I think,” Mom says slowly, “that I’m going to have to experiment in here a bit. There are so many recipes I’ve always meant to try…”

“I’ll gladly help you,” says Mama. “And speaking of helping…”

Mama turns towards Izuku with a sly grin. There are only so many reasons why she would be making that face, but Izuku can’t imagine that she’s trying to prank him; not with something like buying a house, so it has to be something else. Something that she knows that he doesn’t. Izuku tilts his head.

Mama gestures for Izuku to follow her, and he does, shooting a confused look at Mom. Mom, sadly, doesn’t seem to know any more about what Mama has planned than he does.

The house feels so big, wandering through it for whatever Mama wants to show him feels like an expedition, like the ones he used to go on with Kacchan in the woods. Though, if he moves out here, will he be able to make it out there? Not like it matters. Kacchan hasn’t invited him to the woods in… a long time.

“Here we are!” Mama says, holding a door open so that Izuku and Mom can see.

Izuku’s eyes go as wide as saucers. “Whoa…”

His eyes wander around the biggest gym that Izuku’s ever seen. No, wait, the gym at school is bigger, but it also has less stuff in it, so does that count? Either way, this gym is way cooler. Equipment lines the walls, most of which Izuku does not recognize except from TV when they have scenes in gyms, so he can’t really say he knows any of it, but it’s still awesome!

“Cathy,” Mom says suspiciously. “Am I going to have to drag you out of here?”

Mama looks away, waving her arm lazily in front of herself. “What? Pfft, No. I am a normal adult woman and can be trusted.”

Grown-ups are weird.

Izuku instead chooses to wander through a hallway at the far end of the gym. He’s not surprised to find that’s where the showers are, but he is a little disappointed. He was hoping for a secret passage or something. Well, there’s the other door in this hallway, across from the gym itself, but that’s hardly secret. No, that door leads to another room, much like the gym, but smaller and emptier.

A padded mat covers most of the floor, but it’s not part of the floor; Izuku easily lifts it up by the corner before letting it drop back down onto the hardwood floor. To his side is a large closet, filling the space behind the showers. He debates checking inside the closet for anything interesting, but in the end decides against it.

“What’s this room, Mama?” he calls back into the gym. Mama chuckles to herself, giving Mom a quick peck on the cheek before walking over. She easily scoops him up off the floor.

“This is the dojo,” she says. “I don’t know if we’ll get as much use out of it as the gym, but sometimes I like being able to practice the basics.”

“Ooh…”

 Two whole rooms dedicated to being a stronger Hero? Izuku loves this house already.

“You put a lot of thought into this,” Mom says, joining Izuku and Mama in the dojo.

Mama smiles. “Of course I did.”

“Then I can’t wait to see what other surprises you have for us.”

“If that’s not an invitation, I don’t know what is.”

Mama carefully slips around Mom, leading her to a different part of the house. Izuku wonders if he’ll ever get used to this place if (and when) they move in. It’s so big! Is he gonna remember where everything is? Maybe it’ll be like school, and he’ll figure it out after a few days or so? He hopes so.

Eventually, Mama stops on the other end of the house, setting Izuku down in front of yet another room he hasn’t seen yet. Maybe this house never runs out of rooms, like a Quirk, or magic, or something.

Izuku scurries in, happy to explore the new space.

His eyes light up as soon as he steps inside. “Whoa…!”

It’s a lot like the living room at the Bakugou house; a large room with a big TV set up so that it can be easily seen from the couches. All around the screen are cabinets that look like they’re part of the wall. But unlike the Bakugou’s place, it’s much bigger and there are more couches and the TV is huge!

“Oh my,” Mom says.

Mama opens one of the cabinets. “Plenty of space for movies, games, consoles, whatever.”

Mom pauses for a moment, looking over the room deep in though. Without missing a beat, Mama nudges her, and says quietly, “I bet you’re already thinking about watching your favorite movies in here, aren’t you?”

“Well! I…” Mom clears her throat. “And what about your coloring books?”

“Don’t worry, Inko,” Mama says. “That’s what the library’s for.”

Izuku freezes.

“There’s a library?” he says, slightly louder than he intends to. “Where?”

“I think it’s technically a study?” says Mama, looking up thoughtfully. “But yeah, there’s a library. It’s upstairs, near the bedrooms.”

Bedrooms! Izuku hadn’t even thought about that! He’d get a new room! Is it gonna be bigger than his old room? Of course it is; everything in this house is so much larger than the apartment. But how much bigger? Maybe it’ll be huge! Maybe it’ll be so big that he can have adventures in it!

But, but! Library! All those books! Maybe Mama will have more of those English books that he loves, or there will be books on science and he can read those to see how Quirks work!

Oh! The big TV! He’s going to see Heroes on the news on that big TV!

Izuku loves this house!

For the first time, Izuku goes running on ahead of his parents, clambering up the stairs so fast that he pulls himself up with his hands.

“Careful!” Mom calls after him, but there’s laughter in her voice. Izuku doesn’t respond, but tells himself that he’ll take things a little slower.

He doesn’t.

Even though his goal is the library, Izuku takes a moment to glance at the bedrooms as he passes by. They don’t have anything in them right now, kinda like how there’s no food in the kitchen, but he can already imagine where things would go. Most of the bedrooms are the same size—bigger than his old room but not the colossal place he imagined—but one stands out as being much bigger than the others, and Izuku suspects that’s the one that Mom and Mama will use.

It's not until Izuku actually finds the library that it occurs to him that if the food and the furniture hasn’t been moved in yet, then there probably aren’t any books in the library either. The rows and rows of empty shelves that make up the outer walls of the room are practically mocking him. But, on the other hand, the room is bigger than even the bedrooms.

“For study groups,” Mama says, slipping in behind him as he pulls his gaze across the room. “If you and your friends wanted to all get together before a test or something, here’s the place for it.”

“Whoa…” Izuku hesitates. “But, this is a lot for just me and Kacchan.” It’s not that he doesn’t like the other kids at school, it’s that they don’t seem to like him. Okay, so part of it is that he’s not super fond of them, but still. “Ms. Ippan doesn’t bring friends over either.”

“What about Melissa?” Mama says. “What if she comes over? Or…”

That pause seems to mean something, so Izuku turns to look at her. Mama and Mom look at each other with something of an intensity.

“Izuku, sweetie,” Mom says finally. “…how would you feel about having other people stay with us?”

Chapter Text

Todoroki Rei wakes with a start, chest heaving. Sweat pours off of her skin, leaving her clothes and futon soaked. She lies there for several minutes trying and failing to take control of her breathing, to forget the nightmare that had woken her. Of the loveless eyes that shone through the inferno, that burned even hotter with hunger.

Eventually, the visions fade into the darkness at the back of her mind, ready to strike again the moment her guard falters. She swallows and forces herself to stand.

“Yukimura,” she whispers into the unfeeling darkness. It’s become her mantra. “Yukimura. Yukimura. Yukimura.” The paperwork hasn’t finished processing yet, but even still, having a new name with no ties to her past makes her feel better.

Her path to the kitchen is a familiar one. The way she walks, stepping carefully across the boards to make as little noise as possible, is well ingrained into her by now. She isn’t sure if she finds that comforting. At least it’s something she knows.

She lets the tap water run for a few seconds before filling her glass, making sure the water is cold enough for her. Her parents used to do the same—the Himura family Quirk predisposes them towards the cold.

Rei stares down at the scattered water droplets on the counter. The trembling in her hands sloshes more water out from her glass. Slowly, she brings her other hand up to hold herself steady.

Eventually she remembers to drink.

The water roils in her gut alongside the grief and the anxiety from her nightmare. Rei runs a hand down her face, fingers gently brushing against the edges of the bags under her eyes.

She misses him.

She misses the man she married, the man she loved, the man who loved her, once. The man who listened to her talk about flowers, who held her so gently. The man who helped her set up the room for their first child. The man who smiled softly at Touya when he was barely an hour old.

She hates him.

She hates the man who struck her to the ground, who saw passion in his son and swore to crush it. The man who threw three children aside for the fourth. The man who dragged a child into his feud with All Might. The man who, even now, looms over her shoulder so close she can feel the heat from his flames kissing her cheek.

When did it go wrong? When Touya’s Quirk appeared? When he first burned himself for his father’s approval? Or… was it before they met?

The floor behind Rei creaks and ice runs down her spine. She spins around with a gasp, planting a supporting hand on the counter, eyes trailing up for his face.

All that meets her gaze is darkness. It takes entirely too long for her to realize that he isn’t there.

Slowly, Rei looks down.

“…mom?” says Natsuo. He rubs at his eyes, the sleep in them evident. Rei softens, forcing her muscles to relax, and crosses the room to him.

“Hey, Natsuo,” she says softly. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Natsuo shakes his head. “Keep thinking about Touya.”

“You know we’re going to see him today.”

“Mhmm. All day again? When’s he coming home?”

Rei wishes that she had an answer to that. “While we’re there,” she says instead, “Why don’t you ask the doctor?”

“Yeah…” Natsuo purses his lip and Rei realizes as only a parent could that she’s missed something important. All she can do now is hope that he’ll speak up. Forcing him, especially this late at night, won’t help either of them.

Fortunately for her, he does.

“Do you think… once Touya’s home… is—is dad gonna come back?”

Rei’s heart stops.

“No,” she says, but even to her she can tell how hollow her voice sounds. “He’s not coming back.”

“Good.”

There’s far too much pain in that one word for a child, for her child, and Rei aches, damning herself for her powerlessness. Helpless to do anything else, she pulls him in tightly for a hug.

“Did you need something from the kitchen?” she says. Natsuo shakes his head. “Then you should go back to bed, sweetie.”

She leans down and kisses Natsuo on his forehead, and he laughs quietly before setting off back towards his room.

Rei exhales.

Behind her, light glints off of the frozen countertop.

Rei manages to make it through breakfast without visibly jumping at Endeavor in every shadow. The last thing the kids need is to pick up her anxiety from her. It helps that cooking gives her something to focus on outside of her own head.

At least the press have finally given up hounding the house. Not that they could; Enji didn’t have the outer walls built purely because of his traditionalist sensibilities. The house’s security rivals that of his Agency.

Rei’s grip tightens on her dishware for a moment before she relaxes, setting them in the sink.

Brightly, she says, “Is everyone ready to visit Touya?”

Her children’s cheers ease some of her weight.

The train ride to the hospital isn’t terribly long, and as long as she finds a place to sit or stand with her back to the view of Sekoto Peak she can pretend that she and the kids are on a normal day trip. Being out of the house at least tempers the scorched memories at the corners of her vision.

That’s part of why they spend so much time visiting Touya. She would never say it out loud, but she knows that it’s true. It’s not that she doesn’t love Touya—she loves him dearly—but even if he wasn’t currently recovering away from the house, she would find any excuse she could to be elsewhere.

Touya has forgiven her for her failures. She isn’t going to waste this chance he’s given her to make things right.

By the time they’ve made their way to his room, Touya is up and aware. He cracks an uneasy smile at them as they quietly shuffle into the room.

“Hey Mom, hey guys,” her son says.

“Touya!” cheers Natsuo, pushing passed Rei to his side. Natsuo pauses before touching Touya, sending a dagger into Rei’s heart at the thought of Touya’s pain, but Touya reaches over and ruffles Natsuo’s hair.

“You act like you don’t spend all your time with me,” he says. There’s a light rasp to Touya’s voice, but it’s been steadily fading since his treatment began.

Fuyumi huffs. “We really don’t; you and Shoto were always off training.”

It hurts her to hear, but Rei knows that it hurt them more, so she has no problem holding her tongue. As their parent, it’s her responsibility to put their pain first, and in that respect she has utterly failed them all.

“We have plenty of time to fix that,” she says instead. “But first—”

“I’m doing fine, mom,” Touya says. “The docs say physical therapy’s going well. And you know that, you ask every day!”

Rei smiles. “Forgive a mother for worrying about her children.” Reaching into her purse, she retrieves the pack of playing cards that’s recently become well-used. “Is anyone up for a game?”

Hours fly by them as they make small talk and play games, enjoying each other’s company. Pretending, for now at least, that they’re a normal family.

A knock at the door stops them all, and the five of them share a glance. None of the doctors have announced themselves, Endeavor… can’t be here, and she knows full well that none of her family would dare to show their faces around her.

“Come in,” Rei says.

She probably shouldn’t be surprised when the door slides open to reveal the Bates, but she is all the same.

“Hello, Mrs. Todoroki,” Mrs. Bate says, letting her wife pass.

Rei shakes her head. “Call me Rei, please. After what you did for us…”

“Then you can call me Inko,” she says with a smile.

“Cathleen,” adds the other Mrs. Bate.

“Who’re you?” Shoto says, tilting his head to the side.

Natsuo leans over and puts a hand on his shoulder. “They’re the people who saved Touya!” he whispers, a bit louder than he perhaps intends in his excitement.

“I didn’t think we were that recognizable,” Cathleen says lightly. “Pretty sure they didn’t even report on me being there.”

Inko, meanwhile has her hands to her cheeks to cover and obvious blush. “I didn’t expect to be ‘recognizable’ at all!”

“…Did you not expect fame with being a Pro Hero?” says Rei. While it’s true that most Heroes never end up a household name, the media had paraded everything to do with him around the nation, if not the world. Any scandal involving such a high-ranked Hero would’ve made waves, but the severity of his actions…

It’s hard, sometimes, to see the public outcry and realize that it wasn’t normal, was never normal.

“Being a Hero is a childhood dream,” Inko says. “I’m still getting used to the reality. I’m not even fully licensed yet!”

That’s a fact that Rei knows from the various articles, think pieces, and talking heads she hasn’t been able to click away from in time. Even so, it’s still surreal to here that Inko, this woman to whom Rei owes everything, is considered on the same level as a student half her age.

“So, uh,” Touya says with sincerity, “What’re you doing here?”

Fuyumi lightly smacks him, but privately, Rei agrees.

“Not to be ungrateful,” she says.

Inko and Cathleen share a look that Rei can’t begin to decipher.

“We,” Cathleen says, “Have been thinking. That perhaps. Staying in that house might have… unpleasant memories. And… we had, unrelatedly, been looking into larger housing. So I thought…” Cathleen exhales. Her posture shifts, and suddenly Rei remembers that she’s speaking with a Pro Hero. “We wanted to extend an invitation to the five of you to live with us for a while. We have plenty of space to host you, and it wouldn’t be any trouble for us.”

“I—I can’t,” Rei says reflexively, voice hollow. Her hands tighten in her lap. She can’t, can she? Yes, there would be fewer shadows to avoid in a new place, but how could she force her children through another major change so soon? And could she even impose the five of them into the Bates’ lives? She said it wouldn’t be trouble, but that’s what everyone says.

Her hands tighten into fists in her lap at the waves of fire roiling across her face. Her body wars against itself. Frost forms on her fingers even as her hearts soars with hope at a fresh start, away from soot and ash and pain.

It can’t be that easy. It can’t. Even now his shadow grips tightly at her shoulders. How could she possibly think that she can run far enough to escape him? That it could protect her—protect them all—from the flames that burn in his eyes?

But what if it is?

What if it is and she squanders this chance to be free of him forever, not only for her but for her children? How could they forgive her? How could she? What would it be like to live in a house where the air does not suffocate her and she does not need to memorize each hallway to walk silently? To hear a noise in the night and not see him?

No… it can’t be that easy. Rei swallows. And yet… there’s nothing but sincerity in the Bates’ expressions. Kindness. When was the last time someone looked at her like that?

Small hands tug at her skirt. She looks down to meet Shoto’s wide, bright eyes.

“Can we?” he says. Rei’s throat dries. Slowly, she turns her gaze to her other children. They each share identical pleading expressions. With a fond sigh, Rei accepts defeat.

“If you can spare us the room, then we would be grateful to accept.”

Chapter Text

Ippan Josei’s mouth hangs open.

She had been told that the Bate family were planning on moving, but not many of the details. It hadn’t seemed that odd to her at the time. The Bates are quite wealthy—she would know, she covered Mrs. Cathleen’s earnings in class—so the fact that they still lived in a small apartment struck her as a little odd. Even with only three of them living there with the occasional guest (like her), she could tell they were butting up against the available space. Especially when some of that space had to be sacrificed to let Mrs. Cathleen teleport in unobstructed.

Izuku’s made his desire to be a Hero very clear, and having a larger property would give them a lot of room to work with in training him. Statistically, Legacy Heroes do better than their contemporaries because they’ve had more training for longer. Josei knows this, she had a quiz about it the other week.

So no, she isn’t at all surprised to see that they’ve moved on from the apartment to a house.

What surprises her is the house.

It reminds her a lot of her own. Not that her family has a fraction of the money needed to stay anywhere close to something this luxurious, but there is one glaring similarity between them.

Someone pats Josei on the back, and she startles, not quite able to stop a “yip!” from escaping.

“Good to see you again,” Mrs. Bakugou says with a grin. Josei nods mutely. “Are you gonna go in?” She walks past Josei, sliding open the door and stopping in the genkan to eye her expectantly

Josei swallows. Summoning her courage, she follows Mrs. Bakugou through into the house. She doesn’t need to duck. Her ears don’t even brush the ceiling. Something like relief settles in her stomach. While many public spaces can accommodate her, that’s not the same as all public spaces or even most public spaces. And in private? Josei gave up fitting inside of anywhere but her own home years ago. But here…

She wipes the wetness out of her eyes.

“It suits you.”

Josei blinks, sputtering air at the non-sequitur from Mrs. Bakugou. “Huh?”

“Red. The color. You wear it well.” She nods decisively. “Now come on; Inko’s gonna be pissed if she realizes we’ve been standing around and she hasn’t greeted us yet.”

Josei opens her mouth to ask if Mrs. Bakugou actually knows where in the house they’re supposed to go, but she doesn’t even get out a syllable before Izuku appears in a flash, beaming wide.

“Aunt Mitsuki! Ms. Ippan!” he says. “There you are! Uncle Masaru was getting worried you got lost in the garden!”

Mrs. Bakugou raises an eyebrow. “Is that what he said?” Josei stifles a laugh. It sounds like there might be trouble in paradise tonight.

“Uh huh! C’mon!”

Izuku darts off again, but slower this time so they can follow him.

As it turns out, where they’re going is the dining room. Still adjusting to being in someone else’s house without having to crouch down, Josei moves slower than Mrs. Bakugou, taking everything in.

Even still, it’s impossible for her to enter a room—or even be near a room, sometimes—without drawing attention to herself. As soon as she approaches the doorway, everyone turns to attention. Josei shrinks in on herself, smiling meekly.

“Hello, Mitsuki, Ippan,” Mrs. Inko says warmly. “Welcome!”

“I think that’s what we’re supposed to say,” Mrs. Bakugou drawls with fondness in her voice. “Isn’t this your housewarming party?” Mrs. Inko grins sheepishly.

Josei, meanwhile, focuses on the people that she doesn’t know. While she only met the Bakugou family in passing at Mrs. Inko’s licensing celebration, she doesn’t recognize the other woman in the room at all, nor does she recognize any of the kids that are clearly hers. The youngest looks to be about Izuku’s age, maybe a bit younger.  Maybe he’s one of Izuku’s classmates that she hasn’t met? That doesn’t seem right. She’s sure she would have seen him with Izuku after school when she comes to get him if they’re close enough that Izuku invited him and his family over.

Suddenly, Josei realizes that Mrs. Bakugou has finished introducing herself and that everyone is looking at her.

“Um!” she says. “I—I’m Ippan Josei; I’m Izuku’s babysitter.” She bows, thankful that she came in behind Mrs. Bakugou so she has the room to do so.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Mrs. Cathleen says, setting a tray of appetizers down on the table. “You’re pretty close to family yourself.”

Josei blushes under her fur, denial dying on her tongue.

“Should’ve known,” Mrs. Bakugou says. “You’ve always had a bleeding heart, Inko. What, did you find a family in need and adopt them, too?”

Suddenly, the Bates find the floor extremely interesting.

“…you’re kidding.”

“I suppose that’s my cue,” the woman says, stepping forward with a sad smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is—is Yukimura Rei.” She pauses before she says her name, clearly unfamiliar on her tongue. The syllables overly stressed. “These are my children. Touya, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shoto.”

The children stare up at her in awe. Awkwardly, Josei waves.

“They’re going through some hard times at the moment,” Mrs. Inko says, “So we invited them to stay with us until they get back on their feet.”

Oh. Someone else staying here. That’s…

Josei’s stomach twists. It’s nothing she wasn’t expecting eventually, but she would’ve preferred some more warning. But that’s not really fair of her. It’s clear that this is something that happens when working with Heroes; the Bates didn’t plan it this way either.

“Do you guys wanna see the, um, the entertainment room?” says Izuku, stumbling over his pronunciation for a moment. The kids light up, following Izuku down the hall.

“Katsuki was already bored, huh?” Mrs. Bakugou asks. Mr. Bakugou nods with a fond sigh.

“Oh, uh,” Josei says, feeling the need to say something, “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Yukimura.”

She smiles at her. “Thank you.”

“I suppose we’ll have to talk about that,” Mrs. Inko says. A lump forms in Josei’s throat.

Mrs. Cathleen grins awkwardly “You don’t charge per child, right?”

There’s a pause while Josei processes that statement. She blinks a few times, running the words over and over in her head. “What?”

“I…” Mrs. Yukimura starts, then stops. After a moment, she tries again. “I’ve not always been the mother my children have deserved. I know that every parent has to… learn as they go, but… I’ve hurt them all too much already, and Touya and Fuyumi are already so close to entering high school. I can’t afford the time to learn. Having you to help me, that will be a weight off of my shoulders.”

“…eh?”

Mrs. Cathleen pats her on the shoulder, reaching up to do so. “Ippan, you didn’t think we were firing you, did you?”

“Um. I…” She swallows.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Mr. Bakugou chuckles. “Mitsuki is up in arms about tailoring you something. If these two tried to get rid of you before that happens, she’d raise hell.”

Mrs. Bakugou nods. “Damn right I would.”

They’re… not replacing her? She’s still going to be working with them? With the Yukimura kids as well as Izuku? Does that mean she’ll be expected to chaperone for them, too? Touya and Fuyumi are both getting close to being teenagers, she thinks, they can’t be too much younger than her. But at the same time, Josei can’t deny how relieved Ms. Yukimura looked when her kids ran out after Izuku.

“Besides which,” says Ms. Yukimura, “This is only temporary.”

“That’s enough heavy talk,” Mrs. Cathleen says, picking up an empty plate and handing it to Josei. In her hands it goes from a dinner plate to an appetizer. “We’re here today to have a good time.”

Mrs. Bakugou snorts. “And since the kiddos are gone, we can break out the booze!”

The unimpressed stare she gets from Mrs. Inko is genuinely impressive.

Bate Izuku has never had so many friends over at his house before! He’s also never had a house before! It’s so much bigger than an apartment! Sure, he doesn’t have neighbors that are as close together anymore, but there’s still a nice neighborhood outside! But! More importantly! Friends are over!

Izuku can barely keep himself from bouncing on his heels as he leads everybody into the TV Room. “Ta da!”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kacchan says.

“Kacchan!”

With a scoff, Kacchan shoves him hard enough to nearly make Izuku lose his balance. “Nobody gives a damn if I swear, nerd.”

“I care,” Fuyumi mumbles. Natsuo nudges her.

“Isn’t this the coolest?” Izuku says. “The TV’s so big! We can watch whatever we want in super-detail!”

Kacchan rolls his eyes. “8k UHD; it’s not that hard to remember, Izuku.”

Wow! Kacchan knows that off the top of his head! Amazing!

Izuku plops down onto one of the couches, sinking into the soft cushions.

“You have any games for it?” Natsuo says. “I’d kill to see Last Horizon on this thing.”

“Nuh uh,” Izuku shakes his head. “We don’t have any consoles. Mama’s talked about maybe getting one though.”

“Shame,” says Touya. “I’d kick all your asses at Hero Smash.”

“Oh yeah?” Kacchan says, whirling to the mention of a challenge like a wolf smelling fresh meat. “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, bastard!”

“God, I wish.”

“Pretty sure we just established that we can’t do that,” Natsuo says, doing his best to hold in laughter. Izuku isn’t sure what Natsuo is laughing at, but it leaves Fuyumi looking like she sucked on a lemon. Ignoring them both, Touya picks up the remote and turns on the TV.

“—and Yoroi Musha move up to third,” says the man on TV. A box at the bottom lists him as being an expert on the Hero Billboard Chart. Cool! Izuku didn’t even know that people could be experts in that! “Of course, there’s also the possibility that Heroes will dramatically change their behavior before the next billboard.”

The hostess nods. “Nobody wants to be associated with Endeavor—”

Toyua changes the channel.

The screen flickers and Izuku sits up straighter at the sight of familiar colors.

“—not only found the lost hikers but carried them to safety!” the reporter says, camera focusing on All Might, who is reassuring some people as they climb into the back of an ambulance. “After they’d gone missing 28 hours ago—”

Touya changes the channel again. When it comes up with another news broadcast, he looks helplessly at Fuyumi.

“Which one has the stuff you guys like…?”

Kacchan scoffs. “Give it here.” Before Touya can, Kacchan snatches the remote from him and swaps over to a show that Izuku hasn’t watched but has heard his classmates talking about. “There.”

“Oh sweet, I love this episode!” says Natsuo, hopping onto a couch.

Izuku can get used to this!

Chapter Text

There are few things in the whole wide world that excite Melissa Shield as much as the I-Expo.

This is unsurprising to anyone who knows her. Melissa is one of the two-million people living on I-Island and, as is well known, on I-Island there is no bigger holiday than the I-Expo. Over the course of the week, almost all businesses close so the employees can attend. With schools out for the summer, family visits are practically a social obligation.

More than that, Melissa herself is the daughter of one of the greatest minds on I-Island, a man who every year has his own main stage demonstration. And all signs point to her taking after him as an engineer in her own right.

The annual spectacle has people from around the globe coming together to show off everything they’ve been working on in a great big jamboree. Most of the showcase represents I-Island itself, but in the same way that the island was created through international collaboration, the Expo is meant to highlight the hard work of people everywhere.

Melissa can ask her dad to show her the latest in spacial compression whenever she wants; after all, he’s the one who invented it. And while watching a large or bulky weapon shrink into nothing more than an accessory will never, ever get old, she’s more excited by things she’s never seen before. Quirks, as ever, receive the most focus from researchers, and frequently dominate the displays and booths, but they are not alone. Like last year, when Electriway blew her away with DNA-encoded polymers, or when Alacoms demonstrated the adaptability of their nanotechnology.

Guests from around the world arrive to enjoy the celebration, an international cultural exchange, and one filled to the brim with Pro Heroes! Where else but the I-Expo can Melissa possibly find the top Heroes from just about every nation in a single place?

And, as if all that wasn’t enough, the Expo is truly an event like no other. An entire city decorated in bright striped tents, podiums arranged wherever they can fit and still get attention, walkways lined with banners, streamers, and signs. The spokespeople calling out to the crowd, the games and booths—it’s a carnival that stretches farther than the eye can see!

Every year she tries to visit each and every sight, but even with a whole week to explore the festival, she’s never managed it.

This year, however, will be different. She swears it. And not only because this year’s Expo finally rotated back around to being hosted in her hometown of Central City after three agonizing years of it traveling between the outer cities of I-Island.

So it is with zero hesitation that when her alarm clock cheerfully says, “Good morning! Time to wake up!” at exactly seven in the morning, Melissa smacks her clumsy palm against the off button and hops out of bed.

She bounces on her feet, grabbing the clothes she’d left out for herself on the back of her chair with enough force that it rolls away from her computer table. Fast as she can, she changes out of her pajamas and into the nice blue polo and dark gray Capri pants. Grabbing her glasses on the way, she’s out the door less than two minutes from getting out of bed.

Melissa stumbles into the kitchen, having to support herself on the nearby wall—partly from the lingering sleep she hasn’t yet shaken off, partly from running down the hall. Hands occupied tying a ribbon into a bow around her neck, she uses her elbows to push off of the wall.

Dad laughs as he sets down a plate at her spot at the island table, his leggings illuminated by the soft glow of the lights through the glass cabinets that serve as its base.

“It’s kinda funny, you know?”

“What is?” Satisfied that her bow is perfect, she slips into her chair, letting her legs dangle around the chair’s single stand, and inhales. Challah bread French toast, rich and sweet, and as always dad has cooked it to the perfect golden brown. Over the top, the light sprinkle of powered sugar coats the bread and sliced strawberries.

“Seeing you so excited for something other than the I-Expo.”

Melissa sticks her tongue out at him, the distraction leaving her hand grasping at air inches away from the maple syrup. Her second attempt has much more success, and she quickly applies some, pouring syrup up and down like a thin wave.

“You’re so slow, dad,” she says through a mouthful of french toast, having barely taken the time to cut it. “You’ve gotta get ready!”

“Just because I’m still in my PJs doesn’t mean I’ll be late,” he says, sitting down with his own plate of breakfast. “We’ve got well over an hour to get there.”

“Mm!” Melissa pauses to wash out her mouth with orange juice. “But! But we’ve gotta go all the way over to the airport!” She draws out the ‘all’ for emphasis.

“And with the train we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

She rolls her eyes.

I-Island is effectively a floating disc, traveling across the ocean’s surface. Because the people who built it were the kinds of engineers who would need to work on a colossal man-made island that travels around the world, they naturally went as over-the-top as they could, and I-Island has only improved over the decades since it was first constructed. Which meant designing the island to fit not one, not two, but four distinct cities on it. Plus some lakes with beaches and some forests for good measure.

Due to its unique design and the fact that it moves, the only way on or off the island is via airplane, which means traveling to the air port.

The island’s airfield connects with the outer wall.

Central City, as the name suggests, sits in the center of I-Island, with the other three cities forming a triangle around it.

There is no airport in Central City.

Dad reaches over and ruffles her golden locks, sending her long hair wildly in every direction.

“Don’t worry so much. Your awesome dad’s got this. Now slow down before you choke, and be sure to brush your teeth and comb your hair before we leave.”

With her free hand, Melissa playfully swats at her dad’s arm. “Mmph!” she grunts as she shovels the last of breakfast into her mouth. “I know!”

She wouldn’t have to comb it if he hadn’t played with it! Okay maybe she had some bedhead but it was within acceptable levels!

With breakfast eaten, she hops down from her seat and takes off towards the bathroom, nearly kicking over their cleaning robot in the process. She grins sheepishly at its annoyed beeps, shuffling past it on one leg until she’s clear enough to put her other foot down and keep running.

By the time she’s brushed her teeth (for exactly two minutes; the mirror times her), dad is done eating and she trades places with him, combing her hair in the hallway while she waits for him to clean himself up.

“C’mon! We’re gonna be late!” she calls through the door.

Dad responds, “We aren’t leaving for another ten minutes!”

He’s gonna be the death of her.

Waiting, Melissa is sure, is the worst .

She had to wait for Dad to get ready. She had to wait for their train to arrive. And now here she is at the airport waiting for the stupid plane to land.

Like everything else on I-Island, the airport is cutting-edge, but it can be surprisingly hard to tell to anyone who doesn’t work there. Melissa knows, because she’s read into it, about all of the different systems that keep operations here running smoothly, but she could find the aging plaster walls and floor-to-ceiling windows anywhere.

It’s still pretty early in the morning, but the first wave of I-Expos guests has just arrived and already trickling out of the terminals and into the lobby where Melissa and her father are doing nothing but standing around. Waiting.

None of the familiar faces in the crowd are people she knows, only people she recognizes. Some from Europe. Some from Africa.

Gilady from the United States, already in her full costume—a prairie dress stylized as an inversion of her scales, and with a skirt more than wide enough for her tail—tips her bonnet in acknowledgment as she passes, and Melissa responds with a small wave before turning her attention back to the incoming crowds.

Dad shakes his head as she checks the electronic billboard again.

“I told you that we had plenty of time.”

Melissa crosses her arms. “No-one likes a know-it-all,” she grumbles to herself. Dad, an internationally-renowned scientist, blinks slowly, turning to look at her. Melissa does not meet his gaze. Instead, she jerks her head to the side, knocking a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. She taps her foot against the tiled floor.

“Melissa!”

She blinks, looking up in time to cry out in surprise as Izuku barrels into her, wrapping his arms around her.

“Long time no see!” she says, hugging him back. After a moment, they let each other go, and Melissa takes the chance to see who he’s with. Aunt Inko and Aunt Cathleen, of course, and a girl who somehow exactly matches what Izuku told her about his babysitter.

Wow.

She was sure he’d been exaggerating. Not that she doesn’t trust Izuku, but he can get excited when it comes to Quirks.

“Cathleen, Inko,” Dad says, as Aunt Cathleen takes his handshake and pulls him in to pat him on the back. “Good to see you again. And who’re your friends?”

“This is Josei Ippan,” Aunt Inko says, gesturing to the tall woman with teal fox fur. “She’s in UA’s management course.” Ippan lets out a small meep, and raises a hand to wave. “And over here, this is Rei Yukimura and her children.”

The woman Melissa hadn’t noticed bows. “Hello. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Forgive me if my English is a little rusty.”

“It is better than mine,” says the boy next to her, the one who looks about a grade above Melissa. “I am Yukimura Natsu—Natsuo Yukimura.”

“I’m Fuyumi,” says his sister. She’s clearly older than him but Natsuo is already catching up in height. “Nice to meet you!”

The oldest grunts and says, “Touya.” Fuyumi nudges him.

“I am Shoto,” the youngest says. Huh, his hair is two colors, split down the part. Is that some kind of Quirk-related mutation? But what would cause something like that?

“I’m Melissa,” not sure what else to do, she waves. “I’m Izuku’s cousin!”

“Yup!” Izuku wraps an arm around her shoulder. “She’s super-smart and really cool!”

Melissa has to look away to hide her grin. Izuku’s enthusiasm is always so earnest. He’s never said a compliment he didn’t mean, and he never lets them go unsaid. It’s honestly a little inspiring whenever she gets to watch him gush about how cool some Hero or gadget is. His dream of being a Hero like All Might doesn’t always seem so far away, even now.

“Should I be expecting All Might?” Dad asks, drawing Melissa back to the conversation.

Aunt Cathleen shakes her head. “Nah. He’s been busy lately. I haven’t seem him like this since his debut.”

“Oy vey, what are we going to do with that man?”

“I could always use my Quirk on him until he takes a nap.”

“But Cathy!” says Dad, dropping his voice to try and sound more like All Might, “Justice never sleeps, and neither do I!”

This year, I-Expo will be different, Melissa promises herself as she laughs at her dad’s antics. Because this year, she’s going to show them all everything.

Chapter Text

By late into the summer, the choir of cicadas permeates the air—even in the city. Their song filters through the lazy heat, creating an air of nostalgia, even though Ippan Josei is still young. She may not be an adult, but the days of her childhood, before the harsh workload of UA, still sometimes appeals to her. While her mutations aren’t exactly happy about her being out in oppressive heat for long, on the nicer days, she would run and play the same as any child.

That’s not what she’s doing today, however.

Summoning as much courage as she can, Josei forces her legs keep moving, taking step after uncertain step. Her years of practice at ignoring the stares around her fail, each glance sending another jolt through her, but she perseveres anyway. Her ears twitch at an off-color remark murmured under someone’s breath, but she does her best not to show it on her face. One of the benefits of her snout; she has fewer micro-expressions. At least, the ones she has are harder for most people to spot.

Josei glances up at her mother, one of the few people she actually does have to look up at, and gently, squeezes her hand. Her mother squeezes back reassuringly.

While still recovering from her return to Japan after her wonderful trip to I-Island, Josei received a letter from Principal Nedzu, inviting her and her parents for a meeting to go over some of Josei’s accommodations. The vague details left her heart pounding ever since, but if there’s anything she’s learned, it’s that nothing is quite as scary when you aren’t alone. Josei presses a little closer to her mother.

Her father isn’t able to make it due to some kind of work-related conflict, leaving the two of them on their own for this meeting, but both of her parents are confident that nothing is wrong. Truthfully, so is Josei. Principal Nedzu isn’t the kind of person who would loan her a robot if he was going to later decide that she was too much effort to keep in school. Still, phantom whispers worm through the back of her mind as easily as the breeze ripples across her fur.

That, more than anything, is what Josei hates about herself. No matter how nonsensical, or bizarre, or ludicrous, once the fear has taken root, it is almost impossible for her to completely dismiss it. And that fear can clutch her heart in a vice at the shortest instant, like when she was invited to see the new Bate house and she couldn’t stop herself from catastrophizing. No matter how generous the chain, a shackle remains bolted.

Josei is used to this sort of thing, and so she controls her breathing and keeps her mind focused in whatever ways she can. She only has to hold out until Nedzu explains whatever new plan he has and silences her doubts for her. Simple.

Then she and her mother turn the corner and UA comes into view.

Unable to stop herself, she whispers, “What…?”

It’s not the famous UA Barrier, the famous security measures that protect the front gate that draws their attention. Nor is it the small crowd of reporters setting up cameras across the street from the entrance. No, it’s that where the school had been a few weeks before, now four towers scrape the sky. The sun casts their long shadows over and beyond the outer wall, stopping right at her feet.

Despite four months of attendance, the thought of UA High School still makes Josei feel small. It’s a strange sensation for someone like her, who can’t take a train without needing to sit in a special car for larger passengers—and, indeed, did just that with her mother only ten minutes ago, while using a phone most people would call a tablet.

In some ways it’s liberating. Usually, the fact that the rest of the world is so small presses tightly against her. She can barely move without bowling over other pedestrians or slamming into walls and overhangs.

But it’s not just that UA has one of the few sports arenas that can comfortably accommodate her. It’s also the single most famous school in all of Japan, arguably all of Asia. Every day, Josei’s little camera-bot rolls through the school halls, surrounded by the future movers and shakers of Japan. Pro Heroes, obviously, and the genius engineers of the Support industry, and managers like her classmates who make sure the other two can function, but also the students in General Education who will eventually become doctors, lawyers, scientists, and politicians. And somehow, Josei finds herself among them.

For the first time since being accepted into the prestigious school, Josei literally feels small.

It is, without a doubt, about twice the size it had been during the end of terms a few weeks ago. Her robot may not have stepped foot (or tread) outside the building, but the windows were a big enough clue.

Were it anywhere else—except, perhaps, I-Island—Josei wouldn’t believe her eyes. Such a dramatic change in the building simply doesn’t seem feasible.

But this is UA. Impossible is their everyday.

Josei shrinks in on herself, pulling her arms tight against her sides as she approaches the crowd, each step slower than the last. When she and her mother finally makes it to the edge of the media scrum, she pauses. Some members of the press shoot them glances—how could they not; they’re so tall that they’re probably attracting attention from across the city—but no one comments. Professionalism, probably.

She opens her mouth to say something, but can’t think of a way to politely ask to be let through, so she closes it again.

“Ah, Ippan, Mrs. Ippan, you’re here!”

Josei starts, the sound of her homeroom teacher’s voice shaking loose some of her tension.

“Mr.—Mr. Chiba!”

Mr. Chiba, in his full Saberleaf costume, emerges from the UA barrier, eyes locked on her. “Right this way!” he says, as if the reporters don’t exists. Surprisingly, they move out of her way without either of them having to acknowledge them, and Josei quickly speeds through the gate after her teacher before anyone changes their minds.

Only once they’re well within the UA campus does Josei speak.

“Uh—um, sir? Do you, eh, know what this meeting is about?”

“I’d like to be-leaf I have a pretty good idea,” he says, the familiar joke making the corners of Josei’s mouth twitch, “But I haven’t been directly told anything.” He stops in front of the doors to the main building. “The layout is the same, so we shouldn’t get lost.”

“Shouldn’t?” her mother parrots.

“Well, it hasn’t stopped me! It’s always a nightmare trying to leaf now!”

Her mom doesn’t react at all; Josei isn’t sure if that’s because she isn’t humoring him or if it’s because she’s already told stories of Mr. Chiba’s sense of humor. “This construction work is impressive; all of this in less than two months?”

Mr. Chiba laughs. “With how many of our fake cities we go through each year, we’ve gotten pretty good at building things around here. I’m willing to bet Nedzu could throw together a fully-furnished apartment complex in an afternoon, with time for his tea break!”

Josei absently nods, her gaze sliding up across the entrance. A familiar feeling sets in her bones. The same sensation she felt when she saw the Bate family’s new house.

With a deep breath, she steps through the door, followed a moment later by her mother.

Neither of them have to so much as duck their heads.

Away from the crowds and the sun, next to her mom and her teacher, in the halls of her own school—somehow, despite the dramatic change in size, it looks remarkably the same—Josei’s confidence slowly returns. The hunch eases from her posture, and her limbs are not quite so locked to her sides.

Much like Mr. Chiba, she has an inkling as to what it is that Principal Nedzu wants to talk about. So does her mother, judging by the way she’s scanning over the doors they pass by in the hallway, each as tall as the front entrance.

While Josei has never been to Principal Nedzu’s office before, she knows where it is. It’s a central location for the main campus, making it easily accessible from more-or-less anywhere in the school. It’s also on one of the upper floors, which has a very different feeling to it all of a sudden.

From the outside, it doesn’t appear that much different from any other room in the school, with the same (now much larger) sliding door, but no windows in or around the door to reveal anything happening within.

“This is our stop,” Mr. Chiba says. “I’ll be taking my leave now. If you need me to escort you back out, you know who to call!”

“No pun this time?” Mom says.

“Figured you’d had your chlorophyll of that one.” He grins. “See you in class, Ippan.” And with a wave, he vanishes back down the hall, whistling a tune to himself.

For a moment, the Josei and her mother stand there in silence. Then, with a small huff, her mom reaches for the door. Before her fingers can graze the handle, it slides open, revealing Principal Nedzu. Sort of. Given that he barely came up to Josei’s thigh and wasn’t quite up to her mother’s knee, both of them overlooked him for a moment, until he spoke.

“Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear? It doesn’t matter; what’s important is if you’re comfortable! Tea?”

Both of them startle, too close to the door for Nedzu to appear in their peripheral vision.

“O-oh, Mr. Nedzu, sir!” Josei says, bowing. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s quite alright.” Nedzu steps aside, gesturing into his office. “But I believe you’d prefer to sit?”

His office is rather small, which makes sense, but it doesn’t feel cramped. Not only because of the higher ceiling, but the walls, too, are generous. The far wall, behind Principal Nedzu’s desk, is all glass, leaving a crystal clear view over the city and beyond, to where the clouds drifted behind the mountains.

The furniture in the office is rather plain; two black sofas facing each other, with a simple wooden coffee table between them. Nedzu’s wooden desk sits beyond them, and lacks any kind of ornamentation on this side. His chair is an unremarkable office chair, except that it’s smaller to better fit him.

The walls and floor are both a blueish gray—the floor an actual blue compared to the walls—yet the room doesn’t feel sterile, or have the same empty feeling you would expect from, say, a parking garage. It’s not quite homely, but welcoming all the same.

Josei and her mother take a seat on the sofa facing Nedzu’s desk, and he stands on the sofa across from them.

“I won’t insult your intelligence by playing coy,” he begins. “The recent remodeling is, indeed, the accommodation I wished to discuss with you. Truthfully, I was remiss. I should have done this years ago—you are unlikely to be the only student in our school’s history who would struggle to use the previous campus.”

“...I’m very grateful,” replies Mom, “but I’m not certain I understand the purpose of this meeting. The remodeling was obvious from outside; there are even reporters.”

“Ah, the press. It continues to amaze me that they find the sensational in the mundane, but I suppose that is how they get paid. I digress. The reason I asked you here in person instead of merely sending a letter or postcard is that there is an opportunity Ippan here has not yet enjoyed that her classmates have.”

Josei blinks. “There is?”

“Of course! You haven’t yet had a chance yourself to explore the school!”

Josei is always the first one in her seat at the start of class; after all, her robot proxy stays within the school.

On the first day of the new term, she hears the familiar sounds of her classmates joking and talking and catching up in the hallway as they approach homeroom. The door slides open, and the first of her friends freezes in the doorway. Josei tilts her head with a small smile.

“Hello, everyone! How—how was summer break?”