Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me, Jeanist. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate.” The newly appointed president of the Hero Public Safety Commission casually flings an arm across the back of Tsunagu’s kitchen chair. 

“Not a problem. I’m still call-only at the moment, as I’m sure you’re aware. You aren’t distracting from anything particularly pressing.” At least, not work-wise. The juggling of… Kunieda’s second arrest was a more personal matter. He banishes the thought from his mind.

“Right, right.” Hawks fiddles with the tie he’s wearing. Tsunagu takes a moment to appreciate the quality of the natural silk. High momme weight. Very nice. “You know about our Program for Amending Lawlessness, yeah?”

Jeanist is silent for a moment.

“I wanted the acronym to be P.A.L. It’s cute.” Hawks answers the unspoken question. “You’re pals! Buddies. Everyone needs a friend. And I’d like you to be a pal. I know you didn’t apply to be one, and you can say no… but we’ve got a case I think that really would benefit from your specific expertise.” Hawks gives him a goofy grin, the kind that means that even if he’s being honest, it’s certainly in a way you aren’t expecting. 

The number-one hero Best Jeanist strides through the halls of the Charon Rehabilitative Center, the brand new “halfway house” for villains maligned by circumstance, ones that showed promise in being guinea pigs for reformation techniques that may be able to be applied in the future. He walks with feet that align near-perfectly, leading with his hips as opposed to his shoulders, the perfect strut for the catwalk of life. Hawks half-scurries alongside him, in that little prance of his, often pushing from the ball of his foot as if he were ready to jump at any moment, occasionally with his upper body tossed forward into a slight lean whenever he has to make sure he doesn’t outpace Jeanist.

“So, how familiar are you with Charon?” Hawks scans them into a door labeled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. 

“Not very.” He really had no part in the establishment of the program other than voting on the initiative. 

“Alright– So, lemme give you a rundown of what we have going on here. As of now, there are three Charon complexes across the country, but we’d like to expand.” He gestures a growing motion with his arms. “As you know, villains can be arrested and detained indefinitely, regardless of where they are in the trial process. Legislature and the courts are slow, so we’re hoping to compensate those who may be disproportionately held in the meanwhile by offering a sorta harm-reduction kinda thing. Based on how well they do in the program, they may be released under supervision until trial, or get reduced sentences. That kind of thing. We’re still testing the waters here.” They walk past office after office, the sounds of administrative tedium filling the air. “The other type of candidate for the Charon program are villains that qualify for… a bit of mercy, you know? Kids, people that need medical intervention, that sort of thing. We don’t have a checklist laid out or anything, so it’s a little loosey-goosey and up to a panel to decide– hit the button for the 8th floor, please.” Jeanist does as asked, while Hawks settles into the corner of the elevator, supporting himself with the inside railing. As expected, it’s clean for an elevator, fluorescent lights functional and button caps all still attached, which Jeanist is skeptical about staying that way. His eyes wander over to the certificate of inspection out of curiosity, but finds nothing of particular interest.

“The guy I want you to meet is in that second category. Otherwise, he… Well, you know. Interesting guy!” Hawks laughs a little, clapping his hands together. 

“ ‘Interesting’, hm? If there’s something I need to be concerned about, you should tell me now, Hawks.”

“No, no– I mean, between you and me, you know, personal opinion and not the opinion of the Charon facilities, HPSC, or any other associated entity–” The legal disclaimer is recited so fluidly that Best Jeanist could almost giggle, if he were the giggling sort. “He doesn’t really have a filter for what he says, and he approaches life with a… unique perspective. But he’s not a bad guy.” Hawks pauses, and then taps his chin. “Well, I guess he is a bad guy, but you know, we’re fixing that.”

“Right.” The door opens with the chime of a bell, and they step out into a reception lobby that has both a secretary and security guard behind the desk. Next to them, a massive set of double doors loom under the label TITAN L2.

“How’s it going, Ii-san?” Hawks gives a friendly wave to the secretary, a massive woman with green fur and fox-like features. 

“I’m good! What about you?” She smiles back through the glass, behind a row of colorful gachapon-style fox figurines.

“Good! Trying to rope Jeanie into our schemes. We’re headed for T2-008. Is he good for a visit?”

“Should be! No signs of any stress, right?” She turns to the security guard, who answers with a long “Yuppppp”.

“Awesome, thanks a dozen. I’ll see you guys later!” Hawks scans his card at the door and holds it open for Best Jeanist. It’s then that Jeanist asks his question, because Jeanist is not the sort of man to impolitely interrupt a conversation.

“Why is this ward labeled ‘Titan 2’, if you don’t mind my asking?” His first assumption is that it has something to do with heteromorphic gigantism, which he isn’t confident he has the kind of room for. He knows cohabitation comes up at some point in the program, largely from being called upon for advice with teenagers of a more unique disposition from some of his peers who had agreed to host younger villains. 

“Oh! Oh, that’s part of the new classification system. There’s three tiers. You have the Orpheus class, which are villains that are staying short-term, likely to be released once their case is reviewed. Low level criminals, usually, the kind that are arrested as villains on technicality. Then there’s the Zagreus class, which are more along the lines of the average villain. The highest class is Titan ; your supervillains, or anyone who could be a real, genuine threat to public safety.” 

“Is this just a way for you to show off how much you know about Grecian myth?” Hawks just shrugs. 

“I mean, we had Tartarus … Gotta commit to the aesthetic, right?”

“Fair enough. And you want me to work with one of these Titans?” For a moment, Tsunagu Hakamada’s chest gets tight, ribs cinching around a lung that wasn’t there.

Your specific expertise.

Surely, he thinks, they would have said something if his ex-husband had been accepted into the Charon program. Surely, he thinks, they– no, Hawks – wouldn’t ask him to try and patch up a relationship that had been shredded and moth-eaten and left to rot in the dirt. When he said he qualified as one in need of a little mercy, did he say it because of Jeanist? Because he fathered his child? He stops in his tracks, and Hawks turns to face him. His expression softens into something more sympathetic.

“Not him.” He rubs the back of his neck and sighs. “The guy I want you to work with is called Geten. Do you remember him?”

A vague memory of the pre-war briefing flashes through his mind. As does the memory of Cementoss being in the same intensive care ward as himself, snippets of frostbite mentions and brutal impalements audible through the curtain. “Somewhat.”

“I can’t tell you everything unless you agree to join the program, but he’s a lifelong Liberation Front member. His quirk is Ice Ply. He’s got one of the highest body counts here, but there's some debate about his capacity. I mean, not enough to get him off the hook, but enough that I think it’s significant and I think having a P.A.L would be beneficial.” Jeanist shifts his weight to one leg, hip jutting to the side as he listens. Hawks continues. “He’s pretty cooperative, all things considered. But he won’t listen to anybody he doesn’t think is strong. I mean– real social Darwinism kind of thing. I had to fight him hand-to-hand– you know, ‘cuz of the quirk situation– and it wasn’t pretty. But you –” He points to Jeanist with both hands, waving his finger guns a little. “Are the Number 1 Hero. The head honcho. The big cheese. And your quirk is viable for containment and doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses to ice, should it come to it. And … Well, you’ll pick up on why I think this needs the Jeanist’s touch once you meet him.” 

“I suppose it’s only appropriate that I at least entertain this, if you feel that strongly about my inclusion.” Best Jeanist adjusts his bangs and strikes a pose. “Let’s get properly introduced.”

T2-008 doesn’t look much like a menacing supervillain. Especially not one with his kind of record. 

“Geten! Getty, Getty images, Getty-spaghetti, my man– what’s up?” Hawks calls when they walk in, greeting the criminal with a sweep of his arms. Despite the odd chill and patches of condensation attempting to become frost, the room is rather nice, like a large hotel room… if the hotel room was in the aftermath of some kind of party and the inhabitants only had enough time to get rid of any incriminating trash while hungover in the morning. The bed is unmade, comforter spilling over onto the floor, pillowcases threatening to fall off of the pillows entirely. One pillow has fallen onto a discarded sweater. While there aren’t many possessions in the room, the ones that are there are scattered about in a way that indicates their owner had put them there because it was convenient or because it was where it had been used. The cushions on the loveseat are disheveled. Paper sits in small piles threatening to fall off of the desk, and pencils, pens, and markers are loosely scattered around them, one or two having rolled off and onto the floor. A cup of paint water sits near the back. A small treadmill is positioned in the corner, and atop it is one of the Paranormal Liberation Front’s most feared members.

He steps down and approaches them, the only response he gives to Hawks’ jovial entrance.

Best Jeanist’s first impression: he is small. A 27 inch inseam, if he had to guess, but from the fit of his too-baggy, double-knotted-drawstring sweatpants, Jeanist could hazard that the young man had legs long in proportion to his body, and so his height probably sat at a little less than five-foot-even. He’s small-faced and has big, almond-shaped eyes framed by thick white eyelashes and double eyelids that only make them look even bigger– and it strikes Best Jeanist as deeply familiar, but he’s not sure how. He has a delicate, youthful look, the kind perfect for a pair of light wash slim-cut jeans, or a dark long-cut denim jacket; but the boy is wasting it on pilling sweatpants and an oversized black t-shirt with a graphic of a wolf cheaply printed onto the front. A thread is already dangling from one of the sleeves. Jeanist’s nose scrunches underneath his face covering.

At least he has good taste when it comes to animals. 

Geten does not greet them verbally. He just stares expectantly.

“Geten, you know who this is, right? Best Jeanist. Strongest pro hero in the country, number one on the charts. Fought Shigaraki.” Hawks jabs a thumb in his direction, and Jeanist realizes this was likely the reason he had been asked to come in his hero costume. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Jeanist offers, hoping that a greeting might break the ice a little. 

Geten looks at Best Jeanist, head tilting back as he sizes him up, and Best Jeanist can practically see the cogs of his mind running while he assesses if he could beat Best Jeanist in a fight. Then he looks back at Hawks. No “my pleasure”, no “hello”, no “hey”... not even a wave or a nod. Jeanist crosses his arms. Maybe he’s just shy.

“We’re all gonna go out to lunch together. Y-”

“I want my coat.” Geten finally speaks, voice even but demanding. Hawks’ smile is a little strained.

“Go get your coat, buddy. And think about where you wanna eat, okay?” Geten had begun to walk away before Hawks had finished his sentence. As he does, Jeanist watches the way split ends and cowlicks fly off his head with every step. It dawns on him, with horror, that the white hair had been hacked at unevenly from top to bottom, creating a clumpy nightmare. It was clean– but he could tell that conditioner was foreign to his scalp. His fingers twitch with the urge to reach for his comb.

It was becoming very apparent as to why Hawks had wanted his help with this particular project.

Chapter Text

The walk back to the car was tense. Even with him in the quirk-suppressing bracelet, Best Jeanist didn’t want to set off their tiny Titan, and as Hawks tried to keep chatter going, he realized that he had a hair-trigger irritability. Not anger per se ; but Best Jeanist wasn’t confident in saying he knew where the line was. Geten decided he wanted to eat at the buffet (which he pronounced as buff-et. Jeanist corrected him and got a sharp glare in return), and they all pile into the car. A chauffeur driving (as it was protocol that supervising heroes be able to intervene with any villainous activity, which is hard to do while driving), Hawks in the passenger seat, and Geten and Jeanist sharing the back.

“You have an ice quirk, correct?” Best Jeanist attempts a conversation starter. Geten’s eyes narrow while he stares at him from his periphery.

“Meta.”

“Pardon?”

“I have an ice Meta Ability .” He emphasizes the words. “And it’s not really an ice Meta . There’s no such thing. It’s an active emitter Meta Ability, psionic order, manipulation suborder, elemental family with cryokinetic specialization and secondary thermodynamic characteristics both passive and active after conditional awakening. You’d think the number one hero would understand something about Meta Abilities.” He gives a disdainful sniff. Best Jeanist can see Hawks’ back tensing with the effort of suppressing some giggles.

“You’re… very passionate about this, I see.” Geten says nothing, and pulls his hood up, obscuring his face aside from the reflection from his eyes. Best Jeanist considers asking further questions, but decides against it. He’s not keen on the idea of having his intelligence insulted further, especially if Hawks is going to sit there and laugh about it.

They get a private room at the buffet, which Best Jeanist is grateful for, but they still spend a good fifteen minutes swarmed by excited fans when they first walk in. It draws to a rather abrupt end when Geten, patience long worn thin, pulls his hood back down and barks out orders to disperse loudly enough to be heard over the clamor and angry enough to be a threat. Best Jeanist pinches the bridge of his nose. Hawks laughs an awkward little laugh and tries to apologize on his behalf for being hangry. Geten’s hood goes back up, despite being indoors. 

Watching Geten interact with the general public is almost like watching a demonstration for an etiquette class– for exactly what you should never want to do. His walk defaults into a prowl , and he carries himself with such hostility that most people move out of his way instinctively. Those that don’t get shouldered past, and any protests go ignored. He pays little heed to lines, and never once says a please or thank-you. It takes everything in Best Jeanist’s body to refrain from doing something about it, because technically he can’t lay a hand (or thread) on him unless he’s committing a crime or under his care, and the sad state of affairs in this world is that nobody has made it illegal to be ungrateful yet.

And watching him eat– Oh, God, how he eats! When Geten rejoins them at the table, carrying two plates stacked with food, Hawks scoots himself and his chair a little further away. Best Jeanist follows his example as a preventative measure, which proves to be wise. Geten tears through a meal for someone twice his size like a Tasmanian devil, and somehow with worse manners. He holds his silverware with balled up fists and doesn’t bother changing utensils until necessary. He rips into steak with his teeth instead of cutting it. Even with his hood on, bits of food are going everywhere, and it’s clear without being seen that the boy isn’t chewing with his mouth closed– and he may not even be fully chewing at all, with how fast he inhales it. Jeanist sits in shock while he watches the first plate disappear. It’s like watching a train crash, except the train crash would be less upsetting. He’s not even sure what he could say to correct this behavior at the moment. He tries to enjoy his own food in the meanwhile, but his appetite is quickly being eroded by the carnage taking place across from him. When Jeanist reaches for the salt– just a little too close to Geten, he supposes– his entire body tightens, pulling his food closer and baring his teeth at him. It catches Jeanist by such surprise that he yanks his arm back and spills some salt on the way. Geten stares for another few moments, taut and trembling, before he jumps back into massacring the culinary arts, even more viciously than before. It wasn’t a symbolic baring of teeth like Dynamight’s grimaces and grumbles. The corners of his lips had curled back far enough to crinkle his nose, hanging slightly open and snapping back shut as proof of his threat. Jeanist was sure he was very real in his intention of biting. Hawks gently chides him, but it’s clear Geten isn’t listening. Best Jeanist rubs his temples in frustration, shock turning into irritation and offense. 

“Geten– buddy, slow down, if you eat too much too fast you’ll make yourself sick– Geten -” When his pleas fall on deaf ears, Hawks falls back into his seat with a sigh, taking a long sip of his orange soda. His eyes slide over to Jeanist. “So…”

“So?”
“You get it now, yeah?” Hawks’ smile brings out the bags under his eyes.

“This boy is in dire need of mending. A full wash. Re-tailored.” Best Jeanist adjusts his bangs once more, ending in a dramatic flourish. “It would be a betrayal of every principle I have as a hero not to step in.”

Relief washes across Hawks’ face, followed by a curious look at Jeanist’s plate.

“Hey, how did you eat all that without taking off your mask?”

Hawks’ office is small and full of clutter, but not cramped. Best Jeanist could almost call it cozy, in its own way. One shelf is almost entirely lined with rubber ducks, decorated as different heroes. He sees his own, bejeaned face amongst the crowd. Potted plants sit in the window and in various spots amongst the piles of books and filing cabinets. Trinkets hang from hooks and pinboards on the wall. A whiteboard contains chickenscratch that only Hawks could decipher, as well as a cutesy, bubbly message written by someone named ‘Jin’, telling him to have a good day. The blackout curtains have been pulled and tied up to let the sunlight in, and the temperature leans on the toasty side, but not uncomfortably so. The office chair the president reclines in is plush and leather– clearly, he’s making the best of all the space freed up on his back. He pulls a file out of a stack, somehow able to pinpoint the one he was looking for without flipping through the pile. He cracks it open for a brief skim himself, and then holds it out to Jeanist, who gets up to take it and then returns to the couch against the wall. 

“So! Let me give you the rundown on Geten’s P.A.L profile.” Hawks leans forward a bit. “Co-captain of the PLF’s Violet Regiment. To be honest, I wasn’t able to gather much information on him at the time. A lot of this stuff we only know after the fact.” Jeanist gives a nod. 

“Meet Geten.” Hawks holds up a picture of the hooded villain. “And meet Kiyotaka Himura.” He lowers the first picture and lifts a second, showing off the familiar face. “But don’t call him that. He gets real uncooperative real fast. Our case worker is trying to work on that.” 

“Right.” 

“His quirk lets him manipulate ice. Doesn’t make it himself, although he drops the temps around him cold enough to start frosting things over. It’s slow, but it’ll make things soggy.” He shakes his head. “He can control the temperature of the ice, too. For that reason, we strongly advise against removing the suppressor bracelet. Flip to page 13, if you will.” Jeanist does as instructed, revealing a spread of captures from security camera footage during both the Villa Raid and the League’s assault on Deika. The ground is torn open by glaciers as far as the eye can see. Buildings crumble. Tiny humans can be seen trapped in the wreckage. One shot, taken by satellite, reveals that the destruction spanned the entire city. 

“All it takes is for him to drop some ice into a water main, and you get that . The entire city, torn up. His psionic range is massive, so there’s no way to be sure he’s securely contained without something suppressing his psi.” Hawks taps his temple.  

“Mm. So I take it you have a reason you think this is worth the security risk?” 

Hawks leans forward a little more, hands folding on the desk in front of him. 

“You know the MLA, right? Meta Liberation Army?” 

“I know that they merged with the League of Villains to form the Paranormal Liberation Front.” 

“Right. Deika city was their hotspot. A ‘Liberated’ district. 90% of all citizens were part of the MLA.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Geten’s 16, you know. A kid. A little bitty baby.” 

“You aren’t that much older, Hawks.” 

“This isn’t about me.” He pouts a little, but he continues. “From what I understand… Geten was kind of a… Well, personal pet project? I guess? For Re-Destro, I mean.” Hawks’ face drops into a much more solemn look. Almost pitying. Sympathetic. “Family was homeless– never enrolled in school, no proof of residency. Re-Destro came along and took him home, in exchange for putting the rest of them up. Kid had been using his quirk, I think, and he just happened to be around? Either way…” A long pause follows. “All he’s done his whole life is train for combat. And I’m not— that’s not a hyperbole. Never went to school. No job. No assets. His family scattered. All he talked about for weeks was Re-Destro. He’s barely literate, Jeanie. He can speak just fine, but reading and writing are at a primary school level. Math, too. And you saw his social skills.” 

“I see.” 

“So I figure– He never had a chance to do anything else, right? He doesn’t know anything else. Perfect candidacy for P.A.L.” Tsunagu can’t argue with that. He could even feel a tug at his own heartstrings, even if the boy had the worst manners he had ever seen.

“And because of my existing oeuvre of work, I became your best candidate.”

“Exactlyyyy.” Hawks waggles his finger-guns at him. “So let me lay out the program roadmap for you. It begins with supervised visits here. You guys can stay in the room or utilize one of the dining areas, but there has to be at least one guard, and there can’t be any other inmates present. If things go well, we move to you being able to take him out, in increasing durations and increasingly far from the facility. And if that goes well, we might attempt cohabitation, at least temporarily. As his sponsor, we’re giving you a lot of freedom– but there will be regular evaluations done. And, with great freedom comes great responsibility.” Hawks pulls out another, larger folder and smacks it onto the desk.

“By which, of course, I mean paperwork. Look this over and get it back to me ASAP, and you can get started.”

Chapter Text

Tsunagu spends that evening drowning in forms. Liability wavers. Emergency contacts. Legal permissions. Terms and conditions. All important, of course, but tedious. There would be compensation; a stipend paid out for the effort of assisting with the program. And of course, every bit of information anyone could possibly have gathered on the iceman in the first place. A rather limited medical history; in fact, some things had only been logged by the post-arrest physical, like anemia or minor laziness in the left eye that made it cross sometimes– or other, more obvious things, like albinism and the sensitivities that inevitably resulted because of it.

And of course, transcripts of interviews.

- Please state your name for the record.

- Geten.

- Your real name, please.

- My name is Geten.

- …I see. 

- Is the fighting over?

- Yes, it is.

- Is Re-Destro here?

- I am not at liberty to give out that information.

- I need to see him. 

He flips through images from the arrest, from battles, from raids on Deika to seize any possible property connected to the conspiracy. Reports, too. It seems the boy had been fairly cooperative, even despite his rudeness. The paragraph about his quirk (or Meta Ability,as he called it) was one of the most extensive Tsunagu had seen in a while. 

TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDED INVESTIGATION VIDEO #290

YOTSUBASHI RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY #3 RAID

OFFICERS ON SCENE : DET. TSUKAUCHI, OFFICER TAMAGAWA.

OTHER PARTIES : [REDACTED] (SUSPECT)

                                [REDACTED] (SUSPECT)

                                HIMURA KIYOTAKA (SUSPECT)

                                ISHIYAMA KEN | CEMENTOSS (PRO HERO)

OFFICER TAMAGAWA: IS THIS BUILDING FAMILIAR TO YOU?

HIMURA: THIS IS RE-DESTRO’S HOUSE.

OFFICER TAMAGAWA: I SEE. 

CEMENTOSS: WHY DON’T YOU SHOW US AROUND?

HIMURA: RE-DESTRO DOESN’T WANT HEROES IN HERE.

CEMENTOSS: RE-DESTRO DOESN’T MAKE THAT DECISION ANYMORE. WE WON, DID WE NOT?

[SUSPECT GOES QUIET. SUSPECT TENSES. OFFICERS READY TO RESPOND TO THREAT. SUSPECT NODS.]

HIMURA: …OKAY. 

[SECTION REDACTED FOR ONGOING INVESTIGATION CONFIDENTIALITY. PROCEED TO NEXT PAGE.]

HIMURA: THAT’S THE ROOM I STAY IN.

[THE ROOM IN QUESTION IS A SMALL BEDROOM SPACE, OUTFITTED WITH A BED, A DESK, AND TWO HANGING SHELVING UNITS.]

CEMENTOSS: DO YOU LIVE HERE, GETEN?

[SUSPECT SHRUGS]

HIMURA: SOMETIMES. 

CEMENTOSS: WHERE DO YOU LIVE MOST OF THE TIME?

HIMURA: I STAY WHEREVER RE-DESTRO NEEDS ME. 

— 

- You’re doing great, Geten. Just a little longer and we can end the interrogation.

- Okay.

- With this kind of cooperation, we might be able to look at lowering your sentence.

- Do what you want. I’m not in any position to make requests.

His study session ends when the reminder on his phone signals that it was time for his nightly round of medication. There had been enough reading for the night, he figures, and closes the file back up with all of his signed papers on top to return the next day. Tsunagu isn’t the type to stay up late with work (not when he can just finish it all during the day at maximum efficiency), and it didn’t really feel like he had made much progress at all. Everything he read circled back to Re-Destro. Sometimes some nonsense about training your quirk being the only reason to live, but that wasn’t anything Hawks hadn’t already indicated to him. Just a Re-Destro shaped wall. He couldn’t even really wrap his head around what sort of relationship the two of them had.

Well. It is what it is, he supposes. He’ll have to get to know the boy either way. Trial and error just seems like the best option. Tsunagu spends the rest of his evening in his typical evening ritual: in a silk robe, watching some trashy reality TV show about fashion and laying out his plans for the next day in his little denim-covered planner.

Best Jeanist shows up to the Hero Public Safety Commission office the following morning and to the Charon facility the following afternoon, carrying his best sensible tote bag stuffed with magazines, knitting, and other odds-and-ends to amuse himself while with his little pal. He figures that it would be best to simply get Geten used to having him in his space since clearly there were some territorial issues (at least when it came to food, but why chance it?)

He greets Ii at the desk, and struts back down to the eighth room. He knocks. There’s no response. He knocks again. No response. Sighing, Best Jeanist swipes his newly-gifted security badge and steps inside. He had come at a rather unfortunate time– Geten was balled up on the desk chair with a plate in one hand and the fork he was using to shovel the food into his face in the other. The villain tenses immediately, and Jeanist raises both of his hands.

“I’m not going to touch your food, Geten.” 

“Not if you wanna keep your hands, you won’t.” He speaks with his mouth full, and it makes Jeanist cringe. But at least he has a chance to jump right into the thick of it, for better or for worse.

“Do you think I would try to take away your food?”

“No, because if you did, I would hurt you. Very badly.” 

“Do you think other people would try to take it?”

“No, ‘cuz then I would hurt them.” The response makes Jeanist sigh with exasperation. But it’s not an unfamiliar logical loop. It was a wall he had run into with his own daughter many, many, times. A complete detachment of causation.

“Have people taken food from you before?” Jeanist slowly moves to take a seat, still positioning himself far away from Geten. He watches the villain think before shrugging.

“Not since I was small.” 

Jeanist resists the urge to point out his current height. The point was clear enough.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” This gets him no response. Just the clearing of the plate, which is then set to the side on the desk. Geten spends another moment or so eyeing him warily.

“Why are you here?”

“To spend time with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I would like to help you.” Jeanist assumes this is a fairly inoffensive statement– but you know what they say about assumptions. Geten gives a haughty, disdainful scoff, and then turns away. 

“I don’t need help with anything. You’re wasting your time.” He grabs paper and one of his many writing utensils and starts on something, but Jeanist is hesitant to ask after the response he just received. So he settles in and begins to knit, and he knits, and he knits, and he knits… For all of the two hours he had set aside to be there, almost entirely in silence, slowly being made more and more aware of the encroaching frost.. 

“I’m going home now, Geten.” He is ignored. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

There’s no response. 

Chapter Text

“Ah, well, I guess that’s Iceman for you.” Hawks fidgets with a pencil as he speaks, giving Jeanist an apologetic smile from across the desk. “Even I had trouble figuring anything out about the guy. There’s just not…a whole lotta guy there . No, wait– it’s more like… Well, you know. Totally repressed, or whatever. Frozen? There’s a joke somewhere.”

“I’m not here to listen to your stand-up routine, Hawks.” The president gives a sheepish laugh. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I can’t help being so charming. And clever. And humble. Want a cookie? Jin made them.” He gestures to the saucer on the desk, but Jeanist holds up a hand and shakes his head.

“No, but thank you. I’m saving my sugar allowance for after dinner.” Hawks shrugs in response to this, and grabs one for himself. 

“So, what is it you wanted to talk about? I figured there’s gotta be more than just telling me that Geten’s rude.” He takes a bite of the cookie, and winces a little at the taste of the charring on the bottom. 

“I would like to visit this ‘Re-Destro’ character. To get a feeling for what kind of fabric he’s cut from.” He folds his hands atop his knee. Hawks studies him for a moment.

“Yeah?”

“I think it would provide insight. Valuable insight. The boy’s fixated on him.” Hawks sighs.

“I can’t recommend it, Jeanie.” Jeanist readies himself to argue, but Hawks holds up a hand.

“For starters, the case against Rikiya Yotsubashi is still ongoing, and we have to tread carefully. He’s got the best lawyers money can buy, and any procedural fuck up is going to get his case retried or dismissed. If there’s a chance he could use you poking your nose in to his advantage, he will. We’re walking on eggshells. Secondly, part of the conditions of Geten’s program mean keeping him as far away from his co-conspirators as possible, especially Yotsubashi.” 

“I wasn’t going to-” His protest is interrupted.

“I know you weren’t gonna take him with you, Jeanie. It’s about more than just physical distance. We need to make sure Geten’s new life is as ‘uncontaminated’ as possible. What do you think he’d do if he caught wind you two spoke? Or– think even more abstract– if Yotsubashi says or does something that changes how you interact with Geten, you run the risk of reinforcing his programming. The only way to guarantee he can’t sink his claws back in is to keep that no-good snake oil salesman out of it.” The president shakes his head, and then folds his hands on the desk in front of him, leaning forward slightly. “If you really feel like it’s necessary, I’ll write the referral. But I would strongly suggest exhausting other methods first.”

-

“Good afternoon, Geten.” Best Jeanist greets him like he had every other day that week, stepping inside. It’s different this time. Despite being late in the afternoon, Geten’s lights are off, and the frost that tended to gather near the man has finally dropped the temperature of the room enough to create a thin mist near the floor.. Jeanist frowns. He had learned this was the so-called “ passive secondary thermodynamic characteristic ”, as Geten had put it. Certain cells in his body were able to utilize the energy of his psi to create a temperature gradient that cooled the air outside of his body but increased his internal temperature. It was usually a fairly mild effect that took its time in causing ice to accumulate, and as far as he was aware, it wasn’t something Geten had control over. Otherwise his inhibitor would prevent it.

“Go away.” He gets a response, for once, but it’s certainly not the one he wanted to hear. It takes a moment for him to locate his P.A.L, eyes scanning the room and landing on a little lump of black and white in the corner– curled up like an animal in its hidey-hole, face buried in folded arms.

A tantrum, then . He clicks his tongue with disapproval and flicks on the light.

“That’s enough of that. There’s no need for the attitude.” He watches Geten’s body flex and then shudder, followed by a growl as Jeanist takes his usual seat. A deep irritation stirs within him. The constant rudeness was beginning to get on his nerves. But , he reminds himself, I need to be patient . Observation is key to deciding methodology. For what it’s worth, his patience is rewarded with knowledge. After a few minutes of silence, Jeanist realizes that the villain’s breath has become labored. Irritation melts into concern.

“Are you alright?” He asks, not moving from his seat. Geten slowly lifts his head and blinks blearily at him, briefly stunned by the light of the room, mouth opening, and then closing, and then opening again, eyes screwing shut and brow furrowing. It takes another few seconds of struggling to speak.

“My head hurts.” He croaks. Something masking itself as rage crosses his features. “Leave me alone.”

“I see. Would you like me to turn the light back off?”

“I want you to go away.” His head lolls back, resting against the crevice of the wall, pressing his crown into the surface as if the pressure might relieve some of the pain. “I hate you.” Best Jeanist simply stands and walks back towards the door, only to turn the light off once more. Then he returns, but he chooses to kneel at Geten’s side rather than just watch him suffer. 

“Are you sick?” He asks quietly. Geten shakes his head. To be sure, however, Tsunagu reaches out to feel his forehead. The air a few millimeters above is bordering frigid, and yet, he notes, Geten is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. At the touch, Geten jerks in a full-body spasm, but this only works to send a rolling wave of nausea and pain through his body that briefly leaves him winded. He bares his teeth, but Jeanist only finds himself feeling sorry for the boy. There’s no signs of congestion, and while he is sweating, there doesn’t appear to be a fever. His medical report had mentioned nothing of migraines, either. Curious. Perhaps it had been missed.

“Let me help you to bed.” His hand moves to Geten’s back, and the other carefully pulls at his arm. An attempt is made at thrashing, but just as before, it leaves him reeling. Jeanist steadies him as best he can. 

“Leave me alone.” He warbles miserably, tugging again. Jeanist finds a scolding on his tongue– but refrains. That would be of no help to either of them. He takes a deep breath, and tries to recall perhaps a simpler method of pedagogy.

“You’re being very brave.” He says, testing the water a bit. “It’ll require being strong to get all the way over to your bed with a headache like that.” For a moment, he’s worried that he might just get sneered at, but instead Geten takes another slow breath and starts to shuffle forward.

It’s a slow process, and more than a few lines of encouragement are required, but he manages to appease the villain enough to accept help into bed. The top sheet tucks itself around him, although Jeanist refrains from adding more cover when Geten mumbles out that it’s too hot. He brings him some water to get a few mouthfuls down, which Jeanist is only sure he was allowed to assist with because Geten was too dizzy to try and rip him limb from limb for having his hand on his cup, and he sits next to the bed somewhat stumped. He had, of course, sent a message to Hawks, but there had been no response. The president is a busy man. 

He’s felt similarly frustrated before. Brushing hair away from Geten’s forehead, he’s reminded of many sleepless nights reassuring a crying toddler, skin not yet hardened against her own thorns, bandaging and re-bandaging scabs with every position that caused them to poke just a little too aggressively. It always tore him up that he couldn’t do anything to keep her quirk from hurting– aside from waiting for the callouses to collect. That’s when an idea hits him. If it was psionic energy that fueled the chill around him, then perhaps the drastic increase in frost was the result of there being more energy than was usually released. He could imagine, perhaps, that for a man who had been using his quirk to tear apart cities, suddenly bottling up all of that energy could begin to take its toll. As a fellow telekinetic, Tsunagu understood very well how easy it was to strain your body with your mind alone. If that is the issue at play, however, the obvious solution is the least available. Letting Geten use his quirk was simply not an option yet. It was also deeply disquieting; the understanding of power, the knowledge that the only thing possibly keeping them all from a wintery grave was one little cuff. Perhaps he shouldn’t assume that Geten would jump to killing them all– it certainly wasn’t very good faith of him, but it was hard to give the benefit of the doubt when Geten certainly liked to act with a callous disregard for all human life. So it goes. 

He stays there for a while, hovering, watching for any signs of– something –, but eventually his knees grow tired of sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Geten had long since dozed off. So, quietly, he gathers his things and steps out, still troubled by his own inability to provide any relief.

Chapter Text

“Does that happen often?” Jeanist asks as he unloads his knitting project from his tote the next day, watching Geten scribble away at his desk.

“Psionic sickness?” The young man was certainly in better spirits than the day prior. He leans back in his chair and twists around to look at Best Jeanist. “Not often. But it’s happened. Usually when I’d have to visit a non-liberated district for too long.” Discussing his quirk seemed to be the only thing he’d hold a conversation about, although Best Jeanist couldn’t say it wasn’t helpful. He was almost envious of the body of knowledge he seemed to possess, even if it was ill-gained.

“I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who experiences such a thing. I mean, I knew it was theoretically possible, but…” 

“I’m strong.” Geten gives a loose shrug, and even a brief grin. “The Supreme Leader trained me. My output is elevated.”

“I see.” Jeanist decides to tiptoe around the topic of “The Supreme Leader” for the moment. “And sleep helps?”

“Right. I don’t produce psi in my sleep– most telekinetic meta abilities don’t. The passive emission brings the levels back down to normal.” He taps his temple with a pencil, and then contemplates for a second. “Maybe that’s something I could train for. It would’ve won us that last battle… But imagine if your meta ability stayed active after you went to bed. It happens every now and again to most people, and there’s a condition where your meta factor doesn’t turn off right when you sleep…” He trails off, still clearly running through the information in his head even if his mouth had gotten tired of it. Best Jeanist frowns under his mask.

“There’s no ‘us’ anymore, Geten. The Paranormal Liberation Front has been disbanded.” The front legs of Geten’s chair and his smile both drop at that, and he turns away rather abruptly. Jeanist tries to prompt a more positive response by adding on; “You have the freedom to be whoever you’d like to be. No need to worry about battles.”

“I like battles.” Jeanist’s needles click against one another.

“Well, then you can enjoy staying in prison, in that case.” He can’t help the way his tone oozes irritation, nor does he really want to hide it. Geten looks back at him, nose crinkled. 

And then he barks. Best Jeanist looks up from his knitting, slightly bewildered, only to be met with a sneer.

“The barking of a dog of the state. You think you can twist my arm with the threat of incarceration?”

Best Jeanist rises with his indignation, quickly sweeping through his own bangs. “I have endured more than enough of this attitude, young man. You seem to be deeply unaware of how remarkably generous we have been to you, and this ingratitude cannot stand.” If anyone else had ignored him for weeks on end, made declarations of hatred, and then called him a dog, surely he would have strung them up in the streets. His patience was already hair-thin, and it had been fraying. To think he had been worried sick about him less than 24 hours before!

“WOOF!” Geten jeers in response. Best Jeanist then decides that the time for leniency and ‘understanding of his circumstances’ was over, because the villain had taken every opportunity he could to bite the hand that fed him– or scorn it, if nothing else. The threads of his sleeves yank Geten from his seat, constricting further with every irritated thrash and curse.

“If you are to make a villain of me, I will gladly act the role.” He pulls him closer, forcing him to look Jeanist in the face. “Hawks may be soft on you out of pity, but if you are to integrate with society in any regard, there will be no more of this petulance. Have I made myself clear?”

Geten scowls and grumbles out an ‘okay’. Best Jeanist is unimpressed.

“I know you were trained better than that, at least. Try again. How do you address your elders?”

“Yes sir .” Geten wriggles, but he manages to swallow his pride enough to spit out the phrase, at which point Best Jeanist releases him. He hated having to be a hardass. Well- no, not really. He took a great bit of pride in being a bit of a hardass, because someone has to do it. What he felt more bad about was the circumstance; it’s difficult to stay angry at a caged animal, whom he knows has no real recourse to stand his ground– but these were lessons that had to be learned, for both their sakes. 

When Geten drops to the ground, free of his denim prison, he scrambles back over to the desk, resuming his activity with a seething fervor, rocking in place and muttering something to himself. Normally, Best Jeanist would consider such muttering a point of correction– but he feels perhaps it was best to let that be. He returns to his seat and picks his needles back up. He gives them both the time to decompress before he bothers trying to speak again, but decides it was best not to leave Geten only with foul memories of their day together.

“What is it that you’re always doing over there?” He inquires. Geten freezes. He’s hesitant; for a moment, Jeanist is sure the boy has gone back to ignoring him, but he eventually does get a mumbled out response.

“Drawing.” 

“I didn’t take you for someone who was artistically inclined. May I see it?” He is, perhaps, curious about what a power-obsessed soldier might doodle in his free time. Slowly, reluctantly, Geten uncurls enough to lift his paper from the desk and turns to show it. He immediately recognizes it as a dragon, which both surprises him and doesn’t; but more intriguing is the way it is drafted, broken down into a massive grid of 3-dimensional shapes, cleanly marked with sharp, straight lines. It hadn’t been broken into cubes, but after a second he realizes that each unit was some kind of crystal– ice, he figures. Around the margins are strange scribbles he can barely make out, but he recognizes numbers, although there aren’t any unit measurements he can identify.

“That’s quite impressive. Is this…some kind of blueprint?” 

“Yessir.” There’s still a bit of sulkiness to Geten’s voice.

“Do you like dragons?”

“They’re cool.” This is said very firmly, ready to defend the statement against any kind of disagreement. Thankfully, Best Jeanist has to concur that dragons are, in fact, pretty cool.

“Certainly. Do you make these out of ice?”

“Yeah.”

He’d like to push him out of pouting and into some more natural conversation, so he probes for elaboration. 

“What do those numbers mean?”

Geten stops and looks at his own paper again, and then back at Best Jeanist. “Those are my measurements.” One finger points to the large ‘10’ in the corner. “This one’s a ten. That’s the most amount of ice I can use.” Best Jeanist’s brow crinkles a little.

“Ten what?”

“Ten. That’s the most amount of ice in a project. A ‘one’ is only a little ice. And so on.” 

“Well– yes, but what are you measuring by? Mass? Volume?” Geten seems a little perturbed by the question, and scratches the back of his neck.

“It’s the ice. I have a certain amount, and it’s a one to a ten.” He points to another section of the diagram. “See, this is a one.” His finger taps one of the crystals. Then he circles a larger portion. “This is a bunch of ones, and that makes two. And then more twos make a three. All the way up to ten.” 

“What about when it’s smaller?”

“The one has a bunch of one-one’s in it. So you count it like one-one, one-two, all the way up to one-ten. And that’s a whole one. And if you’re breaking down a one-one, you just say it’s one-one-one, one-one-two…” He shrugs. “It makes sense when you feel it. Using tens makes it easy to keep track.”

Jeanist thinks for a moment. It’s remarkable. In the absence of a proper education, he had invented an entire measurement system, just for his creations.

“That’s very clever of you.” He raises his eyebrows. “You should be proud.”

Geten returns his paper to his desk. He eyes Best Jeanist warily for a moment. And then he shrugs.

“Thanks.”

Chapter Text

Geten was rarely seen, even when it came to matters regarding the Front. He had a seat for meetings among Lieutenants, but he rarely appeared, and required appearances not to do with Re-Destro were brief. Dabi was more than happy to largely focus on Hawks’ recruitment; or, at the very least, more than happy to have little to do with Geten. 

He did his job, though. Violet Regiment drills were routine and brutal. Geten was far from the most popular Lieutenant, and he made no effort to be such. Geten had a purpose, and he fulfilled it.

With his hood on, it was difficult to get a good read on him, but Twice was always reminded of some kind of animal, watching with a slow, cautious curiosity in the form of his silent stare. In a way, Twice felt like he was a kindred spirit– after all, he had only seen the guy’s face maybe once or twice or thrice– but that was, well, the one way. Two guys who loved a head covering. Everything else he knew about the kid wasn’t really his cup of tea. Not that it was much. Absolute quirk nutcase, just like the rest of the Meta Liberation schmucks. Figures!

Dabi didn’t really have anything nice to say about the guy, but it was fun to rile Geten up with him sometimes. Mr. Compress gave him a relatively wide berth. Toga had been her usual real friendly self– but Geten’s silent stare and insistence that they get back on task for Re-Destro’s mission meant she lost interest pretty fast. And Twice? Well, he just had other priorities– namely getting real into Liberation and getting on Trumpet’s nerves, because he thought it was funny. And fuck ‘em, that’s why. 

But , that didn’t mean he didn’t have an eye out for the little critter. They were comrades, after all, and Twice could say that he liked him more than the other remaining Executives, even if he killed him a few hundred times over. Giran said nothing about the iceman being involved in his capture, and he kept well out of their way. Which is why he had found it somewhat amusing when he noticed Geten popping up more often, hovering on the fringes of gatherings. Social gatherings, mostly– his presence at meetings was as sparse as ever, but Twice had caught him carefully approaching movie nights and dinners, seemingly just to watch. Sometimes Twice waved, but received no response.

-

“ Woah ! Where’d you come from? I totally saw it coming !” Twice nearly jumps out of his skin once Geten comes into his periphery, and Hawks snickers on the couch cushion next to him. The small villain stands there, but doesn’t respond, his gaze fixated firmly ahead. Twice realizes that he hadn’t come to talk, but that his attention had been captured by the Rizin broadcast lighting up the TV display in front of them. Giran had kinda gotten him hooked on MMA entertainment– and goddammit, he was gonna take those MLA bastards for every penny they had, including to use on pay per views. Another beat. Geten’s head tilts to the right. Then to the left. Then he finally swings his head to look at Twice.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a TV. I know you didn’t learn about them in school , but they make pictures move. Inn’at something?” Dabi gives a sarcastic “ta-da” gesture.

“Shut up, I wasn’t talking to you. Idiot.”

“Dumbass.”

“Bark like a dog, you’re below me, moron.” Geten straightens his spine, and Twice decides to intervene by throwing his arms out.

“Hey, hey! Don’t talk to Dabi like that! Lay it on him, the clown! It’s Rizin! If you wanna watch, grab a seat.” He gestures to the other end of the couch, far from the second couch where Dabi half-sprawled (much to Toga’s delight and Spinner’s chagrin). After weighing his option, Geten trudges over to the seat, pulling his knees up close to his chest– which meant that the soles of his muddy boots were pressing into the cushion, a fact that made half of the room grimace. Twice expected Skeptic to scold him as he did when the members of the League did, well, anything – But he just watched the veins in his jaw pop as he grit his teeth and continued working at the table in the other half of the room, muttering about how he doesn’t understand why Re-Destro lets him on the furniture. Talk about a double standard!

“What is Rizin?” He asks, slightly startling Twice with the sudden softness of his voice.

“It’s the organization that runs these fighting events,” Hawks explains. “It’s mixed martial arts fighting as a sport. You earn points based on damage, aggressiveness, and generalship over the course of three rounds. Each round is five minutes long. You can win before the five minutes is up if you knock out your opponent or they surrender.”

“I see.”

“I watch for the hunky boys, though. I don’t really care about who wins.” Toga chimes in from her seat on the arm of the couch.

“Toga watches for the hunky boys.” Hawks re-affirms. Geten ponders this information.

“Do they use their metas?”

“Nah. But the rules state that heteromorphism counts as a natural part of the body, so it’s one of few sports where mutants are actually preferred.” Spinner doesn’t lift his gaze from his handheld as he responds. Geten falls silent after that, and the room gradually returns to its prior state of chatter, cursing when favored fighters lose, arguing over points, and spinning hypotheticals as to what it’d be like if so-and-so was in the ring.

Twice isn’t sure when, but at some point in the night, Geten vanishes once more, leaving nothing but scuffs on the couch. He hadn’t been an active participant in the conversations– Twice assumed he had lost interest when told they weren’t allowed to use quirks, but much to his surprise, Geten began popping up and hanging around for Rizin watch parties more and more regularly. 

-

“If only we could get him to do the same for Lieutenant meetings.” Trumpet remarked dryly one afternoon, when the topic had arisen thanks to Skeptic grousing about people not pulling their weight around here, about time-wasting and leisure– the usual Skeptic complaints. He finished pouring juice into his glass and took a sip; a mimosa, one of the staples of brunch. “But Re-Destro seems satisfied with his work, so I suppose there’s not much to be done about it.”

“That’s because he doesn’t do any work.” Skeptic retorts, one hand clacking away on a keyboard while the other nurses a mug of black coffee. “The occasional mission, but otherwise he’s just dicking around until Re-Destro needs something killed.”

“Well, he’s very good at that bit.” Mr. Compress mutters, knife scraping butter across his toast. 

“We could at least give him a broom in all that downtime he seems to have. Make himself useful and take care of all the footprints he tracks in in the first place.”

“Well, by all means, Skeptic. Give him a broom and put him to work. See how well that goes.” Trumpet replies, averting his eyes over the rim of his glass. Skeptic says nothing, and instead shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth.

“Maybe if you put on some Rizin in the rooms, he’d sweep.” Twice offers, to which he gets an exasperated huff in response, which is one of Skeptic’s favorite kinds of huff to give.

“You were making good progress with him before, weren’t you?” Nightingale, Skeptic’s top advisor, asks around a mouthful of omelette. 

“Oh, me? Heavens no.” Trumpet shakes his head. “I was helping him with his reading and writing. In his… vast wisdom, Re-Destro seems it fit to let him run wild. Housebreaking Geten is a fool’s errand.” He brings a napkin up to his face to wipe his lips. 

“Reading and writing?” Mr. Compress furrows his brows under his balaclava. “Are– I’m sorry, are we colleagues with a primary school student? How old exactly is he?”

“We should’ve gotten him some crayons and coloring pages for the meetings! Give him something to do.” Twice chimes in.

“Oh, he’s not that young. He’s… how old is he, again?” Skeptic looks to Trumpet, who adjusts his sunglasses.

“He’s around sixteen, if I recall correctly. Close in age to one of my children.”

“I’m not the baby anymore!” Toga exclaims, silverware rattling as she jumps up. “I’m gonna take him under my wing, like a little baby bird.” Trumpet coughs into his hand to disguise an utterance of some kind. Skeptic swallows down another forkful of pancake.

“He doesn’t listen to anyone aside from Re-Destro. It’s not worth the fight. Even you lot are more agreeable, and I don’t agree with you on almost anything.”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?”

It turns out, in fact, it could.

-

For starters, it was rather difficult to track Geten down in the first place, which Toga had wanted to do immediately following brunch and recruited Twice for promptly. He didn’t want to harsh her flow, so he refrained from mentioning the last time she attempted something like this, with Mustard, he had been actively cantankerous and refused to play along until she wore him down properly, and then had been arrested, so it didn’t last very long. Better to stay optimistic, right?

“Ugh! Where could he be?” Toga throws herself into an armchair, sighing dramatically. “We’ve looked everywhere!”

They had started with Re-Destro, of course. It was known by all that the two had a special connection, and so Twice had been hoping that maybe Re-Destro simply carried him around in a purse all day, or something. 

“Geten? Oh, you misunderstand. He’s not my personal security.” Re-Destro shuffles the papers on his desk. “He’s just a very devoted soldier. If you’re looking for him, you should perhaps try checking on his daily duties. You’re all Lieutenants, yes? I’m sure that can’t be too unfamiliar for you.” He smiled, and the two took that as a sign that he was telling them to get back to work more than anything– but they decided to heed the passive-aggressive advice anyways.

That became their second issue: They had no idea what Geten’s daily duties were. Dabi was found relatively easily, but all he told them was that he and Geten had split the work of Violet in two: Dabi handled training their troops for survival, Geten trained their troops for war. They would consolidate their work in a weekly meeting– but this week’s meeting had already passed, and the two of them barely managed to actually meet on time as it was. As for daily routine… Well, Dabi didn’t really know, or care. Just so long as the results were satisfactory, the kid could spend half the day with his thumbs up his ass for all he cared. Twice assumes this was not actually what Geten did, but you never know!

So they checked the training facilities, and even asked a few soldiers; the most useful information they got came from a man with a strange, blue-green face and fox-like features, who gave them Violet’s training schedule. Today was one of the rest days! 

And thus, with the rest of the villa looked over, they were officially stumped. Twice couldn’t stand to see Toga this bummed. 

“Man, who would’ve thought he was the type to be shut in his room all day? He totally gave NEET vibes! ” Toga gasped and sat upright.

“We never checked his room! Do we know where it is?!” Twice thinks this over, and somewhere, in the back of his mind, he recalls a time he and Hawks got lost in the sprawling manor, instead coming across a frosted portion of the hall. 

“It’s on the ground floor, near the cafeteria!”

“Near all the ice! I guess that makes sense.”

“And the vinyl floors! Otherwise he’d be causing tons of water damage to the nice hardwood.” Twice nods.

And so they were off again, although they made a brief detour to the cafeteria to enjoy some of the little snack cakes they put out around lunchtime. And bubble tea, of course. And a few other things to munch on; chips, candy, some beef jerky, an ice cream cone…

Geten’s room is found with ease from there, mostly on account of the frigid air and thin layer of frost. Toga knocks. No response. She calls. No response. Naturally, then, the only thing to do was to walk in! They warned him, after all! 

The room itself is smaller than one would expect for such a high-ranking member of the Front, but despite the grey concrete flooring (with a drain near the door) and fluorescent lighting, it was clearly a childhood bedroom that the occupant was beginning to outgrow, but hesitant to let go of. The walls were painted a light blue that had a yellowed discoloration where years of human hands had stained, and they featured murals of once-brightly colored figures, including the oni of a familiar children’s book about accepting one another. But as the occupant had grown taller, the walls had become plastered with all sorts of things or home to shelving units that were largely covered in, well, junk . Toga had immediately been taken with the urge to snoop, of course. Even if they couldn’t find him, they could learn something, right? That is to say, Toga just liked to snoop, and Twice liked to snoop with her, so nothing was done to stop it.

“It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?” She immediately bounces over to the twin bed shoved in a corner, sinking into what had once been a Christmas-themed bedspread selected for its winter motif, which had become threadbare at the edges and bore some very conspicuous patches. The pillow had seen better days, and a throw pillow with the words LET IT SNOW had become wedged in the corner where the two walls met and the bed couldn’t completely fill.

“It’s pretty homey. Totally tacky, if you ask me! ” He leans in to inspect a poster on the wall, only to find that it was a Detnerat ad pulled from a magazine– in fact, the entire cluster it was a part of was Detnerat ads, with a bit of bulk that suggested there were more underneath. “Can you imagine Chrome Dome staring at you while you sleep? Creepy!” He didn’t even like having normal posters facing his bed at night. A guy’s gotta have his privacy.

“What about clothes? Do you think he’s got anything cute to wear? I kinda like his parka, but the boots are awful.” Toga swings her legs, and Twice takes it upon himself to pull open the sliding closet door. Disappointingly, aside from a few sweaters, it mostly seemed to be outdoorsing clothes, although he does have to spend a few moments nudging the small pile of clothing that had been on the floor back into the closet with his foot– stuff that was small, even for Geten. 

“Look at this little coat! Baby clothes are the cutest, don’t you think?” He holds it up for Toga to see, and she coos with delight. “So itty bitty!” It’s dropped back in with the others, and the door is closed once more. 

“This guy must count as some kind of hoarder. What a minimalist! ”

“Do you think he’d like scrapbooking? We could have a craft night. I bet Spinner would love to work on those miniatures he’s got.”

The sound of a spray of gunshots makes the door on the back wall rattle. It had the only window in the room; a small rectangle of light at the top, making it useless for hints as to what might be going on out there. 

“Do you think it’s a fight? Are we being raided?” Toga asks, slowly sliding off the bed to stand next to Twice. 

“No way! We would’ve gotten way more missed calls from Shigaraki!” Twice waves his phone. “Well, it might be a fight. Those Liberation guys are a bunch of divas, I’m telling you.”

Toga looks expectantly at Twice. He looks back. Her stare only widens. He sighs.

“Okay, fine, I’ll go first. Don’t expect me to shield you! ” They creep towards the door, Toga unable to resist the urge to poke her head out under his arm as he swings it open. It leads to a private, sequestered backyard with a pool. (How unfair!) The good news is that it wasn’t a fight. The bad news is that the pool was utterly unusable, because a large portion of it was being taken up by a glacier. The ice creaks and groans, and when a large piece cleaves itself away, the subsequent booming more than explains the mystery noise. The splintered piece hovers, but before anything can be done, Geten’s attention snaps over to the two of them. It doesn’t feel like friendly attention, but Toga waves anyway. Toga’s great like that. The glacier begins to collapse into the pool, with the Iceman hopping from falling piece to piece, melting most of it long before it hits the water. Even with that, though, a swell is inevitable, and the two villains find themselves at the edge of the splash zone. Toga squeals and covers her face from the spray, and Twice can’t help but flinch at the feeling of being splashed with cold water. Geten simply shakes the water off of his jacket and begins to approach with the kind of brisk walk you usually only see in wolves or upset women in heels, so Twice throws his hands up and calls upon the only Hail Mary he knows for dealing with kids.

“We brought snacks!”

Chapter Text

Luckily for them, Geten is very food motivated. Even more so than the usual growing boy. The small sacrifice was their offering to a pissy, violent little god, and the two of them could agree that while not ideal, it was very much worth it. The three of them now sit in Geten’s bedroom, the young man cross-legged on the floor and shovelling beef jerky into his mouth with a speed that makes Twice grateful he’s wearing his hood. Toga had been graciously allowed to sit on the bed, but the moment she had tried to fiddle with the throw pillow, she had been met with a snappy “ Don’t touch my stuff!” that made it clear they were on thin fucking ice with this one.

“So,” Toga begins once she decides that Geten’s stomach is full enough to temper his temper, “ Basically , because I’m older than you, I’m going to be your senpai and we can hang out and do all sorts of fun stuff! It’ll be great.” He pauses to look up at her, skeptical. 

“I’m busy with training.” He says. “Hanging out isn’t an activity that does the Army any good.”

“You can’t be training all the time! Every hour of every day? What a hard worker! Come on, you gotta do other stuff!”

“Yeah! It’s just literally impossible. What’d you do yesterday? Like, everything.” Geten stops to think.

“I woke up. Then I showered and ate. Then I did my physical routine until lunch… Then I ate again. Then I did meta practice. Then I showered and ate dinner. Then I waited for it to be bedtime and I went to sleep.”

“What do you mean you waited for it to be bedtime?” Toga asks, dumbfounded by the simplicity of it all.

“It means I waited for it to be ten.”

“Well, yeah, but what do you do while you’re waiting?! You can’t have just stood in place all evening!”

Geten pauses to ponder once more. Twice is unnerved that this is a question that requires that much thought. “I walk around a lot. I make sure everybody else is doing what they’re supposed to, sometimes… Sometimes I think of more plans for ice constructs. Sometimes I listen to Meta Liberation War again. And if Re-Destro needs me, I go see him.” 

“Well then what’s all this for?!” Toga gestures in exasperation at the clutter filling the room. Geten’s blank shadowy expression is even blanker than usual.

“That’s my stuff. Sometimes Re-Destro gives me stuff, so I keep it.”

“You are a real nut, kid, y’know that?” Twice points.

“This situation is dire. You definitely need our help.” Toga swings her legs. “Someone’s gotta teach you how to have fun!”

“I don’t take my orders from you .” There’s an undeniable sneer in his voice. “I’m actually trying to do my job, not just play around. Getting stronger is important.”

“Oh my God, always this with you. Do you really not think about anything else? Movies? Clothes? Boys?-”

“I mean, we’re strong, ain’t we?” Twice interrupts, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “We did basically beat you guys, after all. And I know the big schnoz at the top has been salivating over my q– Meta since he nabbed Giran!”

“We didn’t lose, Re-Destro surrendered for the s-”

“Re-Destro surrendered ‘cause Shigaraki’s stronger!” Toga nods and crosses her arms. “And Shigaraki picked us as part of his elite vanguard , or whatever. And I totally obliterated that creepy lady, with an awakening and everything.” 

“And she was part of you guys’ top brass, so she had to be pretty strong, right? Nothing but cannon fodder! So it stands t’ reason that whatever we’re doing is making us stronger, since we don’t run around doing simple training all day.”

“So if you really wanna get stronger, you should be learning from us!” Toga and Twice both knew that they were making this shit up on the fly, but Geten didn’t need to know that. He sits dumbfounded for a moment, before pulling the neck of his coat up to cover his mouth as he turns away, muttering to himself. After a minute or so, he turns back to them, unable to argue with clearly flawless logic.

“Okay,” he acquiesces. “Only if it doesn’t inconvenience Re-Destro.”

“Never.” Toga says.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” says Twice.

-

“So, Deku-kun is pretty cute, but you know what? I really think me and Ochaco-chan have a spark of something! I used her qu- meta, right? She’s really cute, I bet you’d agree if you knew her.” After Twice had tragically been spirited away by a certain hawk, they had decided to go into town to see if there were any activities that would interest the both of them, and also because it was much less likely that Geten would get annoyed and freeze her in a block of ice, because getting caught would be very inconvenient to Re-Destro. He says nothing as he strides alongside her, eliciting a huff. “Are you even listening to me?”

“I am.” 

“Okay, well, usually you should do something to let the other person know you heard them.”

“Okay.”

“What about you? Do you have any crushes? A secret lover? You could totally be the type-”

“I don’t do that stuff.” Geten responds. “It could distract from my duties.”

Toga wilts a little. “Okay, well, hypothetically , if you WERE to have a crush on somebody, who would it be? In a world where your duties don’t exist.” The blank stare returns, although he is nice enough to actually give a reply this time.

“I don’t know. I don’t really know anybody else.” 

“Well, what about a celebrity crush? Like on TV? Do you like any of the guys in the Rizin fights? Or commercials or something? Mysterious strangers in the street? Cartoons?” He watches her studiously.

“I don’t know what a crush is supposed to be. What am I looking for if I want to identify one?”

“It’s like…” She taps her chin as she thinks, skipping along the sidewalk. “So, like, the cutest prettiest person in the world, you know– they’re super cool, and the stuff they do is really impressive, and they’re someone you could spend a lot of time with and go on dates, and it makes your heart feel all fluttery and you get super excited when you see them. Like you just know . You just click with them.” Geten, ever severe, takes the time to contemplate the question quite seriously. For a second, Toga thinks he’s gone back to ignoring her, but he brings his fist down very decidedly into his palm as he gets the answer.

“Sports Festival boy.”

“Sports Festival boy?” 

“The winner. His meta made explosions. I want-”

“Bakugou?! He’s in Deku and Ochaco’s class! We even kidnapped him, way back when. He’s kinda annoying, but I got to meet Deku and Ochaco, so it was worth it.”

“-I want to challenge him. I think he would be a truly worthy opponent. I want to train with him forever.” Laughter bubbles out of Toga’s throat, but not mockingly. Instead, she swings closer to Geten and throws her arm around his shoulder, causing them both to stumble a bit on the sidewalk. 

“I knew there had to be somewhere we had something in common! I mean, not exactly but– anyway, I think he’s annoying, but next time I see Deku or Ochaco, I’ll ask about him for you, okay? Maybe we can even nab him a second time! You just gotta promise to do the same for me, okay?” Geten, taken aback and rather perplexed, fumbles out an “Okay”, which prompts her to release him.

Somewhere a few prefectures away, Bakugo sneezes.

-

“Have you ever been to a mall before?” Toga asks.

“A few times, with Re-Destro.” They sat in the food court, near the fountain, sipping bubble tea amidst the gentle chatter of civilians. She had managed to coax him out of his hood, under the pretense that they would be better able to blend in. “And once with Trumpet.” 

“Well, that’s good.” Toga didn’t always know what to do with his responses, brief and unelaborative. He should be thankful she can carry a conversation , she thinks. “Are they, like, your dads?”

He looks at her like she’d grown a second and rather ugly head, brows slightly furrowing, pale eyes fixated firmly on her face, mouth pulled into a slight grimace. 

“Obviously not.”

“It’s not that obvious!” She protests in defense of her intelligence. “You grew up in that place, right? And you always talk about Re-Destro teaching you stuff.”

“Right. Re-Destro is my benefactor, and Trumpet is his closest advisor. Neither sired me.”

“Well I figured you were adopted, dummy, they can’t have babies together. And Twice says Trumpet is mega-divorced, so he probably was with somebody else back then.” Geten’s face twists into a look Toga can’t really identify but understands all the same.

“I don’t– I don’t need a father, and I don’t want another one. It’s a pointless, meaningless word. Don’t make things something they’re not.” He stares down at his cup and stabs the straw around to try and collect more of the bubbles. “The family unit is just another way the state prevents the formation of a collective class by cultivating a sense of separatism and only allowing capital to flow through a registered lineage.”

“What?’ Toga had never been one for political theory, especially not fringe Liberationist theory, especially not the sort Geten seemed to toss into everyday conversation when given the chance.

“You ran away, didn’t you? Because you were powerless with what you were born into, and it became unbearable. And even though it made you miserable, your parents were doing what they were told is their right and responsibility to do.” Toga is momentarily stunned by the unexpected insight. “You couldn’t live freely because the social positioning of the family unit as a whole is valued more in our society than your happiness is. And you never even asked to be born. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not fair.” The stabbing of his straw only intensifies.

“Well– I guess– kinda. I don’t know.” The topic is an unpleasant one, and she sips at her drink a little, unsure of how she felt about how he spoke about it. “I think I get what you mean, though.”

“I think about stuff too.” He mumbles and averts his gaze, so quiet that Toga felt he wasn’t really addressing her at all. “I think about a lot of things.”

The bitterness in his voice was so familiar it bordered on painful. Toga couldn’t bear it for a second longer, and so she grabbed his hand. He jumped, startled, but by the time he got his bearings she was pulling him out of his seat.

“Come on, we’re going shopping! We’ve gotta do something about your wardrobe, or you’ll never impress Bakugo-kun.” She puts on the cheeriest voice she can muster, and already she could feel herself perking up as she made up her mind. “He’s gotta think you’re handsome too!”

“Does it matter?” Geten sounds exasperated but hasn’t yanked his hand away, so she’s considering that a win. “I don’t think he’d care.”

“BZZT! Wrong! You may not have the eye for it, but I know the stuff he was wearing. Those brands are high end. It’s like, an intentionally rough look. It’s different than actually being cheap or all torn up.” She looks back at him with a smile. “Besides, with a face card like yours, we need to max out that unlimited credit as much as we can.”

“I don’t– I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you’re pretty! And it’s being wasted on mukluks. And–” she adds, “I’m super cute and put a ton of work into my look, and Twice’s costume had a ton of effort put into it, and Hawks is like, factory made pretty, and Shigaraki had that whole dress-up for the ceremony, so I think knowing your look and being strong are probably connected.”

“I see.” Her logic is infallible. He’s pulled into the first store Toga sees that isn’t for old ladies and is immediately overwhelmed. It’s bright. Lanes are created with racks of clothing that tower above his head, and signs plastered everywhere scream in giant letters about great deals and new collections. But Geten is a soldier. He knows he has to regain his composure to keep control of the battlefield, which is integral to his position as an AoE fighter. Arena manipulation is some of his most vital work, and he cannot limit himself to familiar terrain. He stops in his tracks, adjusts his stance, and braces himself. Toga falls back as he does, giving a ‘hm?’ as she does.

“What are our targets, and how do we find them? The store must have some kind of organization to its floor plan.” The logistics of stocking and buyer experience demand it, he assumes. “If we can locate one, we can use its position as a starting point to figure out the pattern.” His furrowed brows and authoritative voice make Toga giggle, but she looks around anyways.

“Uh, well, I guess it kinda depends… We’re trying to put an outfit together, so I figured we could just browse until something caught our eyes?” Geten does not appreciate the aimlessness of the mission, but it isn’t a ruiner. He can handle this.

“We should start with the fundamentals, then. How do we start with an outfit?”

“Well, how do you pick your outfits?”

“I grab what I have, and then I put it on. If the conditions require it, I’ll wear specialized articles of clothing.”

“I don’t even know why I asked.” Toga sighs. “Well, tops are pretty easy. So let’s start with shirts!” She scans the signage above the aisles. “We’ll probably have to go to the petites or juniors section for you, I don’t know if they even make clothes for guys your size in the adult section.” He sniffs, because it was true, but he hated to admit it. “This way!” 

He’s more than happy to let her take the lead, and instead he focuses his attention on surveying their surroundings, making note of landmarks as they go. He can, at the very least, recognize some of the words on the signs from rote memorization, and many of the aisles are numbered. Eventually she pulls him into an aisle. 

“What size do you wear?” He scratches his cheek. 

“Probably small.”

“Okay, well, definitely not a large– take off your coat and turn around.”

“I like my coat.” He wraps his arms around himself.

“I’m not gonna get rid of your coat, calm down. I wanna check the tag on your shirt.” He begrudgingly complies, and she peers down the back of his shirt.

“Okay, so you’re a Detnerat small, which means you’re probably an XS or 2XS for everywhere else.” He glances back at her with confusion, and she explains. “So Detnerat is one of the brands that use the ‘Post-Meta’ standard for sizing. I think they invented it, maybe? But their size range is way broader than most, so it changes in relation to sizing that doesn’t go that far.” 

“Why doesn’t everybody do it?”

“Money, mostly.”

“I see.” He shuffles behind awkwardly as she moves down to the small section, watching her flick through the rack at an astonishing speed. She occasionally makes a comment, but he doesn’t really have much to say other than a noise of acknowledgement. That is, until she gasps and pulls a shirt from the rack.

“You are so in luck that the baggy layered look is in right now.”

“Okay.” He says, as she holds the shirt up in front of him. Then she tosses it over her arm and continues looking. 

Geten learns that clothes shopping is a grueling task. Standing and trying to learn what made something “hot” or “not” was already difficult. Then he would have to go to the changing room and try things on– usually multiple at a time, and Toga would assess them both with and without his parka. Sometimes things were oversized and that was good, sometimes things were oversized and that was bad. And accessories? Who cared what his belt looked like? You’d never see it anyways! The fact it could take upwards of two hours for them to find an outfit she liked and he found wearable was boggling to his mind. Toga (The Liberation Army) paid and then immediately shooed him into the bathroom to put it on. 

“See? You look way better! Less like a shaggy mountain man, anyways.”

“What’s wrong with being a mountain man?” He asked, knowing very well he was a shaggy mountain man.

“Hold on, lemme take a picture.” She positioned the phone on a bench and set the timer, bouncing back over to pose with her hand up to make half a heart for the photo. It took a few tries for her to convince him to do the other half, and he had almost walked away entirely, but Toga was very good at pestering, and they both knew there was no leaving until she got her way. She sent the photos to his phone, Twice, two group chats… Not that Geten particularly cared. He was just surprised she found it notable enough to inform her dozens of closest friends and family about it.

“Nothing like getting a hard job done well to boost the mood, right?” She stretches as they walk, before motioning for Geten to give her back her coat from where it had been draped over his arm to carry, along with the shopping bags of things for her, the shopping bags carrying his old clothes, and a bag of takeout for themselves and Twice, who had asked for some orange chicken before they left. “You feel better too, right?”

He hums, gaze roaming across the expanse of city in front of them as he assesses the answer to that question. He was certainly fatigued, and he hadn’t been particularly miserable prior to going out. But even if talking had become tiring, he hadn’t found Toga to be intolerable, either. He had gotten lots of food out of the affair, but he can’t help but feel like he could’ve spent that time training his meta. Trying to find clothes was hard, and he didn’t like being in stores very much. He also didn’t dislike his original clothing at all. But he did like the amount of pockets his new jeans had, and the added pockets of the layered hoodie underneath his parka. He was also quite pleased when he reached to pull up his hood and found he could fit both over his head at the same time. Powerful dual hood action. He definitely was more happy than he was unhappy, enough to be statistically significant as compared to his neutral boredom from before.

“Yes. I think so.” 

Toga cheered, congratulating herself for a job well done at her first day of being his senior and chattering on about many, many activities for them to try in the near future.

Geten didn’t hate this idea. He almost even liked it.

Chapter Text

Best Jeanist is met with a surprise when he goes to visit Geten again. When he opens the door, he is suddenly startled by Geten’s expectant presence, stance slightly hunched in a way quite similar to how he had stood when Hawks had first announced they’d be going to lunch. This time, however, his expression bears a striking intensity that, if Jeanist had any less composure, would have made him take a step back. (But he can’t stop himself from flinching slightly.)

Jeanist feels his quirk tensing in the back of his mind, but just as quickly, he recognizes that Geten’s gaze is not a hostile one. He can’t help but still be concerned, a little, that Geten is feeling vindictive about their last visit and intends to attempt to return the favor, but as Jeanist takes the cautious step inside, he is met with a greeting for the first time.

“Show it again.”

“What?” The demand is said with such force that Best Jeanist almost feels bad for being unsure of what it actually is.

“Your meta. From last time. Show it to me again.” Jeanist is simultaneously relieved and disappointed. 

“Geten-” 

“Not on me. Use–” Geten looks around for a moment, before grabbing a pillow and holding it up. “On this.” Jeanist sighs and shakes his head.

“Not if you’re going to ask like that, I won’t. Surely you can do better than that .” Geten’s brows furrow slightly, expression inscrutable. His unwavering gaze bores into Jeanist as the silence stretches on between them for a few seconds. 

While Geten’s bare-faced contempt or hostility was unpleasant, Jeanist found that the most difficult thing to deal with was this . Moments where things ground to a halt, locked in stalemate; a boat run aground on an ice flow, surrounded by the indifferent creaks and groans of shifting ice. Jeanist could make a mile out of an inch, but it felt like he couldn’t move a millimeter.

He is, of course, an expert in turning wayward boys into model citizens. And anyone with his many years of experience has dealt with the stubborn shunners who made a point to dig their heels in and refuse to engage. But that in and of itself is an engagement, an intentional rudeness: the inaction is an action, easy to read and unable to sustain itself for very long. He had assumed Geten was that sort when he first met him, but the truth is quite a bit more frustrating. While he could and would express his contempt in pointed refusals, Best Jeanist more often found a complete lack of hostility or anger whatsoever in these moments. Sometimes, fleetingly, he could even catch glimpses of more earnest expressions like curiosity, but most of the time he found Geten to be deeply difficult to understand in a way that didn’t seem intentional in the slightest.

Jeanist shifts his weight to one leg and puts his hand on his hip, but decides to explain himself instead of escalating his scolding.

“Firstly, you should greet someone when they arrive-”

“Hi.” He interrupts. “Show it to me again.” 

Jeanist pinches the bridge of his nose through the jean mask. “Stop interrupting. When you are making a request of someone, you cannot simply demand it. Especially if you aren’t going to clarify what it is that you want.”

“But I did.” 

“ When you make the request , you should be clear in the first place, and you shouldn’t make demands. You ask.” 

“I’m telling you to do it because I want you to do it. I’m not giving you a choice to make.” It’s such a blunt, harsh explanation, and yet it is said with complete innocence. It’s not that Geten is trying to cross the lines of decency to cross the line of decency; he simply lives in a world where those lines barely exist, if at all. 

Jeanist wants to rub his face with his hands in exasperation, but that’s not very professional, so he doesn’t. Where does he even begin?

“Just because you want a certain outcome doesn’t mean you’ll get it. No matter how forceful you are. But more importantly, you have to respect other people’s time and energy. If you don’t, nobody will want to do anything for you, and you’ll never get what it is that you want.”

“But I do .” He says very earnestly, and Jeanist wants to scream.

“What if they say no?” Geten pauses.

“If I don’t really want it, I just go do or get something else. If I do, I affirm my demands with force.” 

Best Jeanist really doesn’t know what he expected. Of course he does. He’s been open about it since the start, in everything from the way he interacts with the public to the way he eats his food. He knows he has quite the knot to detangle, but for now Jeanist just wants to get the habit in place.

“Well, Geten, you cannot use force with me, as we’ve established. If you want something, there are rules. You ask with “please” and “thank you”, and you must accept that sometimes the answer is still ‘no’. But I’m not an unreasonable man.” Geten eyes him carefully to assess how serious he is on the matter, and acquiesces. 

“ Please show me your meta again?” Jeanist once more utilizes his sleeves for his signature binding move– on the pillow, this time. It would be rather counterintuitive to punish the boy for doing well, after all. His face lights up and that intense gaze is turned to the pillow and the threads around it. Jeanist clears his throat. Geten blinks at him.

“Oh– right. Thank you.” It’s a bit hurried, but Jeanist will accept it. Baby steps. He watches Geten pace around the pillow carefully, slightly bent and head tilted to examine it closely as he does. He even squats at a few points to get a better view at different angles, although Jeanist has no idea what he’s looking for. The process continues with small hands reaching out to grasp and pluck at the threads and observation of the way it vibrates afterwards, careful examination of the wrapping, where the ends are– and, faster than Jeanist could have expected, soon Geten is up in his personal space to look at the way the threads spring from his clothing. More surprisingly, he grabs Jeanist’s arms so he can analyze his posture, and while it doesn’t hurt, his grip is certainly stronger than he had expected. The grip doesn’t last long enough for Jeanist to find it protestable, and it’s followed by Geten mimicking the motions of the pose, carefully flexing the muscles of his forearms as he copied what he had seen the hero do, as if he had threads of his own. He looks back. Adjusts. Looks again. 

And then his face splits into a smile, the first Jeanist had seen since he had joined the program. Undeniable excitement spills over as he holds the stance, eyes wide.

“I knew it! You’re not using anchor points at all– it’s incredible! Ah, nothing else to be expected of the number one hero, I guess.” One hand runs through his shaggy bangs as he thinks, breaking out into another set of paces. “It’s not counterweight at all!” His hands move excitedly as he talks, gaze roaming the entire room while he thinks aloud. For Jeanist, it feels as if he’s just seen someone awaken from a deep slumber. Bright eyes, flushed cheeks; proof of warm blood pumping through a moving body. His countenance is aglow with delight, and his voice rises in pitch as his volume finally reaches above a grumble, without the harshness of the yelling Jeanist had heard before. It strikes him suddenly that this is likely where Geten’s voice naturally sits when not frozen underneath a flat affect– and he sounds so very much like the child he is that Jeanist struggles to wrap his head around it. He can sort of glean what Geten means, but out of his own curiosity and desire to encourage the enthusiasm, he prompts further.

“What do you mean with that, exactly? You sound quite knowledgeable on the topic.” Jeanist finally drops the pillow and adjusts his stance. Geten spins towards him, hands moving about, piloted aimlessly by the excess energy that has come over him. 

“Manipulation meta abilities– ones like ours– it’s- it’s a common misconception that they don’t interact with the object physically. Or, well– it’s nuanced, “manipulation” means a lot of things when it comes to meta– don’t worry about that. Ours both do.” He waves a hand. “And because we apply force, some of that force comes back on us. Not always the same way, but it does. For me– for me, the blowback happens inside my body in the form of pressure. That’s a common one. I don’t know about yours, but there’s resistance, is the long and short of it.” 

“I see.”

“So a lot of people, especially ones who don’t use their meta abilities often, compensate with their body. Like when using any other muscle. But last time, it didn’t look to me like you were relying on your physicality at all– that’s why I wanted to see it again. If you, say, wove the threads through your fingers first to anchor their origin points, that would be compensating. But you go directly from the sleeve, in the same radial pattern, and the sleeve doesn’t tear or stretch under the weight. You’re holding it in place with nothing but the force of your meta. It takes a lot of training to get to that point.” 

What astute observation in such little time . Especially when his first viewing had been in the midst of bickering. Geten takes a few shallow breaths, having tired himself a bit with such an extended bout of talking, especially with such enthusiasm. 

“That’s high praise, and I’m honored to receive it. My denim is no fast fashion.” Jeanist nods. “I had never thought about it that much, but your reasoning is sound. There was, in fact, a time when I relied on my body for the weft, in my youth.”

“You should pay more attention to the mechanics. You can’t appreciate your skill properly if you don’t.” 

“I wholeheartedly agree. Like hidden stitching, the highest skill is found in the unseen.”

“You have such a strong hold–” He holds his hands apart as if pushing on both sides of an invisible box. “It changes the way the threads sound when they’re plucked. The vibrations. You’re controlling the way that thread interacts with the rest of the world, down to the most minute aspects. It’s– it’s incredible.” He finishes breathlessly. “I wish I could show you-” Geten’s gaze lands on a glass of water, and then falls as he fiddles with the cuff. “I wish I could show you mine.”

There’s always something terrible about seeing such enthusiasm and excitement crushed. It was like if Jeanist had been told he could never touch denim again. Clearly this was born from a love of quirks, more than a thirst for violence; 

But a villain is a villain. No one goes wayward for waywardness’ sake. Even those in need of sympathy and care are fundamentally unpredictable, because they have abandoned the patterns set forth by society for decency. He could not and would not cave to sentimentalities simply because the danger was wrapped in the guilelessness of a child. But Jeanist is not so quick to abandon an interaction because he cannot give Geten what he wants. His job is to give him what he needs.

“Well, you don’t need your quirk to use that clever mind of yours. Would you like to see some other techniques? Your input would be greatly appreciated.” This perks Geten right up, and he scrambles over to sit cross-legged on the floor while Jeanist settles in his usual seat. Geten has more to say than either of them expected, although he occasionally fumbles his words and his voice cracks, or he lapses into silence to catch his breath and recompose himself, during which times Best Jeanist simply continues to practice the miniaturized demonstrations. It’s more productive than he expected, too, and Jeanist only realizes that he’s stayed much longer than he normally would when they’re interrupted by a dinner tray being passed through the slot in the door. Geten moves swiftly to seize it, holding it close. Instead of retreating to his normal space at the desk to eat, Best Jeanist watches Geten glance about as the wheels turn for him to make a decision. If he went to the desk, he would be further away from the quirk demonstrations and conversation. If he went back to the conversation, he risked having his food snatched away. 

“I’m not going to touch your dinner, Geten.” Best Jeanist says. Geten’s gaze is wary. “I promise. Have I ever taken food from you before?” Geten thinks on the matter, and all the evidence supports the statement. Best Jeanist had not, in fact, ever made a grab for his food. So he carefully picks his way over and sits, although still hunched over his plate. Jeanist gives him a moment to adjust.

“Do you have a favorite food, Geten?” He asks, hands crafting a careful web.

“Jingisukan.” He says around a mouthful of food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Any particular reason why that’s your favorite? I’ve never tried it, personally.” Geten, for what it’s worth, does swallow before speaking again. Not fully, but it’s something.

“It was the first meal I ever ate with Re-Destro.” His response is soft and sweet. It was one of Geten’s most cherished memories. The kind that, even if the rest of that year had blurred out entirely, would serve as a pillar for everything he was and would be. Vivid enough to relive, again, and again, and again.

Winter in Hokkaido is frigid, even in the city. January is when it hit some of the lowest temperatures, and the snow piled high along the sides of the roads where it had been plowed again, and again, and again. In other words, Kiyotaka Himura found winter in Hokkaido to be one of his only pleasures in his few years of living, and he had the free reign to enjoy it as he pleased. Each stomp of his little boots crunched in the most satisfying manner, and he mumbled the off-key melody of the bon song his eldest sister sang whenever it came time to shovel snow.

“...The moon has come out….the moon is out… Heave-HO-” The call is emphasized with an especially large hop into one of the small piles by the curb. “Mm-mm…Moon is out, hmm hmm.. The chimney is SOOO high-” he raises both arms in the biggest stretch he can muster. “The moon chokes on the smoke! Heave-HO!” Another large jump, which is then followed by a string of more heave-hos and stomping, since that was his favorite part. He didn’t like how gross the snow was in the city, and although his memories of the time were dim, he still felt a yearning for the snow in the countryside where they had come from. But he had come up with a solution for the problem, although he was always told not to do such things in public, there was nobody here to stop him. He was the smallest, so Yuki was in charge of him, and Ichiro was in charge of Yuki, and Akira was in charge of Ichiro, and Mommy was in charge of everybody, and Daddy wasn’t in charge of anything at all. But Mommy had to take care of Daddy, and Akira had work and school and came home and told Ichiro to watch things, and Ichiro had school and wanted to go out, and Yuki had school and said it was okay if Kiyotaka did what he liked just so long as he didn’t make a mess and was home by bedtime because he was very good and didn’t go to school at all. (He would normally begin attending that April, but his parents had become too concerned with other things to enroll him, and he was rather unconcerned with the matter.) So when the snow was dirty, he fixed it anyway with his quirk. It wasn’t too hard– all he had to do was pick it up and pull it away from the stuff that wasn’t snow. It wasn’t a perfect process, and he could only do it bit by bit, but he was happy because he was better at it than any of the big kids. 

“Clean up, clean up, heave-ho, heave-ho!” He shook the snow clean and piled it up behind him as if he were shovelling it, because that was how it was done in the song, and Kiyotaka figured that was what made it so effective. 

“And what is it that you’re doing there?” A tall man with a long nose stopped on the sidewalk, and in his big black coat and dark hat, he looked very official, which made Kiyotaka a bit nervous. Those were the sorts of people that always brought bad news, and the kinds of people his mommy swore at under her breath and then told him not to repeat and sometimes he DID repeat those words but in private so nobody would hear it but he also gets very angry sometimes and that requires big adult words. And in a way, this man was very official: he was the heir to Destro, the bearer of the burden of the future, the one who would lead them all into Liberation and turn the system on its head, and he was here on very official business, establishing a new Meta Liberation base in Iwamizawa– but Kiyotaka didn’t know about all of that, and he probably wouldn’t have cared if he did, because those were words he hadn’t learned yet.

“I’m cleaning.” He says, trying to muster up some authority. Adults were fond of children cleaning. That’s why there was the clean-up song.

“I see. Is that your meta?” He tilts his head, and Kiyotaka is reminded of one of the big black crows that used to wait for him on the corner of their last apartment to throw some scraps its way, which he did because he felt bad the birds only ever got to eat trash. He stares at the man and shifts with unease, wrapping his arms around himself in his too-big jacket that went all the way down to his knees. Kiyotaka was small for his age, but he got hand-me-downs anyway, and it worked out well because that meant the jacket could cover him better, and the pockets were huge . 

“Ah. Your quirk, I mean. Is that your quirk that you’re using?” The man asks. 

“You can’t make me in trouble,” Kiyotaka says. “I’m cleaning.” The fact he was doing something good with it should cancel out the fact he wasn’t supposed to be using it, he thinks.

“Oh, no. You’re not in trouble at all.” The man kneels to speak to him on more of an even level. “It’s very nice of you to clean up the sidewalk. Can you show me how you do it?” Kiyotaka nods slowly, because he hadn’t yet learned that sometimes the most dangerous strangers were the nicest ones.

“I piiick it up,” he begins, raising his hands a little, the beginning of a scoop. A pile of snow begins to levitate, about the size of his torso. “And then I shake it up,” he swings his arms side to side in a rocking motion. “Then, heave-ho!” He finishes his shovelling motion with the biggest swing he can, almost tipping himself backwards as the snow is tossed in a pile behind him. The man’s face becomes a bemused smile, and his companion, a burly man with a large mustache and little round glasses– both of which Kiyotaka found silly– gives a polite little clap.

“Good show!” He says. “You’re a very talented little…” He trails off a bit, trying to ascertain the gender of the child in front of him. A little thing, wearing a pale blue windbreaker overtop of softshell snow pants that had been rolled up at the ankles because otherwise they’d go past his boots and drag on the ground. Said boots were a bright pink with clumpy fur lining that had become compacted with wear, and sported a faded black blotch where someone had begun trying to color it in with a marker before they had been interrupted. The aglets on the shoelaces were gone and the ends fraying; and each one was tied in lopsided bows threatening to slip at any moment. Thick white hair puffed out and sat right at chin length, and instead of a ruddy nose and cheeks from the cold, the child’s face sported what appeared to be sunburn.

The man in the hat takes over so as to clarify things.

“I’m afraid we never introduced ourselves! I’m Mr. Yotsubashi, and this is Mr. Kubo. What’s your name?” 

“I’m Kiyotaka, but my brother and sisters call me Taka sometimes, but you can’t call me that, ‘cause you’re a stranger, and only my brother and sisters call me that.” He thinks for a moment. “I’m Himura Kiyotaka, ‘cause you and me have different family names.” The man’s eyebrows raise for a moment, but then returns to an encouraging smile.

“Ah, that’s right! Very good. How old are you, Himura-kun?”

“I’m six now!” He smiles wide. “I lost a tooth already. I lost TWO, but one of them already grew.” He points out the gap where one of his bottom front teeth would have been, which both of the adults had already noticed, but children like to brag about such things. 

“Oh my,” the man says. “You’re going to be a big kid soon.” Kiyotaka shakes his head with vigor.

“I’m small. Everybody says so. So it’s gonna take a long time for me to get big, I think. Like, um… TWO years.” Mr. Kubo laughs, but Mr. Yotsubashi nods solemnly.

“Are your parents nearby, Himura-kun? Or perhaps your siblings?” Kiyotaka shakes his head again.

“They gotta do school, and Mommy and Daddy are at home, um, unless they’re doing shopping. I go away from the house to explore since I’m good and don’t make messes and I come back by bedtime.” Mr. Yotsubashi glances back at Mr. Kubo with concern.

“All by yourself?”

“Yeah, but it’s okay because I’m good.” Kiyotaka pauses. “Well, sometimes I’m less good. But that’s okay. Everybody messes up.” He had learned that on Inai Inai Baa! . 

“That’s very true. It’s good that you remember that.” Mr. Yotsubashi pats him on the head, and then stands. “What other sorts of things do you do with your quirk, Himura-kun?”

“I like to play pretend a lot.”

“What do you pretend?”

“I like to play that I have a dog a lot. You gotta– are you watching me?”

“We’re watching, I promise.” Yotsubashi chuckles. Kiyotaka holds his hands out in front of him, and from the snow piles emerges a little snow dog, round and a bit lumpy. Its head reached to about Kiyotaka’s waist, and although it occasionally shed a few chunks of snow here and there, he made it totter over like he were moving a toy.

“And then we play fetch.” Kiyotaka says, bending down to pack a snowball in his hand, and he tosses it out into the snow. The dog totters after it, and tilts down to pick up the ball in its mouth, and returns.The boy leans over to hug the dog, and pats its head, clumsily reciting a few lines of praise and barking sounds as a response before he retrieves the snowball. “I do that a lot of times, till I get tired. If I get too tired, I can’t keep the snow together.”

“Delightful!” The two men burst into a round of applause. “That’s very impressive, very impressive indeed.” Kiyotaka smiles and ducks his head a bit bashfully, having received more praise in that moment for his quirk than he has ever in his entire life.

“I can make dragons, too. That’s my favorite. Watch!” It emerges from the snow– much smaller than the dog, no more than six inches in length, a ribbon of snow with a snout and two stiff clawed limbs on its belly, a clumpy man, and a pair of slightly askew whiskers. But nonetheless, it is a dragon. It moves with a fluidity and grace the dog had not, twirling around the child’s arms in figure-eights and performing a series of loops midair until it darts back into the snow and vanishes. Kiyotaka’s foggy breaths have turned into labored little pants, having exerted himself and his quirk quite a bit more in one go than he ever had before. “Sometimes… Sometimes I do other stuff, too, but I got tired, so I can’t until later.”

“I assure you, that was quite the display! I’d expect nothing less from a member of the esteemed Himura clan.” Mr. Kobu says.

You would have thought the man had raised a hand against the boy with how Kiyotaka’s expression changes, eyes wide, bringing his arms close to his body and taking a step back into the snow. There was one thing he had learned almost unanimously from his parents and siblings, both outright and indirectly– There was no member of the extended Himura clan that could be trusted, and he was not to be involved with them, not one bit. He didn’t know, really, what the family politics had become (being six), but he knew that they were the reason Daddy was sick and that they never helped him, not one bit, and that’s why all of them kept having to pack up and move, and why sometimes they stayed in subway stations or motels. So he hated them too.

“If you’re from my grandma and grandpa, My parents say I’m not supposed to talk to you.” The two Liberation Warriors look at one another, and Mr. Kubo raises his hands.

“No, no, not at all. I apologize for scaring you! I… I used to know somebody who was friends with your father, you see.” It was a lie, of course: Sanctum had never spoken to anybody affiliated with this child’s father, but it did calm the boy down a little. 

“You scared me a lot .” He mutters, stance relaxing. “That wasn’t nice.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.” The child sighs, and nods.

“Okay, I forgive you.” Because everybody messes up sometimes, and that’s okay. Kiyotaka’s stomach grumbles, because that’s what happens when he uses his quirk a lot. Mr. Yotsubashi adjusts his hat.

“As an apology, why don’t we go get something to eat? Anywhere you’d like.” Kiyotaka stared for a minute. “Go on, pick something.” Yotsubashi urged him on again. So, naturally, Kiyotaka, having never really eaten out, pointed at the nearest place with the lights on and a good smell wafting from the building. It was a small, not-so-classy place, but Mr. Yotsubashi and Mr. Kubo were careful not to point this out. 

Geten remembers well the warm, dim lighting, the commotion of chefs shouting down the line to one another, guests clamoring for more servings, drinks, and conversing with one another– often punctuated by loud laughs and smacks on the back. They were hit with facefuls of steam and the smell of charred meat, and the change in temperature made Kiyotaka’s nose run a little; but he doesn’t remember disliking a second of it. They nudged their way to seats at the counter, his small hand clasped by Re-Destro’s much bigger one. He remembers the sudden breathlessness as those warm hands scooped him up and sat him on the stool, one of Re-Destro’s hands still supporting his back as the man sat on his own stool, his curious lean forward to try and see over the barrier between them and the chefs. He still remembers the boisterous greeting from the chef in front of him, who had smiled wide and leaned in so he could be heard over the din: Can’t hardly wait, can you? That’s the kind of appetite we like to see!

The dish is one that’s grilled on the plate, and when the chef had tossed down some lamb onto their grill, Kiyotaka had reached for it. Re-Destro had grabbed his hand with all the gentleness in the world (a gentleness he would always remember, no matter how hard he struck while training), carefully bringing him back to a fully seated positioned and quietly explained why he couldn’t reach to pull it off himself, that he could get very hurt very quickly, and reassured him that You can have as much as you like. It’s all-you-can-eat. I’ll grill it all up for you, you just have to ask.

In hindsight, Geten knew the restaurant itself wasn’t a buffet. Re-Destro simply agreed to pay for however many orders worth of food he’d eaten. And he knew it was more than one or two; but Re-Destro smiled with every request for more, adding a theatrical flourish every time he pulled a piece of food from the grill and deposited it on his plate. He remembers the way Re-Destro, without fail, led him through blowing on the hot food before he ate it– Lean back, and huff, and puff-puff-puff! His unusually large appetite garnered the attention of a few of the chefs, who added on some dessert and some drinks “for a growing boy”, and he remembers the encouragement of other patrons and ruffling of his hair, Sanctum’s booming laugh and Re-Destro’s vivacious stream of conversation with those around them, until he was so warm and so full that he pulled up his hood and nestled his head in his arms. Re-Destro paid and scooped him up once more, waiting for him to sleepily mumble his address so he could take him back home.

“Jingisukan’s really good. Especially in Hokkaido.” Geten swallows another mouthful of rice, but the taste has faded, and his appetite is gone. He’s tired, the kind of tired you feel behind your eyes. His throat’s beginning to itch from all the talking. His eating speeds up, because all of a sudden, he just wants it to be over. He doesn’t want to eat anything at all, but he can never bring himself to leave a plate unfinished. Something miserable wells up inside of him, and he tries to swallow it with the vegetables, but those sorts of things are hard to keep down.

Best Jeanist can’t help but feel like he’s made a mistake; letting the subject turn back towards Re-Destro has only made the boy more upset than before– but how was he supposed to know? Anything and everything could become about Re-Destro. The idea that his rehabilitation was supposed to be entirely removed from even the concept of the man was becoming more and more impossible by the day. Jeanist sighs. He can’t let his frustration get to him, not now. Taking it out on Geten wouldn’t do either of them any good.

“Leave.” The request is mumbled around the tines of a plastic fork. “Please?” Jeanist can’t find any reason to refuse. Frustrations aside, he can see the exhaustion in his face. He stands, takes a few deep breaths, and heads towards the door; but stops before carding himself out.

“You did very well today, Geten. I’m proud of you.” More good than bad, he has to remind himself. This one downturn doesn’t erase the progress from before. He had seen happiness; true, genuine happiness, even if only for a few hours. He gets a small hum of acknowledgement from a full mouth, and Jeanist decides to let him have that one. “Goodnight. I’ll see you soon.”

Chapter Text

“It’s actually pretty common for a crash to happen after someone gets really excited, you know. Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Keigo continues sorting the books on his shelf. “His brain probably didn’t know what to do with itself once it ran out of gas. For a kid like him, I’d be more surprised if he didn’t have a drop.” 

“I understand you’re trying to relieve the burden on my conscience,” Jeanist sighs. “But that doesn’t really make it easier to deal with. I refuse to leave these hems unfinished and present the world with a boy that becomes depressed any time he enjoys himself.”

“Well– I’m not saying you should just leave it there, but it’s probably something that’ll sort itself out, you know?”

“I mean, I never saw him get down in the pits.” The man now called Jin says from his seat, hand rummaging through a bag of gummy bears. Jeanist’s eyes narrow in response. He can’t say he was too fond of the man. And while it hadn’t been him exactly , the memory of thousands of clones pouring out above Shigaraki’s floating coffin oozed from underneath the man’s mask. Twice had been one of the greatest weapons the League of Villains had up their dastardly, ill-tailored sleeves– and he had been chosen as the new rehabilitative liaison between the hero world and those who opposed it. Largely, Jeanist thinks, because Hawks is too fond of the man, and he carried too much guilt for the attempt on his life he had carried out in the service of the previous Hero Public Safety Commission. While he certainly understood the gravity of what a betrayal to the nature of heroism it was to kill,

Well. He, too, had been fond of a villain once, while unknowing of his crimes , and he found it within himself to do what must be done in the dispensation of justice. He couldn’t say one way or the other as to if this situation called for the same, but… It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Well, perhaps you simply never excited him enough,” comes Jeanist’s curt reply.

“What’s that supposed to mean? He was a total downer anyways! We had plenty of fun!”

“Well,” Keigo says, rubbing the back of his neck. “You know, he was at work when he was with you, so maybe he just has a different response, now that he’s… you know, in a different headspace.” It’s an awkward spot to have to mediate from, and Jeanist is a bit sorry he put him there, but he refuses to be jabbed at. Bubaigawara seems to find this explanation acceptable, so he just continues eating his snack.

“Ooh, yeah. He’s probably so bored it’s gotten all pent up.” Jeanist holds his tongue. He cannot stoop to that man’s level. Besides, he had other matters to address.

“President Keigo,” he begins. “You said you had an inquiry for me, unrelated to the progress report.” Keigo shrugs to flex the wings he doesn’t have, which Jeanist is starting to learn is never a good sign.

“Right, yeah, I do. It’s more of a court matter than an HPSC one, but I was told you’re more than free to decline.” Best Jeanist raises his eyebrows, and Keigo pulls an opened envelope off of the desk and passes it to him.

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

CORRECTION BUREAU 

26 JUNE 2215

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

The following document is not official communications from the Correction Bureau, Ministry of Justice, nor any affiliated entity, and does not in any way represent the opinions or views thereof. Attached is a photocopy of requested correspondence (original document available at request upon clearance of inspection, which can be expected to be concluded in 7-14 business days from receipt of this letter) on behalf of inmate A-04 SH21532 SHIOZAKI YUTAKA [塩崎 豊] . Due to the nature of inmate’s incarceration, all correspondence, print or digital, must pass through official channels both outgoing and incoming. Please deliver any response to the return address as printed on the envelope and ensure all fields are filled out as per the example below:

Tsunagu’s heart skips a beat, and his eyes skip the rest of the page, dread welling up as a slightly-blurry image of familiar handwriting comes into view. He has to take a second to focus his vision; the quality loss of a photocopy pairs poorly with the delicate, small characters, often stacked two rows to a line, just like he remembers.

The guards have made quite the fuss about the fact we’re allowed to talk with the outside world, isn’t that funny? Such bitterness over something so miniscule. Not that many of us have people to write to, I wager. I suppose this makes me one of the fortunate ones, if there is such a thing. Do you have anyone sending you letters? If not, maybe we could be pen pals. :]

It’s a shame our paths never crossed in that final battle. I heard your threads were full with Shigaraki. Was it you that took his life? They keep a lot of the official details from us, you see. I’m sure I’ll hear the truth sooner or later, but it certainly can be troublesome trying to piece things together.

I’m not sure where they intend to send me, seeing as Tartarus is destroyed (and all those others, but I like to think I’m worth a bit more than that). If you know, do share, won’t you?

How is our little sprout doing? I imagine she’s not still headbutting everything, but being hard-headed is right up your alley, so who’s to say.

Come and visit, let’s catch up face to face, properly. :]

Waiting patiently,

KUNIEDA. 

Tsunagu does have one thing to thank the man for, and it’s the fact that he is so brazenly infuriating he manages to turn grief into rage in the blink of an eye, and anger is far easier than sadness. The paper crinkles in his hands, and he can see Keigo’s face shift as he readies to open his mouth, but instead the loud smacking of a man eating gummy bears sounds from behind him.

“Well, what’s it say? Are you in trouble? Life in prison! ” Tsunagu spins around, hands trembling with the effort to stay composed.

“Have you ever taken anything seriously once in your life?” The other man is taken aback, but before he can respond, Tsunagu is storming out of the office with the clacking of heels and a sharp exhale. It’s utterly unprofessional. Unacceptable behavior, especially from a man of his age. But he cannot bring himself to give a damn. Maybe Geten was onto something with that prowl and cold shoulder of his. Each door he passes through slows his furious steps and clears his head, and by the time he exits the building, he can feel his heart rate finally steadying and takes the chance to take a few deep breaths (and how lucky he is to be able to!) and begin to move with intent.

He returns to his city condo, a place untouched by fouling memories, and changes into civilian wear. He checks emails, delegates his sidekicks… he falls into a pleasant tedium, watching the sun slip closer to the horizon and marking things off of his to-do list, utterly mundane and more importantly, distracting. When his phone rings, he tells himself very sternly that he will not pick it up if it’s a call from Keigo, but the contact photo flashes him a smile he is always happy to see.

“Hello my couture,” he says into the receiver, his other hand being used to stir the vegetables in the pan in front of him. “How are you? Doing well?”

“I am in good health, and my studies are going well. Most of my coursemates have returned from their leaves of absence, and so we intend to celebrate the end of the semester in a few weeks.” She reassures him, but he can hear the hesitant breath that follows, and his heart sinks. He has a feeling he knows what that pause means. “Um…” she begins. “I apologize for troubling you so, but… I have been delivered a message, and with it, I have lost myself in a dark wood, unsure of my path. I do not know if I am being called by the Lord to face adversity or if it is the serpent flicking its wicked tongue-” 

“What was it, Ibara?” Tsunagu hates to interrupt, but sometimes it is best to cut to the chase.

“...I got a letter…” Her voice is tiny now, and tinged with shame. “...from Father…” Tsunagu cannot stop his sharp inhale, nor the way he white-knuckle grips the wooden spoon in his hand. As a parent, no matter how refined an individual is, one finds themselves a steward to a warm, ever-filling well of love; a spring that, under the right conditions, erupts in a furious spray of boiling, white-hot rage. The longer it takes for that pressure to build, the more violently it tears open the Earth, and the longer Tsunagu thinks about how his ex-husband has so flippantly shattered his baby’s still-recovering peace of mind, the more that geyser bubbles.

“I don’t know what to say– or, should I say anything at all? It feels cruel to ignore him– I don’t like ignoring people, is such inaction not cowardly? We ought to be direct with one another, I think. People, I mean, I don’t know if there’s anything he’s being indirect about– although we are people, so I suppose it still applies? He asked for me to visit, and I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that– it’s good for one to want to see family, I think, so I can’t say he’s wrong for it, but I have such a terrible dread in me, Papa! I know I cannot say anything of him that has not come to pass, and that we as people owe it to one another to be kind, and upright, and act in good faith towards one another, and if he were to be repetent and changed, I am unjust in my judgement– but I am so dizzyingly nauseous at the thought of this man resting his wicked gaze upon me. My roots are writhing!” Her breath quickens with every sentence, and panic pushes her to speak faster, louder, and her final declaration comes in a cracking, shrill wail, verging on hysteria. He can see her so clearly in his mind’s eye; wide-eyed, chest heaving, vines splayed and twisting, hands clasped and wringing– it is painful to envision, and moreso that it has become such a familiar sight.

“Still yourself, my couture.” Tsunagu speaks softly, evenly, because his rage was not for her. “Take a few deep breaths.” He can hear her small hiccups, even as she tries to swallow them. “You have no obligation to come to any decision immediately. I will come see you tomorrow, and we can figure something out together. No matter what you decide, I will not leave you to deal with this alone.” It would be short notice, but Hound Dog and Nedzu wouldn’t refuse him, especially not for this. 

“Okay,” she says, voice hoarse. “Thank you.” In the background, he can hear other voices, the rustling of people approaching: Shiozaki, what’s going on? Are you okay? Rosebud, drink some water. Is it the salt again? If you want, I can go get more from Lunch Rush!

The burden on his heart is lifted slightly, knowing she isn’t alone. It is a miserable, miserable situation, but he finds himself smiling a little anyway. There was a time when it would truly have been just the two of them; and now he’s listening in on her shaky, breathless laugh in response to one of the students going “Is it because you got to the part in your book where Jesus dies again?”

“I love you, my couture.” He says.

“I love you too, papa.” She responds, and he can hear a bit of a smile in her voice when she does.

Best Jeanist’s arrival to the school the next day is, of course, the cause of many whispers and awed glances among the student body, but there’s no official fanfare. This business was, after all, personal. Hound Dog meets him at the gates, nose twitching. All guests, of course, are subject to a sniff-down. Upon clearing him to enter, the massive lifestyle guidance counselor beckons for Jeanist to follow.

“Didn’t get a lot of sleep?” He tosses a look over his shoulder. There was no hiding from Hound Dog’s nose, which is something Jeanist both respected and loathed.

“It’s been hectic.” His tone indicates very firmly he’d rather not get into it. The guidance counselor’s ear twitches in acknowledgement.

“I heard you joined P.A.L.,” he says. “How’s that going?” 

“It’s been a mixed weave. Some polyester, some cotton, some ups, some downs.” He sighs. “When I manage to get through to him, I can see why he was selected for the program, but…” He gestures with his hands in frustration. “Sometimes it feels like he’s more of a wild animal than a person! I can’t predict him at all.” 

Hound Dog grunts.

“Ah– forgive me. Poor turn of phrase.” Jeanist’s spine straightens. “But the only underlying thread I can find is Re-Destro – But I’ve never even met the man! How am I supposed to understand any of it?”

“Talk to him, then.” 

“I can’t.” The counselor’s brow raises. Jeanist continues. “President Keigo is insistent I leave him out of the matter entirely. He says it’d only do more damage if I even breathe near the man.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I respect the man…” Hound Dog huffs through his nose, tilting his head so he can look Jeanist in the eye through the corner of his own. “But there’s a reason you’re this guy’s sponsor and he isn’t.” 

“It’s his program, and he was the one who gathered most of the vital information on the villains being rehabilitated. You can’t seriously be suggesting that I toss his advice like a magazine from two seasons ago!”

“I’m not. I’m suggesting that you do your job .” He shrugs his shoulders and turns his gaze back towards the hall stretching out in front of them. “What that means is up to you.” Jeanist knows he means well, really. Hound Dog has always been rough around the edges, but he’s never been disrespectful, and the man is good at his job. Still, it’s doing nothing for his growing headache.

“What about you? You’re in the program as well, aren’t you?”

Hound Dog grunts again. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“Kid pisses me the fuck off.” Jeanist blinks, stunned for a moment. Hound Dog barks out a laugh and slaps him on the shoulder, which sends Jeanist stumbling. “It’s okay! If he’s got the energy to fight, he’s got the energy to live.” His doggish grin flashes from underneath his muzzle. “And that’s all we really want for ‘em, right?”

Jeanist manages to fix his bangs just in time for Hound Dog to pull open the door to the Class 2-B classroom, into which he steps as if making his final turn at the end of a catwalk. Vlad King gives him a nod in greeting, and Ibara stands without a word, lighting the spark of speculation among her classmates. The homeroom teacher shushes them as the two step back into the hall, and the moment the door slides closed, Ibara throws herself against her father’s chest in a hug, and his arms waste no time in wrapping around her.

“Hello, darling. It’s good to see you again.” He rubs circles into her back. 

“I’ve missed you.” Her eyes are already starting to water. Hound Dog gives them a moment, but then steps in to ensure this doesn’t become a soap opera for anyone in the hallway to enjoy. 

“You two can use my office.” He says. “I’ll wait outside, if you need the privacy.”

It’s one of the most private rooms in the administrative building, secluded and largely soundproofed (at least to those without Hound Dog’s marvelous ears), which was equally influenced by the fact that students were supposed to be afforded some level of privacy when discussing sensitive issues and the fact that Hound Dog could be a very, very, very loud man, and one that tends to drool and bark and sneeze. Jeanist is a bit surprised by how classy it is, with a large mahogany desk and distinguished floor-to-ceiling bookcases. A few different degrees hang on the walls. What he isn’t so surprised by is the dog hair bringing a pop of yellow to the dark leather of his chair, or the scratches gouged into the edge of the desk. Or the clutter; almost every surface aside from the guest seating is covered with some sort of file or stack of papers, books, two different office phones, a desktop computer, a tablet… A mini fridge hums next to the desk (and is also being used as a shelf), and a small tv nestled in the top corner of the room sits dark in comparison to the security monitors surrounding it. A whiteboard on the wall is packed to the brim, and behind the desk chair, Jeanist catches a glimpse of a handful of couch cushions that appear to have been repurposed into an emergency napping space. He had heard that Hound Dog’s workaholic tendencies were legendary, and that All Might’s addition to the staff had become Hound Dog’s personal bane (as the man had no idea in the least about how to fill out forms), but, well… They really do have him working like a dog, huh?

“Here. Take as much time as you need. I have a laptop with me, so you won’t be interrupting anything.” The counsellor says. He begins to close the door, but, remembering something, steps back inside. “Wait, first I should–” He walks behind the desk, massive head swinging from side to side before he clicks his tongue a few times and squats down. What neither Jeanist nor Ibara expected to see when he rises again is a small orange kitten clambering all over his arms, occasionally squealing out meows of delight.

“Her name is The Impaler,” he says. “I figure you don’t want her trying to eat your shoelaces while you discuss things. Unless you want to have her with you?”

“No, no, we’re good.” Tsunagu says.

“Very kind of you to offer.” Ibara adds. “But I don’t really want to think about more impalement than is necessary, thank-you.”

Hound Dog gives a kind snuffle of acknowledgement, and steps out for good. Ibara sinks down into the couch, and Tsunagu takes his seat next to her, but she’s momentarily more bewildered than she is upset.

“The Impaler?” She asks aloud, to nobody in particular. “What a strange thing to call a cat. They don’t do that sort of thing, do they?”

“I think it’s meant to be humorous, my couture. Seeing as he spends all his time with a man called Vlad .” 

“Oh.” She says, and they fall into a brief silence. Tsunagu clears his throat.

“Regarding your father,” he begins.

“Right, right–” she fumbles for a moment, and then pulls a folded up piece of paper out of her pocket. “I brought– I brought the letter.”

Tsunagu takes it and braces himself as he unfolds it.

Hello, my little sprout! 

The hero path, hm? How like you to take after your father. I suppose it was always going to be one of the two of us.

Even if I’ve only seen it in footage, it’s remarkable to see how you’ve grown. Do you even still remember me? If not, I wouldn’t blame you. At your age, I had quite a lot on my mind, and I wasn’t even fighting in a war.

You should come visit. The changes in prison policy are platitudes, but I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. And unlimited letters! What a luxury.

Your expectant father,

Shiozaki Yutaka. :]

It’s such an inoffensive thing. Paternal, even. And that’s the most infuriating part. Tsunagu knows the man he married, and it’s not the one who wrote this letter– no, he knows the sneer of his own message was far closer to the truth than this. All this is, he thinks, is an attempt to pull at the sympathies of a wonderful little girl who was far too kind and forgiving in no part thanks to him. But Tsunagu keeps his cool, for the sake of that little girl.

“Do you want to visit him?” He asks. Ibara fiddles with her hair, tugging at a vine.

“I don’t…know…I feel I ought to give him a chance, though…”

“Would you want to visit him if he hadn’t sent you a letter?” She thinks on this, grip on the vine tightening.

“I…I don’t know, really… I suppose I have always wondered, wondered what has become of him, if he is penitent…” The vines crossing her forehead tighten as well, wriggling with distress. “I have just been too much of a coward to seek the truth, and here I stand, with the door in front of me, still afraid of finding the answer! If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed, but I falter-” Tsunagu’s hands come to cup his daughter’s face, fingers carefully pulling the cross away from her skin and tracing over the years of scar tissue from when this had happened again, and again, and again. She falls quiet, aside from the bout of sniffles that had begun.

“It’s okay, Ibara. If you make a decision now, that doesn’t mean that decision has to be forever. This is a man who has ripped the seams of trust in ways that are truly unimaginable. There’s nothing you could do in bad faith towards that man– he has earned his judgement.” 

“Still… I… I don’t know.” Tsunagu shifts, pulling her into a more complete hug, grateful for the protection of his high-necked denim. She’s quiet for a second, and then murmurs; “I… I guess I just… I want to be able to hope that this time, he’s truly sorry… That’s all that I want. I just want him to be sorry. I just want to know that he’s sorry.” It’s a truly childish sentiment. After all, guilt doesn’t bring back the dead, nor does it create ten years worth of love and care from nothing. But she is a child, and she is his child, and so it is a sentiment Tsunagu believes she is entitled to. If it could bring her some peace, he would do anything to make that happen, were it possible. They fall into a contemplative quiet, him rocking her gently in his arms.

“I could go.” He says. “And tell you if he shows anything promising.”

“Are you sure?” She glances up at his face. “You said you never wanted to see him, not unless you could throttle him yourself.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.” It had been a good few years since he made that particular comment, but that wasn’t the point. “I was largely being dramatic. And if it could be true…” which he highly doubted, “it might be good for all of us.”

His daughter sighs and rests against him. “What if he isn’t?”

Tsunagu doesn’t respond. This is fine, as it wasn’t really a question that was asked for the sake of being answered. They both knew already, because it had happened once before. 

After some more wiped tears and many more hugs, Ibara is released back to her classes, and Best Jeanist once more finds himself contemplating as he drives to the Charon facility for his scheduled time with Geten. What would he do if Kunieda was truly a changed man? Would it really make this process any easier? Even if the man were to beg on his hands and knees, it seemed doubtful he would ever qualify for something like Charon– and there was not a snowball’s chance in Hell that the man would be given a suspended sentence. Best Jeanist had to be honest with himself: no apology could ever bring back the dead. He and his daughter were far from the only ones wronged by that man. Would it be easier to handle knowing his ex-husband was an unrepentant killer, or knowing that he was a man with the potential for change, but kept forever entombed in prison? Or– hell, it was still too early to say what would even become of the way prisons operated, in the aftermath of the war, the riots, the Tartarus breakouts… He sighs as he pulls into the parking lot, head swimming with visions of what the future might hold, staving off the taunting ideas of what it could have been, had things gone differently.

Stepping off the elevator for T2, Best Jeanist is met with a very unwelcome sight. Jin Bubaigawara stands talking with Ii, in the midst of what must be a humorous tale, before both of them notice Jeanist’s presence and the man waves excitedly.

“Just the guy I was waiting for! You’re super late! ” Jeanist’s brows practically shoot off of his face.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you! Hey, listen–” The man steps closer, and then shoves his hands into his pockets and glances about a bit awkwardly. “I wanted to apologize. About yesterday.” 

This is not at all what Best Jeanist was expecting. “I see.”

“Yeah, uh, it seemed like it was pretty personal– you big baby – so, you know… yeah, I’m just really sorry. About poking fun.” He fiddles with a pack of cigarettes, but shoves them back into his pocket as he remembers they’re both indoors. “I wasn’t tryin’ to be an ass. That time. I mean, sometimes I am,  but not that one.”

“That’s…appreciated. Thank you.”

“Yeah!” The man, even masked, visibly lights up at Jeanist’s acceptance of his apology. “So I figured, y’know, maybe we could hang out with Geten today, together! Maybe it’ll lighten things up a bit, you know, three’s a party, or whatever.”

“Three’s a crowd, is how the saying goes.” Jeanist corrects. “But… I suppose since you made the effort of coming all the way out here…”

“Great!” Jin throws his arm around Jeanist and begins to march down the corridor. “I bet he’ll be so surprised. Not if he hears us coming from a mile away! ”

Jeanist cards them in, and Jin bounces in past him. Much to Jeanist’s chagrin, Geten appears to be in the same condition he had been left in: miserable. The tiny titan was listless on his bed, wearing his parka with the hood pulled up. 

“Woah! You really are down in the pits!” Bubaigawara exclaimed. 

“I’m not.” Geten huffed, very clearly down in the pits.

“He’s down in the pits.” Jin tells Jeanist.

“I’m not!” Geten sits up to protest. 

“We gotta do something about this, Jeanie.”

“Don’t call me that.” Jin tosses himself onto the bed next to Geten, throwing his arm around him, pulling down the hood and delivering a wild noogie directly to Geten’s scalp. He ragdolls for a moment, tolerantly, and when he decides he has had enough he smacks wildly at Jin and pulls away. Jin is unfazed by the act, and simply jumps into his next idea.

Fascinating , Jeanist thinks.

“We should go do something! Play some sports, get your blood pumping. Lounging is better! ”

Geten looks to Jeanist. “Can we?” A hurried addition. “Please?”

“Well, if there’s somewhere–”

“There’s the rec rooms! What, you guys ain’t been down there?” Jin stands, bringing Geten with him by smacking him on the back. “It’s great!”

“I suppose we could.” Jeanist does remember the option being offered, and feels a bit ashamed he hadn’t considered it before. Geten’s expression doesn’t change much, but Jeanist doesn’t need a smile to know it beats laying in bed. 

When they arrive at the recreation room, Jeanist must say he’s thoroughly impressed by the size and scope of the indoor facilities. By the time he’s finished getting a handle on what the room has to offer, his companions have already begun their recreation.

“Hey! Gentle play, remember? Gentle play!” Jin pulls his hand out of the way of a particularly aggressive air hockey puck as it hurtles towards him, crashing into the side of the table so hard it bounces off and clatters onto the floor. Geten gives a serious nod, brows furrowing as he takes the criticism to heart..

“Right. I can do it. I can do that.” Geten retrieves the puck and places it back on the table and prepares his serve. The muscles of his upper body visibly tense as he goes to strike, eyes laser-focused on restraining himself enough to not accidentally break something while not giving up the competitive spirit. Jeanist finds himself inching forward to watch (and potentially referee) and after a long, increasingly high-speed series of scores, a sweaty Bubaigawara waves Jeanist over.

“I’m tapping you in, Jeanie! I gotta take a smoke break! And get some water!”

“Me?” He looks to the table, and then Geten, bright-eyed and alert, raring to go. “I suppose…I suppose I could.” While Jeanist had actually never played air hockey before, he understood the gist. Jin claps him on the back, from which he recoils, and shoves the paddle into his hands.

“I’ll be right back! See you never, losers! ”

Jeanist is relieved to find that not only is he rather good at the game, but he quite enjoys it as well. The precision required for each strike, the way each knock of the puck changes the trajectory angle, and the speed with which each player must move is reminiscent of using his quirk in its own way. They start off slow, having interrupted Geten’s focus and giving Best Jeanist the time to warm up, but it’s not long before their pace begins to pick up. Each hit comes faster, harder; Jeanist can feel sweat beading on his brow and can see Geten’s growing agitation with every score he lands against the boy. Their numbers tick up, neck and neck, even as Jin returns, adding an accompaniment of commentary and cheers no matter who lands the hit. The rhythmic clacking of the puck draws him in ever deeper, watching Geten pull back and strike with astonishing speed– a speed that slams the plastic disc into Jeanist’s knuckles. It is, in part, his own fault for leaning on the table, but he yanks the hand away to nurse the inevitable bruise and ensure that nothing has broken.

Geten freezes. A kaleidoscope of emotions flicker across his face: guilt, shame, anxiety, and where Jeanist expects him to call for a swap-out or insist they continue, he instead stares owlishly at Jin. Waiting. Nervous.

“Ooh. Ouch. You alright, Jeanie?” He calls, pulling a long sip from his soda.

“I’m fine. It just seems bruised.” He waves the hand.

“Good! Good. Alright, champ, let’s huddle.” He approaches the frozen Geten, and the two drop into a squat, their backs to Jeanist, Jin’s arm draping over his shoulders. “Level with me buddy, did ya do that on purpose?”

Geten shakes his head furiously.

“So it was an accident, right? Got too excited?” Geten’s response is mumbled too quietly for Jeanist to hear, but it’s clearly an affirmation. Jin nods sympathetically. “S’okay, it happens.”

“I was really trying to be careful. I know how to be careful.” Geten insists.

“Yeah, I know that, buddy. You’ve been doin’ real good.” Jin rubs his back while Geten covers his face with his hands. He mumbles something else, and Jin scratches his own chin. “Okay, well, look. Jeanie’s not too hurt, and it was an accident. So here’s the deal: you give him an apology, and then take a bit to cool off, do a few laps, and we can go back t’ playing. I’ll even give you some yen so you can get a soda outta the machine. Sound good?” Geten nods, and after another second of quiet, Jin claps his hands together to break the huddle and they both stand. The boy awkwardly turns to Jeanist, watching him warily and shifting weight between his feet before dropping into a bow.

“I’m sorry I hit your hand with the puck.” He says, and Best Jeanist is too stunned to speak. He does remember in time to give a response.

“It’s fine. Accidents happen.” 

Geten rises, and looks to Jin, who gives him a double thumbs-up and ruffles his hair as he gives him a couple hundred yen to put in the vending machine on the other end of the room. Jeanist watches the small villain walk away, and then finally looks to Jin, still cradling his hand.

“You’re remarkably good with him.” He says.

“Me? Ah, yeah, I guess. He’s not a bad kid, though. Total fuckin’ nutjob, but he ain’t a bad kid.” Jin takes another drink of his soda. 

“It’s still impressive. I was under the impression he didn’t care about such things.”

“I mean, he probably doesn’t really give a shit that you’re hurt, if that’s what you mean. He’s a bleeding heart! But he wants to play. Once he got that breaking the rules means he can’t play no more, he wasn’t smashing up my clones playin’ soccer.” Jin shrugs, watching Geten as he jogs his laps around the perimeter of the room.  “Iunno. He ain’t the worst of those Liberation freaks, that’s for sure. I think he just wants to be told he’s doin’ a good job.”

Geten returns with a blue Gatorade, eyes clearer and back straight. Bubaigawara gives him a high five. Jeanist does too.

When he mails the Bureau of Corrections the next day, Best Jeanist puts in two prison visit requests. One for Yutaka Shiozaki, and one for Rikiya Yotsubashi.

Chapter Text

Re-Destro is not a man who fights to the death. Some might call it cowardice, but those individuals are young and reckless. There’s a reason villains and heroes alike find a steep dropoff before they reach his age: while they all strive to overcome their limitations, few are able to identify them. There are fates worse than death, certainly, and he would rather die a Liberated man than live out his years in captivity, but if you are clever and sensible, you can avoid those things entirely. And when you are a man responsible for the lives of thousands– hundreds of thousands, inevitably more– your life is not yours to be wasteful with.

The moment Edgeshot struck, he knew that he was fighting on finite time.Victory was a matter of what he could do in that time: a struggle to extend it would be futile. Choosing to die as his body collapsed from within would do him no more good than accepting his defeat– when it happened, of course. No one could say that he had simply thrown the fight before he collapsed. Re-Destro was also a man who knew how to relish the satisfaction of splintering bone and squeezing the screams out of a writhing body. Yes, Re-Destro was a man who valued human life greatly, who mourned its loss: but in battle, that value is what makes it worth taking . 

There he sat, feeling his bones creak and muscles tremor, waves of nausea and pain rolling through him as perforated organs and torn tendons struggled to hold him upright. His mechanical limbs were splintered. His heart stuttered. He floated in and out of consciousness as the fight raged on around him, so utterly defeated no hero felt the need to immediately grab and restrain him. (And all the better! He was getting too old for such manhandling.) When he fell, he was not surprised. He was not angry. Disappointed, perhaps, but he had accepted the outcome from the beginning.

What did pierce that shroud was the cries of his compatriots as he went down. He felt the pain of every soldier that shouted his name, and what could make his heart twist more than Trumpet’s panicked calls, trying to rally backup that would never make it, rushing to his side in vain– and what was more guttural, more gut-wrenching, than Geten’s anguished howl echoing through the ice field? All around him, the earth quakes, ice yowls, weapons clash and people scream. And he drifts through darkness until Trumpet is wrested from his side and he realizes that things have become much more quiet.

He finds the strength to lift his head and look at the carnage around him. The mountain villa is unrecognizable from where he sits. Heroes are slowly calling to one another, dragging out their dead, their wounded. Others herd straggling villains and restrain them, taking inventory of their cattle. Next to him, only a few paces away, an effort is being made to hammer away at a block of cement, and he watches as a group of people extracts the small figure within, unbuttoning his coat and pulling him out of it, out of his boots, hacking away at thick white hair until he’s free enough to finally pry out with only minimal flakes still clinging on. He thrashes weakly, sobbing and groaning and snarling. A second hero grabs on to assist, but it only further serves to agitate. Re-Destro watches him, mouth smeared with blood, spit flying with his desperate, choked cries, eyes swollen and bloodshot and recurrently rolling back in his head. No amount of soothing coos or chiding barks stop the throes of his grief. He tries to use his meta ability, but the ice around them can only shake before he hacks up a disgusting glob of mucus and blood, thin limbs trembling and staggering into one of the heroes attempting to keep him upright. Re-Destro cannot bring himself to bear it, not for a single more second.

“That’s enough now, Geten.” His voice is weak, but Geten’s head immediately snaps up to look at him. Eyes dutifully focused on him and him alone, just as Re-Destro expected. “Come here, my boy.” He weakly motions for the soldier to come to him. The heroes glance at one another, but release him in an acknowledgement of what Re-Destro is trying to do.

Geten lurches forward, stumbling across splintered concrete and ice, landing on his hands and knees at Re-Destro’s side and simply happy that he could be there. If there was anyone who understood selflessness like Re-Destro did, it was Geten. There was nothing– not his body, not his pride, not his life– that he was more loyal to than he was to Re-Destro. In return, Re-Destro knows he must carefully steward those things for him, and this was one such case. He brings a frigid wave of air with him, but even before Re-Destro’s hands clasp around his face, he knows the boy is burning up. He sinks into the embrace, and Re-Destro staves off his own weakness for the sake of the wave of fatigue that crashes over Geten’s body in that moment. 

“I’m sorry.” The boy croaks.

“No, Geten. You’ve done well. My disappointment lies solely with myself.” Geten opens his mouth to argue, but Re-Destro brushes the hair from his forehead gently and continues. “We have been bested. All there is to do now is hope that the man to whom we have entrusted our Liberation is victorious.” Geten’s eyes fall closed, but Re-Destro knows he’s still listening. “It’s time to be good, now. Cooperate with them. It pains me to see you suffer needlessly.” Geten’s brows furrow slightly, and Re-Destro caresses his head in response. It’s unfortunate that his hands stain white hair so easily. 

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“You’re a good soldier, Geten. A good soldier that follows orders. This is no different. Do as you’re told, and we will see one another soon. You’ve waited for me before, haven’t you?” Geten nods slowly into the palm of his hand, and Re-Destro looks to one of the nearby heroes. They approach hesitantly, but when they pull Geten up this time, there’s no resistance. Re-Destro watches as more come, bearing thick, weighty handcuffs and shackled boots, which Geten slips into wordlessly. He himself is soon lifted onto a medical stretcher, and that is when the time comes for them to separate.

He feels bad, lying to the boy. Of all the lies he’s told him, this one is the most painful, because the truth of the matter is that he’s not really sure if they’ll ever see one another again. Re-Destro hates uncertainty, and he hates making promises he can’t keep. But Re-Destro is used to difficult choices, and for Geten’s sake, this is a sacrifice he’s willing to make.

-

“Ah! If it isn’t the number one hero, Best Jeanist! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Re-Destro gives Jeanist a cheery greeting and a sunny grin, despite his restraints and the guards leering at him from behind. The orange jumpsuit he wears makes his remaining hair look even brighter, and the bagginess hides the intimidating figure beneath, aside from his broad, sharp shoulders and the prominent mastoid muscles flexing with the movements of his neck. Best Jeanist, while certainly not privy to his case, had learned a few things about the man from the corrections officers. For starters, Rikiya Yotsubashi was a remarkably well-behaved prisoner. He had even helped quell other, rowdier prisoners, and the guards spoke highly of him and his respectful demeanor. He had been granted privileges his peers had not quite early on, but the other prisoners also seemed to be quite fond of the man. He also did, in fact, have a loose personal connection to him: Yotsubashi had been the CEO and leading mind behind the lifestyle support company Detnerat , a company that Jeanist himself had been a customer of. You see, while he could repair any fabric with barely a twitch of his fingers, there had been times he had either bought or been gifted Detnerat products on account of his daughter’s quirk. Clothing, yes, but especially linens– he remembers specifically picking out a bedspread for Ibara’s dorm room when U.A. made the transition to a boarding school, since he would no longer be able to fix snags as they occurred. He had always been impressed by the quality of the textiles. Shame things had turned out this way. The company itself was also under investigation for participation in black market arms dealing, specifically in the realm of metaweapons and villain support gear. And theft of intellectual property. Jeanist wasn’t confident it would survive much longer.

He takes his seat on the other side of the glass, armed with a pen and a notebook. He still wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Interrogation had never been his main area of expertise, nor did he find conversations with villains to be particularly pleasant. If he had anything to be grateful for, it was the fact that it sounded like Rikiya Yotsubashi would make for not-as-bothersome conversation.

“I’m here to discuss one of your cohorts, actually. A boy by the name of Himura Kiyotaka. Otherwise known as Geten, while under your employ.”

“Ah,” Re-Destro corrects. “He was never an employee of mine. There was no contractual exchange of consideration at any point between the two of us.”

“Right.” Jeanist makes note of it. He also makes another note: Pedantic . “He speaks about you quite often.”

“Does he now?” Re-Destro’s smile doesn’t fall. “I suppose it’s only natural that I would come up in the course of his interrogations, being part of the same organization, and all.”

“I’m not talking about the interrogations. I’ve taken on the responsibility of being the boy’s P.A.L.” Re-Destro raises his eyebrows, clearly unaware of what Best Jeanist was referring to. 

“How nice of you. Are you two writing regularly?” 

“Not pal as in pen pal . It’s a new program introduced by the Hero Public Safety Commission. My job is to rehabilitate the boy and tailor him into an upstanding member of society.” Jeanist dislikes the glimmer of mirth he sees in Re-Destro’s eyes. It feels… mocking, somehow. “Given your relationship to him, I believe this conversation could assist in that goal.”

“What a wonderful program! I’m glad to hear he’s getting the help he needs. Well, by all means. I’m an open book.” Re-Destro says. Jeanist does not believe him.

“We can use that as a starting point. It appears that Geten never received any kind of formal education. His literacy is drastically below the standard for his age group. Why is that?” Re-Destro appears to mull the question over for a moment.

“I suppose that would be a question for his parents, wouldn’t it? I’m afraid I have little control over such matters.”

“Mr. Yotsubashi,” Jeanist stops himself from gritting his teeth, because it’s bad for one’s jaw. “We have evidence that Geten was primarily residing at your property in the Gunga Mountains for many years. Regardless of your relation, there’s no doubt you had a hand in his upbringing.”

“Yes, no doubt.” Re-Destro thinks. “If I recall correctly, the boy struggles with literacy due to a learning disability, and so while efforts to tutor were made in the absence of school enrollment… Well, you know the adage. You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, if you catch my drift. I’m sure you understand. After all,” he smiles again. “You’re here for precisely that reason, no?”

“A learning disability?” Best Jeanist finds the man’s gaze unnerving, but continues as neutrally as he can. “No such thing was disclosed on the medical information I was given.”

“It wasn’t? Ah, well, while I don’t know precisely the nature of the condition, I do know he struggles greatly with dyslexia– difficulty with reading and writing, you see. Hiragana would frustrate him to the point of rage– although, you know, he’s quite adept at memorizing certain kanji! His calligraphy, while limited, was quite impressive once he put his mind to it. But the boy’s moodiness simply wasn’t conducive to learning.” 

It’s certainly valuable information, so Jeanist thanks him, but he can’t shake the pit in his stomach. “That’s very good to know, thank you. Could you tell me as to how you even came to possess Geten? Is his family associated with the Paranormal Liberation Front, or the previously existing Meta Liberation Army?”

“Possess? Please, nothing so sinister, Best Jeanist.” He shakes his head. “And no, his family has no affiliation with the Liberation army. I wouldn’t even know if they ever familiarized themselves with Destro’s work! They wanted very little to do with the boy, you see. Quite the sad story.” He throws his forearm over his forehead dramatically, albeit awkward thanks to the handcuffs around his wrists. “A companion and I found him wandering the streets while on business in Iwamizawa! Out in the cold, entirely alone. Were it not for his meta ability, I would have feared the winter would take him.” He cracks an eye open to gauge Jeanist’s reaction. It appears Geten hasn’t told him this story. “He was using it to clean the streets, you see. I was so inspired by his selflessness, and so struck by his hunger and poverty, that I took it upon myself to feed him and try to convince his family that they had been given a true gift. Are you familiar with the Himura family?”

“Should I be?”

“ Should you ? Why, one of your closest colleagues is closely connected to them, my friend!” He gestures with both hands, leaning back in his chair. “The hero Endeavor married the daughter of the head family! They’re quite a prestigious line, you see, but greed got the better of them.” 

Ah. That’s what it was. The deep familiarity that struck him when he looked at Geten’s face– it was the same face of the woman who pressed her forehead to the floor and swore to bring her wayward son to justice, the face of the woman who risked her life, despite being a civilian, for the sake of both her family and the rest of the country. Rei Todoroki was a venerable woman, and it sounded like she was a canvas weave that had survived the elements long before the birth of Dabi.

“They rejected the advent of the exceptional, you see.” Re-Destro’s voice breaks him from his thoughts. “Unwilling to integrate with a diversified society, they began marrying within the family, between branches. As you can imagine, this is hardly a sustainable practice. They continued to dwindle, only hastened by their desperation. The more capital they lost, the more they attempted to re-fortify the bloodline, and so on. The head family, penniless and without a male heir, sold their daughter for marriage, which signaled the end. Once the patriarch died, the rest of the branch families scattered, including Geten’s family. It’s tragic, really. I’m unsure how close he is to the head branch, in terms of the tree– but I imagine it can’t be particularly far, given the nature of the situation.” 

The implication is clear. And nauseating.

“As for his specific family– he’s a Himura through his father, as I’m sure you can guess. The thing about such… selective breeding is that traits only compound and intensify. One such trait in the Himura family are their meta abilities. Each branch is specialized in a different type of glaciological abilities. And while I believe that one should seek to develop their abilities to the fullest, this sort of practice often has weighty consequences. For example: Geten’s father had a body unfit for the power of his meta ability. The metabolic tax of his psi production was eating at his own body. The man’s probably dead now– I wouldn’t know, but it further served to complicate matters. Simply put, they were entirely unable to properly care for children.” He gives a sigh. “Do you have children, Best Jeanist?”

“One.” Jeanist doesn’t feel the need to specify further. Re-Destro smiles.

“So I’m sure you understand, then, that children are particularly sensitive to the knowledge that they are a burden. This was Geten’s birthright– unwanted, unloved, and entirely left to fend for himself while the desperate remains of the Himura clan clawed at what inheritance there was left.”

He’s a talented storyteller, for sure. But even with the theatrics, Jeanist feels himself sympathetic to the underlying tragedy. “And when did you come into the picture?”

“Well, after I met the boy and returned him to his parents, I offered to become his benefactor and cultivate his meta ability. After all, the potential was enormous! Consider the applications for mountain search and rescue, or food preservation during outages–”

“Or war.” Jeanist adds dryly. Re-Destro gives him a rueful smile. 

“I assure you, that was far from my mind at the time. But as with many of us, he did what he felt was necessary to create a brighter future. I certainly never demanded it of him.” Best Jeanist isn’t particularly assured, but he keeps that to himself. Snide, confrontational remarks would do neither of them, nor Geten, any good. “But, Best Jeanist, allow me to remind you that I live in Nagoya , which is quite a ways away from Gunga. My relationship with Geten was solely that of a mentor in terms of his meta ability, and our visits were limited by the nature of my work and the distance.”

“Right. Of course.” It is a rather compelling point. “I don’t mean to insinuate anything untowards. I just want a better understanding, that’s all.”

“I can certainly admit my mistakes. I did little to curb the boy’s fixation with myself, and I sorely underestimated to what lengths he was willing to go for my sake!” Re-Destro sighs, shaking his head. “He had always been prone to obsessions and outbursts. I thought that being kind and acting as an example would temper such behaviors, but I was only throwing fuel onto the fire. I only truly began to understand the scope of the issue during the Revival Festival, but by then it was too late.”

“Right… Thank you, Mr. Yotsubashi. Before I go… could you give me his parent’s names? I’d like to contact them, if possible.” Best Jeanist can’t shake his sense of unease, and the hair on the back of his neck stands as Re-Destro’s eyes narrow with something akin to smugness.

“I can’t say I recall them off the top of my head. It’s been over a decade now, after all. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you.” Best Jeanist rises from his chair and pushes it in, and the guards approach Re-Destro in order to begin the process of returning him to his cell.

“No, no, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I’ll let you know if I have any further questions. Have a good day, Mr. Yotsubashi.”

-

Students milled about the shared common area, catching up, swapping snacks. The gathering of students was more than leisure, however. They were here to discuss the appearance of Best Jeanist– and his business with Ibara Shiozaki– as the two classes had agreed upon a policy of transparency, in the wake of Aoyama’s betrayal and… well, most of Deku’s first school year, although he had been teased enough for the matter it was considered forgiven. Still, keeping the atmosphere light was a priority for the group, because the subject of today’s discussion needed no pressure to be forthcoming, and was already a bit notorious for being high-strung and prone to self-flagellation. Sometimes in a literal sense.

The subject in question sat straight-backed on the sofa, wringing her hands and trying to soothe those ever-active nerves.

“It’s okay, Ibara. Everything’s gonna be fine.” Kendou assures, taking the seat next to her and putting one calloused hand on her shoulder. “You know you’re not in trouble, right?”

That was a question that often had to be asked, with Ibara.

“I know, and my gratitude is eternal…” She says, “but I cannot help this deep shame within me, and while I know it is truthful and good to be forthcoming with our peers, I…”

“Yeah, it kinda sucks being the center of attention when you’re uncomfortable, I get it. But we’re all here for you!” Kendou’s smile evokes a somewhat strained one in return, and the rest of the students begin to settle, paper plates stacked with baked goods.

(Ibara liked to make bread, when nervous. Monoma had joined in to make desserts, and from there, things had spiralled out of control. But hero students need a lot of nutrition, so they were fairly confident there’d be no waste.)

Sero scans the crowd from where he lounges with his head in his hand, propped up on the arm of the couch. It was a miracle he managed to only take up one cushion, both feet pulled up, one knee pointed upwards, the other laying on its side. Well, it was a miracle he managed to take up only one cushion and a bit of overhang where his foot landed against Ibara’s thigh, which didn’t bother her in the slightest.

“So, Rosebud,” he begins the conversation, which causes other conversations to come to a close. “Finally decide to go into the fashion industry? Sparked a newfound passion for jeans? What’s up?” He was, of course, being humorous in his suggestions. Ibara had learned how to read that much from his tone and expressions, after all their time interning together. She struggles for a moment to find the words to explain what was happening.

“As all are in this world, I have been called to test the strength of my spirit.” She fiddles with her ring finger, one that had healed back slightly crooked after an accident in her youth. “My blood carries a cruel and venomous birthright, and it will be ignored no longer.” 

“Something came up with your family?” Denki offers, as translation for those not quite so familiar with Ibara’s unusual manner of speech. She nods.

“And what’s that got to do with Best Jeanist?” Bakugo asks. She looks up from her lap, and straightens her spine. If there was one thing about Ibara, it was that she knew the dignity that was demanded of someone with her pedigree, no matter the other half.

“I am the first and only begotten child of Hakamada Tsunagu and a man by the name of Shiozaki Yutaka, whose name is mine to bear as I do these thorns.” A wave of shock and confusion passes through the crowd. 

“I do not know what’s crazier. The fact that you like, exist, or the fact that you somehow kept this hidden for the entire year that we’ve known you.” Setsuna says, earning a sharp response from Ibara.

“I have hidden nothing! I have never once pretended otherwise. I discuss my father as any other child would. But there is no honor in braggadocious posturing with one’s status, and it was never a topic of relevance. Besides,” she continues. “I have always intended my ambitions to be honest and brought about by my own merit.”

“I completely agree!” Iida nods furiously from his spot. “Your humility is inspiring, Shiozaki!”

“Ah…Iida, you didn’t know already?” Shoto asked, popping another chip into his mouth. “I thought if anyone else here would be aware, it’d be you.”

“Wait, you knew each other already?!” Midoriya asks Todoroki, head already swimming with all the recontextualization he’ll have to do in his hero notes.

“Oh, yeah. We got invited to each other’s birthdays a few times when we were younger.” Shoto shrugs. “But I wouldn’t call us friends.”

“Not that we ever had any sort of falling out. Todoroki’s a very nice boy,” she takes a sip of her water, muttering an aside over the rim. “If a bit foul-mouthed.”

“I suppose I just wasn’t up to their impeccable standards.” Shoto remarks dryly, making no attempt to hide the small jab. “Best Jeanist expects only the best for his little princess.” Ibara’s brows arch as she gives him a side-eye, and Sero decides it’s time to step in and get them back on track before the vibe becomes a butting of heads between two titans of the hero course.

“Okay, recap: Best Jeanist came because he’s your dad, and some family emergency came up. Do you wanna tell us what’s going on?” Ibara lets out a long sigh.

“It has to do with my other father. His roots rot within me. He deceived my papa for years…he did terrible, terrible things to people. He was arrested when I was young, but broke out during the prison riots before recapture, but he recently sent us letters–”

“The Man-Eating Flowers case!” Midoriya interrupts the somber tale as the revelation comes to him. “Resolving that incident is what skyrocketed Best Jeanist to fame, early in his career!” he explains to those around him. “Not only was the scope of the crime massive, but the arrest came in the form of a sting operation, since he and Best Jeanist were married at the time. The fact he was willing to arrest his own husband for villainy really solidified the public’s trust in him. And Vine is the perfect marriage between threads and flowers-”

“Man-eating flowers, huh? That sounds like the guy Fatgum dealt with!” Kirishima adds.

“Ooh! Ooh! Kunieda! That’s his name! Aoyama-kun and I took him down!” Hagakure raises a hand excitedly. “He collects corpses and talks like an alien!”

“That’s him! Shiozaki, when you were talking about roots, you meant it literally, right-?” Midoriya turns back towards the class B student, and upon seeing her head buried in her hands, and Kendou rubbing her back, he’s overwhelmed by a flustering shame. “Ah– I’m sorry, Shiozaki, I know it’s a sensitive topic, I got carried away-”

“It’s alright.” She lifts her head and sniffles. “That’s all true. Forgive me– my ego is wounded by this truth, but if it can be destroyed by truth, then it must be destroyed.” Ibara wipes her eyes, and Sero sits up, folding his legs criss-cross so he can lean closer to provide comfort.

“It’s okay, Rosebud. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But I do !” She cries out. “I must face my own cowardice! He writes to me, seeking reunion, but I am too afraid of possible deception to find the truth. Who am I, if I do not practice what I claim to value?” The classes fall into a sober silence.

“I think…” Shoto begins, carefully considering his words. “It’s not cowardice to have complicated feelings about it. Forgiveness takes time. Don’t let him expect it at his beck and call. If you fold just because he asked, that’s cowardice.” Ibara blinks. Her heart aches for him, knowing that if anyone has seen the depths of Hell as she had, it was Todoroki. No matter their gripes with one another’s manners– she longed for the ability to express what it meant to hear such a thing from him. Monoma jumps in, voice gentle.

“If you don’t take the time to really care for yourself and cultivate that forgiveness, won’t it be insincere? You’d be telling him you forgive him and trust him when you’re actually just trying to force yourself to do it because you said it. If a man bleeds after he sticks his hands into a rosebush, that’s his fault for imposing.” 

“Aw, come on, Monoma. Don’t hop in with good advice. You know she hates it when you’re right.” Tokage elbows Monoma in the side, and breaks the tightness in Ibara’s chest by evoking a small laugh.

“No, no, I appreciate it. Thank you all. I am forever grateful for the depths of kindness you all have shown me.”

“We’ve got your back! Seeds can’t dig into steel!” Tetsutetsu leans over the back of the couch and puts his hands on Ibara’s shoulders, shaking her with his eagerness.

“I’m happy to take as many copies of notes as you need.” Shishida rumbles. “Please don’t worry if you need to miss class.”

“You could join our study sessions, too!” Yaoyorozu offers. 

“If they can get me to pass an exam, they’ll fill in for any missed days, for sure.” Kaminari rests his head against Ibara’s leg from his place on the floor. 

“Wait! I have a question!” Tsuburaba stretches his hand into the air. The floor is his. “Did you like, come from a seed?”

The silence teeters precariously for a moment, unsure of how appropriate it was to laugh, but Ibara sighs and shakes her head. 

“Tsuburaba, everybody comes from seed. Do I need to explain the stork to you too?” Her brows raise in bemusement, and she has to hide a laugh in her cup while Sero breaks into a contagious bout of giggles. It was rare for Ibara to joke– and rarer still for it to be crass, but it breaks the spell of austerity on the group and the hangout begins anew. She’ll be chiding herself about it all evening– but that voice lay far to the back of her mind, muffled by Monoma’s wild cackling and her attention affixed solely on her true soul’s salvation (after the Lord, of course!)– pork buns. Yum.

Chapter Text

Tsunagu’s fingers clench tight around the steering wheel as he drives to the detention facility his former spouse was being held in. This was a visit he had both dreamt about and dreaded for years. He wasn’t sure how he would respond in the moment. The fact he wasn’t going on official hero business almost made it worse. Kunieda had a way of… evoking responses that had been wonderful during their courtship and just absolutely horrible in their falling out.

Falling out. What an understatement.

What would he say? What could he say? Could Tsunagu really stomach sitting and catching up, as if the villain had just been away on business for a couple years? Oh, yes, the baby’s doing quite well at U.A. I’m sure she’ll be arresting plenty of your kind in no time at all.

It’s as maximum security of a facility as humanly possible. Its construction was technically a series of renovations atop an existing detention center, due to the tight timeline the war and all subsequent arrests had put them on. Kunieda, ever contrarian, was notoriously difficult to transport and contain. His quirk’s rapid propagation, aggressive growth, and capability for continuing even once he had been stunned was difficult to counter at the best of times. The Man-Eating Flowers case had even been responsible for a series of controversial legislative battles on the topic… But Tsunagu was dwelling on enough, so he shakes it from his mind.

The guards were respectful, but he could tell they were looking at him with pity. He’s sure they had seen more than a few catastrophic family visits. Tsunagu resolves to not let this be one of them. 

The guards that bring Kunieda into the visitation area are dressed in layers of PPE, including ventilation masks. The nature of his seedlings made any exposed flesh a hazard. Even certain kinds of fabric stood little chance against them. The man himself is brought in a tightly bound straitjacket, which Tsunagu knew was only good for making everyone else feel better than it was for keeping him from Cultivating . So it goes.

Kunieda was a man few people had seen without many layers of obfuscation, but he looks just like Jeanist remembered. Tall, unreasonably so. Close in height to All Might, if not taller, although also prone to a deceptive hunch. Broad-shouldered and thin-hipped, every limb was slender and just-short-of-uncannily-long, and when he takes his seat, he crosses one bony ankle over his knee and bounces the leg with some sense of boredom. But it’s his face that Tsunagu feels the most drawn to, with a twisted curiosity vested in trying to spot the differences where he didn’t align with his recollections of a decade past. It was also, in part, rooted in the novelty of seeing the man’s visage at all. Kunieda’s face was covered most of the time, even at home– so he supposes that was one thing entirely unrelated to his criminal activities, at least. He’ll make sure to put a tally mark up on the board.

He looks frighteningly unchanged by his time in prison. The same straight, proud profile that streamlined the brows right into the bridge of the nose. Thin, almost non-existent brow hair despite the prominent ridge. It unnerved him, how although she did not share the wideness of his nose, he could see the clear echo of his daughter in that profile and in the prominent heart-shaped cheekbones, although his face was longer and lacked the softness afforded by lingering baby fat. They bore the same dimples, the same undertone of complexion, the same high forehead, the same lips; although he had never seen his daughter’s twist into such a derisive sneer, and so that is where he keeps his focus. Kunieda’s face was also deeply, numerously scarred, which Tsunagu knew was the reason for the facial coverings in the first place. He had known the origins of some (his quirk, who had a tendency to get a bit rowdy before he had learned to control them), but some he had only learned about after he had uncovered the years of journals Kunieda kept for the sake of the investigation. Some from victims. One from a rogue chicken. One from a scorned lover. A hippotherapy accident. There were even more on his body, and all of them had rather colorful origins. It was charming, before he knew about the murders. The thing that had changed the least was his smile. A placid, almost smug look. The look of a man watching it all from his ivory tower, unaffected by the chaos of daily life. Prison hadn’t changed him, because he simply did not allow it to.

“You know,” he said, eyes rolling to gesture to the guards. “If I even think about using my quirk, they’re authorized to open fire.” Kunieda’s expression is one of nothing but bemusement, and he tilts his head. “If they did, would you watch? How would that make you feel, Tsunagu? What would you do?” The guards tense, but Kunieda settles himself further into his seat with a lackadaisical shrug of his bound shoulders, so clearly unserious it was insulting.

“Is that a threat?”

“Hm? No, no. Not at all. I was just thinking about it. You know, what it would be like, on the other side of the glass. Making civilians witness an on-the-spot execution feels a bit tasteless.” Tsunagu couldn’t say that he didn’t agree with the sentiment, but he knew Kunieda hadn’t made the statement with any sort of earnestness, and so he was contrary to it on principle.

“As morbid as ever,” he intones. “Is that really what you called me out here to discuss?”

“If you’d like. I thought it’d just be nice to converse again. I didn’t even really think you would come, so I’m happy you’re here.”

“Are you mocking me? This facade of domesticity doesn’t suit you, Yutaka.”

“Facade? For what reason would I have to hide my intentions? What ulterior motives are there for me to have? There is nothing for me to do.” Kunieda laughs. “I never had any intention of leaving our family. The one who chose to uproot the family unit was you.”

“I’ve heard most marriage counselors would agree that corpse collecting isn’t exactly conducive to fortifying the binds of marriage.”

“Oh, do they?” He chuckles. “You say the strangest things, Tsunagu.”

“I suppose I do,” Tsunagu replies, without missing a beat. “Like my vows.”

Kunieda’s brows shoot upwards into two high arches, smile suddenly somewhat pointed. It was the strongest display of emotion that Tsunagu had seen on him in some time. The guards in the back shift uncomfortably. And then he laughs , shoulders shaking as he swings his head from side to side.

  “You’re so cruel, Tsunagu. Terribly, terribly cruel. I’ve always liked that about you.” Kunieda narrows his eyes. “Tell me, why did you come here? Just to make me your whipping boy? We haven’t been that intimate in some time.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Tsunagu scolds. “I’m here because of your letters. Including the one you sent to my daughter.”

“Ah, right! The little sprout. How is she? It’s unfortunate she hasn’t accompanied you. I’m eager to see how she’s grown.”

“You should know better than to send such things. There’s no reason you couldn’t come to me first. Do you think it’s funny to pluck at her heartstrings like that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kunieda leans forward a little, tilting his head. “You know very well that I’ve always cared for all of my children.” This pushes Jeanist to his feet, hands coming down on the ledge of a table in front of him.

“Have you no shame?” He can feel the tips of his ears growing hot with anger. “How dare you compare our child to those monstrosities of yours!”

“Why not?” He asks, spine tilting towards the side. “Can you truly tell me there’s that much of a difference? I sired them both. They both bear roots. They both have to consume other organisms for nutrients. They think, and feel, and try to survive, just the same as any other creature on this planet. Your sentimentality over the human condition has fooled you into thinking we’re special .” He purrs, a particular sort of sadism oozing from his voice. “At the end of the day, we’re all rotting corpses.”

“You haven’t changed at all.” He’s filled with disgust.

“Was I supposed to? Your obsession with propriety blinds you to the truth. Does making a liar of me make you feel better? Many things can be true at once. I am still the exact same man you married. I have never lied to you, not once. I am a father and a killer. Say what you will, but those things have never been mutually exclusive. You seem to be under the impression that my reasons for wanting to see you and our child are incompatible with my crimes. At the end of the day, those two things really have nothing to do with one another, other than the fact that both of them are mine.”

“Then you can expect no change in visitation. Ibara is only interested in seeing a penitent man. There will be no forgiveness otherwise.”

“Ah, so this was a scouting mission.” He leans back. “Let me guess: You’ll return home and tell her that any visitation is just ‘A waste of her time ’, regardless of whether or not she would find any value in what I have to say. In fact, I’d wager you intended on saying that no matter how this conversation went.”

“That’s because anything other than an apology is a waste of her time. A waste of mine, frankly.”

“I never asked for forgiveness. Just to talk. Can you really say that there’s no desire to hear it from my own mouth? To seek out the truth, even if it hurts? Simply uncurious, Tsunagu.”

“What are you getting at, Yutaka?”

“Our little sprout can’t be kept in the greenhouse forever.” Kunieda smiles. “But the fact of the matter is that you have no interest in growth or maturation . You, my love, are in the business of comfort .”

“You can shove your love up your ass.” Tsunagu deadpans, harshly shoving his chair back under the ledge. “And maybe if you dig around, you’ll find the truth up there with it.”

“Goodbye, Tsunagu. I expect to hear from you soon.” That wretched smile doesn’t change. As expected . Tsunagu eyes the twill-weave scar wrapping around Kunieda’s neck and wishes it wasn’t so faded.

“We’ll be rotting corpses before that happens, Kunieda. Enjoy your second life sentence.” Best Jeanist is heading towards the door before the guards even make a move for the villain, who makes no effort to resist. Like always.

-

“If I didn’t know him like I do, I would say that I can’t believe the audacity of that man!” Best Jeanist rubs his temple with one hand.

“I told you I never liked him.” Edgeshot shakes his head, arms folded in front of him. “From day one, I did not like him.”

Kamui Woods sips at his water in an uncomfortable silence, eyes averted underneath the shadow of his hat and scarf. 

“Wow,” Keigo responds, cutting away at the chicken breast on his plate. “I can’t believe he’d say that to you.”

“He’s always been like this!”

“Always.” Edgeshot echoes.

“He has always been like this– but really, how does he expect me to believe his heart is so torn when he sits there like a bleach spot on good denim! With that stupid smile-” Jeanist huffs, ending his sentence early because he has no idea where he’s taking it.

“It seems like quite the troubling situation.” Enji Todoroki says, every word uttered with the utmost caution.

“Have you told Ibara?” Kamui asks.

“No– No, I’m not sure what to say, really. Every time I think about what he said, I get so embarrassingly angry.” Best Jeanist sighs. “I don’t want her to see me so worked up. It’ll only cause more distress. And I know she’ll take it personally.”

“Whadd’you mean by that?” Keigo asks, swallowing a mouthful of food.

“My couture is terribly sensitive to criticisms of character,” he says. “Even if it’s from him , the implication she has no interest in the truth is one she cannot withstand.”

“She’s very insistent on correcting that sort of thing.” Kamui Woods adds. “And very concerned about doing wrong by others.”

“Maybe I should just tell her it’s not worth her time. I’m sure he has no intention of weaving a relationship worth having.”

“It’s not like he’s getting out of prison anytime soon.” Keigo says. “He didn’t strike me as the penitent type.”

“He doesn’t regret a thing! He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong!” Jeanist’s eyebrows twitch with irritation. “You would think a decade in prison would clue him in on the matter.”

“He has no sense of introspection and is fundamentally self centered. He dresses his irrationality up in philosophical pap and calls it intelligence.” Edgeshot huffs.

“Oh wow. You really don’t like him.” Keigo says.

“And I never have!”

“I think,” Kamui offers. “Maybe it’s just best to tell Ibara the truth and let her decide for herself. Even if she wants to see him, you could always visit together. I think it would mean a lot to her if you were upfront about it.”

“Agreed. The fact he’s her father will never change… providing guidance to confront this burden now is imperative.” Enji nods solemnly.

“Speaking of,” Jeanist says, taking a bite of his salad. “How’s Dabi doing?”

“ Touya ,” he responds. “Has been progressing steadily with recovery. That’s been the main focus. He can be awake for an hour or so at a time, now.”

“I’m sure you’re getting in plenty of bonding time.” Jeanist adds dryly. “Although, you know, it might be nice to swing by and check on your nephew every now and again.”

“I beg your pardon?” Enji asks, more befuddled than offended. Keigo has immediately snapped to attention, golden eyes wide with interest. Edgeshot and Kamui Woods shift in their seats with a sudden discomfort. (Well, not so sudden, for Kamui. He had been uncomfortable for the last twenty or so minutes.)

“It turns out my little P.A.L is a fairly close thread in the family tapestry to your wife. Didn’t you know?” 

Keigo’s head tilts at an angle. “That’s not even information I was aware of.”

Shit, right. He didn’t want to tell Keigo he had visited Yotsubashi. Best Jeanist waves a hand. A lie that’s not a lie. “I did a bit of digging, in hopes I could find his family. Himura is your wife’s maiden name, isn’t it?” He looks to Enji.

“It is. But we’ve never been particularly close with her extended family.” It is, of course, not hard to guess why.

“Does he know?” Kamui Woods asks.

“Does she know?” Edgeshot adds. “Do you plan on saying anything to her, Endeavor?” 

Best Jeanist, his momentary irritation long gone, is now beginning to realize that he has let a rather unfortunate cat out of the bag and committed quite the faux pas. A tangled ball of family drama is unravelling right before his eyes, and he’s brought attention to it at a friendly lunch, no less.

Ah, well. What is it that Ibara says? If it can be destroyed by the truth, it must be destroyed. But regardless, it would be wrong to not at least offer a bit of help with the matter and lighten the load.

“Geten has shown no indication he’s aware of the information, or if he is, he doesn’t care. And I have no intention of raising the issue.” Jeanist coughs politely into his napkin. “I’ll trust you and your family’s discretion on the matter. I understand that you’re all quite preoccupied with Touya. But if you would like any assistance in the matter by all means, let me know.”

“I appreciate that.” Enji says, although a small grimace had posted itself onto his face.

Keigo chews his food in silence, recalling every time he had seen Dabi suddenly tug Geten’s hood up over his head as he walked by with a newfound sense of enlightenment. It’s incredible how family ties persist even between ignorant parties. A shithead cousin will always be a shithead cousin. Nature is beautiful.

Chapter Text

“Kiyotaka, do you understand the value of life?” Re-Destro asked his young charge one day, following a round of training warm-ups.

“Um,” the eight year old said, being eight, but eager to please. “...being Liberated?”

“Ah, haha. No, my boy. Liberation is what we value. I mean what the worth of a life itself is, how we measure it.” Kiyotaka slowly shakes his head, brows furrowing with the worry that he somehow had forgotten something he had been taught. 

“A human life is priceless , Kiyotaka. There is nothing as precious and rare on this Earth as human life. This is why we pursue Liberation. To make the most of the gift we have been given. Do you understand?” The child nods. “But,” Re-Destro continues, holding up a finger. “We live in a world of conflict, Kiyotaka. Everyone has different wants, different needs, different values. And so while all life is precious , not all lives are equal in value. Today is the day you must learn this lesson, as it is one of the most vital doctrines a Liberation Warrior can understand.”

“I can learn it.” He said, voice whistling slightly through the gap of a recently shed lateral incisor. “I’ll remember.” Re-Destro laughs, and pats his head.

“Of course you will! I have the utmost faith in your abilities, Kiyotaka. That’s why you’re getting this lesson– special, just for you. Most warriors don’t receive this training until they’re 14 or 15, if not older. You’re very advanced, for your age.” Re-Destro looks down at his student, who nervously shuffles his feet in anticipation of the upcoming lesson. He’s a good boy. Rikiya isn’t a fool, nor could he claim well-intentioned ignorance. He knew this lesson, one he himself had to learn early on, was a cruel one. But he also knew that it would be crueler to be kind– when war came, the uninitiated would be the first to break. Bamboo bends in the wind where a willow tree snaps. This was the first storm that would prepare him for the deluge ahead. A round of immunizations. 

That didn’t make it any less painful to administer, however. And that was a point of pride for Rikiya. The shared pain is what proved his devotion to his people, it served to remind him of their struggle and why they sought Liberation in the first place. He bore the guilt so they didn’t have to. Re-Destro bore the guilt so they didn’t have to.

He would be sure to treat the boy kindly afterwards.

“Bring in the first,” he calls to Skeptic. A gaggle of puppets emerge as a powered metal door groans open, closing with a slam behind them. They drag with them a bound man, beaten and blindfolded– but still breathing. This man is deposited in front of the pair, and the puppets step aside once more.

“What happened? He got hurt.” Kiyotaka’s face pulls into a concerned frown, moving closer to Re-Destro and pointing, as if expecting him to help. “He can’t train like that– he needs to rest before he trains again. He’s really hurt.” Kiyotaka knew that because he himself had been injured in training before, and each time he was told he must wait until he was only a little hurt before they could train again, lest the injuries get worse. And this man looked very, very hurt. Rikiya resonated deeply with the child’s inclination towards compassion. But growing up meant knowing that it was not a resource meant to be offered freely to everyone. Re-Destro raises one hand to quiet him.

“Kiyotaka, what is the value of a human life?” The boy fumbles for a moment, but responds.

“Priceless?”

“Very good. Now,” he continues, watching the confused captive tremble. “Do you know who this man is?” The boy examines the man for a moment, and then shakes his head once he’s sure he’s never seen him before. 

“This man is an enemy to Liberation.” Re-Destro says, voice dripping with contempt. “A deserter. A traitor, even! And therefore, he is an enemy to me. His continued existence is a threat to my own! But remember, Kiyotaka. He is still a human, just like you and me.” The man’s head lifts slightly, as if given hope by the words. Re-Destro smiles at the irony of it all. “So, Kiyotaka, it is time to make a decision. Both lives undoubtedly have value… but coexistence is impossible. So which of us has the higher value? Him, or me?”

“You!” Kiyotaka blusters out. “It’s you!”

“Very good!” Re-Destro pats him once more, relishing the tiny smile he gets in return. “So, Kiyotaka, as a Liberation soldier, you have a very important job. That job is to protect me and protect our future. And that means removing any threats standing in our way.” He knows the boy is hanging on to his every word. “And so you are going to kill him.” He gestures to the tub of ice they had been utilizing prior. Kiyotaka stares at him, wide-eyed. 

“You can’t be serious! That’s– that’s a child, isn’t it? Please, I don’t wanna die-” The desperate pleas are silenced with the swift, ruthless impact of Re-Destro’s foot to the middle of the man’s face in one simple stomp. Re-Destro looks back at the boy. Utterly frozen. It was difficult to override the fear response of a child while maintaining the integrity of behavioral discipline. They hadn’t quite yet learned how to compartmentalize behavioral schema for different situations, and so brought every response to every situation with no discernment for context. Instilling the self-restraint to become still and quiet was a vast improvement over the boy’s tendency to flee, but it did slow the progress on lessons like these by quite a bit. The frustrations of teaching , he supposes. He has to be patient. He, too, had been a child once.

His stern gaze prompts a response. “I…” Kiyotaka stares at the ground, clutching the hem of his jacket. “...I don’t know how…” Re-Destro sighs, but returns to his side.

“I’ll help you, but only this first time, okay? You have to learn this.” Kiyotaka nods, entire body trembling. “Make an ice needle, just like you do in training.” After a moment of hesitation, the weapon assembles itself; a long, smooth spike that came to a point on both ends. It hovers in the air between them and the pig up for slaughter. Re-Destro kneels next to the boy.

“When you use a weapon like this, that punctures, you want to aim for somewhere soft. If you want to kill quickly, you aim for the throat, understand? If you don’t aim it properly, it may not work– or they may die slowly and painfully, like that deer on the mountain.” An unfortunate victim of human vehicular recklessness found while Kiyotaka was romping about in the woods, Rikiya remembers going out to find him when he did not appear for dinner and coming across him sitting next to the thing as it spasmed and groaned, trying to hold ice to the broken hindquarters as if it had any hope of recovery. When the boy begged for him not to kill it, he obliged, and they sat together and watched its life slowly drain away.

It had been a valuable lesson in mercy.

He can hear the child swallow, still shaking, eyes focused on the target, but seconds ticked on with no motion. Re-Destro watched his eyes begin to water, the way his lip trembled, but said nothing until Kiyotaka turned to him and whimpered pathetically,

“I can’t do it…” Patience , Re-Destro reminds himself. He had struggled too. He adjusts himself to be slightly behind the boy, gently taking hold of his wrist and holding it out in front of him.

“Alright, Kiyotaka. I’ll help you just this once, okay? But you will have to do the rest by yourself. I’ll aim for you and cover your eyes to make it a bit easier. All you have to do is fire when I tell you. Skeptic, hold the man up, please.” One of the puppets lifts the man into a kneeling position, baring his neck. Re-Destro’s warm palm cups over the boy’s eyes, and he guides his pointing hand to signal the course he needs to take. He leans close, speaking directly into his ear. “Fire.”

It soars swift and smooth, much to Re-Destro’s satisfaction. The moment the point makes contact with the man’s neck, Re-Destro lifts the hand covering Kiyotaka’s eyes. It’s important to see it , he thinks. To understand fully what it means . To be able to kill with intent. Whimpering turns to choked gurgles around his new tracheostomical accessory. The puppet releases it, the body toppling over and twitching as the remnants of nerve signalling peter out. There’s really not much splatter, which Re-Destro is grateful for, because he likes this suit. But Kiyotaka can feel it. Through the ice, he feels it, something foreign, hot, sticky, separating plasma staining the surface of his ice and coagulating blood trailing down to the underside of the needle by the forces of gravity. He feels the contractions of the muscles he punctured, the shifting of fat, tendons, brushes up against bone– He drops his grip on the ice as soon as he can, but the sensation lingers. He shakes his head and rubs his face, but nothing gets rid of the feeling that somehow he has been dirtied. Re-Destro pulls the small soldier into a hug, stroking his hair as tiny arms wrap around his neck and frigid little tears wet his collar. 

“There, there. You’ve done well, Kiyotaka. That wasn’t so painful, was it? Thank you for doing that for me.” He rocks him back and forth, glancing over to give Skeptic a nod. “There’s just two more, Taka. You can do two more, can’t you? They want to hurt us. Can you be my special protector two more times?” He gives him another few moments to cry out all that built-up anxiety, and then those tiny arms tighten a little and he nods.

“I can…I can do it. I can help.”

“That’s my boy.” He pulls back and uses his handkerchief to wipe Kiyotaka’s face, standing as the next traitor is brought in. This man wears no blindfold. It was important to be able to look someone in the eye as you kill them. To connect with the heart of another, acknowledge their sacrifice, and let them die assured that you had nothing but confidence in your decision to end their life. He had still been sufficiently stunned and exhausted, though. So as not to overwhelm the poor boy.

Kiyotaka lifts his spike, and looks back at Re-Destro.

“Go on,” he says. “I told you that you would have to do the other two yourself.” Re-Destro hates having to repeat himself. “And no putting up your hood, either.” He adds, giving him a finger wag. The needle wavers in transit a little, but still lands true. Re-Destro gives an approving nod, and signals for Skeptic to bring the third.

This man had not been blindfolded nor stunned, simply bound. It was important to hear one another out, to listen to what people had to say, so that they knew you really, truly meant it when you decided to take their life. One person to another. He was terribly noisy, though. Re-Destro found the cowardice to be tacky, but such desperation was something Kiyotaka was bound to encounter often, and it was good to be able to give him an example and let him know that any good Liberation Warrior had more self-respect than this wretched worm was capable of mustering up. The crying did seem to impact his performance, though, and the spike simply gouged out the tendons near the base of his neck, where it met the shoulder. The second, however, remedied the issue, even despite the screeches of pain. Re-Destro was quite proud the boy was able to identify and rectify his mistakes before he even pointed them out! Once the sounds of bubbling breaths stop, Skeptic plays a celebratory cheering effect from his laptop soundboard, and Re-Destro gives Kiyotaka a round of applause.

“Very good, Kiyotaka, very good!” He scoops the boy up and balances him on his hip, smiling wide. “You’ve done wonderfully. I couldn’t be more proud. Do you know what makes this lesson special?”

Kiyotaka rubs his eyes, causing the tears that had frozen to his face to flake off. “No…”

“This lesson is your initiation! Today is the day you’ve earned your new name and place among the Liberation army. Isn’t that exciting?”

“...Really?” He asks, blinking. It was, of course, a milestone he had heard quite a bit about over the last two years, and had been eager to reach. He didn’t know exactly what it consisted of, but the fearful knot in his stomach was soothed a little by the surprise.

“Yes, really! You’ve proven yourself to be a loyal and powerful Liberation Warrior, and at such a young age! We all see quite a lot of promise in you, Kiyotaka. You’re going to do great things.” He taps Kiyotaka’s nose. “Now we’re going to get you cleaned up for your Liberating and celebration dinner. Isn’t that exciting?” The boy gives him a slow nod, still absorbing the information.

“Can we have jingisukan?” He asks quietly.

“Oh, most definitely! And every other food you could possibly desire.” 

Kiyotaka rests his head against Re-Destro’s shoulder and tries to close his eyes, but again and again, he finds himself enraptured by the process of the puppets shoving the bodies into black garbage bags, no matter what they had to bend or break in the process. Re-Destro’s voice, for once, is drowned out by the plastic crinkling and bone cracking, of muffled thuds or fabric brushing against fabric with every movement of the automatons. It’s only when that big metal door closes behind them that the boy feels like he can breathe again, and he sinks into the hold of the older man and tries to bury the bodies that lingered in his mind.

Both the ceremony and celebration were to be held later that evening, due to the distance they would have to travel to make it to Deika. Re-Destro supposes he could have brought Kiyotaka to Deika and done his initiation test there , but if the boy had failed it would’ve wasted everyone’s time. Besides, the excitement of a three-hour train ride would help keep him distracted and give him the opportunity to nap. Not only that, but associating visiting Deika for the first time with rewarding him for a job well done was likely to pay off in the long run. The Meta Liberation center of the country should carry a sense of importance. 

He couldn’t say he wasn’t a little concerned, though. Kiyotaka had accepted a snack when Re-Destro offered it, but hadn’t eaten it, instead gripping the little plastic bag with all his might before squirreling it away between his seat and the wall. He had no interest in drawing, nor any interest in listening to an audiobook– instead, those items had also been shoved between him and the wall, and he spent most of the ride half-bent over them, clutching his pillow and trying to sleep. He had kept his hood up since they stepped out of the car at the train station, and he would occasionally mumble things to himself. Re-Destro had decided it was best to let him self-soothe in whatever manner possible, even if he found it a little irritating when Kiyotaka rocked back and forth in his seat. He was sure the celebration would bring the boy into higher spirits. Occasionally, he would leave his seat– originally, he just stood up and stared at Re-Destro, but with some light encouragement, he would explore their surroundings; although encountering anybody sent him running back to Re-Destro. This wasn’t particularly new. The boy had become quite adverse to strangers over the past couple of years, as Re-Destro had intended. It was almost a little funny, to think that if he had been so shy those few years ago, they never would have met.

“Kiyotaka, sit still .” He snapped, once irritation got the better of him. The child’s legs stop thudding against the base of the seat, and he presses himself into the corner, clutching his pillow with all the strength his little body can muster. Immediately, Rikiya regrets scolding him, and rubs his temple with two fingers while he settles his own temper. Patience. I’ve misdirected my frustrations. He knew that this wasn’t a matter of childish squirming getting on his nerves– the root of the issue was that Rikiya was besotted with anxiety. This was a delicate process, and his urge to sniff out any sign that the boy was broken made him all the more sensitive to Kiyotaka’s existing habits. He had to have faith that the Elders and his Executives would see the vision of a Liberated future through this trial. “Ah, come here, come here. Sit in my lap.” He gestures him over, and after a brief hesitation, Kiyotaka clambers onto his lap. Re-Destro did not apologize to the child. Re-Destro never did, no matter how mistaken he was. It was not a matter of unworthiness – but at this stage, it was vital for Re-Destro to not undercut himself with even such small humiliations. Re-Destro was never wrong. He was only ever correct in different ways, no matter how contradictory they were. Each statement was to be accepted as reality, and no order was to be questioned. Once this had been instilled, and the boy was older, Re-Destro could be less careful with his words, but it was important not to give him a sense of entitlement to those apologies, only gratitude.

“Are you excited?” He asks. The child hesitates, unsure.

“I think so.”

“I’m excited too,” Re-Destro says. “A Liberating is always lots of fun, and you’ll get to meet a lot of my friends.”

“Will Mr. Kubo be there?” Kiyotaka tilts his head.

“Yes, Sanctum will be there.” Re-Destro chuckles. “Along with many others. You’ll get to see Trumpet again, too. You liked playing with his children last time you met, didn’t you?”

Kiyotaka nods slowly, the wheels of his mind turning as he tries to envision the upcoming event. “Yeah, they play really nice.”

“Ms. Curious will be there, too. You haven’t met her yet, but she’s very important to our cause, and quite dear to me. She’s going to be bringing her dogs. You like dogs, don’t you?” The moment Re-Destro says the word, the boy sits up a bit straighter. Even with his eyes obscured by his hood, Re-Destro can see clearly in his mind’s eye the way they’ve lit up, the way his cheeks puff out a bit as he tenses his jaw and holds his breath with excited anticipation. There were a few things that, regardless of who raised the topic, made Kiyotaka so excited he could barely contain himself. Very little was capable of dampening that delight, a passion Re-Destro found both charming and deeply convenient for the purposes of teaching. He had been sure to request personally that Curious bring her little companions to the celebration.

“I like dogs, and um, wolves…” Kiyotaka fidgets with his hands. “Wolfs– wolves hunt in packs and they eat deer and they come in lots of colors but my favorite wolves are the white ones. But I like white timber wolves more than Arctic wolves. They’re different. Timber wolves are bigger. But I still think Arctic wolves are cool, because the arctic is really cold and there’s not a lot of food, and there’s polar bears, and sometimes polar bears EAT wolves. And they eat people, but it’s okay because we don’t have enough snow for polar bears to come and eat people here. They’ll get too hot.” Re-Destro lets the boy have a moment to ramble, although he’s heard these facts many, many times before.

“Yes, yes, that’s all very true.” Re-Destro pats his head. 

“Dogs come from wolves, and you can even get them to have babies that are part dog and part wolf. But most of the dogs that look like wolves aren’t wolf dogs,” he continues. Re-Destro holds up a finger.

“That’s enough now, Kiyotaka. You will get to see the dogs at your Liberating. It is not time to talk about dogs right now. You got to have your turn.”

“Okay,” he says, clutching the fabric of his jacket to try and release a bit of his excess energy. “Thank you for my turn.”

“You’re very welcome.” One thing the boy had always been good at had been gratitude. It always made Re-Destro’s heart feel that much warmer, knowing he was enriching this young man’s life. “Do you know what happens at a Liberating ceremony?”

Kiyotaka shakes his head.

“You will be formally introduced to the army and be given your new name. You won’t have to use the name “Kiyotaka Himura” anymore.” 

“I’m okay being “Kiyotaka”,” he responds. “You and my brother and sisters call me Taka sometimes.” Re-Destro’s jaw tenses as a spike of alarm goes through him, and Kiyotaka flinches. I have to be gentle. He’s a sensitive boy. Re-Destro could not let his anxiety get the best of him. This was not necessarily an indication the child was being stubborn. He had not refused him. He would not refuse him. He just doesn’t quite understand the power of a name. He gives a gentle sigh, wrapping an arm around the boy and nestling him closer. His expression melts itself into a well-practiced fond smile.

“The name is a present. It is the most important and special kind of present you can get. I will pick it out myself, just for you. And it’s a present that nobody can ever take away from you.” He pulls the boy’s hood down so he can smooth down his hair. “Kiyotaka, what do you know about the Himura clan?”

His little mouth pulls into an uncomfortable grimace, the sort you get when you suddenly become a bit queasy. But the boy knows better than to not answer.

“They’re why my dad is so sick,” he begins. “And why we don’t ever have any money. They let us live like animals, just because they hate my mom and her meta ability. It’s their fault my sister and brother have to go to work all the time and can’t come see me.” His brows furrow with a bitterness much older than himself. “They hate everybody. So they never share. They don’t want people to be Liberated, because they want everybody to be like them.”

“That’s right,” Re-Destro says, stroking his hair. “That’s what makes this an important present. You’ve worked hard so you can be part of the Meta Liberation Army. So I will give you a new name, and you won’t have anything to do with those people anymore. You will never have to be scared of being a Himura again. You’ll be Liberated.” He feels the little soldier’s weight sink into his side. 

“I’m excited,” the boy says quietly, a naive hopefulness reflecting in his pale eyes.

“I am too,” says Re-Destro.

-

“Three? And so young, too. I must say, Grand Commander, I’m quite impressed. He’s come a long way from shovelling snow off the street.” Sanctum’s mustache see-saws like the whiskers of a cat with the impressed twitching of his nose. 

“Indeed! Things have been progressing better than I could have possibly imagined.” Re-Destro takes a sip of his wine. “I think we’re finally beginning to see real proof-of-concept for this vision of mine.” The sounds of shifting weight in chairs and glasses being set on coasters provide the overture for his pitch as the Elders in the room turn their attention fully to Re-Destro. He gestures broadly.

“I believe deeply in the talent and skill of our warriors. The value of their time, dedication, and abilities cannot be overstated!” He begins. “But– the necessity to play along with this hero-ridden society has burdened all of us with the shackles of Meta Suppression, physically and emotionally. Every day we must fight the overwhelming inundation of propaganda so insidious and venomous that our soldiers lay awake at night, thinking– “Ah, what if I never truly make it?” ” He uses his thumb to wipe a tear from his eye. “This ache, felt so strongly by all of us, is what has motivated many of our compatriots to seek Liberation, and their passion feeds the flames of revolution. But it also sows doubt, dissatisfaction, and fear. Think of our dear Lady Curious– so trampled by this world that when she first came to us, she had lost the ability to detonate her Meta Ability entirely!” 

This elicits a few nods from his audience. 

“Her progress is a powerful example of what makes Liberation so necessary– but my dear comrades, we must also acknowledge that our time draws near. If we wish to see a Liberated society within our lifetimes, we should invest in our forces. With the ever-growing workforce of heroes and global outreach, a game of numbers alone is not one that will win us the war. This boy is more than just a single warrior– he is an experiment in raising a truly Liberated individual that can become a pillar of strength in the Liberation Army. Our warriors will feel all the more emboldened in their mission knowing that they have the backing of even just a few of these powerhouses.”

“Ah, so that’s why he’s been in Gunga, then.” Cradle sips at her tea in contemplation, and Re-Destro gives her a nod.

“Indeed. Even Deika, a Liberated District, is not without pressure from the outside. Our media, our schools, our culture… That poison finds its way in. It’s inevitable. The only reason Kiyotaka was able to dispose of three defectors is because they defected at all. When we look at the trends in data, the most cited cause for internal dissatisfaction is a belief that Liberation has become incongruous with their loyalty to friends, lovers, family… While touching to think we have such compassionate comrades, our goal is not to create a warrior who is loyal to Deika. Our goal is creating a warrior who is loyal to the cause, and one that does not have to overcome the learned helplessness society has beat into us. A warrior that is living proof that complete Liberation is possible!”

“People have begun to grow restless.” Poet muses. “I think this boy could serve as a valuable reminder to the discontented that going rogue will only cut their bright futures short.”

Re-Destro smiles. “Power has presence. I’m sure we will only see compounding returns as time goes on.”

The meeting is interrupted by a few frantic knocks, and the door is opened to reveal a rather exasperated young woman with pink hair and a mask covering the lower half of her face. She’s dabbing at damp spots on her shirt with a towel, a few thin, translucent slivers of ice still clinging to it.

“We’re having a bit of trouble getting him ready,” she says. 

“Oh my,” Re-Destro says. “I suppose we should check in. Would you care to join me, Poet? I’d be more than happy to demonstrate to you the merits of my methods.”

The sitting room in which the boy was being prepared was rather close by, and as they approach, they can already hear the sounds of a rather cantankerous child and his struggling attendants. 

“ Don’t! ” He shrieks, hands over his head. A glass of water lays on the floor on its side, contents seeping into the carpet aside from the handful of ice floating around him in threatening little shards. He’s only partially dressed, shirt buttoned and half-tucked, having been pulled loose in the course of the tantrum. He only wears one sock, and his pant legs sit uneven where one has been yanked up. “ You’re pulling! ”

The weapon of offense in question, of course, was a hairbrush, being held loosely in the hand of a woman nursing a bite on the arm. Poet settles in the door frame, and Re-Destro makes his presence known.

“Now, what exactly is going on here? Why aren’t you ready?” He asks. Immediately, the boy sits up. His ruddy, scrunched-up face goes slack and he blinks away his tears of frustration, taking a series of rapid, heavy breaths through his nose. “Re-Destro,” he begins, in a plaintive little mumble. “They’re pulling my hair.”

Re-Destro looks to Poet. “Observe, my friend, what unconditional loyalty can look like when cultivated properly.” He rights the toppled-over chair, and holds a hand out for the hairbrush, which is given without hesitation. Re-Destro taps the brush against the back of the chair. “I will do it. Come here.” 

The boy does not need any more coaxing to scramble over and sit down. The brush struggles to detangle his thick white hair, often forcing the child to strain his neck against the pull in order to remain upright. The matter is not helped by the fact that Re-Destro is not particularly skilled when it comes to doing hair, especially not the kind that layers itself and often hides shed hair compacted against the scalp, risking further tangles and causing tufts of white to be pulled out with every stroke. The boy, however, is silent and still through the entirety of it, aside from the involuntary occasional sniffle or tear that came about when a yank was particularly violent. Thanks to his cooperation and Re-Destro’s swift hand, it’s brushed through in a matter of about 20 minutes, giving the attendants time to clean up a bit and prepare the rest of his outfit.

“There.” Re-Destro says, patting the boy on the shoulders. “All done.”

“Thank you,” he says, scalp still a little raw. This time, he rests his hands on his own head in awe that Re-Destro is the one that brushed it, eyes sparkling with adoration.

“Now, let them finish getting you ready and do as they say,” he wags his finger. “We will not have you being late to your own Liberating ceremony.”

“I will,” he said. “I promise.” 

“That’s a good soldier.” Re-Destro smiles, plucking one white hair off of his suit and letting it fall to the floor. His exit is just as nonchalant, Poet falling in step beside him.

“Quite the display,” Poet says as the door closes behind them. “I think even a father would struggle to keep such a difficult child still.”

“Ah,” Re-Destro says. “Therein lies the secret. He’s not a difficult child at all. He is perfectly obedient in every regard. But instead of being obedient to a society that tells him all adults are to be respected, regardless of sense– he is obedient only to me. That’s what true undivided loyalty looks like. He must not want anything or anyone else.” After a quiet moment of contemplation, Poet gives him an approving nod.

The Liberating is probably the biggest Deika has ever seen. The subsequent party would take place in the manor the Yotsubashi family has passed on for decades, but celebration spilled into the streets in what essentially had become a miniature festival for the citizens. It was a point of pride for the entire army to confirm a member so young, so talented– and for those who did not feel the same, knowing him by name gave them something to call the shadow they feared falling onto their doorstep. 

The stage they had set up for him reminded the boy of Obon, something that lingered vaguely in his memories: festival food, lanterns, the moon choking on great plumes of smoke… He was occasionally seized by the urge to reach for his sister’s hand, which felt quite stupid, since he knew she was not here and he could barely even recall her face. Still, his hand felt quite empty without the warmth of another in it, so he substituted it by clutching at the end of the little dress cape they had draped onto his shoulders and fastened with a silver chain. He did not have his hood, but he felt a little more assured by burying his face in the fur trim around the collar of the cape. The outfit had been made special for him, seeing as they had no ceremonial dress uniforms pre-made in his size. It was all very fancy, which made him a bit nervous. Rarely did anyone don the full attire outside of the Yotsubashis, even when Liberated– but Re-Destro had requested specifically that the boy be given as much fanfare as possible. The boy fiddles with his buttons, and clutches the hem of his cape; and then he is beckoned forward onto the stage next to Re-Destro.

Re-Destro takes his hand gently, and the anxiety falls away from him almost immediately. Re-Destro helps him step up onto a stool so as to better be seen by the people, but the roaring, shining crowd is nothing but blurs of color and white noise so long as he had that warm, steady hold to focus on. Trumpet reads the Army’s creed and extolls the virtues of Destro’s sacrifice and Re-Destro’s guidance. The boy barely registers that he is saying anything at all. 

“With this Laying on of Hands, by the word of Destro, we will Confirm you as a true member of the Meta Liberation Army and give you your new name. Are you ready?” Re-Destro asks, a gentle fondness radiating from his features. The child nods. Re-Destro’s hands rest on the top of his head, laying silky hair flat. The hands of his executives– Trumpet, Curious, and Skeptic, in order of seniority, lay atop of his.

“It is with great pride that I welcome into the fold a new, shining beacon of strength! The young man standing before us today exemplifies how power Liberates us from the shadows of the past! Let everything that has troubled you until now fade from your memory and be reborn through your Meta Ability. Good people of the Meta Liberation Army, I now present to you Geten , our youngest warrior to achieve Liberation yet!” The lifting of their hands frees the crowd from their silence, a swell of cheers announcing his Liberation like church bells.

Apocrypha is not a word that Geten understands yet, but that’s alright. It isn’t important for him to know the meaning of the word yet. What’s important is that he knows it’s him.

“This one is Dynamite, and this one is C4.” Curious says, gesturing to each of the little dogs as they hop and spin with excitement at their new playmate. Both are small; Dynamite is a little white pomeranian tapping its feet and barking with delight, and C4 is a little papillon, radar-dish ears a lovely caramel brown and that dances on two legs and twirls as he tries to see as many new people at once as he can. Geten drops to all fours and barks back at them, immediately being set upon by the animals as they go to lick his face, struggling to pet both of them as much as he’d like due to their movements and the fact he only has two hands. The warm lights of the manor glow as guests mill about the lavish party, gentle music playing from another room, tables overflowing with food of all kinds (Geten’s hands were already sticky from a miniature apple pie he had devoured upon entering the room), gifts piled on the designated table and threatening to overflow. Re-Destro had been very particular in his instructions to all of his guests: tonight, Geten was to be showered with adoration. Nothing was to be made unpleasant for him. He must associate the memories of that day with the utmost joy, and failure to comply would be met with swift and severe punishment. Trumpet grimaces a little at the sight of the boy allowing the dogs to lick his face unfettered, but hides it with a little cough into his hand. Skeptic watches on, a massive Eastern dragon plush tucked under his arm with a bow around its neck. (This present would be so loved that it would eventually fall apart from all of Geten’s affections.)

“At least he’s enjoying himself.” The man says, typing on his phone with his other hand.

“Yes, I suppose so. Re-Destro considers it of the utmost importance.”

“First kill’s never easy. Especially not for a kid.” Skeptic shrugs, wiping his mouth on his sleeve thanks to a prior hors d’oeuvre. “Make it too unpleasant, and the whole thing becomes pointless.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Trumpet responds, turning his gaze elsewhere.

“Oh, you haven’t?” Curious asks, but after a second, answers her own question. “I suppose your work puts you under too much scrutiny.”

“And he has little skinny chicken arms.” Skeptic adds.

“Like you’re one to talk,” she retorts.

“He’s going to stain his outfit.” Trumpet says, sipping his champagne and watching Geten stand at one of the many tables and scarf down handfuls of food, pausing only to lean over and offer scraps to the dogs. His prediction shortly thereafter becomes true when the boy wipes his hands on his pant legs.

“There’s nothing we can do about that.” Curious says, bemused at Trumpet’s irritation. “Re-Destro’s orders. You aren’t thinking about breaking Re-Destro’s orders, are you?”

“I am not,” he responds, irritated. “I just wish he were a bit more thoughtful in the first place.”

“Eight year olds rarely are.” A bald man with prominent brow-bones and friendly, downward sloping eyes dabs at his mouth with a napkin.

“Ah, there you are, Tantra. It must be hard not scolding him for a night, hm?” Curious remarks. Tantra only smiles.

“No, no, Lady Curious. Quite the contrary. I’m glad he’s getting to enjoy himself.”

The boy darts between people’s legs with his canine companions, barking and giving words of encouragement– but the adults around him only laugh, especially once one of the young Hanabatas joins in.

“I can’t envy the position you’re in.” Trumpet says quietly.

“We all do what we must for the sake of Liberation.” Tantra raises a hand. “I trust Re-Destro’s vision for the future. And the boy will understand when he’s older.”

The game of tag falls apart when Geten rams his body into the other child, enough to send her crashing to the ground. She begins to cry, and the boy watches from a distance, brow slightly furrowed and leg bouncing with impatience.

“You’re ‘it’,” he says. The partygoers around them glance at one another. Nobody wanted to risk the ire of Re-Destro. “Get up,” he says. The girl continues to cry, and Geten watches on, eyes narrowing in annoyance. Trumpet steps in, kneeling between the two children and addressing Geten quietly.

“I think she needs to take a little break, Geten. Some people aren’t as strong as you are. Why don’t you go see if they’re done grilling the next round of lamb?” The boy’s eyes light up and he nods, taking off with the dogs on his heels. The sounds of the party slowly fill the space once more, a few more adults gathering to reassure Trumpet’s daughter, offering water and snacks and words of encouragement.

“I don’t like playing with him anymore,” she says, wiping snot into a tissue. “He’s always too rough.”

Chapter Text

“Are you familiar with the mechanics of the quirk suppression cuff?” Keigo asks, pulling one out from a desk drawer and tossing it up and down into the palm of his hand. 

“I assumed it was similar to the pigs.” Best Jeanist says, calling to mind the heavy, leaden shackles used often in criminal detainment and transport. The president shakes his head.

“A good guess, but they’re completely different.” He twirls the cuff around one of his fingers. “The pigs work like their namesake– They’re incredibly dense, and that prevents most emissions from escaping. The same way radioactive material is trapped. That, and the construction prevents the hands from being able to move or touch anything. It’s a very inelegant solution, but it does the job. That’s why they’re reserved for quirks where the emitting quirk factor is concentrated in the hands.” He tosses the small cuff to Jeanist. “Obviously, this little bracelet can’t really do all that.”

“Naturally,” Jeanist says. “So, how do they work?”

“Interference. The cuff only works in conjunction with an implant in the other wrist. It creates a circuit that conducts energy at a frequency calibrated to that specific user’s output– one that disrupts it. They’re pretty new, and far from perfect. The pigs are a lot more reliable.”

“And why are you telling me this, Hawks?” 

The other man goes quiet for a moment. His hand slides down the lower half of his face, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’m a little worried, is all.” He says. “Now that you’re considering taking Geten on outings.”

“Worried about…?”

“These things aren’t that strong. Not strong enough to hold out against the kind of output that tears up cities. The only thing stopping that kid from blowing out the transmission is the fact that he thinks it’s impossible.”

“The mind is a powerful thing,” Jeanist says. “So long as he remains under that impression, there’s nothing to fear.” Keigo’s fingers tap against the surface of the desk.

“I just think you should be wary, is all. There’s no telling what might set him off.” It’s a sentiment Jeanist has encountered quite a lot, now. His own interactions with the boy felt deer-legged and uncoordinated, which is something Jeanist hated to be. Even Re-Destro had claimed ignorance to the extent of Geten’s intensity; the boy’s moodiness simply wasn’t conducive to learning. He had always been prone to obsessions and outbursts.

And yet… Best Jeanist rubs his recovering knuckles, bruises faded to a tender yellow, almost gone entirely. He had watched Jin Bubaigawara – one of the most graceless, bumbling, tactless individuals he had ever met– throw himself into Geten’s personal space, ruffle his hair, and coax out an apology quite effortlessly, when they couldn’t have been acquainted for more than a few months. 

 I think he just wants to be told he’s doin’ a good job.

“I’m grateful for the information, and will consider it while I decide how to make the transition,” Jeanist says. “But I don’t want to keep him inside forever.”

“That’s good to hear.” A look of gratitude graces Keigo’s face. “I’m looking forward to the official request.”

-

Obsession had become the word that hung over Tsunagu’s head every morning. With every rising of the sun, he felt a small lump of dread settle in his chest at the terrible unknown ahead of him. He would do up his buttons one-by-one and take his time in pulling his sweater over his head and picking at wrinkles that didn’t exist. He would shuffle to his bedroom door, take a breath, and take a moment to listen for the creaking of wood, the hum of the shower, or rustling in the pantry. All is quiet, and Tsunagu isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing yet.

He steps out into the hall, the house responding with a wake-up groan of its own, wood expanding and contracting as the sun warmed the surface. He walks delicately through squares of sunlight projected across the floor, focused on the thick silence, thinking;

Please, please let me have my coffee first today.

He feels a bit guilty for the thought. The kitchen is empty. It feels wrong to disrupt the morning quiet, so he finds himself acting with excess gentleness as he prepares his coffee, trying to soften the sound of every movement he makes. He almost finds himself wishing he could turn the smell down, somehow– to leave the air still and untainted, so as not to disturb her .

The threshold of the room is just ever-so-slightly dipped from the many years of being tread upon, so it announces the arrival of a newcomer with a pitiful squeak.

“Good morning, my couture.” Tsunagu says. Her dark eyes seem to stare right through him, a terrible pallor already present upon her face.

“Good morning, papa.” She says, the same way she says it every morning. She must say it the same way she says it every morning, lest something terrible come out of her mouth instead.

It’s bad again today. The dread in Tsunagu’s chest turns into a lump in his throat. He wonders if it would be best to leave her be, but it felt unbearable to think about just pretending all was well and turning a blind eye to his daughter’s current condition.

“Are you feeling well?” He asks, but she’s already begun muttering her prayers, so he knows he will not receive an answer. He knows it’s not scorn, so he leaves it be. He simply shuffles out of the way so she can go about her morning routine. She’s still in her nightgown, because Ibara did not change into her day clothes until eight. She picks the same cup and plate to eat with, and she eats the same wheat bread with butter and only ever drinks water in the morning. She would say grace over her meal, and then tap the table above the plate, below the plate, to the left of the plate, and then end on the right of the plate. He knew her eyes would dart anxiously to the clock, choking down her food in three minutes every time, even if it meant having to chew her last bite very slowly or hardly chew at all. She would wash her dishes, because those were the dishes she used for lunch and dinner as well. Then she would dry her hands until they were perfectly dry, hug her father, and leave the kitchen. Every part of the routine was essential, he had learned. Should he not be there to be part of it, she would search the house in a frenzy, convinced something horrible had happened. Should he disrupt her process, it would inevitably result in a tearful meltdown as she tried to find the right number of Hail Marys that would make her feel okay again.

This was the state in which his daughter returned to him from her first year of junior high, and Tsunagu struggled daily with trying to understand why, or how, or what he could do to help. Every day was walking on eggshells– the smallest thing could set off a spiral that would result in tears, if not worse. (She had begun to faint, too, which frightened him deeply. How long had it been going on? What if there had been a head injury left unattended? He did not voice these concerns, however, because he did not want to give her something else to be scared of.) And, worst of all, it felt like he had lost the ability to understand her entirely.

He didn’t understand her obsessive new faith. He didn’t understand the meaning of the things she had begun to parrot. He didn’t understand these new fears, or the grip of terror they had on her. He didn’t understand her feelings, her body, her quirk– how was he supposed to do this on his own? It was times like these that he wished Yutaka were still around. Although Tsunagu was fairly certain Yutaka played no small part in this, even if it had only begun to get worse recently.

“I’m sorry,” she said, once more hovering in the threshold of the kitchen while he prepared a breakfast of his own. She did that, sometimes; appearing just to apologize.

“It’s okay, my darling. You’ve done nothing wrong.” He watches her fiddle with the crooked ring finger on her left hand. 

“I think there’s something awful in me.” She would say it often.

“Would you like me to call the doctor?” 

“I fear it is a malady of the spirit.” She replied. “I’ve done something awful.”

“What did you do, Ibara?” 

His question was always answered the same way. A silence, followed by her wide-eyed look of despair, brows creating a deep furrow between them and mouth pulled into an agonized grimace. Then, in a tiny, wavering voice, she would say,

“I don’t know. I just know that I must have done something terrible.”

Sometimes he wishes that she had done something terrible. Tsunagu knew he could correct bad behavior. But Ibara wasn’t a bad child at all, and he didn’t understand how she had become so convinced that she was .

“Can I hold you?” He would ask, and she would clutch the vines hanging next to her face until her palms bled.

“I’m sharp,” she would say. “You shouldn’t. You’ll get hurt.”

Tsunagu lay awake at night sometimes, thinking about every time she had said it– and one of his greatest regrets was how many times he chose not to just hug her anyways. His hand would trace over the small, almost faded cluster of pockmarks on his abdomen, wishing so badly to feel the sharp prickle of a toddler’s over-eager headbutt again. There was a time when he constantly bemoaned the way she would wander off in the yard or at the park, but at least then she always came back. Now, even when she was standing right in front of him, he felt like she had wandered off somewhere he couldn’t follow. All he could do was fervently hope that she’d call his name one day, and that he’d be able to hear it when she did.

-

Jeanist swipes his card and steps into Geten’s room, the boy nowhere to be seen. For a moment, he is alarmed, but the sound of the shower reassures him.

“Geten, I’m here!” He calls, hoping he could hear him over the running water. After a minute or two more, the water shuts off, and Geten steps out into the main living space while towel-drying his hair. Jeanist is immediately taken aback.

“You’re indecent! Cover yourself up!” Geten just looks at him over his shoulder. The pattern of scars on his upper back and shoulders is familiar to Jeanist, but he’s far too concerned about the immediate nudity to think much of it.

“This is my room. Turn around if you don’t like it.”

“You can’t act like that with guests,” Jeanist says, but he turns around regardless. “Tell me when you’re properly clothed.” Geten doesn’t say anything, but he can hear him shuffling around to get some clothing. Jeanist finds it bizarre the boy doesn’t just have an outfit already picked out in advance. 

“I’m done,” he says, and Best Jeanist realizes the boy is in a second, different wolf T-shirt. Then he flops onto the loveseat, wet hair dampening the arm he’s propped his head on, with no regard for how it’s going to tangle. 

“Surely you aren’t going to leave your hair like that.” Jeanist says. Geten raises both of his eyebrows. 

“So what if I am?”

“It’s going to tangle and tear,” Jeanist says. “And you’ll have horrible bedhead.” The boy seems rather unbothered by both of these prospects. Jeanist cannot let this stand. His comb is whipped from his pocket.

“Sit up, and I’ll demonstrate how to take care of it.” Geten simply scrunches himself up further.

“I don’t want to. It’ll pull.” His voice is so petulant Best Jeanist could laugh. T2-008 was scared of a little hair pulling?

“It won’t if we do it while your hair is wet,” he explains. “You’ll have fewer tangles than before. Surely you find the knots intolerable?”

“I cut ‘em out.” Geten says. “It’s easy.” 

Best Jeanist cannot allow such criminality to continue. He uses his quirk to raise Geten into a sitting position, despite the boy’s protests, and positions himself behind him so that he can begin. He grabs the remote and clicks on the TV. 

“Here. Amuse yourself with the television while I fix this travesty.” The boy seems to find this slightly less objectionable.

“If you pull, I’m going to hit you.” He said.

“No you won’t,” said Jeanist. “But I assure you, I do not pull.” He begins at the bottom, of course, but is stunned when his comb comes out with a tuft of white hair. He hadn’t run into much resistance– surely, he can’t have just torn a chunk of it out? Geten would have tried to hit him long before he could pull out this much. He pulls the hair from the teeth of the comb, and begins again. Another wad of hair appears. He clicks his tongue. “Geten, has your hair been falling out?” While the boy didn’t exactly take care of his hair, Jeanist hadn’t seen any signs of alopecia… but then again, white hair was difficult to see…

Geten simply shrugs. “It’s summer. I’m shedding. I always drop a lot of hair.”

“What?” Jeanist asks, bewildered as he continues running his comb through his hair.

“I shed in the summer.” Geten reiterates. 

“ This much ?” The boy shrugs again. Jeanist presumes it’s fine to continue, seeing as he’s not in any pain, so he pushes onward. The TV flashes with Rizin fights, of all things, while Jeanist works his way through the many layers of Geten’s hair. Occasionally, his comb plucks a little too hard and Geten tenses, but the expert stylist is careful to avoid yanking at the scalp. He does, however, find himself intrigued by the unique texture of the hair. Or, rather, the unique blend of textures. The longer hair feels coarse, but the areas where hair is short and close to the scalp is quite soft. The layering is also unique– but Jeanist simply assumes that’s the result of the boy’s tendency to hack away at anything that bothers him.

By the time he finishes, there have been seven fights that have played out, and he has removed enough shed hair to fill a small throw pillow. 

“Ah, if only I had some pomade to smooth this down,” he laments. “Or better yet, if I had scissors with me to give you a trim.”

The word ‘trim’ catches Geten’s attention, and he yanks away. “You’ve done enough. Don’t cut anything.”

“You slice away at it all the time, you said so yourself.” Jeanist crosses his arms.

“But I don’t want a trim.” He protests.

“Well, regardless–” Best Jeanist smooths his own bangs with a sigh. “You’re looking– and feeling, I’m sure– quite a bit better now.”

Geten pauses to consider the matter. He runs his hand through his own hair and scratches the back of his head. He does feel a good deal less clumpy, he thinks. And his scalp somehow doesn’t hurt at all. He had almost forgotten the brushing was happening while watching the fights. The hair still splays out every which-way, but the fineness of the strands create a halo effect around his head. He runs his hand through it again. And then again. 

“You made it really soft.” He says, fingers now combing through the locks absentmindedly.

“Such is the power of good hair care.” Jeanist flicks his comb. “A young man like yourself really ought to be better about such things.” Geten doesn’t really give a response to this, simply mumbling again about how soft it is.

Well, at least he’s happy.

Best Jeanist collects all the hair and tosses it into the trash while fight eight plays out in front of them.

“Do you watch a lot of this?” Jeanist asks. It certainly wasn’t his personal cup of tea.

Geten shrugs. “When I watch TV, yeah. But it was more fun watching with everyone else.”

Best Jeanist blinks. It certainly wasn’t the response he expected. Not alone, not even with Re-Destro… “Everyone else?”

“The League of Villains. And Hawks. Trumpet and Skeptic didn’t really like watching it that much, so they didn’t come. Neither did Re-Destro. So I would go if Re-Destro needed me.” He’s quick to make sure that much is clear. “But if I wasn’t needed, sometimes I would go watch instead.”

“Was this some sort of training of yours?” The response he gives is another one Jeanist hadn’t expected to hear at all.

“Toga watches for the hunky boys,” he said. “And they don’t use meta abilities in the fights.”

“I…see…” Jeanist thinks on this for a moment. “So it was more of a social gathering, then.”

“The League does a lot of that stuff. They were always hanging out. I don’t know how anything ever got done.” He sniffs with a hint of disdain. “I couldn’t ever really see myself working with them.”

“But you would watch TV with them.”

Geten shrugs. “The fights are cool.” He turns his attention back towards the screen. “And it was fun watching with everyone else.” Jeanist settles down next to the boy, and then glances at the screen. This really wasn’t his cup of tea, but…

“I’m not familiar with these fights. Care to explain what’s going on?” Geten’s back straightens a little as he runs Jeanist through the structures of the fights, the way points are rewarded, the nature of the moves themselves. He explains some of the discourse surrounding the presence of heteromorphs in the sport, and points out some of the hunkier guys, or the ones that tended to bleed the most. He shared which ones were his personal favorites– Jeanist noticed that he had a tendency to favor those in the featherweight category, on the short side, which he personally found a bit amusing. Those that broke that mold shared very clear resemblances to Re-Destro, which Geten was more than happy to vocalize. He tells Jeanist about how one of them was in a cigarette commercial for Giran’s Lucky Strikes, but Giran’s smoking hand had been cut off, so he was learning how to use the prosthetic to smoke. He points out a move from a fighter that allegedly was based on Mirko’s famous Luna Tijeras, and another move that he and Dabi had tried in training, and by training he means he decked Dabi into the couch and Dabi kicked him in the nose about it. It’s clear to Jeanist that many of these things were not Geten’s unique thoughts– instead, the boy had engaged enough with the social aspect of the gatherings to memorize the opinions and anecdotes of his companions and found them worth retelling. It was more fun to watch it with everyone else.

Best Jeanist had to agree. Watching the fights was much more fun with someone to tell him about how Twice and Toga started a snack betting pool, even though he knew he should heavily discourage looking back on his time with the other villains with any fondness. These people were killers. Terrorists. But…

“We should watch more of these,” Jeanist says as the last fight of the night wraps itself up.

“Can Twice come next time?” Geten asks. Jeanist bites his tongue to cut himself off from saying something a bit mean.

“I’ll think about it,” Jeanist says. “But for now, I must return home. My daughter will be visiting soon, and I have quite a bit of cleaning to do.” Geten tilts his head.

“You have a daughter? You don’t seem married.”

“I’m not married. But yes, I have a daughter. A daughter your age, in fact.”

“Oh,” is all Geten says. Best Jeanist can’t tell if that’s an expression of sudden interest or sudden disinterest. “And she makes you clean?”

“No,” he says. “I clean because I want her to come home to a nice house.” Geten tilts his head the other way, and then leans back into the cushion. 

“Are you going to be gone a while?”

“I’ll still come visit,” Jeanist assures him. “I will let you know if I need to take an extended absence.”

“Okay,” Geten says.

“Thank you for sharing the fights with me,” Best Jeanist says, putting on his shoes. “I enjoyed it quite a bit.”

Geten shrugs again.

“And don’t forget to brush your hair,” he adds. “Daily upkeep will ensure it stays soft and doesn’t get as tangled again.”

“I’ll do it if I want,” Geten says, which Jeanist knows is both an improvement and yet another thing in need of fixing.

“Goodbye, Geten.”

“Goodbye.”

Chapter Text

Best Jeanist is reviewing the reports from his sidekicks when his phone rings with a call from a very unusual person. “Endeavor! To what do I owe the honor?”

“I was thinking on our conversation the other day,” he begins. “And I think… I think it would be best if you were to help me tell her. Rei, I mean. She deserves to know and I…I’m in no position to make that decision for her.”

“I see.” 

“You’ve been involved with the matter for a long while now, since Touya revealed himself. I don’t think she would consider it an imposition. And it doesn’t… feel right to speak to her about it alone.”

“Do you want to have the others there?” Enji pauses.

“I think…I think I would like her to make the decision for if she wants them to know. They’re struggling enough with the fiery fallout I left behind.”

“Do you want me to bring Geten?”

“No, but… if you can get your hands on any documentation of sorts, it would be appreciated. Or maybe bring a photo?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

-

“You know, Geten, I’m quite curious about you and your way of living.” Jeanist asks, carefully continuing his knitting as he considers his words. “How long have you been training?”

Geten, wary at the introduction, visibly relaxes when Jeanist’s question focuses on his training. He loved training. “For a loooong time. Longer than most heroes.”

“Is that so? You’re quite young. How long has it been?” Geten pauses to consider the question, mostly because he had to remember which birthday he had most recently passed. (He did not pay attention to that sort of thing, really.)

“I started about ten years ago. When Re-Destro found me.” He smiles. “He saw that I had potential, and he made me stronger.” 

Right. Like Yotsubashi said. But he doesn’t want to give away that he had spoken to the man.

“What were you doing before then? Had you been practicing your quirk already?” He’s careful not to bring up the words “family” or “home life”.

“I practiced a lot, although it wasn’t really training. I mostly just did it for fun.” He shrugs. “I didn’t live in a Liberated district, but people didn’t ever really try to stop me.”

“That’s impressive. You’ve had an affinity for it since you were so young. What sort of things did you do?” It takes Geten a longer time to try and bring up this information, buried under a snowdrift of techniques and drills.

“I would make dragons. Small ones, not like what I can do now. And… I played “dog”, I think. Or I would shovel snow.”

“Dog?”

“Yeah. I would make a dog out of snow, and play fetch with it. Winter usually had enough snowfall for me to make a small one.” His next sentence comes with a twinge of disdain. “It was very poorly constructed, though. I might as well have been trying to pack the snow with my hands.” Best Jeanist almost never heard Geten express anything akin to self-consciousness, but here the boy judged his younger self as if he ought to be making glaciers at the tender age of six. Jeanist’s knitting needles click against one another.

“Did you live in an area where it snowed often? I imagine summer made it hard to practice.”

“Iwamizawa winters are great,” he says, slowing his pace on the treadmill slightly. “The countryside was even better. Sometimes the snow was higher than I was tall.” A few memories flutter through his mind, and he scrunches his nose. “I usually just spent the summer getting sunburned.” Best Jeanist stifles a laugh. 

“Did you… have anyone to train with? Before Re-Destro, I mean.” Each word is a cautious probe, trying to not upset the delicate balance of Geten’s moodiness . The boy continues his jogging.

“I had a handful of siblings,” he said. “But Ichiro didn’t have a meta ability like mine.” His voice turns smug. “And I had easily outpaced Akira and Yuki long before I met Re-Destro.”

“You must have been a child prodigy.” Best Jeanist says. Names. He’s got names. Names and places.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “I wouldn’t be this strong without Re-Destro. I was just better than they were because I got more practice.” Best Jeanist also rarely heard Geten express any sort of modesty; not unless he was talking about Re-Destro, whom he was eager to give the credit for any sort of achievement.

“Well, like you said, he saw potential in you.” Best Jeanist says, even though he doesn’t really see it as a good thing. “That’s not nothing.” 

The boy just smiles, eyes focused ahead, humming a tune to himself about coal that could smoke out the moon.

-

They meet on the old Todoroki property, a sprawling traditional estate that had settled nicely into its own quiet retirement. The echoes of hungry ghosts no longer lingered in its halls; just a deep, contemplative silence. Jeanist and Keigo slipped out of their shoes wordlessly. Just as they had begun to wonder where they should go, a sliding door slams open to reveal their guide.

“Pahhh!” He exclaims. “Look who finally decided to arrive!”

“We are perfectly on time,” Jeanist says. The man does not acknowledge this.

“Come along! Ms. Rei is already here.” He turns on his heel and begins to march forwards, and after exchanging a glance, the two heroes follow. They are led into the main sitting room, where the couple waits in silence. 

“Thank you for coming, Best Jeanist, Hawks,” Enji nods to the both of them. 

“Hey.” Keigo says.

“Endeavor.” Best Jeanist says. “I’m glad to see you in good health. As well as you, Mrs. Todoroki.” Rei gives a small smile in response. 

“It’s good to see you both.” Her voice is laced with apprehension. “...What’s all of this about? It’s not Touya, is it?”

So he hasn’t given her any kind of preliminary information , Jeanist thinks. What poor manners.

“Er, no… but it’s similar?” Keigo says.

“Untenmaru,” Enji addresses the man who had led them here. “Would you mind giving us a bit of privacy?” Untenmaru huffs, but it’s a good-natured kind of grumpiness. 

“I’ll be in the garden! If you need me– don’t! ” With that, he marches away, sliding door rattling with the force he uses to close it. 

“Is that the help you hired?” Jeanist asks, trying to ascertain as to whether or not this was some act of self-punishment on his colleague’s part.

“He’s in my employ, yes…But,” Enji scratches his cheek and averts his gaze, aware of how greatly it contrasts his own no-nonsense demeanor. “Untenmaru has been a good friend of mine for a very long while. In the field, that is.”

“I see.” The clock on the wall continues to tick.

“Why are we here, Jeanist?” Rei asks a bit more forcefully, although she clears her throat at the end and adds something to soften the push. “I’m– I’m a bit worried, is all. I would like to know what’s going on.” Endeavor nods in affirmation. 

“Another individual in the Paranormal Liberation Front has surfaced that appears to have ties to your family. Tightly knotted ties.” Jeanist sets the folder he brought with him onto the table. “We’re bringing the matter to you because we’d like to know if you can confirm or disprove this connection– and if you could maybe help us get in contact with his parents.” Her mouth pulls into a grimace.

“He’s just a kid,” Keigo adds. “And he’s part of the Charon program. Jeanie here is his P.A.L. This isn’t for any sort of legal proceeding. He was separated from his family about a decade ago– nothing to do with his crimes.” 

“I’m willing to try,” she says. “But I haven’t spoken to most of my family in a long time. Since before… Since before what happened with Shoto.”

“Any effort on your part is gracious enough, and my gratitude cannot be overstated," Jeanist says. “And– we haven’t told the boy about you and your children. If you choose to walk away, he won’t hear a word of it.” Her brows knit together a little. Jeanist can’t help but feel he should have perhaps found a better way to word it than “ walk away ”. He opens the folder and slides it over, revealing a picture and a very, very simple overview of his information. Some things, after all, had to stay confidential. “His name is Kiyotaka. Himura Kiyotaka. Is that name familiar, at all?”

“It’s the right kanji,” she says quietly, looking at his profile. It was an unusual spelling for Himura. The rumor goes that the family had changed it to contain the kanji for “ice” once quirks began to appear. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s no possibility another family uses the same spelling. Even in this new age of individuality, nothing was ever really that unique. Rei’s fingers run over the surface of the photo. She can already tell that he’s small for his age, the same way Touya was. And with the way thick white lashes cover pale eyes and fine white hairs disrupt his silhouette, he seems even more ephemeral– like he’d melt away at a touch. 

“Himura blood runs thick,” she says. “I know there’s a history of albinism in more than a few of the branches. I’d say it’s more likely than not that this boy is part of the Himura clan. I can’t say I know him by name, though.”

“He has siblings, too.”

“Oh, does he?” Keigo asks. “He always clammed up if I asked.”

“I got it under the guise of being curious about his training,” Jeanist confesses. “But their names are Akira, Ichiro, and Yuki. And they’re from Hokkaido– or, at the very least, he was born there.”

“...There are a lot of Yukis in my family.” Rei says. “But I can try calling some of the cousins and seeing if they recognize the names. And the quirk is–?” 

“Ice ply.” Jeanist confirms. “He can manipulate ice. Including the temperature– but that was a later addition.” Rei nods. She looks to Enji.

“Enji,” she begins. “Did you ever clean out that old storage closet? The one with the filing cabinets?”

“...I never got around to it,” he admits, but he can feel a bit better knowing that whatever was laying around in there might come in handy.

“I think my old address book is in there. It should have my family contacts written down.” She stands. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Do you want one of us to come with you?” Keigo asks. Rei smiles.

“I think I’ll be alright. I can handle a single storage closet. But thank you.” She disappears through a different door, and after a moment, Untenmaru pops his head in.

“It seems you’re all slacking on the job!” He says, walking in with a platter of goodies and tea. “Let’s try and get your brains back in motion with a quick pick-me-up, hmmmm?” 

“Thank you, Untenmaru.” Enji says. The other man simply sets the tray down.

“Make sure you leave some for the lady!” With that, he leaves once more.

“What an interesting guy,” Keigo says, reaching for a cookie. “I didn’t know you were fond of kooks, Endeavor.”

“I feel like that’s something you of all people would know quite well.”

“Aww, wait, are you saying we’re friends now? For honest and for true?” He bats his eyelashes and laughs, but is cut short by Rei’s reappearance. She’s acquired a small blue notebook with a leather cover, along with quite a few cobwebs she’s still brushing off of her sweater.

“It’s dusty in there.” She says.

“Sorry.” Enji responds. She looks at him. And then at his wheelchair. And then at him once more.

“Do you really think I’m expecting you to dust in this condition?” She asks. “A little dust won’t kill me. Now let’s see–” She opens the book, flipping until she finds the section where she’s listed her relatives. The ones she has contact information for, that is. Rei pulls out her phone and punches in a number. They don’t pick up. 

She tries another. No response. Her smile turns rueful as she looks to the men at the table. “I’m sorry, this may…take a while.”

“That’s fine,” Jeanist says.

“I’ve got nowhere else to be,” says Keigo, lying.

Two numbers turns to three, and then, four, and they slip into a lull cycling between the chorus of beeps her fingers play on the number pad and the sounds of ringing. Sometimes, they don’t even let her go to voicemail– the ringing will abruptly stop, presumably because its owner leaned over and shut it off. The tapping of her fingers on the table becomes an accompaniment, ever-faster with irritation at each rejection.

“Figures”, she mutters, in an unusual display of bitterness. “They don’t want anything to do with us, after all that’s happened.” Keeping ties with the Todoroki family meant risking the soot from their crimes being smeared all over your good name.

“I’m sorry,” Enji says. Rei doesn’t respond, instead leaning back in her seat to think.

“It’s okay if nothing comes of this, Mrs. Todoroki. Please don’t push yourself.” Jeanist says.

“No, no…” She rubs her forehead and pushes her bangs out of her eyes. Who else…  “Oh!” She says, sitting back up. “I have a cousin who moved to the states a couple decades ago. He might not be as reluctant to speak with us.” His reputation certainly wouldn’t be as at-risk on the other side of the world.

“It might be worth a shot,” says Keigo. She puts in another number. It rings. It rings again. It rings a third time…

“ Hello? ” A male voice on the other end asks. (Naturally, Rei’s phone was on speaker. She’s a mom, after all, and everyone knows moms love having their phone on speaker.)

“Rintaro? Is that you?” She begins. “It’s me– Rei– Todoroki Rei, not cousin Rei from Kyoto–” There are only so many names under the sun having to do with the cold or snow.

“ Rei? Rei, how are you? I’ve caught wind of what’s been happening– Are you alright? ”

“Oh, yes. I’m doing very well now. How about yourself? I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“ No, no, you’re all good. I’m just getting my day started. Things are pretty slow out here .”

“How’s work? You’re doing– It has to do with the weather, right? Forgive me, it’s been so long.”

“ Cloud management,” Rintaro says. “I help mitigate the likelihood of severe meteorological events by drawing ice out of the clouds until they shrink. ”

“Oh! That sounds wonderful. Listen, Rintaro– I’m sorry to call you after so long just to ask something of you, but do you think you could do me a favor?” The man on the other end of the line lapses into quiet for a moment.

“ Depends on the favor, I guess. ”

“It’s nothing extreme,” she reassures him. “I just need to know if you can check our family registry, or ask someone to do it for you. I don’t…I don’t know who does the genealogy anymore, if it’s done at all still, and I don’t know if they would speak to me in the first place…”

“ I can try. What do you wanna know ?”

“Do you know of anyone named Kiyotaka in our family? He’s young– about the same age as my youngest. He has siblings– Akira, Ichiro, and Yuki– but we don’t have the name of his parents.”

“ There’s a lot of Yukis in our family tree, ” Rintaro says. “ Do you know what branch? ”

“He’s from Hokkaido. His quirk has to do with cryokinesis.”

“ I don’t know ‘em off the top of my head, but I’ll shoot the chat a quick message. ” Her silence asks the question for her. He clears his throat. “ We, uh… A lot of us have a WhatsApp group ,” he explains.

“Ah,” she says.

“ I’d invite you, but… ”

“It’s fine. I think maybe it’s for the best that I'm not a part of it.”

“ Right. Do you mind holding for a second? ”

“I can wait.” He puts her on hold, and she takes the opportunity to let out a long, deeply-felt sigh. 

“The, uh, weather stuff sounds pretty cool,” Keigo says, trying not to comment on anything unbecoming.

“Are… they always like this?” Enji asks, and Rei side-eyes him.

“I think it’s best we don’t get into why exactly the relationship with your in-laws is so strained,” she says. Enji knows how to take a hint, so his jaw snaps shut and stays that way.

“ Rei, are you still there? ” Rintaro’s voice returns from the great beyond.

“Oh– yes, I’m still here, go ahead.”

“ Auntie Miyuki says she knows who they are. The Mikasa branch sorta fell apart around the same time…Uh… Around the same time as when things were getting really difficult for you over there .” He has to fumble around the implication. When you got married. When you went off the deep end. When your son died . 

“ Kiyotaka, Yuki, Ichiro, and Akira are Chiaki’s kids. Do you remember him ?”

“The name sounds familiar…”

“ He was one of the ones being considered for… Well– you would’ve met him, just a long time ago, I think. Auntie says the reason it got taken off the table was because he’s really sickly .”

“Oh. Oh! That Chiaki?’ A pause. “Is he…Is he still alive?”

“ I don’t really know ,” Rintaro says. “ He and his wife moved around a lot, and they weren’t really keen on keeping in touch. Oh– wait– Yuki– Different Yuki– says she’s seen Akira on signs in Iwamizawa? She does real estate, or something. I’ll send you the number. ”

“Thank you, Rintaro,” Rei says, letting out a small sigh of relief. “I really appreciate the help.”

“ Yeah, no problem. Hey– you know you can call whenever, right? I don’t– I don’t mind, even with all that other stuff. It’s no skin off my back. ” The offer is made awkwardly, but sincerely. “ You and the kids could even visit, sometime. Or, well… Maybe not that one– ”

“Thank you, Rintaro,” Rei says more firmly, still grateful,  but not in the mood for such things. “I have to go, now, I’m in a meeting with some people. But I’m very grateful for your help. And you can always call too, you know. Or, if you ever visit Shizuoka… I’d be happy to host you.”

“ Oh, uh, good luck, then. Talk to you soon. ”

“Right. Talk to you soon,” she says, unsure if either of them really expected that to be the case. Her phone pings to announce the arrival of the phone number in her messages, and then falls silent.

“Quite the informative call, I think. Better than I had hoped,” Jeanist says.

“I’m glad you haven’t just been left high and dry by everybody,” says Keigo. “Even if the guy’s all the way across the world.” Rei gives a small smile.

“It is… It is a bit nice to know, yes. And I’m glad I could be of help.” She looks back down at the photo of the boy, feeling a sudden tightness in her chest. She didn’t realize it at first, on account of just how long it’s been, but… He’s the spitting image of his father . She had only met him a handful of times, but he looked so much like the version of Chiaki she knew– when they were both young, and quiet, hiding in the back garden while the adults talked about all sorts of unpleasant things. She felt no nostalgia for that time, but that summer garden still appeared in her dreams, sweltering and still. But now was not the time for getting lost in the cicada calls of the past. There was a mission at hand. She looks down at her phone.

“Do you…think we should call her?” Rei asks. 

“It can’t hurt.” Keigo replies, although he’s only about 80% sure in that assessment.

“I don’t know if he’s ready,” Best Jeanist admits. “But even if we don’t reintroduce them right away, it may be good to at least have contact.”

“Do you think we should tell…?” Enji’s question trails off, but Rei understands regardless. Her fingers drum against the table once more as she considers things.

“I think…” she begins. “I’ll call Akira, and at least let her know… but I would like to meet the boy, before we think about telling the children.” Some threads were better left cut.

“Well, there is the possibility Dabi already knows,” Keigo says. “They were co-commanders in the Paranormal Liberation Front.”

Rei chokes on the sip of water she was drinking. Enji’s eyes widen– he knew this information, technically, but he hadn’t yet considered what it might mean for this situation. Jeanist is at a loss.

“Surely Geten doesn’t know this information though, does he?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Keigo says. “I don’t know how familiar they were with one another while in the front. Both of them are… incredibly dodgy. I do know they didn’t get along, though.”

“Touya… Touya had been planning his reveal for a long time,” Enji says. “I don’t think he would’ve let it slip so easily. Especially not to a family member.”

“That’s true,” Keigo said. “Not even the League was aware. But, if Dabi knew Geten’s name, he may have known himself and simply didn’t share that information.” It was an incredibly Dabi-like thing to do. Keigo had been on the receiving end of it himself.

“Well, what do you think?” Jeanist prompts. “You watched them for months.” Keigo scratches his beard and leans onto the table.

“I only heard Geten get referred to by name once ,” he said. “And I technically wasn’t supposed to. He was being scolded by Re-Destro. And Dabi had been pretty busy– I don’t know if he would’ve bothered looking into Geten. He’s not the sort of person you really feel the need to deal in secrets for. If Dabi was annoyed at him, they’d just bitch at each other, or Dabi would hold something out of his reach… That sort of thing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Enji says, a little stunned at how deeply unserious it all sounded. Keigo shrugs.

“Villains are weird, man, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“So we’ll operate on the assumption that neither of them know, but should be prepared for Dabi to potentially have this information already.” Jeanist says. Keigo nods in response. Rei rubs her face with her hands and sighs.

“I think your plan was a good one,” Enji says. “If Touya doesn’t know it’s a topic of discussion, even if he knows something, he won’t bother to bring it up.” He liked to keep his cards up his sleeves. They learned that the hard way.

“I suppose so,” Rei says. She looks at her phone once more. “...Do you all mind if I go ahead and call?”

“By all means,” Jeanist says. “Go right ahead.” She dials the number, and it rings for a bit– but she just finds herself sent to voicemail. Regardless, she leaves her name, her number, and trips over her words a bit as she explains that she thinks they may have found her brother, and if she has contact with her parents, they would appreciate that very much – before telling her to have a nice day, thanking her for her time, and hanging up. Then she places her head atop her folded arms on the table.

“Are you alright?” Hawks asks.

“I’m fine,” she says. “This is just quite a lot to take in all at once.” Every pause left a gap for old memories to flood in, threatening to push their way to the front of her mind. Deep inhale. Compose yourself, Rei Todoroki . “Do you think he’d be open to meeting me?”

“Truthfully,” Jeanist begins. “I haven’t the slightest clue.” He rubs his temple with two fingers. “I don’t feel confident that I understand how he feels. But I assure you, we would never do anything to jeopardize your safety.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, really…” She fiddles with a strand of hair by her face. “I just don’t want to make him feel worse. But I feel a bit responsible, you know.”

“What for?” Enji asks. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Still…” 

She had forgiven him, really. And she knew he meant well. But what did he know of white walls? What did any of them know? Even kind nurses, good ones– at the end of the day, they were strangers. They could be gone just as quickly as they came. Even the longest stay was only ever that– a stay. Even if Enji knew the frustration of being trapped by circumstance, he was home. He was afforded the dignity of being cared for by those who had known him at his best and valued him as a peer. She looks at the boy in the photo again, and when she closes her eyes, she envisions him disappearing under the harsh fluorescent lights, swallowed up by those sterile white walls and tile floors. What would she have done, without those little envelopes of happiness that her youngest sent? What would she have done without her son’s summer smile or her daughter’s careful hands brushing through her hair while recounting stories from her work as a primary school teacher?

Rei Todoroki considered herself an exceptionally lucky woman. She had been given a second chance where she had seen so many of her fellows be denied. There were plenty of women like herself in the world and she had seen many left to die in the care of strangers. Even the younger patients, children, often ones so similar to her Touya– she had seen them lift their heads at the sound of footsteps in the halls, only to flush red with mortification when they realized they had gotten their hopes up for nothing yet again.

“I think he might be a little lonely, is all.” And she leaves it at that, because they don’t know anything about white walls, and she hopes they’ll never have to learn.

Chapter Text

“Kiyotaka Himura, if you don’t sit down this instant –” Rona barks, slamming the kettle down onto the counter with a bit more force than she’d like. The boy freezes and he slowly lowers himself into a sitting position on the couch, the threadbare cushions shifting and teetering closer to the edge with his movements. She watches his little face flush and his lip start to quiver, and she immediately regrets the outburst. 

Setting aside the ramen flavor packet she had in hand, she crosses the handful of paces that divided the kitchen and the living room. She adjusts the cushions, and then sits down beside the sniffling toddler, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head atop of his, even though he turns his face away in anger.

“I’m sorry, baby. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.” She gently rocks him while she speaks. “Mommy’s just really tired right now. I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice.” His hair tickles the underside of her jaw as he turns his face to look up at her.

“Maybe it’s nap time?” He offers, often being laid down for a nap when his attitude turned foul, and he found it to be quite effective. She laughs.

“Mommies don’t have naps, silly boy. But your Daddy does, and so you’ll need to do playtime alone until I’m done with lunch. Then we can play together. I promise.” And after that, her three older children would return from school, and hopefully they’d all wear each other out by bedtime. Kiyotaka frowns.

“Daddy naps so much, ” the boy says rather matter-of-factly. “I think his nap time is over.”

“Your Daddy is very sick, Kiyotaka. He needs a lot of rest.”

“He’s always sick. When is he getting better?” 

“I don’t know. He might be sick for his entire life.” He could be better. Not completely well– but she knew he could be better. His wheelchair sits folded against the wall, rubber on the handles peeling, aluminium frame scuffed. She had tried on many occasions to begin saving for a new one, but life would pull the rug out from under her every single time. Even if they couldn’t support us , she thinks. Couldn’t they at least watch the children and care for him during the day so that I can find a job? Rona tried to not let the bitterness bleach everything of its color, but she couldn’t help it. The stack of notices and collection letters on the table. The hole in the heel of her shoe. Every time she struggled to get to the laundromat because they had to fight each step or curb, every time her children bickered amongst each other over who-had-what, she was crushed under the weight of absence.

“It’s okay, Ro. I don’t mind.” Her husband struggles to push himself into a more upright position, wrists trembling and bowing under the effort. “I’m feeling good today. I can play with him.” Don’t lie to me , she wanted to say. I can see how bad the pain is . But they both understood that sometimes being a parent means you have to lie about things like naptime or pain, so she didn’t. Kiyotaka cheers, squirming free of his mother’s hold.

“Do we have any ice? We could do tug-of-war,” Chiaki offers. Rona’s eyes narrow. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She asks.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Please?” She sighs, but she rises from her seat and goes to the fridge, filling a small bowl from the bag of ice in the freezer. 

“I’m going to finish lunch, okay?” She says. Chiaki cradles the bowl of ice in his lap. The air around him is so cold that it’s not likely to melt anytime soon.

“Thanks, Ro.”

“I still don’t think you should encourage it,” she says quietly, filling the kettle with water.

“It’s okay just for a little bit,” he responds. The ice stretches and swings between him and his son like a rope, Kiyotaka giving loud grunts of effort as he tries to pull the ice with his quirk.

“It’s always okay until it isn’t,” Rona says. “He’s still too young for us to know.” Too young for them to know the answer to a question neither of them had to voice.

What if it’s like yours?

Kiyotaka was already too small. He was already missing milestones. It was bad enough that she struggled just to provide for him now– what would she do if he began to waste away ? She had watched Chiaki’s condition deteriorate over the years, even before the family collapsed. Their marriage had only been approved because his family hoped she would give him heartier children, back when they still cared about having a potential heir. By the time Ichiro was born, Rona refused to give them any of her children. It was a decision she regretted, sometimes. Maybe then they would at least have a roof over their heads. Sometimes Rona was tempted to pick up the phone and grovel, crawl back like a dog, just for the chance that one of her in-laws would be able to help. And back in the early years, that may have even been the case. But she knew that by the time Kiyotaka was born, almost everything was in pieces. Every time she saw him, she wanted to hold him close and tell him I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought you into this world with my carelessness. I’m sorry for making you live this way.

She listens to her son’s delighted shriek as he tumbles backwards when Chiaki loosens his grip on the ice and pours the water over the noodles. He was the one most like his father, and that scared her a little.

“I think it’ll be okay, just for a little while,” he says. “When things get better, we won’t need to be so worried.”

Rona wishes she could have her husband’s optimism, but the small hole in the drywall above the sink whispers otherwise. With one thumb, she shoves the flaking paint back into the gap.

-

“Papa, there are faces in the garden.” Ibara told him one day, as he sat at the table working on the insurance filings for that month at his agency.

“Faces?” He asked. “Do you mean the flowers?” Yutaka glances over his shoulder from where he stands, doing dishes. Ibara shakes her head, the splayed edges of her vines wriggling.

“They’re way down in the ground,” she says. “The flowers told me so.”

“Oh, did they now? Yutaka, did you plant any face seeds as of late?” Tsunagu looks to his husband, who simply laughs.

“No, I think I got rid of all the face seeds last season. Maybe we can try growing arms this summer.” Ibara is not quite as amused.

“The faces are there,” she says. “And the flowers want more, because they like to eat them.”

“The flowers like to eat everything, my love. But if you want, I can come check for faces in the garden with you.” Yutaka dries his hands and unties his apron. Ibara’s little hand wraps around his fingers, and Tsunagu thought nothing else of it.

Ibara had quite the overactive imagination. She often heard things that weren’t there. Or, well…

“It’s not hallucinations,” Yutaka had told him one night in bed, writing away in his journal. Tsunagu had been worried it had passed the point of childhood wonder, especially once she had begun wandering off because of some unseen thing coaxing her away. “It’s her quirk.”

“You’ll need to elaborate on that.” Tsunagu responds. “Unless you’re telling me her roots are pulling on her brain, or something.” Yutaka laughs.

“No, but I supposed that’s not too far off, really. You know that I use my roots to connect with my spawn, yes?” He holds up one arm, gesturing to the large veins under the skin of his forearm. 

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“Plants don’t have a brain, but they do have perception. It’s simply… decentralized. Each cell acts in response to stimuli, and so on.” He waves his hand. “Hallucinations are what happen when you respond to stimuli that don’t exist. Endogenic, psychosomatic, et cetera. This isn’t that. It’s translation trouble.” Tsunagu nods. 

“So, let’s say one of my flowers, through sensory cells in its leaves, picks up a chemical signal that indicates danger but my human brain needs a way to decode it. For me, it often expresses itself in the behaviors of the flowers themselves. But Ibara’s vines aren’t independent units the way my flowers are. So her brain is filling in the gaps to get across the same message. She doesn’t know what danger “tastes” like. So instead, her brain tells her that someone is screaming, or that something is following her.” 

“Because that’s what gets her to respond to danger?”

“Precisely.” Yutaka closes his journal and sets it aside. “She’ll learn to better handle herself as she gets older, but at the end of the day, she simply experiences the world in a different way than most people. Nothing wrong with that.”

“I can’t help but be worried. She’s been so anxious as of late.”

“It can be overwhelming,” Yutaka says. “Her vines have only just now gotten out of the soft stage. She’s learning what it means to feel everything for the first time, all the time.” He nestles closer, and Tsunagu mulls the information over. 

“I’m utterly hopeless when it comes to matters of greenery, it seems,” he laments. “I’m glad you understand what’s going on.”

And then Yutaka wasn’t there anymore. Yutaka wasn’t there anymore, and there had been faces in the garden. And then she got sick.

Ibara was six years old, maybe seven. It was the kind of sick that starts on the inside. First she felt it in her stomach. A dull burn, sitting at the bottom of her stomach, clinging on to it– weighing it down, even. As the pain got worse, the less she ate, the heavier she felt. She didn’t say anything about it, though, because Ibara very rarely felt like saying anything at all anymore, and her Papa seemed to be upset all the time, and she was scared she’d make it worse. So she waited. 

Then it spread to her chest. She had trouble breathing when she ran. Her ribs felt like they were sagging, like things were becoming loose. She’d lie awake at night, utterly convinced that she could feel her organs moving around inside, and that if she moved around too much, they’d get all smashed up into a mush that’d be used to feed the garden back at the old house.

It started being hard to keep her head up. Her sinuses started to burn. Her ears felt like they were clogged. Her Papa had begun to fret, conversing with the child therapist he had begun taking her to, checking medications. The therapist told him it was probably due to grief, she thinks. Uprooting a child’s life like that isn’t easy. And she felt bad about it, because that meant her Papa probably felt this sick too.

It was when her vines began to yellow that he decided this was no longer just a matter of counselling. Doctor after doctor; Have you been giving her proper water? Perhaps she needs to get more sunlight? Maybe include more nitrogen in her diet.

It was a plant heteromorph specialist in Kyoto that took one look at her and said 

“It’s definitely root rot.”

If they had caught it earlier, a single round of antifungal medication would have cleared it up, but things had gone a little too far for that. It was necessary to remove some of the most rotten bits. They pruned the worst; the rest would be killed off with injectables that would target the root tissue, and then flushed out of her body through her digestive system or reabsorbed for nutrients. And Tsunagu apologized to her every night that he hadn’t done more sooner, and every night she forgave him. 

“ I just don’t know if I’m cut from the right cloth for this ,” she heard him say over the phone. “ Would– I don’t know, I just– I wonder if Yutaka would have noticed sooner. He always knew what to do . It’s just so hard .”

Ibara didn’t like seeing her papa cry, or hearing the crack of his voice on these long phone calls with his friends. He never got upset with her, but she couldn’t help but feel that maybe he wouldn’t feel so terrible if she wasn’t so hard, so she resolved to become an easier child. She would be good, and quiet, and most importantly– she would be honest, because all of this happened because of her father telling a terrible, terrible lie, and that had wounded her papa most of all. She made her vow and told nobody anything about it, because Ibara didn’t really feel like saying much of anything to anyone anymore. Like any good, quiet child.

-

Rei nursed her swollen jaw with one frosty hand, the other absent-mindedly flipping through a home goods magazine that she never really read but came in the mail anyways. Going through the motions made it a little more bearable. 

“Mom?” Fuyumi’s voice comes from the entryway. Rei lifts her head to see her daughter shuffling in awkwardly with her school bag. Rei blearily watches her take off her uniform shoes– was her daughter really this old now? She could have sworn she had just been singing nursery rhymes to her a day or two ago. If she focused, she could remember where and when she was, the many, many years between the two times; but otherwise, the days blurred together. So did the rooms of the home. So did the home itself– sometimes she woke up and could have sworn she was in her parents’ home again, or she stepped between rooms and she was no longer where she was. Even her body felt blurry. She didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror or the hands working in front of her. All she saw was muddied grey slush.

Red . She knows red. No matter when or where she was, she knew what red meant. Rei warily eyes the streaks of red in her daughter’s hair, and struggles to swallow.

“I’ve got something to show you~!” Fuyumi sings, and Rei musters up the best smile she can, although she’s sure it’s lopsided.

“What is it?” she asks. Her daughter swings her bag around to her front, rummaging inside the half-open zipper and producing a quiz. Hanamaru. Perfect marks .

“Ta-da!”

“Oh, that’s wonderful…” She takes the paper with her dry hand, squinting so she can read the writing. Even then, it doesn’t make much sense to her, but she’s happy regardless.

“Can I put it on the fridge?” Fuyumi asks. “I want dad to see, too.”

“Of course you can,” Rei says, even though her stomach drops at the reminder that he shares this kitchen too. “I’m sure he’ll be proud.’ Sometimes, as a mother, Rei knew she had to lie. For their sake. Fuyumi skips over to the fridge, and Rei struggles for a moment to speak.

“Where’s your brother?” She asks.

“Which one? Natsu?”

“Yes, Natsuo.” 

“He’s at soccer practice.” Fuyumi says. Rei’s brows furrow, and she squints a little, as if this were news to her. “Mom, he’s been doing soccer for a couple of years now.” Her voice is streaked with concern.

“Right,” Rei says. “That’s right. I remember.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Fuyumi tilts her head, and Rei flinches away from her gaze.

“I’m fine, Fuyumi.” she says. “I’m just tired.” It’s clear Fuyumi does not believe her, but she doesn’t say it. 

“Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No, that’s alright.” Some scrap of pride she had left made her stomach roll at the idea of her children fussing over her. She was supposed to look after them, not the other way around. And she had already failed at that a long time ago. The least she could do is try not to burden them. “I’ll be making dinner in a bit, okay? Why don’t you… why don’t you go check on the koi fish?” 

Fuyumi’s lips purse as she considers asking once more if her mother is truly okay, but decides not to press the issue. Instead she just smiles and nods and skips away. Rei wonders where she learned to be so resilient, because she felt certain it wasn’t from her.

-

“Such a pretty red,” Tomie chimes, sitting in the bath with her son. “How’d you get to be so pretty, hm?” Keigo just laughs, wings splashing them both with sudsy water when he flaps. She squeals when water gets in her face, but her smile remains, and she grabs and snuggles him close as she tells him he’ll cause a tsunami. 

Keigo liked times like this. They almost never happened, only a handful that he could remember. His mom didn’t live in her body, he thinks. The real her would leave and experience things elsewhere, while the husk sat in front of the TV and groaned. One day, maybe she’d figure out how to take him with her.

“We should go on a adventure,” he says. “Somewhere big.” Her smile falters for a second.

“Maybe… maybe one day. But we’re better off here,” she said. “It’s safer here.” The damp ceilings and loud man in the house made Keigo skeptical of this, but he was too young to know how to verbalize it.

“I could fly us,” he said. “And we’ll go all over.”

“Don’t be silly. Your wings are too small to fly, especially with the both of us.” She uses the soapy water to wash his hair. It saved them money on soap, if they only had to use a little for both of them.

“I’ll get big,” he says. “Really big.” He tilts his head and closes his eyes tight, because Tomie wasn’t the best at keeping the cup from getting water in his eyes. A door is slammed frantically shut elsewhere in the house, and all of Tomie’s eyes turn towards the bathroom door.

“He’s home,” she whispered, sounding excited and scared all at once. He begins to call for both of them, cursing, nervous, so Tomie calls out to him that they’re in the bath. Takami pushes the door open, and Keigo shrinks into the water until just his face pokes out.

“You better not have used all the hot water,” he says. “I worked my ass off getting this shit today.”

“Did you get some?” She asks, standing. Water sloughs off of her as she exits the tub, gaunt and pale. Her hip bones jut out as she shifts her weight to avoid falling. With her hair pushed out of her eyes and slicked back with the water, her sunken eyes and cheeks are all the more visible. Keigo’s mommy sometimes looks like a ghost, he thinks. The man in front of her shows her the contents of a plastic grocery store bag, and she presses closer, mumbling something. 

“Hurry up and throw on some clothes,” he says. “I’m not waiting for you.” She nods fervently, scooping her clothing up from the floor; only remembering to address Keigo once she has it all gathered in her hands.

“You can clean up by yourself, right?” She asks, although Keigo knows he doesn’t have the option to say no. “The grown ups– we have to go do something now. Finish and clean up, and you can go to bed.” It’s a hastily thrown out plan, one that does not account for feeding him, but he knows there’s no real point in asking. She’s trembling, and he can’t tell if it’s because she’s cold from standing outside of the bath or if it’s because of what comes next. “Be good, okay?” Tomie pulls her dress on and steps out, and Keigo is left in the bathroom alone. Even her other eyes go with her. He flaps his wings and splashes a bit. The man had complained about hot water– but Keigo knows he’s not going to be taking a bath tonight, so he can take his time. He grabs the nearest two objects– a half-empty soap bottle, and an empty shampoo bottle– and dances them along the edge of the bath.

“ Here comes Endeavor ,” he whispers, whooshing the half full bottle through the air. (Endeavor should be the heavier one, he thinks. Because he’s stronger.) 

“ Oh no, I’ve been caught! ” he whispers in a different, gravelly voice. The epic in his mind plays out with the clinking and clashing of bottles, the splashing of his wings, and lines of very cool dialogue that had to be all in his head, because if he got loud they would be mad at him. But eventually the water turns cold, and the boy clambers out of the tub carefully. He makes sure to pull the drain cover and close the soap bottles so that nobody will be mad at him for them getting crusty. Looking around, he can’t find a towel– so he uses some handfuls of toilet paper to dry himself off as best he can, and then puts his clothes back on anyways, even though it’s really uncomfortable against his feathers when his shirt is damp.

He steps back out into the hall and is met with the dull drone of television and the flickering of a screen. Two figures sit in front of it, propped against the wall. Keigo hates times like this. His dad is here, and his mom is gone. Two big, clumsy bodies. He retrieves his Endeavor friend from the little hidey-hole he liked to use, because things went missing around the house a lot. And he felt the need to keep his plush hero clean and whole and safe. Keigo clutches it close and decides he’s not too hungry– or, that is, he’s not hungrier than he is unwilling to deal with being yelled at for scrounging, so he clutches Endeavor close and trots off to bed.

“Goodnight,” he says to nobody in particular.

“ Goodnight ,” says the Endeavor plush. (Although it’s only said in his head.) 

Keigo tucks himself into his blanket, and puts himself to sleep.

Chapter Text

“Hi.” Geten says, the moment Jeanist opens his door. Best Jeanist starts a bit, once again caught off-guard by how close he was. 

“Hello, Geten,” Jeanist says.

“Can we please,” he begins, not moving. “Do sports again?” Best Jeanist begins to step forward, backing Geten into the room so he can close the door behind them.

“Well, I don’t see why not,” Best Jeanist muses. It had been a few weeks since their excursion to the rec rooms. “I’ll ask about if the room is available for use.” Geten’s expression brightens at his request being honored, and he paces about in anticipation for the response. 

“You seem to be quite fitful as of late,” Jeanist says, watching his phone for a response to the text he sent. Geten just hums.

“I feel how small the room is,” he says. “And how much stuff there is. I can’t meditate anymore. All I can think about is how badly I want to throw everything away.” He pushes his fingers through his bangs, brow furrowing. “All this stuff. These things. It’s not my stuff– it’s all just junk. It’s too big for this room.” 

“Tidying up might help,” Jeanist eyes the varying little messes strewn about.

“There’s nowhere to put anything!” Geten blusters. “It’s all just out, no matter how you organize it. It’s the same walls and the same floor. I can feel it.” His frustrated emphasis elicits a click of Jeanist’s tongue.

“Well, you probably should tidy up regardless. It’s quite messy in here,” he says. But he can’t say he doesn’t understand the underlying issue: Cabin fever.

“I don’t want to touch it,” Geten says. “Because I just want to throw it all away.” Best Jeanist is learning how to pick his battles with this boy; and this is one he knows better than to try and fight. There was no reasoning with Geten’s little fixations when he had one. It’s terribly familiar. His phone pings.

“The recreation room is ours to use,” Jeanist says. “Come along.” Geten immediately pivots mid-pace to follow him out the door. 

Jeanist leads the way, trying to be conscious of his long strides so as not to leave Geten behind, but Geten is a close shadow, as always. It had unnerved him at first because he would hover just far enough to the side and back to be out of the edge of his periphery, but close enough that a sudden stop might cause them to bump into one another. His footsteps are silent, especially in the wake of Jeanist’s own, which makes the clicking of heels sound even louder. But Geten is a dutiful shadow; they had yet to ever collide and it was reassuring to know he wasn’t trying to run off.

“I didn’t know you practiced meditation,” Jeanist says, trying to drown out the uncomfortable over-awareness of his own footsteps. “You never struck me as coming from that sort of catalogue.” 

“I don’t do it when I know you’re coming,” he says. “Why start if I’m just going to be interrupted?” Jeanist nods thoughtfully. It’s a fair point.

“What sort of things do you meditate on? I know my daughter does something similar every morning and every evening. Or when she needs to calm her nerves, which is quite often.”

“A.” Geten says. 

“...A?”

“Ajikan,” he clarifies, although Jeanist doesn’t find it particularly helpful.

“I can’t say I’m familiar,” Jeanist says. He can hear Geten sigh behind him.

“I also meditate on the forty subjects. And the Heart Sutra.” Jeanist stops in his tracks, and as always, Geten somehow stops just shy of bumping into him. He turns to look at the boy over his shoulder.

“You know the Heart Sutra?”

“Yeah,” he says. Jeanist’s disbelief is very clear. “Do you want me to recite it?”

Best Jeanist pauses. On the one hand, it seems impolite to express open doubt in his less-than-literate companion’s understanding. On the other hand, he is deeply curious and running out of conversation topics. “If you’d be so willing to humor me?” Geten sighs, but he brings his hands into the appropriate pose.

“Kan ji zai bo satsu. Gyo jin han nya hara mita ji.…” It’s well-given, fluidly paced; Jeanist finds no snags in his recitation, although he isn’t particularly familiar with any sutras. The solemn chant announces their little procession through the halls of Charon, turning the heads of passerbys. By the time they reach the rec room, Jeanist feels a pleasant calm settle in his chest, and he is loath to bring the performance to an end with their arrival.

“That was very well done,” Jeanist says. 

“Yeah,” Geten says. “Obviously.” The calm in Jeanist’s chest doesn’t last long. Not a very Buddhist reply, is it? But the boy also seems to be in a better state than he was, so Best Jeanist just rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Please try to keep the attitude to a minimum,” he swipes them in and looks around. Geten laces his fingers together and stretches his arms above his head, palms skyward, with a grunt. The boy decides to go for some of the gym equipment, so Jeanist is more than happy to settle down with his book on one of the available seats and lift an eye every so often to make sure he hasn’t keeled over or exploded.

Hyperbole, certainly, although there are more than a few times that he looks up out of concern because of the intensity of the noise or pace of the machines. He watches Geten go to town on an elliptical and is somewhat concerned he might be trying to tear it to pieces. Maybe he had overestimated the effect of the Heart Sutra on his pent up little pal.

“Why don’t you take a break?” he asks, jotting things down in his planner while Geten wipes sweat from his forehead with his shirt. “I’m worried you’ll dislocate something if you keep on like that.” 

Geten steps away from the cable machine and looks around, chest heaving but still clearly agitated. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Mm,” Jeanist responds. He taps his pen against his face mask. So much to do, so much to prepare for… Ibara’s home visit, depositions for Kunieda, doctor’s appointments… and who’s to say if or when they would hear back from Geten’s family…

“Geten,” he says. “How would you feel about making a deal?”

“What kind of deal?” The boy is skeptical.

“In one of my next few visits,” Jeanist begins, “I will take you on an excursion outside the facility to get some fresh air-”

“-and sports?” he asks.

“-And sports. Exercise.” Jeanist corrects himself when he realizes he’s started picking up Twice and Geten’s particular vernacular. “-If you agree to meet somebody for me. Cooperatively.”

“Okay,” he says. Jeanist is a bit surprised. He hadn’t expected him to agree so easily.

“The meeting will be first, but I will ensure to have the paperwork filed for an approved outing before it happens. Okay?”

“Okay.” Geten nods. “I can do that.” He drops his shirt. “I want a shower now.”

“I would hope so,” Jeanist says. But he takes that as the cue to pick up his things and swipe them out of the room, the two of them once more falling back in step.

“I’m excited,” Geten says. “I haven’t seen outside since you came.” Jeanist blinks. It’s only then that he realizes he hasn’t seen a single window in the facility. No wonder he’s going crazy.

“Well, we’ll certainly have to mend that. Growing boys need to get sunlight and fresh air.” The sound of Geten’s heavy breathing prompts him to stop by a vending machine. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Please. Thank-you.” Jeanist hands Geten the yen so he can bask in the novelty of using the machine.

“You’re very welcome.” They’ve made a lot of progress, he thinks. Even if he didn’t have a reason to dangle a carrot, he’s earned an outing. 

He drops Geten back off in his room and the boy immediately darts for the bathroom, leaving Jeanist to call out a good-bye, to no response. 

Progress is progress, and he’d rather have a clean Geten than a chatty one. It’s been a good day.

-

“My sincerest apologies for disturbing you, Lord Re-Destro,” Tantra says, bowing as the Supreme Commander enters the room. 

“Ah, no, it’s alright,” he waves a hand. “I asked you to call me in such cases. The blame is hardly yours, I’m sure. Take me to our little issue, and hopefully we’ll be able to relax and retire for the rest of the evening.”

Tantra escorts the man down the hall, over tile floors and in front of a heavy door, which he unlocks. “He’s been sitting seiza for the last few hours while awaiting your arrival,” the man gives an apologetic smile. “Hopefully he’ll be feeling a bit more grounded.” 

Re-Destro pushes open the door, addressing the room’s inhabitant. “What’s this I hear about ingratitude?”

Geten sits in the middle of the floor, uncomfortably balanced over the dip that allows excess water to drain from his room. He sits on his knees, feet tucked underneath him. A heavy braided rope of stone is draped over his bare shoulders, and in his lap, an ojizo statue, bearing a little red bib. His face is turned downwards, and he doesn’t dare lift it. Re-Destro strolls past him and sits on the bed to his right. The boy’s stoicism is admirable, but his entire body trembles and each breath is labored.

“I asked you a question, Geten.” He watches his bony shoulderblades tense and poke into the divots of the rock, shifting it ever so slightly.

“I’m not ungrateful,” he says, grip tightening on the stone in his lap. “I just…”

“You just what, Geten? Don’t waste my time. Coming out here has taken enough out of my schedule. You know better than that.” The boy squirms.

“I just… sometimes… I don’t want to train… I just wanted to play with the others.” His voice wavers, but he still somehow summons a bit of indignation at the end. “It’s not fair.” 

Re-Destro sighs. He knew, at some point, something like this would come up. All children had a phase where they wanted to take control and be contrarian simply for the sake of it, and he had been blissfully lucky with Geten over the last four years. But the guileless rebellion could not be allowed to grow into something more intentional. The whip of love now would save him far more pain in the long run. 

“Geten, why are you here?” he asks. 

“Because you found me,” the boy mumbles. “And saw my potential.”

“Do you know where you would be,” he asked, “if I hadn’t?” 

The boy doesn’t answer.

“Maybe you’d be playing. With all the other children. Doesn’t that sound nice? Well?” He can see the start of tears in the boy’s eyes. Had he any less self control, his own might begin watering as well. This hurts you just as much as it hurts me. “Would you rather be playing than be here with me, Geten?” 

The child bites his lip.

“This all sounds quite a bit like ingratitude, if you ask me. But,” he sighs dramatically, “I suppose it can’t be helped. For too long I’ve shielded you from the painful truth of things! How can I expect you to appreciate a gift you don’t even know you have?” Re-Destro lifts himself from the bed just so he can squat down next to him. “Geten, what do you know about the Himura clan?”

“They’re why my family didn’t have any money,” he says, swaying under the weight of his burdens. “And they’re why my father is so sick. They’re greedy. And selfish.” 

“Do you know why they’re to blame for your father being sick, Geten?” Re-Destro asks. The boy gives him a terrified glance through the corner of his eye.

“Um… because of money?” His voice cracks. Re-Destro shakes his head.

“The reason your father is sick,” he says, voice cold. “Is because the Himura clan is nothing more than a bunch of inbred fools who realized their mistakes too late. The only reason your siblings exist is because they were hoping to outcross the bloodline before that man shrivels up and becomes little more to them than an impotent invalid they have to worry about asking for his inheritance.” Re-Destro takes Geten by the hair at the nape of his neck and forces him to raise his head. “And did you know, Geten, that it didn’t even work? The head family sold off their only daughter for marriage because her husband-to-be was willing to pay a hefty amount of coin. All the little satellite households fell apart after that. Destitute, but still popping out babies they couldn’t afford to feed because they were careless.” The boy’s shivering is all the more intense when he can feel it in his palm.

“I know this because your mother told me, Geten. You were an accident at best, a mistake at worst. Even with such a distinguished pedigree, you have no claim to any sort of purpose in the absence of their wealth. So let’s think about where you would be if I didn’t find you, hm? They couldn’t see your potential like I do. They don’t understand what it means to have Liberated metas!” Re-Destro gestures wide with his other hand. “And look at you! You’re the runt of the litter. You can’t even go outside without getting a sunburn. The most value they’d get out of you is marrying you off to a cousin. If not that, then they’d probably pawn you off to some older woman and wait to claim your marital estate.” 

The boy’s lip is starting to bleed. His tears crack and peel off of his face. He’s been scared enough, Re-Destro thinks. His grip becomes a gentle caress to the back of his head. Tantra’s meta lifts the rope from the boy’s neck, and Re-Destro lifts the ojizo figure and sets it aside. 

“But I did find you, and you don’t have to worry about being a Himura at all anymore,” he says. “All of that weight is gone. The only thing you have to concern yourself with– the only thing I ask of you– is that you try every day to reach your full potential. Is that so hard?”

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, clutching his pant legs so he doesn’t fall over. “I’m really sorry. I’m grateful. I promise.”

“I know you are,” Re-Destro says. “So please don’t act like you aren’t, It hurts my feelings terribly, you know.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“I forgive you,” he says. As he stands, he offers his hand to the boy. Geten clutches it tightly, staggering and trying not to fall on his quaking legs. Re-Destro uses his handkerchief to wipe his eyes and his nose gently and Tantra hands the man a small set of pajamas he pulled from the drawers. Geten balances himself on his arm in order to step into the fleece pants, and Re-Destro’s has to button up his shirt for him, on account of his stiff and scraped little fingers. 

“You’l have to go to bed without supper,” he says. “On account of this misbehavior. But I’m sure you’ll do better tomorrow.” Geten nods, but as Re-Destro lifts him into his bed, he dares to ask one more thing of the man.

“Can I have some water?” Re-Destro decides that he’s earned that much, and so Tantra fetches a drink, which he hands to Re-Destro, who hands it to Geten. Geten’s much too old for sippy-cups, but during times like these when he struggled to hold a glass, they were good to have on hand to prevent spills. The last thing they would want is to send him to bed in damp clothes! Re-Destro tucks the Liberation Warrior in and hands him a well-loved plush dragon, which he holds tightly.

“Goodnight, Geten,” he says, smoothing down the boy’s hair on his forehead and wiping away the remnants of sweat.

“Goodnight, Re-Destro. I’m sorry. Thank you,” he whispers, and Re-Destro knows he’s saved the boy from a lot of future pain. His own palms are sweaty, and something terribly nauseating coils around in his stomach, but he knows it’s for the best. Liberation through Power. Power through Discipline. He gives him a fond smile, pats his head one last time, and takes his leave with Tantra, turning off the light and shutting and locking the door behind them.

“You handled that very well, Lord Re-Destro. I understand that it’s not easy,” Tantra says, his own smile quite strained. The rope of stone he had created with his Meta ability unwinds and re-forms the stone it once was, which he lifts in preparation to take it back to the garden. Re-Destro wipes a few tears from his own eyes and sighs.

“It never is. But we all do what we must for the sake of Liberation, don’t we? I know I’ve put you in a difficult position. This sort of thing isn’t in your nature. But I can’t think of a more principled and disciplined Warrior of the Liberation Army.”

“You flatter me, sir. It’s all as you said. We do what we must for the sake of Liberation. I’m sure he’ll understand when he’s older.” Re-Destro smiles. He knew the words were true, but it was always nice to have reassurance. He, too, had once been an indignant child, and he, too, now understood. He had no doubt Geten would become a fine young warrior, and his memories of sitting under stone would be replaced by ones of victory. Of Liberation. 

-

“The boy said he’d be willing to meet you, if you’re still interested.” Best Jeanist said into the receiver of his phone, carefully holding it with one pinky out.

“Oh, really?” Rei asks, voice lifting a bit.

“Well– I didn’t tell him who you are. But he agreed to be cooperative because I promised I would take him out to get a bit of fresh air and run around a bit.”

“I see,” she says. “...Do you think it’ll go well?”

“I really can’t say,” Jeanist laments. “I find it so hard to read him sometimes. But he’s rarely actively aggressive.” Rei is quiet for a moment. “I think he would be easier to speak with than Touya, for example,” he adds.

“I see.” 

“Do you have a date in mind that would work for you?” He asks.

“Well, my schedule is rather flexible,” she says. “What does yours allow? I assume you have to supervise.”

“I’d like to do it before my daughter comes home to visit, if at all possible,” he says. “But that gives us a rather small window to work within. Tomorrow or the next day, ideally.”

“That’s fine. What time?”

“I usually visit him early in the afternoon. I can pick you up at around noon, if you need a ride.”

“That would be wonderful,” she says. “I’ll be sure to be ready.”

-

Best Jeanist admires the composure with which Rei Todoroki conducts herself. It’s something that seems in rare supply these days. Her daughter hovers around her on the front step of their home, a fashionably modern but traditionally inspired structure. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” she asks.

“I’ll be alright, Fuyumi.” Rei responds. “Do you want to meet him?” Fuyumi shuffles nervously in place, and looks to Jeanist. 

“Would it be alright if I did?”

“I don’t see why not.” The three of them get settled in the vehicle. Best Jeanist at the wheel, Rei in the passenger’s seat, and Fuyumi in the back, picking at the pills on her sweater nervously.

“How old is he?” she asks.

“Sixteen,” says Jeanist.

“He’s three weeks older than Shoto,” Rei adds. “December 25th, 2197.” 

“I see you’ve done your reading.” She doesn’t respond, eyes focused on the road ahead of them.

Today they aren’t going to Geten’s room. In part for security reasons; being locked in a small enclosed space with a supervillain, even with a hero present, introduces a level of liability nobody wanted to risk dealing with. But Rei had also been firm in not wanting to invade the boy’s private spaces.

“It’s precarious, I think,” she said. “Because he’s already aware of how trapped he is. What’s the point if I become an extension of his imprisonment?”

Instead the meeting would take place in the small library provided to inmates, a quiet, cozy place that they could reserve to use for this specific purpose. Geten’s the last to enter, escorted, of course, by Best Jeanist.

“Hello, Kiyotaka,” Rei says. Geten tenses and slowly approaches his seat, face obscured by his hood. 

“It’s really nice to finally meet you,” Fuyumi adds. Naturally, he does not answer either of them. He simply watches. Silence stretches on between them. Fuyumi’s brows furrow a bit, smile unsure. “...How are you doing?”

Geten turns away from the two of them in silence, eyes fixed on Best Jeanist. It takes him a moment, but the realization comes;

He’s waiting for a cue. Just like when he had turned to Jin after his accidental foul in air hockey. Best Jeanist gives him a nod of encouragement, gesturing forward with his hand. 

How often had Geten’s blank stare actually been a quiet request for guidance?

“Fine,” he says. He looks back to Best Jeanist, and then points at the two women. “Who is that?” 

“My name is Todoroki Rei, and this is my daughter, Fuyumi,” Rei says, unfazed by the boy’s reluctance to engage directly. This does draw Geten’s attention back to them, eyes tracing the burns on their faces.

“From blueflame,” he says. “And then you fought him?” Geten’s clipped manner of speech is a matter of utility, not ignorance, Jeanist had learned. They were “from blueflame” because that’s where Geten had first learned of their existence, not because he presumed they somehow spawned out of Dabi’s funeral pyre. 

“Touya’s my older brother, yes. We have two younger brothers, too,” Fuyumi says. 

“And Endeavor,” Geten says. “Is your father.”

“Yes, that’s right.” The three adults were somewhat unprepared for Geten to know about the events that had unfolded, and so Rei probes further.

“Did Touya talk to you about family?” She asks. 

“I heard it from the magician,” he says. “It was… very dramatic.” It’s small, but there’s an undeniable hint of mirth in his voice. Not quite mockery, but clearly amused. “I hadn’t expected blueflame to come from such good stock. No wonder he was so embittered. If I had a fire-related meta ability, I would want to train with Endeavor too.” Discomfort crosses Fuyumi’s face in the form of a frown, but Rei keeps her expression as neutral as she can.

“Geten,” Jeanist says, with the beginning of a scolding.

“I meant it from both sides,” he says defensively, as if the issue were simply that he may have been insinuating Rei was weak. He looks back at the women. “Blueflame does not leave behind survivors. I know what sort of sink it takes to offset heat of that magnitude. I am impressed.” 

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Fuyumi says, voice falling into the cadence she used with her students. “We were very happy we could bring Touya home.”

“Kiyotaka,” Rei begins. “What do you know about the Himura family?” 

The boy’s silence puts Jeanist on edge. 

“Himura blood runs thick,” he said quietly. “But when the money dried up, so did they.”  They watch as Rei stands, and Fuyumi, predicting what she was about to do, reaches out for her mother.

“Mom, you don’t have to-” Rei doesn’t heed the comment and lowers herself to the ground in a familiar kowtow. Jeanist says nothing. This is between them. All he can do is observe.

“As the last head of the Himura family,” she says. “I want to apologize for what happened to you, Kiyotaka. You and your family were abandoned when you needed us the most. I take full responsibility for what’s become of things in my father’s stead.” Fuyumi kneels at her mother’s side, ready to help her to her feet, but her eyes remain on Geten. Her entire body sits tense; she is preparing herself to intervene, preparing herself for his scorn and for being ready to shield her mother from feeling the brunt of it, physically or mentally. Geten stares down at them from his seat. Fuyumi swears she can make out the faintest image of the lower half of his face, mouth moving silently in the shadows. The two mirror-shines that mark his gaze give away nothing. Each second that ticks by in the thick quiet adds to the icy cold dread collecting in her stomach, the anticipation pushing her closer and closer to the precipice of demanding he speak– but the boy breaks his stillness himself.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” he asks, fingers taking hold of the fur trim of his hood and pulling it back. “You’re just like me.” Rei looks up at him, but he doesn’t elaborate. Fuyumi helps her back into her seat, unable to stop herself from carrying residual wariness with each move he makes– she feels horrible for it, but she’s learned in life to be ready to expect the worst. 

“What do you mean by that?” Fuyumi asks. Kiyotaka looks at her with the same plain expression.

“She and I are the same,” he says, clarifying nothing. Fuyumi purses her lips with confusion. 

“I’m sorry, I still don’t understand,” she says. “But I’d like to.” Kiyotaka tries to come up with the right words to explain his feelings, muttering to himself behind his palm.

“A pound of flesh,” he says. 

“What?”

“We’re the pound of flesh. Thirty pieces of silver,” he says. “Mammonist pigs.” The disjointedness of his speech now comes from a deeper agitation, and his hand covers his mouth once more for him to mutter. Rei shifts uncomfortably in her seat and turns her gaze away. Fuyumi leans across the table and takes Kiyotaka’s other hand in her own.

“I think it’s okay if we don’t talk about it right now,” she says. “You only have to tell us what you want to. I’m sorry for pushing.” His shoulders slowly loosen from the bird-wing pull his ducked head and tense muscles had created. “We really do want to get to know you better, though. What sorts of things do you like to talk about?”

It takes him a minute to respond, and he has to glance at Jeanist again for reassurance, but he does answer. “I like meta abilities,” he says. “And dragons. And wolves. And ice.”

“Really? I bet you know a lot about them,” Fuyumi says.

“I like to talk about Liberation, too. And Re-Destro.” She nods as he speaks. 

“We can definitely talk about ice,” she says with a smile. “Mom, Natsu, Shoto, and I all have ice meta abilities. Isn’t that neat? Mom, Natsu, and I have the same, but Shoto is half-hot and half-cold.”

“There’s no such thing as an ice meta ability” he says. “It’s an elemental manipulation emitter of the glaciological branch.”

“Oh, wow! Mom, did you hear that? Kiyotaka knows a lot about this sort of thing.” She turns to Rei and Rei smiles. 

“You must be very well-learned on the topic.” He sits a little straighter and, feeling encouraged, asks a question of his own.

“What does your meta do?”

“We make ice!” Fuyumi says cheerily. “Do you want to see? Is it okay if I show him?” she asks Jeanist, who nods.

“So long as nothing gets wet, I suppose.” Fuyumi lifts her hand and creates a small, crudely-shaped wolf out of ice– the type of trick she had learned to entertain younger brothers and antsy students alike. A wide smile returns to Kiyotaka’s face for the first time in weeks, and he immediately jumps into a stream of inquisitive chatter, which both women do their best to keep up with. 

“Geten,” Jeanist says after an hour has passed, quieting a ramble about the 21 different phases of ice. “It’s about time for us to leave.” The boy’s smile melts a little, but Fuyumi squeezes his hand.

“We can visit again!” she said. “And I bet you’ll have even more you can tell us. Maybe we could even bring Natsuo or Shoto. Wouldn’t that be nice?” He ducks his face into his shoulder and mutters something.

“You’re always welcome to visit, Kiyotaka,” Rei says. “Or we could even write letters. Shouto still sends me letters while he’s away at school.”

“I can’t write letters,” he says. “Not good ones, anyways.”

“We could help you practice, then.” Fuyumi says. “The only way to learn is by doing, right?” He gives an eager nod in response.

“Can I write letters?” He asks Best Jeanist.

“I’m sure Hawks will allow it,” he says. “If not, I can deliver them myself.”

“Okay,” he says. “We can try to write letters, then.” Chairs are pushed in and as they leave the reading room it comes time to say their final good-byes for the day, as Jeanist would have to drop Kiyotaka back off at his room while the ladies headed down to the lobby. The boy fumbles one out and turns to follow Best Jeanist, but he’s stopped by one final question.

“Do you want a good-bye hug?” Fuyumi asks. 

“Um,” he says. “I don’t know. Do… you want one?”

“I do, but only if it’s okay with you.” Kiyotaka shuffles his feet and looks at Jeanist, who gives him a thumbs up, the way he’d seen Jin do it. The boy awkwardly maneuvers closer and Fuyumi gives him a brief hug, one of his arms sticking out at her side and the other hanging by his own in a rather stilted attempt at a side hug. She’s careful not to hold him for too long, but when they release, Rei also opens her arms in an offer for one. Kiyotaka angles himself to give her a side hug too, and has adjusted enough to attempt at patting her back a couple of times, although it’s clear he’s still not totally sure what he’s doing. He jogs to catch back up with Jeanist while his cousins wave him good-bye, pulling his hood back up over his head and clutching it to try and hide the shaking of his hands.

“Do you like them?” Jeanist asks.

“I don’t know,” Geten says. “I think so.’

“I think they like you,” he adds. “It always feels good to stitch up those family ties.” Geten pulls his hood up even further, mumbling to himself. After a moment or two he drops his hands and addresses Jeanist again.

“Will we get to go out soon?” Best Jeanist nods.

“I’ve just got to pick a place, is all. What sort of exercise do you enjoy?”

“Lots,” he says. “But I like training the most. Things you do with your whole body. And I want lots of space to move around.” 

“I see,” Jeanist figured this was the case. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He drops Geten off and tells Ii good bye, and then drives the Todoroki women back home with the delicate finesse of any good chauffer– and when his car is empty and the front door closes, Best Jeanist rests his forehead against the steering wheel.

Where on Earth was he going to find somewhere enriching that would be willing to let Geten run around relatively unfettered? Surely the general public would take issue with that, right? It’s not like he could just take him to a public park and set him loose. Secure, but big, but with activities that were like training but weren’t training. What a request! This was something that would certainly have to be bespoke, if not tailored.

And he still hadn’t finished doing all the laundry for his daughter’s incoming visit. It was practically a disaster already.

Chapter Text

“Papa!” Tsunagu is greeted with the chime of his daughter’s voice and the impact of all 145 lbs of her crashing into him for a hug. 

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Even with the war, U.A. had been good for her. More than he ever could have expected or hoped for. The daughter he had sent off to school had trembled with the effort of keeping her touch as light as possible, too afraid of doing harm to move in the world like she belonged in it. What a wonderful thing, then, to be rocked by the clumsy enthusiasm of a child, even one covered in thorns! Her shirt sleeves crinkle and reveal the mild tan lines left by all the time outdoors, her face is spotted with freckles and bears rosy cheeks that have filled out quite cherubicly in their time apart. He believes she’s gotten a bit taller, and he’s absolutely certain that she’s put on quite a bit more muscle than she had before. It’s healthier than she’s been in a long time, especially after she quit the track team and withdrew into the shade of her own thicket.

“Hello, my couture. How are you? How’s the semester been?” It’s good to catch up now that they have the time. On something other than that man. That parasite. But Tsunagu isn’t going to let those thoughts ruin her homecoming. After all, U.A. had been rather stingy about students leaving campus prior to the war, but with the League of Villains gone and quite a lot of construction at hand, Hound Dog had been willing to loosen up a bit. Who’s to say how long that would last, though.

“My spirit sings with our joyous reunion,” she says. “I find no flaw or irritation in my schooling, but nothing compares with the delight of returning home.” Ibara steps out of her sneakers and scampers in behind him. 

“I feel much the same,” he responds. “Has there been anything of interest lately?”

“Kaminari-kun has asked for my advice regarding his bangs,” she said. “Although I fear I am hardly an individual qualified to offer such guidance.” 

“Which one is Kaminari, again?” he asks, glancing at her over his shoulder.

“He’s one of my work study compatriots,” she explains. “The one that glows.”

“Ah, the electric one. Chargebolt, correct? I heard he was most impressive at Gunga.” She sets her things down in the place she always does, and the two of them settle into their favorite seats to get caught up.

“Indeed. A flawless counter. He was quite courageous.”

“Hm,” Tsunagu says. “I remember his costume. Very trendy. Tell him to try sweeping his bangs to the side. Has the other one also asked for advice about his bangs?”

“Hanta? No, he has not.”

“That’s a shame.” Tsunagu says. “But do let me know if that changes.”

“How has your work been? I know you have been shepherding a wayward lamb at the behest of Icarus.”

“It’s been… well, I suppose it hasn’t been going poorly.” He waves a hand. “President Keigo was right in identifying this boy as the kind of shredded garment only a master tailor could repair. But I’m having difficulty trying to fulfill his latest request. I promised to take him on an outing– the facility has no windows, can you believe that?-- Where he could run about more freely than a mere gymnasium. But trying to find somewhere big, secure, and willing to have him on the premises has been a trial.” Ibara thinks on this for a moment, and then looks back at him.

“Why not try one of U.A.’s facilities?” She asked. “A lot of them go unused for most of the day. I cannot imagine a more secure location than one so full of heroes and with such strong walls.”

“My couture, I sincerely doubt they’d want me to bring someone so potentially dangerous to their institution, not after everything that has happened.” He leans back a little, but Ibara just shrugs.

“The Judas will be re-enrolling next year,” she said. “And U.A. has served as a sanctuary for the horned child while they train her quirk and find a more permanent placement to be her home. The whims of our illustrious principal are not mine to understand. But it cannot hurt to ask. Besides,” she adds. “If he were to bring down the walls of any great temple, it might as well be before we finish rebuilding them.”

“Ah, speaking of,” he says. “How are you doing– regarding how things have played out, I mean. I know…” Tsunagu’s voice becomes a bit softer. “I know you have always found such crimes more grievous than most.”

Ibara goes quiet. Her brows furrow slightly, and she stares at the floor ahead of her.

“I ought not to say it,” she mutters. “For my heart is barbed with some very unkind things.”

“The facts of the matter are, prima facie, unkind.” He watches her purse her lips in contemplation.

“I know I should forgive him,” she says. “For he has served to atone in the most terrible of ways, flesh consumed by those wicked roots we remember from so long ago. The Devil deceived the parents, and so the son suffered.” Ibara rolls the knuckle of her crooked finger with the fingers of her other hand. “But I find myself returning to the thought that if I were in his position, to have the Devil come to my door and threaten my life in exchange for that of others, the only option in my eyes would be to die. And I know you would feel the same.”

It’s a heavy statement. But Tsunagu can’t say he doesn’t understand it. Which is why he chooses not to express his doubt.

If it were your life being threatened, I don’t know that I could bring myself to act in the name of the better good.

“You can forgive him and disapprove of his actions,” Tsunagu says. “In fact, I would say that forgiveness is reliant on that disapproval.”

“I suppose,” she says. “But I hate being angry. It sickens me.”

“The anger will pass if you come to peace with it,” Tsunagu crosses one leg. “Give the wound time to heal.” 

“Can I meet him?” Ibara asks unprompted, after a few minutes of silence. “The boy you have decided to help, I mean.” Tsunagu looks at her in surprise.

“I can’t see why not. Why, do you want to?”

“To act in service of the needy is a virtue, and it is clear to me that I need to be reminded of how to practice grace and patience,” she says. “If there is a way I can help, I think I ought to try.”

Tsunagu glances at the clock and stands, stretching. “Well, for now we have to get started on dinner, but if you would like to see him tomorrow, I’m sure I can arrange it. But I warn you, he’s a terribly wild boy. With deeply lacking manners.”

“Then it is all the more important to lead by example. If kindness is not offered to him, he will not know how to offer it to others.” She stands as well, brushing off her skirt. “After all, he is only a boy. Can we make rolls with dinner tonight?”

-

They open the door to an empty room– that is, until Geten’s head pops up over the couch cushions as he lifts himself from his pushups. T-008 stares at Ibara, and then turns away from her to face Jeanist.

“Hello,” Ibara says. Geten does not respond, nor does he look her way. Jeanist gestures back to her to draw his gaze there.

“Geten,” he says. “This is my daughter, Ibara.” Geten looks at her. “Say hi, Geten.”

“Hi,” says Geten.

“We’re working on it,” Jeanist says.

“All is forgiven,” Ibara says. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Why?” Geten asks. Ibara is unsure how to respond. Frankly, Best Jeanist isn’t sure how to respond. Most people would say something about hearing good things about him, or perhaps that he seemed like a nice boy, or that they had good impressions, or so on and so forth; but Ibara, bless her heart, was incapable of such kind lies.

“Because people ought to be happy to meet one another, I suppose.” she says. “We are all the blessed children of the Lord, and we are very lucky to be on this Earth.”

“I don’t really care about that,” Geten says. He scratches the back of his head and looks at Jeanist. “Is she staying?”

Best Jeanist sighs. “Yes, she’s staying.”

“How old are you?” he asks.

“I’m sixteen. I have been told we are equals in this respect, yes?” she responds. Geten watches her for a few moments more, and then slouches back into his usual relaxed stance.

“Are you going to knit too?” he asks.

“No,” she said. “I assumed I’d spend my visit speaking with you.”

“That’s a stupid assumption.” He’s as blunt as ever. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Geten,” Jeanist begins to scold. Ibara raises a hand.

“It is of no offense to me, no more than if he were to veil his true feelings.” Geten’s nose scrunches slightly in response to this. Then he ambles over to his desk and hunches over something, intentionally turning his back to the two of them. 

“I’m sorry about him,” Jeanist says. “He’s not very good with strangers.”

“I’ve met worse,” she says. “The Lord still graces him as he graces any of his children.”

Geten huffs through his nose.

“I see you’ve been brushing your hair,” Jeanist says. Geten reaches back and runs his hand through his hair.

“I like when it’s soft.”

“It’s amazing what good hair can do for the mind.” In response to this, Geten just sort of shrugs.

“What are you working on?” Jeanist asks. Geten tenses a little, curling over the paper on the desk, but after a moment he responds.

“...I’m working on a letter.”

“Oh? For Mrs. Todoroki, I assume?” Geten curls up a little tighter. Jeanist glances at the desk. “Do you want some help?”

“...Are you good at writing?” He asks, although the tone of his voice implies he already knows the answer.

“I consider myself quite good at it. Ibara is, as well. Would you like her to help? It might be nice to have someone your age to work with.” Geten’s eyes narrow and his eyes dart between the two of them, clearly suspicious of the offer.

“Trumpet helped me before,” he says.

“Oh? So do you not want help, then?” Jeanist asks. Geten contemplates this for a minute.

“I think…Maybe help would be good,” he says. “But don’t ruin it.”

“I assure you, I have no intention of ruination,” Ibara said, moving to stand by the desk. “I will do my best to assist you.”

Jeanist does somewhat regret throwing his daughter to the wolves in regards to suddenly being expected to tutor, largely because he knows she herself has struggled with academia. But she carries herself well, and speaks gently– Jeanist knows of nobody more patient than Ibara Shiozaki. In the meanwhile, he pulls out his laptop and begins drafting an email to a certain U.A. counselor. 

There’s no denying Geten begins to get agitated; he mutters under his breath about how “stupid” the spelling of certain words is and groans with the frustration of being unable to translate the words in his head to what he’s capable of putting to paper. After all, Geten is very well-spoken when he wants to be, and the simple, childish grammar he’s restricted to picks at his dignity. It’s not helped by the fact Ibara, despite her benevolence, does have a rather bad habit of trying to correct his penmanship. 

Ibara, however, is unfazed. Whenever he bites back that he doesn’t care, it’s stupid, he hates it, she looks him in the eye and gives the simple response that he will only get better if he practices and that insulting it won’t bring the letter any closer to completion. When met with Ibara’s austere stoicism, it’s only a matter of moments before Geten stands down and mumbles out what he’s having trouble with. It takes them about an hour and a half, but the letter does get finished.

“It’s done.” Geten says, holding it out in front of Jeanist. “Give it to them. Please.” Jeanist takes the paper and holds it at a slight distance so he can read it.

im happy to have met you. it was really good. thanks for being like me i half not met peopel like me in a really long time and i miss re-destro it is pretty lonely inside here. please come back. you are really nice. i hope you are free your ice is very good. there are too of you and you are both very good.

from i am kiyotaka

It is charmingly amateur (Jeanist resists the urge to make corrections) and surprisingly sentimental. He can see the areas where Ibara had ghosted out the shape of a character for him to trace, and the boy’s name is signed off entirely in hiragana because neither Geten nor Ibara knew which kanji were used to spell it. He’s sure Rei and Fuyumi would have no problems telling who it was from, regardless. 

“I will take it to them post haste,” Jeanist says. “We can drop it off on our way home.”

“Thank you,” Geten says. 

“Speaking of,” Jeanist stands. “I think it’s about time we head off.”

“Okay,” Geten responds. After a moment of thinking, he adds, “You can bring her back here too. That’s fine.” He points at Ibara, as if there were anyone else Jeanist might confuse her for.

“How very gracious of you,” Ibara says. “Thank you for having me.” Geten grunts in response and shrugs. It’s good enough.

-

Their stop at the Todoroki residence is a brief one. (Ibara liked to be in bed early in the evening, after all. Once the sun went down, she had very little energy to spare.) When Rei sees the paper in Jeanist’s hand, she waves Fuyumi over to read it as well, which inevitably draws out Shoto and Natsuo and his girlfriend.

“Shiozaki,” Shoto says.

“Todoroki,” she responds. Despite their rather cool expressions, they both understand it as a very friendly greeting.

“What’s going on?” Natsuo asks, a little embarrassed at the idea of having guests over while he’s in his flannel pajama bottoms, even though he himself is technically a guest.

“Mr. Jeanist is dropping off a letter,” Rei looks at him over his shoulder with a smile. “From your cousin.”

“Cousin?” Shoto asks, looking at Ibara through the corner of his eye as though he was worried it was her.

“Is he five?” Natsuo asks, looking at the letter over Rei’s shoulder. Fuyumi pinches him, eliciting an “Ow!”

The two women look at one another as they try to find the best way to summarize the very short-notice news. 

“Well,” Fuyumi says. “You know how Touya was part of that organization?”

“The League?” Shoto asks.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Natsuo says.

“The Liberation Front,” Rei corrects. 

“Hm.” Shoto says, not liking where this is going. 

“One of their Lieutenants was an ice user,” Fuyumi says. 

“Oh my god.” Natsuo's voice is drenched in exasperation. 

“Oh, I remember him,” Shoto says. “He’s the reason Cementoss is still on leave. I was told to avoid engaging with him at all costs.”

“Is he really that dangerous?” Natsuo’s brows raise with alarm. Shoto shrugs.

“He controls ice. It would have just been a poor matchup.”

“But he’s just a kid!” Fuyumi explains, hands gesturing wildly. “He’s only a few weeks older than Shoto. And he really needs help. He– we don’t know if he has any other family that can help him.”

“He’s a lot like me,” Rei says softly. “And a lot like Touya. We met him just the other day, and we offered to keep in touch with letters.”

“He worked very hard on it,” Ibara said, gesturing to the paper. 

“I bet.” Fuyumi’s face softens into a smile, and she adjusts her glasses. “Let’s at least give it a read before we continue arguing about it, okay?” She gently takes the letter from her mother and reads it aloud in her most teacherly read-aloud voice.

“Man,” Natsuo said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think anybody could say no to that.”

“He seems nice,” Shoto says.

“He’s not, not really,” says Ibara. “But he’s trying his best, I think.”

“I plan on taking him to U.A. to use some of the facilities for a bit of exercise,” Jeanist says. “I’m sure you’d be more than free to join us, Shoto.”

“Oh, I might,” Shoto says. “That’s good to know.” 

They say their good-byes, and Ibara and Tsunagu return home for a warm meal and a solid, healthy eight hours of sleep.

“I don’t think he’s that wild,” Ibara says, chopping carrots with a well-practiced speed. 

“Hm?”

“That wayward little lamb of yours. I didn’t find him to be obscene, nor did I find him ferocious.”

“That’s good to hear. I was quite disappointed with his manners. He had been doing so much better when we were alone,” Tsunagu says. “And he had been very cooperative with Mrs. Todoroki.”

Ibara thinks and the clipped sound of chopping carrots continues. “Might I give an opinion?”

“Speak freely, my couture.”

“I think,” she begins. “As the man who is used to hunger gorges himself to sickness in prosperity, a man used to war gorges himself on violence in times of peace. He does not hunger; but he cannot tell the difference between hunger and fear. We will only know him truly when he is no longer afraid.”

“And what is it, then, that you think he’s afraid of?” Ibara falls into another ponderous silence.

“I suppose that is a question for him to answer, although I do not know if he knows that answer himself. Perhaps you ought to ask.”

“Mm. Perhaps.”

-

“I can’t thank you enough for this, Hound Dog,” Best Jeanist says, trailing behind the counselor with a wide-eyed Geten in tow. Even in construction, even to a boy who had seen top of the line training facilities– U.A. was simply on an entirely different level. The massive man huffs through his nose.

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Just know that if a class comes to use it, you gotta leave.” 

“Of course.”

“And you-” Hound Dog turns around, snout blowing a puff of hot air into Geten’s face. “-Don’t cause any trouble!”

Geten nods quickly, still a bit awestruck by the size of U.A.’s distinguished disciplinary officer. At about half his height and about a third of his weight, even the most capable soldier would be intimidated walking in the steps of such a giant. Gym Alpha is home to an expansive training field, not quite to the point of simulation, but an intensive obstacle course nonetheless. Best Jeanist opens his mouth to tell Geten that the world is his sewing table– but to his surprise, the boy has somehow already sprinted off in silence and thrown himself at it.

His feet pound against the firm padded floor. Each step bends the reflected light flashing across the surface of the mats. The drone of the HVAC serves as the chorus below the fierce rhythm he creates.

Geten has legs and arms that are long in proportion to his body that lengthen his stride and make it easy to bound through deep snow. He is built from lean, dense muscles powered by a burning metabolism; a powerful heart pumps warm blood powered by deep, gulping breaths that open his ribcage wide for the swell of his lungs and their tidal retractions. Thick white lashes protect his eyes from sweat and dirt; the shadow of his hood protects his eyes from the glare of fluorescent lights as the rays scatter across the surface of the floor. Strong bones and steady joints absorb the shock of each impact with ease. This is what he was made for. This is what Re-Destro worked so hard to cultivate. This is what it means to live.

At Re-Destro’s word, Geten could tolerate anything. Tolerate living anywhere; cold, hot, large, small– he has learned to be patient, to meditate, to weather attrition and tribulation and to embrace asceticism like one does a dear friend. He has starved. He has sat vigil. No pain was beyond his suffering. 

But God, it feels so good to finally move again! This is what he was made for! Was he not born from the hope for a strong body, was he not raised to hear the call of Liberation and answer with the most guttural of howls from the deepest of places in his hara? When a misstep slams his body into the climbing wall hard enough to feel the tremble in his teeth, his heart stutters with delight. When he knocks into an obstacle hard enough to make his brain pulse in his skull with such ferocity he can feel the blood pooling, his head spins with happiness. Nothing keeps him down for long, especially when the memories of his body start to stir and guide his movements with the fluid grace only years of dedication can bring. His fist sends the board of a twisting totem spinning in reverse, and he’s grateful for the gift of split knuckles. This is the first of his Apocryphal prayers; and his Meta Ability twists itself behind his eyes and beneath the skin of his arms with a yearning for the next.

“Peace be with you, my beloved father, and grace upon your ward in the throes of his passion.” The greeting comes with a raised hand and the other clutched tightly to the speaker’s chest– Ibara Shiozaki, wearing U.A.’s signature gym uniform. 

“Hello, my couture. Is your class making use of this space? We can take our leave, if necessary,” he crooks his finger to ready his quirk for retrieving Geten, but the boy next to her shakes his head.

“Classes are over for the day,” Shoto said. “Shiozaki said you two were here and we decided to join in.”

“It was not a day of labor for the body; our physical education only occurs twice a week, Heroism classes notwithstanding,” she adds.

“There are some people joining us,” Shoto says, “but they tend to be a little delayed when it comes to things like this.”

“I’m sure there’s no rush,” Best Jeanist said. “It doesn’t seem like he’ll be stopping anytime soon.” His gaze turns back to Geten, drawing the eyes of the two students.

“He’s really going at it.”

“I pray he does not injure himself in his haste.”

“I don’t think it’s worth the effort of trying to stop him,” Jeanist said. “Like a pattern with no seams.” Shoto simply stretches his arms.

“I guess that means there’s no choice but to join in, then.”

“So it seems,” Ibara replies, loosening her hips with a couple bouncing lunges. 

“Be my guest,” Jeanist says. Ah, to be so youthful… (And have both lungs.)

“Should we race?” Shoto asks his fellow student.

“If we are to be fair to the first of us, we ought not to use our quirks,” she begins, drawing herself up to her full height. “In which case, I am compelled to warn you it is a competition in which you are destined to lose.” Shoto raises his eyebrows.

“That’s pretty bold, coming from you,” he says. “I thought there was “no honor in braggadocious posturing”.”

“There isn’t,” she responds, despite the way her mouth pulls into a smug little smile. “This is just good sportsmanship. It would be dishonest of me to pretend I bear no advantage from our difference in skill.”

“Jeanist, call it.” Shoto makes the demand sharply, and Best Jeanist knows better than to attempt to quell the competitive spirit brewing. (Not that he would want to.) He uses a thread to make the starting line, watches them square up, counts them down,

“Begin!”

Sneakers dig into the mat and push the students forward, propelling them into a tight-necked beginning. Best Jeanist can’t say he doesn’t have a favorite to win, however– for reasons other than parental adoration. These reasons make themselves clear with the first obstacle encountered: a field of poles, meant to be hopped one-to-another until the participant reached the other side. Shoto Todoroki is by no means clumsy or slow-footed, but his daughter doesn’t slow herself at all and covers the gap in two arching, deerlike jumps. After all; Ibara Shiozaki had excelled at hurdles while on the track team for St. Dorothy’s Garden Academy.

Of course, that’s not to say his opinion is without the bias of parental adoration entirely. He watches his daughter leap to the first rock wall hold and only has one thought: That’s why she’s a winner.

“Oh, man, she got you on the course, huh? Rookie mistake. Everybody falls for it.” Sero’s voice is accompanied by another few sets of footsteps and the familiar huffing and hissing of Bakugo Katsuki as he insists to the Phantom Thief trailing behind him that really, he’s fine, he doesn’t fucking need to be babysat-

“There is nothing to fall for!” Ibara protests, turning to look over her shoulder and giving Shoto the opportunity to get ahead on the steep climb. “He was the one who posed the challenge!”

“Rosebud, focus on the race,” Sero says, hand cupped around his mouth. 

“Take him out, Shiozaki!” Monoma calls, deftly dodging Bakugo’s hands trying to smack him away. She turns her attention back to the course at hand and Geten, realizing there were both competitors and an audience, begins pushing through with a renewed vigor for completing the course proper.

“Who’s the hooded guy?” Kaminari asked, tossing an arm over Bakugo and Monoma’s shoulders, trapping the aggravated blond between the two of them. “I feel like I’ve seen him before. Her? Them?” he pauses, briefly anxious. “I didn’t mess that up right off the bat, did I?” Monoma reassures him with the wave of a hand.

“Don’t worry about it. We can assess the pronoun situation momentarily,” he says. “Is this a new intern of yours, Best Jeanist? Are you finally getting Bakugo a littermate?”

“Piss off!” Bakugo says, writhing and forcing Monoma to avoid receiving a headbutt. “And get off of me!” Monoma goes to say something, but Bakugo’s good arm lands on his face and tries to push him off. Monoma, of course, like any self-respecting irritant, licks his palm, earning a small pop of smoke and a shout of disgust.

Best Jeanist clicks his tongue with exasperation, but circles a hand aimlessly as he tries to find the best way to put it. “This is my… P.A.L.”

“I didn’t know you made friends with, uh, short people?” Kaminari says, eliciting a cackle from Monoma and a sudden lemon-cringe expression on his own face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“That was the most blisteringly stupid thing you’ve said all week, man. Congrats.” Sero said, resting his elbow on Kaminari’s head. 

“I’m just sayin’ shit, man! I don’t know!”

This gives Bakugo the chance to pull free, although he grunts at how it jostles his arm in the sling.

“We’re not friends,” Jeanist corrects. 

“It’s that program, right?” Bakugo asks, nose scrunching. “The rehab one.”

“That’s correct,” Jeanist responds. “You’re familiar with it?” Bakugo shrugs his one working shoulder.

“Roundface has been yammering about her rabid little girlfriend for weeks. Who’s this one?”

“You really shouldn’t call people such things. It’s unbecoming.”

“Don’t you give me shit about nicknames, you and I know damn well Kudzu over there hasn’t used anyone’s name a day in-” Jeanist constrains Bakugo’s uninjured arm to his side, and he lets out an annoyed PAHH! but doesn’t finish his complaint.

“Wait, rehab?” Kaminari asks. “So this guy’s a villain?”

“Or disabled, I guess,” Sero adds.

“Or both,” Monoma offers, although he’s being rather facetious about the whole affair.

“Wait, I do know this guy!” Kaminari’s face pales a little, leaning forward to get a better look. “That’s the ice guy!”

The grace of God (and Kamui Woods’ training) brings Ibara sliding across the finish line first, with Shoto close on her heels– but Geten has already been picking his way backwards through the course at the sound of the conversation– and its participants.

“Kaminari, you’re gonna have to be more specific. We fought a lot of different kinds of guy,” Sero says. 

“At Gunga! That was when that giant tore through the forest, and…” His voice trails off. The memory of a tattered domino mask flutters down between them in the form of silence.

“Explosion boy!” The unfamiliar voice crows from the top of one of the obstacles, drawing everyone’s attention, especially that of the addressee. “I didn’t expect you to be here!”

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, despite the question having been answered already.

“That’s my cousin,” Shoto says, wiping sweat from his forehead with his jacket as he jogs over. “He’s on parole, I think.” Kaminari makes a sound that’s some mangled exclamation of surprise.

“Another one?” Sero asks. Shoto nods. “That’s too bad.”

“We didn’t know before a couple of days ago,” he said. “He’s on my mom’s side.”

“Wow. Do you think it’s like, a genetic thing?” Monoma asks. “You’re shockingly sane, in that case.”

“I guess,” Shoto responds. “So what’s your excuse?”

“I don’t want to be involved in your shitty family drama, half-and-half!” Bakugo growls, eyes narrowed as he tries to find where on Earth he might be connected to all of this.

Geten hops down from his perch and approaches, tossing off his hood in the process. “This is great!” he said. “Now we can fight!”

“You’re not fighting,” Jeanist said. 

“Why the fuck would I fight you?” Bakugo said.

“Let us not escalate to violence,” Ibara adds, a bit nervous.

“Because you’re strong!” Geten says, clenching his fists. “You’re the strongest out of anyone here! I want to see it!”

“Aw, he sounds like you,” Monoma says, picking at Bakugo’s hair idly– although his eyes have narrowed. 

“He’s not really in any condition to fight, first of all,” Sero says. “Second of all, I think that’s probably against the rules of your parole.” Geten looks at Sero, and then back at Bakugo.

“Why? I did the obstacle course with them.”

“I’m not gonna fight you, snowflake,” Bakugo says. “Go get your kicks somewhere else. Whale on the dunce if you really need to.”

“Hey!” Kaminari protests. 

“It’s hardly appropriate,” Best Jeanist says. “Even if you have good intentions. Drop the issue.” Geten frowns, and his brows furrow with something akin to disdain.

“I did not expect him to be such a coward,” he says. 

“Oh, don’t start,” Monoma says. “We don’t owe you anything.” Geten rests his gaze on him for a moment, and then looks back at Bakugo, raising his palm towards Monoma.

“I have no interest in you.” This makes Monoma bristle, and Jeanist gives another warning.

“Geten,” he says. “If you’re going to cause trouble, we’re going to leave.” 

“I’m not,” he responds. “Clearly he can’t do anything. There’s no trouble to cause.”

“What do you mean can’t? You sure are smug for an ankle bracelet brat.” Bakugo squares himself a bit, stepping forward. “I can do a hell of a lot more than you can.”

“Like go outside,” Monoma adds with a sneer.

“And bark,” The smooth reply comes from an unfazed Geten, who turns away.

“I think it’s time for us to go,” Jeanist says, but he’s interrupted by Bakugo.

“Like hell it is. If you’re supposed to be teaching him how to act, he’s about to learn a lesson in watching his mouth,” he scowls. “I can kick his ass with or without both arms.”

“Dude, you’re going to get hurt,” Kaminari said. But Geten is already removing his jacket and tying it around his waist.

“It’s not a fair fight,” Ibara said, although it’s unclear if she’s addressing the matter of quirks or arms.

“Go ahead, tie one of my arms behind my back.” Geten boasts, offering the hand of the same side. “Meta ability or no meta ability, I’ll show you I’m strong.”

“Don’t play along with this, Dynamight,” Jeanist says, although he knows his words will go unheeded. 

“Ref for us!” He demands. He’s requesting the match be allowed to go through, with the promise of allowing Best Jeanist to make the call for if things go too far.

He’ll accept it.

Ibara’s muttering prayers. Shoto looks around, and then addresses Sero.

“We can use your tape, right? For his arm.”

“Oh, sure.” It’s a quick wrap– after all, there’s no resistance. Instead of behind his back, however, it’s positioned in the same sling-like pose as Bakugo’s, at Ibara’s insistence. 

“You should blow his head off,” Monoma says. Bakugo doesn’t respond. 

“Or at least break his nose,” Kaminari mutters, although he feels a bit bad about saying it aloud.

The group moves to a more open part of the gym, one with a small ring marked out for this exact purpose. Monoma’s already jeering, and Sero tolerates it by virtue of the fact that he’s jeering on the side of his guy this time. Once more, Jeanist ensures the combatants are aligned, counts them down, and…

“Begin!”

Bakugo has the advantage of maneuverability, and lands the first hit, knuckles digging into the flesh below Geten’s ribs; and is met with a surprise. The other boy staggers only slightly, grits his teeth, but Bakugo’s fist was met with a wall of dense muscle– a wall of dense muscle that has had many years of keeping balance through sheer tension. Geten’s eyes widen with his grin and he takes a swing of his own– one Bakugo largely manages to dodge, but that still grazes the side of his face and makes his head spin. They circle each other a little more as Bakugo realizes he made a miscalculation. His assumption had been that Geten was a fast-and-nimble fighter because of his size and face, but after taking a hit and getting a better view of his opponent, he could see the solid chest and shoulders hidden under a baggy t-shirt and the flexing of his calves as he steadied himself after Bakugo’s punch. 

This guy is a bruiser. How obnoxious.

But that’s fine. It just means that Bakugo has to change his approach a little. He has to be faster, dodge better, and aim precisely. Some spots could only be bulked up so much or not at all, no matter how hard you trained. Like joints. And the head. Bakugo also has the advantage of reach– he’s got a solid 9 inches on this guy, and even if he’s known for his nasty palm strikes, Bakugo certainly knows how to kick. If Deku can do it, you can bet your ass that he had it figured out day-fucking-one.

He darts in and swings his leg around hoping to hook the back of his knee, but Geten lunges in closer, blocking Bakugo’s thigh with his hip and shooting up, hoping to catch him with a headbutt. Bakugo dodges it successfully, but at the cost of opening his center, and Geten takes advantage of it with a nasty blow right to his abdomen. Bakugo gags, Monoma cries out– but Bakugo dances back and successfully dodges the elbow Geten had swung down towards his head. It gives him an idea. Let him get in close– and their height difference gives him the perfect opportunity to rattle that motherfucker’s skull silly. He stays just out of reach, taunting, encouraging Geten to go for another strike, and when he does, he pulls himself back just out of reach, Geten’s head grazing his chest in a way that makes him wince but Bakugo’s not one to let that stop him. He locks their legs and brings his elbow down again and again at the nape of his neck. The onslaught is brutal; Geten’s jaw clenches, he can see veins popping in his forehead– but the little bastard refuses to go down. Instead, he pushes them into a grapple, digging his fingers into Bakugo’s slung clavicle and evoking a howl of pain. But he’s dazed enough to struggle with following through, and Bakugo manages to twist their positions enough as they fall that he lands on top of the other boy. It rattles every bone in his body, but he has to move fast to detangle them because otherwise he’s sure that Geten would be able to flip their leverage with brute strength alone. 

The two drag themselves to their feet, panting but wired, adrenaline twitching through every single muscle. 

“Show me your meta!” Geten demands, voice slightly slurred from the saliva he spits out just moments after.

“Hah?” Bakugo asks, eyeing him warily.

“Your quirk!” His excitement is palpable, and he dances forward again, grazing Bakugo with a kick of his own and swinging with such ferocity that the forearm Bakugo uses to block the blow aches down to the bone. 

“You tryin’ t’ die?” He asks through gritted teeth, pulling back further and focusing on recovering from the grapple prior. Geten is relentless, however, jabs and kicks only increasing in speed while Bakugo struggles to dodge. 

“Please!” It’s a heartfelt plea, one cartoonishly at odds with the knee Bakugo just barely blocks with his palm. Geten hops back and rebalances himself, still smiling. “I want to see how strong you are.”

Bakugo doesn’t answer. He lands a knee to Geten’s side, but it does little to faze him– it only really serves to knock the aim of his blow off so that Bakugo can dodge it. Geten brings his hand back from behind Bakugo’s head and uses it to slam their foreheads together, a move that makes Bakugo’s vision go white and gives the ice user a chance to try and overwhelm him in a grapple once more. Bakugo holds out by virtue of his size, feet digging into the mat, but he can feel his ankle starting to give as Geten keeps pushing. The villain releases Bakugo’s head and grabs his wounded shoulder once more– and that’s the final straw of all he’s willing to tolerate. 

“You asked for it!” Bakugo twists his torso, digging Geten’s fingers into the muscle even further, but giving him the momentum to plant his foot behind him and swing his arm around in a vicious arc, grabbing Geten’s face and digging his nails in harder with every effort to yank free. The heat and pressure build in the space between their skin, and in a matter of seconds, his sweat ignites, blasting them apart (and he digs a few satisfying gouges out of that prettyboy face in the process). 

“Bakugo!” His friends see his victory– but they also see the whiplash effect on a still-recovering body, one that trembles and twitches as he staggers to catch himself and remain upright. Geten is more than a few paces back and collapses, clutching his face. It’s not the burn that hurts– the blow succeeded after its predecessors set the stage for a nasty, nasty head injury and all of the dizziness and nausea that accompanies it. For all the damage he had done to Bakugo’s shoulder, he’d certainly be feeling it in the muscles of his neck for weeks to come.

He’s so happy.

“You’re incredible.” He slurs, eyes narrowing in the blinding light as he tries to focus on the boy on the other side of the ring.

“Yeah, I know,” Bakugo says, although his mouth is affixed in a firm frown. Even if he asked for it– it didn’t feel like a perfect victory if he had to rely on his quirk while the other guy didn’t. It felt cheap. “Make sure you don’t forget that headache. Once my arm is back in top condition, I’ll beat you so bad you’ll get nostalgic about it.” 

“Okay,” Geten says, having only processed the promise of a future rematch.

Best Jeanist pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think that’s enough for today. Both of you need to go to the infirmary.”

“I’m fine,” Bakugo says, before another full body wince makes him shudder. “...But the old lady might have some Tylenol.” Monoma picks up Bakugo’s jacket and starts to veer towards Geten’s prone body, but Ibara grabs him by the shoulder and shakes her head.

“Leave it be,” she says. His silence serves as an acquiescence, and he falls in step behind Bakugo. Shoto stops to help his cousin to his feet.

“That was a pretty nasty fight,” Shoto says. Geten doesn’t respond. He just blinks blearily, resting his weight against him. Best Jeanist herds them all towards the infirmary, and as they step out into the dusk, Geten’s ears ring with the sound of the cicadas and he smiles.

“I think I like him,” he says. “I like him a lot.”

“I think you have a concussion,” is Shoto’s reply, although he remembers a similar feeling every time warm flames dance on his skin, even though the Sports Festival almost seems to exist in a different era than the one they navigate now. 

“I definitely have a concussion,” Geten says with a nod, despite the fact nodding makes him feel like he’s going to hurl. “I have a concussion, and I like him.”

It goes without saying that everyone involved got yelled at by U.A.’s distinguished guidance counselor following a long scolding from U.A’s distinguished school nurse. Including Best Jeanist, because as All Might could attest, there is no hero ranked high enough to escape the wrath of Hound Dog and Recovery Girl. Truly, they were a force more frightening than any villain.

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe you would do that. Things were going so well!” Best Jeanist laments. “Utterly unacceptable behavior.” Geten rests his head against the car window; thankfully concussion free at Recovery Girl’s hands, but quite tired. He doesn’t respond, but Jeanist can hear the little huff of air that escapes his nose, so he glances over with more disapproval at the ready. “Do you have something to say about that, Geten? I think you’ve expended more than enough attitude today.”

Geten mumbles to himself and sinks down into his seat. Now it’s Jeanist’s turn to huff.

“No, really, go on. Speak your mind. You’ve already done worse.”

“It’s not fair,” Geten says. “You let me race them, but then get mad when we fight.”

“Racing doesn’t get people hurt! Some activities are just too dangerous!”

“Yes it does!” he protests, twisting his body to face Jeanist. “You can get hurt doing anything, just as much as–”

“--Geten, it’s the principle of the matter! Decent people don’t–”

“--I can show you ‘hurt’ right now if you want!” the boy snarls, which prompts Jeanist to smack his turn signal upwards and pull off into an empty lot outside of a dying shopping center, slam his brakes, and shift the car into park.

“We are not doing this right now,” he says. The threads of his jacket wrap around Geten’s body and drag him out of the car, Jeanist following behind and setting him none-too-gently down on the pavement. He squirms and thrashes, but there’s not much he can do other than give himself ropeburn. “We’re staying right here until you can behave.”

Geten kicks a little, mostly out of frustration, but the fit Jeanist expected didn’t come. The boy sits with legs crossed and rocks himself in place on occasion. He hunches over, hair falling over his face, but with his jacket balled up in the back seat of the car, there’s no hood for him to hide under. The labored huffing and wheezing eventually turns into rigid, controlled breaths, body tense, gaze steely. He is a trained soldier, after all, and so Jeanist can only assume he had been taught to freeze out such situations. A war of attrition, then. As usual. 

Jeanist stands, and watches, and listens– or, rather, he tries to, but the boy’s muttering is too quiet for him to hear. He watches his lips move in small, rapid bursts, the only times during which his eyes move from their vacant stare. Each one grows the hero’s frustration more than the last.

“If you have something to say, Geten, say it to me,” he briefly squeezes the binds to get the boy’s attention, and he stares up at Jeanist like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. “Enough of the whispering. What is it? You’ve never had any trouble speaking poorly of anyone before.”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, turning his head to try and whisper into his own shoulder, only to stop with Jeanist’s eyes on him.

“Ah, look! It’s Best Jeanist!” They’re interrupted by a couple driving by slowly, who had recognized the number one. “Oh, sorry, are you in the middle of dealing with a villain?” The man at the wheel adjusts his hat. “My wife and I are big fans, is all.”

Jeanist looks down at his villain; a too-small sixteen year old boy, hunched over on the pavement and trembling slightly, face splotched pink from sunburn and brows furrowed with the effort of trying to keep tears from forming in his eyes.

“No, not a villain. I’m just speaking with him. For that reason, I’d like to ask you to give us some privacy– but thank you for all your support.” Best Jeanist says. The couple curiously peer over, but nod, giving him another set of smiles and waves. 

“Well, good luck! Thank you for what you do!” The man calls, rolling up the car windows as he drives away. The hero watches them go, and then turns his attention back to Geten, although he’s having trouble finding the resolve to continue.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” he asks.

“I’m figuring it out,” he says, voice small. ‘I don’t know why. Re-Destro doesn’t like it either, but I just can’t kick the habit. I’m trying to be quiet.”

“Oh,” Jeanist says. He squats down next to Geten, a horrible knot of guilt forming in his stomach. “What is it that you’re trying to figure out?”

“The difference,” he says, “between racing and sparring.”

“You don’t race with the intention to hurt people, Geten-”

“That’s not what sparring is for, either!” he says, a rush of red coming to his cheeks. “That’s why you don’t spar with weak people! I wasn’t going to do anything bad!” He can hear the frustration in Geten’s voice. Jeanist rubs his own forehead and sighs.

“Well, why did you want to fight him so badly?”

“Because I knew I wouldn’t get to do it again,” he said. 

“What do you mean? Why him?” Geten rocks a little, biting his lip in place of muttering.

“When I saw him on TV for the Sports Festival, it looked like he was strong. I wanted to know, and this was the only time I would see him, so I had to seize the opportunity.”

“I see,” Jeanist says. So it was entirely unrelated to the war.

“I think he’s cool,” Geten says. “I think he’s really cool. I wasn’t going to really hurt him. They fight each other all the time. I don’t know why it’s any different.” Jeanist sighs. Geten has a point. There’s really not much difference, but…

“That’s something that needs to be discussed in advance and agreed upon, especially because he’s injured and you’re a criminal. It was inappropriate of me to allow it at all, even supervising. You can’t just rile people up out of the blue like that.”

“It was my only chance, and I didn’t know he was going to be there. So I had to try then.”

“You keep saying that– why do you think you’d never see him again?”

“Because we already went out,” he said.

“Geten,” Jeanist begins quietly, “are you telling me you thought this would be the only time I would take you outside to exercise? Ever?” The boy doesn’t respond, staring at the pavement. “Why on Earth would you think that?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Because I have to be good for it, I think. I don’t know if I’ll ever be good enough to earn it again.” 

Tsunagu hears dark eyes and green hair in his voice.

“I don’t know. I just know that I must have done something terrible.”

Against his better judgement, he releases Geten’s binds, and against his most basic of good judgements, he puts an arm around the boy.

“I’m sorry I assumed the worst of you, Geten. And I’m sorry for yelling at you for mumbling. It was utterly unbecoming of me. Unacceptable behavior.” The gesture is entirely unexpected, and Geten flinches, but after a few seconds of stiff silence, he responds.

“I’m sorry I said I’d hurt you,” he says. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” Jeanist says. “But I appreciate the apology.” He releases the boy and stands, wincing as his knee pops. Ah, the wonders of aging… “Come along. We should get some aloe on that sunburn.” Geten’s nose crinkles, but he knows it’s for the best, so he doesn’t protest. Clambering back into the car, he pulls his knees up to his chest, and Jeanist lets him.

“Geten,” Jeanist asks, once they’re back on the road, “do you know the conditions of your parole?”

“I’m not allowed to commit more crimes,” he says. “And I have to wait to talk to Re-Destro.” 

“Ah,” Jeanist says. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.” It felt a little unfair, to have the boy playing by rules he didn’t understand. “You can’t commit crimes, but you’re also under watch for potential threats and violent behavior. You have to earn back people’s trust before you can do things like that. That’s why the fighting is different, so to speak.”

“Oh. Well, it seems obvious when you say it like that,” Geten says.

“A little,” Jeanist says. “But I have concerns that you don’t entirely understand the extent of what other people consider to be violent and threatening.”

“No, I know that part pretty well. I’m good at it,” he responds. After a moment, he adds, “Maybe too good.” Jeanist decides they can address that later.

“There are other conditions to your parole, too. You aren’t allowed to speak with any of your previous co-conspirators without explicit permission and supervision, for one. And infractions against law enforcement– especially heroes– are going to be treated much more severely than they would for the ordinary civilian. You’re under quirk restriction until you’re evaluated to be safe enough for the public. And you might be flagged if they don’t think you’re cooperative with your program.”

“If you don’t think I’m cooperative with my program,” he says.

“Well, yes, but not just me.” Jeanist glances at him through the corner of his eye. “But I will admit freely that your cooperation is one area that I have my concerns about.” 

Geten stares at him. 

“What do you mean? I’ve cooperated this whole time.”

“Geten…”

“I haven’t tried to leave at all. I don’t make any weapons. I haven’t gnawed my wrist off. I don’t attack any of the staff. There’s a lot I could do to make everyone’s lives harder, if I felt like it. Do you think I’m scared of jumping out of a moving vehicle? Because I’m not.”

“Geten.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“That’s not the point. Clearly we’ve misaligned our understandings of cooperation.”

“Clearly.” Geten fiddles with his cuff. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like to gnaw a limb off,” he muses. “It seems kind of badass.”

“See, when you say things like that, it raises concern.”

“I’m not going to. If I was, I would have.” 

“Yes, I’m sure.” Jeanist sighs. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between a villain and a teenager.

“By the way,” Geten begins, shifting in his seat, “when do you think I’ll get to see Re-Destro again? He said if I was good, we could see each other sooner.”

Best Jeanist’s heart sinks. 

“I’m not sure,” he speaks carefully. “I suppose it’s somewhat dependent on how his trial goes.”

“He’s really great, so I’m sure it’ll go well,” Geten says. “I just hope it doesn’t take too long.”

“Well, you know, trials can be complex.”

“I’d like him to meet Mrs. Rei and Ms. Fuyumi,” Geten says, looking out the window. “I think they’d get along well.” Best Jeanist has his doubts, but he doesn’t have the heart to strike down the wistful tone in Geten’s voice. So he just hums.

“You know, I’ve tried not to pry before now… some garments aren’t meant to be inside out, after all. But I’ve been wondering, since you speak so much of the man– was Mr. Yotsubashi your caretaker, Geten?” It’s a bit of a gamble, especially considering the sort of day they’ve just had, but Geten seems more than happy to share.

“No, no. Re-Destro is my patron. He trained me and helped make me strong. Tantra was my caretaker day to day.”

“Tantra?” He hasn’t heard that name yet. Not once in the entire time he had been looking into the boy.

“He’s actually in charge of the base in Wakayama, so he could stay in Gunga when I was there,” Geten says. “I made him my top advisor when we merged with the League of Villains. His Meta Ability allows him to twist any material into ropes and control it– I struggled to take him down with ice for a long time, at least until I could overpower his control of it.” He makes a twisting motion with his hands. Jeanist can’t say he’s familiar with the man in the slightest; he hadn’t been sent to deal with any of the Gunga-based Liberation Front members.

“I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned him before.”

“Why would I?” Geten asks. “I’m old enough to not need caretakers. The only person who matters is Re-Destro. I don’t think about Tantra.”

The person who feeds and clothes you is important, Jeanist wants to say. The one who shelters you, who teaches you how to behave in your everyday life– The caregiver has the power to change the entire course of a child’s life.

Jeanist thinks on this for a while, eyes focused on the road. He has to speak delicately. “Well, I imagine Re-Destro is the one who assigned him to you. I was curious about the kind of person he would select for such a calling.”

Geten shrugs. “I never asked why. What Re-Destro says is law. That’s all I need to know.”

Jeanist bites his lip. Yet another square added to this quilt of his. There’s a lot he wants to say, many questions he wants to ask– but he can’t find any way to ask them that isn’t tacky or invasive, so he keeps them to himself.

“You know, since we’re already on an outing,” Jeanist says, “why don’t we get something to eat before we go back to Charon?”

“I want burgers!” Geten says, before pulling his knees close to his chest. “I mean– Please, can we get burgers?”

“That’s doable,” Jeanist says, although he knows his indigestion will disagree later. Geten, satisfied, sinks into his seat a little.

“Geten,” Jeanist reminds him. 

The boy looks at him for a second, before he realizes what’s being asked. “Oh. Thank you.”

“But you have to eat properly,” Jeanist says. “I won’t have you making that sort of mess in public.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he responds.

“Its disgusting. I’ve never seen anyone eat like that. Toddlers have better table manners.” Geten just shrugs. Jeanist glances over at him. “Who taught you that was acceptable behavior?”

“It’s not about being acceptable,” Geten says. “It’s about establishing dominance. And making sure you’re prepared if something goes wrong.” 

Jeanist pulls in to the lot of a fast food restaurant, still just as bewildered. Geten grabs his coat, but doesn’t pull the hood up just yet. Jeanist does have to yank on his hood to stop him from trying to cut in line– but otherwise, the journey from counter to table is a successful one. The two settle in to a booth table, and Jeanist unwraps his silverware and pops open the plastic container for his salad as he speaks.

“So, when eating a burger, it’s best to hold it with two hands, and to have the plastic wrap to catch the pieces that fall out from the middle–”

“I know how to eat a burger,” Geten says, taking a shockingly normal bite of his sandwich. He sits there and chews, and swallows, and Jeanist is shocked at how little of it falls out.

“I suppose you do,” he says.

“I’ve eaten in public before,” Geten says, dunking a fry in ketchup and taking a bite. “With Re-Destro and Trumpet. I know how to eat like a civilian.”

“So why-”

“Because I can.” Geten takes a sip of his soda. “And it shows that I don’t leave any opportunity for people to take my stuff. And it’s efficient.”

“It’s efficient for you to eat so fast you make yourself hurl?” Jeanist had unfortunately witnessed it a plural amount of times. Geten pouts a little.

“That part’s mostly an accident. But it’s still better than letting people take it. At least then nobody can have it.” Jeanist recalls their conversation from his first visit to the Charon facility after becoming Geten’s P.A.L. 

“Geten, who took your food often enough for you to need to guard it?”

“Tantra,” the boy said casually, eating another few fries. “It was part of my training.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes I had to fight him to get it, but most of the time, he’d give it and I’d have to fight him off to keep it. Or sometimes it was other trainees,” he raises his fingers as he talks, trying to remember the various regiments. “Sometimes I had to earn it. Sometimes I had to forage it myself. That sort of thing. Food’s a good motivator. Control the food, and you control the people.” He swallows another bite of his burger. “My Meta Ability uses a lot of energy, so I need to eat a lot. It’s important that I know how to get and keep nutrients for myself.” 

He makes it sound so simple, so natural, but Best Jeanist doesn’t buy the justification Geten gives him. Even though he’s eating more normally, he can tell the boy isn’t comfortable. His muscles are tense, he hunches over the plate, he frequently turns his head to look over his shoulder, especially when there’s any sort of nearby sound or movement. Geten is far less in control of himself than he believes he is, because he’s been fed delusional pap about how it’s good for him.

“Did you and Yotsubashi ever train that way?” he asks.

“No,” Geten says, expression immediately softening. “He always would have at least one meal with me when he and I were together. He wanted to make sure my body and Meta were strong.”

“And yet he directed your caregiver to do otherwise,” Jeanist responds. Geten looks at him for a minute, as if he didn’t understand the words being said to him, and then he goes back to eating his food. He does nothing to deny it, but for Geten, those two things are entirely separate to one another. He can’t see the contradiction, even when it’s directly pointed out to him. Or, rather, he won’t look at the contradiction, even when it's directly pointed out to him.

“Well,” Jeanist says, “regardless, you don’t have to worry about such things now. So let’s try and practice more mindful eating– where you don’t gorge yourself until you throw up.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Not until I stop having to worry about it,” Jeanist says. 

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“It’s my job to worry about it. And my responsibility, as an adult overseeing your care.”

“Are you going to tell them to give me less?” Geten asks, sitting up with alarm.

“What?” Jeanist responds, holding up a hand to try and bring the energy back down. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I won’t do that. I don’t think taking any food from you is going to make it better.” Geten relaxes at this.

“Good,” he says, finishing off his container of fries.

“I do think,” Jeanist begins, pausing to chew a forkful of salad. “That this is an anxiety issue more than anything.”

“I’m not anxious,” Geten said. “I know I’d win if someone tried it.”

“You’ve said that, yes. But expecting to have to fight every time you sit down to eat seems to be quite the worrisome preoccupation. Most people aren’t afraid of losing their food at any moment.”

“I’m not afraid,” Geten says, and the sulky bite to his voice tells Jeanist he shouldn’t push it right now.

“I just worry, is all.” Jeanist drinks his water. “More than the bad manners, I’d like for you to be able to enjoy your meals.”

“When Re-Destro gets out, you’ll see,” he says. “We always have a good time eating together.” He sounds so cheery when he says it, and Jeanist watches as he chomps through the rest of his meal. It’s painful to know Geten’s hopes– the few that he seems to have– are likely already long since snuffed out. He certainly doesn’t want to be the one to break the news to him, and he supposes there’s no real confirmation either way, but, well… Rikiya Yotsubashi had done many, many, many bad things. 

And Jeanist doesn’t want him anywhere near Geten, if he can help it. Even if the CEO were to walk free, Tsunagu would do everything in his power to keep him from waltzing back into the boy’s life and head. Perhaps– if this had just been a case of ideology gone awry, if he could find any sign of good faith, with the boy’s best interests at heart– he could entertain the idea, but he understands now why Keigo had been so insistent that the two remain as far apart as possible. If Kiyotaka Himura were to ever have a chance at a life with dignity, that no-good grinning crook would have to stay out of it.

-

Rei Todoroki gets a knock on her door at nine in the morning, which strikes her as strange. Nobody she knew was prone to dropping in unannounced except maybe her son, but he would be busy at this time of day. She wonders if it’s a solicitor– or maybe someone who happened to have the wrong address, so she puts on her slippers and robe and makes her way to the door.

“Good morning. Is there something I can help you with?” The woman at her door is in a blazer and a skirt, carrying a brief case– a solicitor, then. “If you’re looking to sell something, I’m afraid we’re not interested.”

“Todoroki Rei.” The woman says, utterly unfazed by her greeting. “I’m here regarding your call.” 

“My call?” She asks, trying to think about anything she’s done over the phone in the last few weeks. 

“About my brother,” she says. Rei ponders for a second more, but looking over white hair and slate-grey eyes like her own,

“Oh! Akira?” She asks, stepping back and opening the door further. She didn’t look quite like she had expected, but she supposes Kiyotaka bore a much stronger resemblance to his father. The woman nods and steps inside, removing her shoes.

“I decided it would be best to come in person,” she said. “I don’t like conducting that sort of business over the phone. I apologize for how long it’s been. I had to make arrangements to travel to Shizuoka.”

“It’s alright, really.” The more concerning thing is dropping by unannounced. “Do you want something to drink? Eat?”

“That won’t be necessary. This is a preliminary visit. I’m under the impression he’s incarcerated, correct?”

“Well, yes, but…” Rei is ready to protest against simply icing him out of the family, as had already been done to her, but Akira nods thoughtfully.

“So he isn’t here. I assumed as much. I will conduct my business with you, then, until future arrangements are made. Is there somewhere we can sit?”

“Right, right this way.” She’s still quite confused, but leads Akira to the living room, and the woman opens her briefcase on the table.

“I was unable to find adequate information on the nature of his arrest, so you will have to fill in the details for me. Him being underage, his information is protected from public coverage to a certain extent.” She licks her finger and flicks through some papers. “I would also like you to fill out a condition report. Most importantly, however, is that we begin to discuss the viability of visitation and arrangements for the rest of my family.”

Rei is beginning to see how this woman ended up in real estate.

“What is it that you’re worried about?” She takes the forms as they’re handed to her, scanning over them with her eyes. Akira pauses, a slightly more solemn expression crossing her stoic face.

“My brother hasn’t wanted anything to do with us in a very long time. I mean no disrespect when I say this– but I won’t allow this to waste the time and effort for my parents to come and see him only to be turned away. Our father is in no condition for strenuous journeys, and the rest of us have obligations of our own,” she says. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Right…” Rei says. “Well, I can’t speak on his behalf, but I’ll see what I can do…”

“Great.” Akira said. She passes over a few more papers and then closes her briefcase and stands. “I will be in Shizuoka for a while arranging vacation home viewings for some clients of mine. Keep in touch. If I return to Hokkaido before you have an answer, I suppose it may become necessary to do things long-distance.”

“Oh, alright, that’s good to know.” Rei stands as well, certain she is entirely incapable of convincing this woman to stay for a longer visit.

“It’s been nice to meet you, Mrs. Todoroki.” Akira gives her hand a firm shake, and then slips her shoes back on. “I look forward to your response.”

“Right, thank you. I really hope things work out,” she says, and the young woman simply strides out the door. Rei processes what just happened for a minute, papers in hand, and then eventually finds her phone and holds it up to her ear.

“Hello, Best Jeanist? I’m so sorry to interrupt you– but I just got a visit from Kiyotaka’s sister…”

Rei figures she should probably finish up her next letter for delivery.

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, Geten was not an idiot. Personally, he didn't even consider himself poorly educated; just educated only on things that mattered to his Liberation, and he was fine with that. What other people thought of that was of little concern to him 

In fact, what other people thought of him in general was of little concern to him. Geten tolerated most things out of sheer indifference and disdain. The fact that others seemed unaware of this fact was also of little concern to him. They were beneath him. The banal barking of the riff-raff was something he had learned to tune out well, and he was proud of this. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t aware of what they thought of him. After all; Geten was not an idiot.

He was well-educated on theory, strategy, and metabiology, even without being particularly literate. Re-Destro had given him access to a wide array of audiobooks, and all he had to do was put in a request for a title that seemed of interest, or ask Re-Destro to provide books on particular subjects, or sometimes he’d even look one day and there’d suddenly be new titles waiting for him. He knew Meta Liberation War by heart. He could recite the Heart Sutra and knew the writings of Kukai. He was familiar with Graeber, Foucault, Marx. He had gone through The Art of War more times than he could count. And that’s not even including his collection of audiobooks on ice and its physicochemical properties. Sure, there was quite a lot in all of these books that he only was vaguely familiar with, or concepts that relied on context Geten did not have– but he understood what he considered to be important, and that’s all that mattered. Re-Destro had told him that he was free to pursue literacy, of course, but the written word was a vessel for propaganda, and it would take valuable time away from his training, so he never felt the need.

Geten did not discuss his audiobooks with others, however, because he was certain none of them would have anything enlightening to say. It wasn’t worth the effort to do anything more than roll his eyes under his hood when Trumpet well-meaningly asked if he were familiar with the idea of electromagnetism or when Skeptic made a nasty comment. Sometimes Curious offered him picture books, and Geten would simply ignore her until she left him be, unless he was feeling charitable enough to grant her a rejection. Pop culture meant nothing to him. It was all slop as far as he was concerned.

The same went for math. So what if algebra was lost on him? He knew basic operations, and more importantly, he knew how to use math intuitively in the field. He was more than capable of estimating numbers or weights or distance in his mind, and he didn’t feel like getting bogged down in official units or equations would do him any good. Plenty of people assumed that because he was poor at written math that he didn’t understand any of it at all– and they could continue assuming until it came time for Geten to correct the record. It just wasn’t a priority. They weren’t a priority.

The only person whose opinion mattered was Re-Destro. And Re-Destro was happiest when Geten was obedient, powerful, and striving for Liberation. None of that involved fanciful stories or calculus. The only thing Geten had to be was strong, and there was nobody who could call his strength into doubt. Everything else was just nonsensical drivel invented by people who weren’t disciplined enough to pursue their own enlightenment. 

He respected Re-Destro’s executives because Re-Destro clearly saw value in them. They provided utility to the cause. But Geten also had opinions of his own: Trumpet was vain and sycophantic. Skeptic was an insecure egomaniac. Curious was a slave to her own capricious tunnel vision. He would never say these things to them because he didn’t need to. They didn’t need to know what he thought of them. He had nothing to communicate to them. Nor anyone else. He cared about Destro only insofar as he lit the fires of Re-Destro’s passion, but as far as Geten was concerned, the past was dead. Scrape whatever you can get off the carrion and move on.

Geten wasn’t and isn’t a sadist. Nor did he derive any pleasure from senselessly harassing people or punching down. In fact, Geten cared very deeply for the future of all of humanity– he just cared in the same way all impatient children do: Hurry up, hurry up, it’s for your own good– just do what I say! Get stronger! Don’t you want to be happy? You aren’t trying hard enough!

It was tough love. Liberation through Power. Power through Discipline. Geten took things as he pleased not because he didn’t understand the concept of money or the exchange of goods and services– he took things so as to offer up a challenge to the world. Go ahead. Try and stop me. Why should he bow to the whims of the weak? There was no hidden agenda. He didn’t spend his time eavesdropping or scheming. Geten simply regarded everyone and everything with a deep, frigid indifference. 

He remembered liking things. Sometimes the peaks of that passion would surface through the choppy waves of an arctic sea, and he sometimes would find himself compelled to indulge when he had little else to do. But desire is the root of all suffering. Whenever he realized his mind and heart had wandered from Re-Destro, he was consumed by guilt for the lapse in self control. He was better than that. He was better than them. How could he lose focus over something so trivial when Re-Destro had worked so hard to make him stronger? So instead he was careful to grab those passions at the nape of the neck and smother them in icy water whenever they began to get a little too bold. It was what made him better than the rest. Geten had killed his self-interest entirely, for Re-Destro’s sake.

He was different. He was special. He was the pillar of success for the Meta Liberation Army. He was the most dangerous of them all. The masses would see that someday.

The League fucked everything up.

Not because of the merger. That didn’t really mean much to Geten other than what Re-Destro said it meant, and Re-Destro said it was Liberating. The League fucked everything up because they made Geten want. Desire is the root of all suffering. 

The Gunga Villa was Geten’s “home” in the sense that he resided there unless needed elsewhere. It was never empty, but it had never felt this full before. The League was rowdy, irreverent, and worst of all– annoying. Re-Destro and his executives hadn’t spent much time together in their day-to-day prior to the formation of the Liberation Front. After all, they had different lives, different jobs. The League seemed inseparable except for Dabi, who was always fucking off to do something somewhere. 

Re-Destro, with the help of Twice, was now at Gunga a lot of the time, but Geten knew better than to demand his attention. Re-Destro owed him nothing. Sometimes he would call Geten for a mission, but he had made it clear he was far too busy now to train with him. Geten always hoped that he would be possessed by the whim again one day, but in the meanwhile, he had both a lot and very little work to do. Geten was a sixteen year-old soldier with no job, no education, no outside connections– as a Lieutenant, he trained their troops, but most people couldn’t do the kinds of long training sessions he had done for most of his life. They had jobs. Families. Other such things. So in-between the parts of his work that involved doing things, and the times he was sent on missions, he had quite a lot of time doing nothing. And now there were people in his house. It all started with a mild curiosity and desire to amuse himself. He began to observe them, lingering on the fringes of their strange activities and loud conversations, always at a distance and always silent, even when addressed. (Unless, of course, his strength was being insulted, or he had been asked a question he could quickly and coldly rebuff.) But the League was full of strange, strange people. Namely: Twice. No matter how disinterested Geten seemed, the masked man would cheerily greet him and offer for him to join, and little by little, it began to work. By the time Geten noticed it, it was already too late. He had been coaxed in, curiosity stoked in the little program they were watching, surrounded by their inane chatter.

It wasn’t entirely Twice’s fault, though. Geten had allowed himself to become weak, and watching their little group day in and day out had sparked… Envy. Or something similar, at least. He began to notice the people around him, and what they had that he didn’t. Trumpet and Re-Destro were planning their wedding. Skeptic nagged the League, but was allowed to join in their games. The League acted with a familiarity Geten had never seen, sincere, warm companionship beyond their mutual political goals– and it made him all the more aware of how solitary he was. He wasn’t like them. He was different. He was special. But– they were strong, too. So why is he the only one who has to be alone? He didn’t want anyone else. He doesn’t need anybody.

But everybody else looked so happy that it felt unfair he alone had to suffer in austerity. After all, they were strong too. What was it that made him undeserving? He knew it was bad to want, he knew he shouldn’t be jealous, but something childish in him yearned to taste the sweet fruit of companionship. So he hovered between worlds, watching and lingering and yearning, but he disappeared at the faintest touch like a springtime snowflake.

Hawks had interesting eyes. That was the first thing Geten noticed about him after his remarkable Meta Ability. He had eyes that were interested in everything. Re-Destro had been beyond delighted at Hawks’ interest, delighted by all the opportunities such a high-value recruit could bring them. Re-Destro respected him, and Geten liked his interestingly interested eyes, so he found the hero’s presence a little above tolerable, which is more than what could be said for most of the people in the building.

Hawks seemed interested in Twice most of all, which Geten understood. While the man’s personality was eccentric, his Meta Ability could be the pillar of the Paranormal Liberation Front’s success. It pleased him to know that Hawks was clever enough to see that.

He didn’t envy them, at least, not for their success. The pang that shot through him whenever Re-Destro clapped Hawks on the shoulder or discussed the uses for Double was one of guilt; a reminder that he needed to get stronger, try harder, so that maybe he, too, could be as useful as they were. They were stronger than he was, which is why he found it so confusing when they kept trying to interact with him. And it was just as confusing to him that he felt the need to continue humoring it.

Yes, humoring. That’s what he called it, at least to himself. After all: Geten wasn’t stupid. He knew what it was when Twice handed him a chunk of jerky after doing a favor for him. He knew that when Twice called for him with a sing-song “Geten go-ING? Geten com-ING?” or dissuaded his interest with a “Geten no go-ing,” that he was cooing the way he would at a dog. Even through the mask, Geten could see a sort of pity in his face. He was sure that in Bubaigawara’s eyes, he was little more than a dumb animal. But Geten humored it. His one or two word catchphrases were useful for Geten to know whether or not he had to waste the time and energy to pay attention to what was being said. He liked getting free food, especially when it was something novel. And it felt good to be included. Or sometimes, even, wanted specifically all on his own. Twice had introduced him to sports when he mentioned offhand that he hadn’t really played any, and even after Geten had made a mess of things and smashed his clones, Twice would seek him out on varying occasions and ask if he wanted to play something. Geten still wasn’t quite sure what it was Twice got from it specifically; he could always socialize with someone else, after all, but he was happy to get the chance to run around and do something with some sort of purpose.

And he liked, more than he would ever want to admit, being liked. The little annoyances and humiliations of being spoken to like an animal were nothing compared to the strange little burst of warmth he got when Twice would thank him for getting open a stubborn pickle jar, or called him “champ”, or told him he was doing a good job even if he wasn’t doing anything related to Twice at all. 

He had decided to humor Twice’s little system of favors and thank-yous and play along in his own way. Sometimes Twice would give him things because he knew Geten liked them. So one day he sat down and drew out a dragon Twice, with two heads and markings and everything, and proudly offered it to him.

“Wow! That’s awesome! What a monster!” Twice said, holding the drawing up so he could get a good look at it. “This should go on the fridge!”

“Why would you put it on the fridge?” Geten had asked.

“Huh? Oh, you put stuff on the fridge to show it off! You know, ‘cause it’s really good,” Twice responded. “It’s kinda like hanging it up on the wall, but I only gotta use a magnet. Lemme show you!” So he had taken Geten back to his room with its miniature fridge full of snacks and drinks and tacked the drawing up on the fridge with a novelty magnet from some tourist destination Twice had never been to. Geten stared at it for a few moments, feeling much more successful than he had prior, even though he had been entirely satisfied with his own performance already. 

After that, sometimes when Geten hadn’t been doing as well in training, he would make Twice an image and it would go up on the fridge or on the wall or one of Twice’s many pin boards. Twice would pat his head, tell him how much he liked it and all the things Geten did right in the picture, or ask him questions, and Geten would go to bed that evening far less miserable than he had woken up. He never told Twice this, of course– it was simply something useful he could get out of the man.

He tolerated Twice’s disregard for personal space more and more as time went on. He found himself increasingly wanting of his ridiculous body-shaking back smacks, or when he’d slap his palm on the top of Geten’s head and ruffle his hair through his hood. He had never been particularly insulted by how others saw or spoke to him, but Geten decided that not only did he not mind it, but he would rather Twice view him like some sort of dumb animal or child if it meant he would continue treating him like this. He was useful to Twice, too; grocery shopping was made exponentially easier with Geten there to intimidate the clerk into accepting what Twice said about the marked price, and Twice found the fact that he would simply take things to be hilarious. Even if he was displeased with him, Twice never raised his voice or his hand–  and Geten would rectify things because he didn’t want to damage whatever strange, fragile transactional relationship it was they had created.

Hawks rarely approached him if Twice wasn’t present, but conversely, Hawks seemed to regard him just as he would anyone else he spoke to. His presence always felt natural, casual; there was a level of ease in Hawks’ body language that was contagious. To most, if Geten was not a dumb animal, he was a dangerous one– but Hawks didn’t seem to see him as either. At dinner, he would normally just smash through his meal while the talk of executives flew over his head (unless it was Re-Destro) and then excuse himself, but Hawks would go out of his way to ask his opinion on something that was being discussed. He was unafraid of sitting next to Geten during a meal, and one time, he had put his wing around Geten’s other shoulder to shield him from the rest of the cafeteria and whispered 

“I don’t like it when people watch me eat, too.”

 He always knew that Hawks was watching– no, observing them, but it didn’t take long for him to lower his guard under the gaze of those bright eyes almost entirely. Hawks, too, would bring him treats from his travels, and sometimes the three of them would sit and snack and Geten would listen to them discuss the goings-on of a world he was largely not part of. It was a nice way to experience it without having to be prepared to fight, at least no more than usual. He could do things that normal people did, like play sports or draw or listen to Hawks talk about all the latest hero celebrity gossip, but he never had to stray far from his duties. They were part of the Liberation Front, after all. They were strong. It was perfectly safe; there was no way to disappoint Re-Destro from here. 

Geten felt like an idiot when he found out Hawks had been a double agent. And he felt like an enraged idiot when he found out what Hawks had done to Twice.

Even still, this enraged idiot knew he had to wait and bide his time. Be patient. Behave. If he wanted to see Re-Destro again, he had to be good. If he wanted to ever get the chance to put his hands around Hawks’ neck…

He cooperated with police. He gave them all the information they asked for, about his quirk, about his time in the Liberation Front. He let them examine him, psychiatrically and physically, even though it felt humiliating to have an audience present while his body was looked over for any sign of whatever-it-was, with little to no explanation about what was going on or who these people were. Geten didn’t have much shame, but he didn’t like feeling trapped.

During one of his many stints in a temporary detainment cell, the door would swing open and a couple of pairs of dress shoes would disturb the frosty mist. Metal meets metal as Geten swings the massive cuffs covering his hands down over Keigo’s head, held back by the blade of the sword he had taken to carrying around. The man grits his teeth and the blade trembles, and all of the officials accompanying him draw their firearms.

“I can handle this!” Keigo calls over his shoulder. “Don’t shoot!”

“But Mr. President-” one begins, only to be interrupted by Keigo taking a step back to stabilize himself.

“This is just something we’ve gotta work out! Just trust me, okay? Stay on standby and be ready to call for help if we need to!” 

Geten’s foot slams into his knee, and it bends under the force, but Keigo doesn’t fall completely.

“Shit,” he breathes, leg trembling. “What the hell did Re-Destro put in your kibble, bud?” But Geten’s kick gives Keigo the chance to push him back with the flat of his blade, and the boy staggers backwards, already preparing for his next attack.

“I can see you’re a little upset,” Keigo says, still gripping the hilt of his sword. “But I think we should talk about this.” Geten doesn’t say anything in response, teeth gnashing, veins visible on his forehead and neck, eyes wide. Keigo braces himself for the next swing, which comes fast and hard enough that a lesser man would most definitely have gotten his brains splattered across the concrete. But the HPSC President was the country’s number 2 hero, and you can’t chalk that kind of skill up to just a quirk, no matter how Liberated you are. He deflects it again, hopping back on his good leg to avoid another grapple.

Geten wasn’t sure if he’d ever been that angry in his entire life. Even the raid, which was undoubtedly a violent, chaotic upheaval, had felt like it had purpose, focus– and the ending was marked by his disappointment and a sense of overwhelming failure. The anger there was productive. It was powerful, but it was useful. Controlling that passion and channeling it into something useful was one of the most basic pillars of his training. 

This, however, splintered that control in an instant. He felt it behind his eyes, in his lungs. The rush roared from his gut to his ears so quickly he thought he was going to black out. Like the pages of a flipbook, thousands of ideas flipped through his mind, an overwhelming vision of possible futures where he beat the man in front of him senseless. He couldn’t stop himself from grinding his teeth so hard he tasted blood. His heart pounded against the walls of his chest as if it were trying to escape.

I have nothing to say to you, he wanted to spit. He wanted to be witty, to tear Keigo down with words and prove the inferiority of his opponent, but anger had clamped his jaw shut with the contracting of his muscles. It was a rabid, viral anger, the kind that made his skin burn and muscles spasm underneath the skin, the kind that made his tongue feel swollen and his eyes feel dry. It was a painful anger, because it was the kind of anger where grief stung his nostrils and sinuses and eyes through the tubules of his skull and made him choke on thick sheets of slime as it coated the back of his throat and dripped down into his stomach. Wit is for battles you can win. This wasn’t a battle. It was barely even a fight. He charged again, and Keigo deflected more readily this time, the scraping of metal echoing around the small cell.

“I don’t want to do this to you, Geten,” he said, but Geten saw his blade and could imagine it going through Twice’s back too clearly for him to believe him. The trembling caused Geten to yawn– but make no mistake, this yawn is a painful, jaw stretching flashing of teeth, a desperate attempt by the body to get more air. It’s the convulsion of a drowning man. Geten spit out the drool accumulating under his tongue and charged again, this time swinging down and overshooting it just enough that he could use the edge of the cuffs to lock the blade into a grapple, at the expense of it digging into the skin of his forearms right above where they enter the cuffs. Keigo struggled to find a way to get out of the grapple without injuring Geten more than he’s already injured himself or open himself up to another attack. The blade pressed further into his skin and closer to Keigo’s head. 

“Geten, listen to me– It’s not what you think–” but all he got was more pushing. More blood. Keigo decides to deploy a tactic he learned from Dabi.

“Kiyotaka, I’m trying to tell you that he’s alive!” The surprise disoriented the teenager long enough for Keigo to push him back and spear between his arms and into the wall, forcing his hands to stay above his head. At least until he calmed down. “Jin’s alive!”

Geten’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, winded by both the physical push and his anger. The panting turned shaky, and then shaking gulps turned into sniffling and hiccups. 

“I don’t believe you,” he warbled, choking down snot and whimpers. “All you’re good for is lying!” He kicked out, but it just caused his feet to slip out from under him a little and he had to struggle for a moment to regain stability.

“I know,” Keigo said. “But it’s true. He’s in my apartment right now. I can show you. I can even take you to him, but you have to promise to stop trying to kill me.”

Geten eyed him skeptically. Keigo pulled out his phone, opening it to a recent picture of the man in question getting the bandages for his wound changed. 

“See? He’s okay. But I can’t take you if you try to kill me. You can understand why that doesn’t work.” 

Geten wiped his nose on the shoulder of his sleeve, and then nodded, although he still watched Keigo with unease. “Okay. I won’t kill you. Unless you’re lying again.”
“That’s good enough. We’ll call it a deal.” Keigo pulled the sword from the wall and Geten fell against the wall to steady himself, leaning with the weight of the cuffs. “And first we’re going to treat those cuts,” he said. 

“I want to see him,” Geten said, more forcefully. “I’m not going anywhere else first.”

Keigo sighed, and then looked back at the group he had come with, and then back to Geten. “Will you let us treat it in the car?” He asked.

“I don’t care,” Geten said. “Just so long as I see that he’s really alive.”

“Get the first aid,” Keigo said to the officials over his shoulder. “And some tissues. A lot of tissues.”

Keigo looked back once more at Geten, shivering with anger, drenched in sweat and condensation, standing bare-footed in a dissipating fog on a concrete floor, red-faced and dripping tears. He made one more request of his companions.

“And can we get him a coat? One with a hood. The bigger the better.”

Chapter Text

Congenital; from the Latin genitus, begat, combined with con-, meaning together. 

Congenital heart disease, then, is something impossible to run from, to vaccinate against, or to avoid contracting with sanitizer. You had no choice but to be born with it, if born at all. It’s just bad luck. A rotten hand.

Rei’s brother, then, was the unluckiest of them all.

The odds of a bad draw could never be eliminated, but some things could raise them higher. 

Consanguineous; Latin sanguis, blood, combined with con-, meaning together. Of the same blood. Blood is thicker than water.

Consanguinity, then, is something that makes blood very, very thick. And where blood runs thick, the odds of a bad draw run high.

Rei’s brother was just the unlucky one. The unluckiest of them all. She thought on the matter with her hands together in prayer in front of the little Jizo statue sitting on her brother’s butsudan. It was her first time lighting the incense for him, but it would not be her last. 

After all, she was the eldest. This was her responsibility. Rei knew a lot about responsibility, because she was the eldest. She had five younger sisters, although she and her closest sister were less than a year apart in age– all of them had similar gaps. A year is long enough to matter when it comes to responsibility, but it was very short, when it came to little brothers. Yukio only had five before he had been taken from them. She knew he had been born too soon, but this felt a little unfair, for him to be taken so quickly. But maybe it was because he had been born with a lot of responsibility, even though he was the youngest. 

Rei was only ten, but she knew her parents hoped for a son above all else; when Yukio was born, the celebration was beyond any of the ones she had seen for her sisters. A son meant an heir, and to be an heir meant to take responsibility for the family tree and all of its branches. It meant taking responsibility for dwindling coffers and the quarrelling of adults. It meant taking responsibility for the family’s mistakes– including their daughters.

In the absence of a son, then, as eldest, Rei felt a strong sense of responsibility for her sisters, even though they were close in age. She felt responsible for representing the family well, which is why she tried very hard to do well on tests and became first chair violin in her primary school orchestra, why she learned conversation in three languages by ten and tried to be polite to every adult she met, even if she thought they were bothersome or a bit smelly, like her math teacher. And she felt responsible for proving the merit of her and her sisters’ existences, especially because sometimes it felt like her sisters didn’t care at all about any of those things, but Rei didn’t like it when their father would look at them and frown in a quiet, contemplative rumination on the future, or when her mother would frantically call their grandmother about how hopeless it all was. So Rei decided she would take responsibility for fixing it. Because she was the eldest, and there was no son.

-

But Rei didn’t want to be the eldest daughter– she wished to be anyone else, be anything else. She didn’t understand what made boys so special, and honestly, she didn’t even care.

She hated lighting the incense because the match always burned too close to her fingers. She’d press her hands together in prayer afterward and the only thing she could think about was the tightness tingling in the burnt skin of her fingertips. Each day of school was worse than the one before it, because she knew that no matter how hard she tried, doing well was expected, not rewarded. There was no prize. After all, what would you ever even give a daughter? A daughter is raised to be given. 

The strings of her violin squealed like a pig. She would see-saw the bow across the strings like a butcher sawing through bone, greased with a rosin lard. What was the point? She was just fattening herself up for the knife by stuffing herself with these little parlor tricks. Japanese, English, French– what did it matter, if she was never going to have anything to say? 

Praise was just a way to measure her march towards matrimony. Towards motherhood. She was already being trained for her future duties– it was Rei who carried her siblings on her hip, Rei who walked them to the corner store– she would help with diapers, with cleaning, she would fold laundry instead of making more while her siblings ran free in the yard. Rei Himura had been a mother and a wife for as long as she could remember. Because she was the eldest, childhood had been cut from her with her umbilical cord.

There was no son, now. And he was all the luckier for it, she thought.

-

“Is it true,” Kiyumi, her second sister, asked when Rei was 12, “that we might end up marrying one of the cousins?” Rei’s hands stalled while brushing her sister’s hair. It was a hard question to answer. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because the answer wasn’t a pleasant one.

“Well, maybe,” Rei said, carefully detangling a knot at the ends of long, white locks. “It depends on a lot of things.” Kiyumi’s nose scrunched in response and she grimaced.

“That’s kinda grody, isn’t it?”

“It’s traditional,” Rei said. “But you don’t have to do it the traditional way. It’s… It’s just for when they need to make sure something is passed down properly, is all.” Their family was very traditional. That’s what comes with having such a storied and prestigious line. But prestige means exclusivity. Sometimes maintaining that came with sacrifices. She had accepted that already, regardless of how shameful she knew it all was. 

“Are mom and dad cousins?” Kiyumi asked.

“I don’t know,” Rei said. “I’ve never asked.” And she never would, it turns out. Both of her parents would die without her ever having the desire to learn. Some things are better left forgotten. But Yukio had been terribly unlucky.

It was no wonder, then, that her and her sisters never dreamed of their weddings the way most girls do. By the time Rei was 15, most of her sisters had confided to her how much they dreaded it.

“Marrying family– It’s just too awful. Doesn’t it make your skin crawl?”

“I don’t want to marry a man– Even if it’s just arranged, I can’t stand the thought of one touching me that way.”

“I don’t want children. Doesn’t it scare you too? There are so many birth defects in our family, too– I don’t know what I’d do if something terrible happened.”

“I want to travel across the world. I don’t want to stay here or become a housewife. Why can’t I just be successful on my own?”

“I hate it here. I hate mom, I hate dad– I hate just about almost everybody, Rei! I can’t do it anymore!”

Rei would hold their secrets close and comfort them all the same; Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Mom and Dad. Just focus on what you have to do now, okay? 

Because she’s the eldest.

Because it’s her responsibility. 

And her sisters would embrace her, or stroke her hair when she woke up in the night feeling unwell from her dreams, or do the dishes on nights when it wasn’t their turn and bring her home a slice of spice cake from their time with friends at the mall, because they understood that responsibility is heavy. Responsibility had crushed their little brother’s heart, and so her sisters became the curved white ribs that kept hers from meeting the same fate. Their encouragement made it worth it– or at least, it made it bearable. Rei was the luckiest person in the world, she thinks, to have sisters like them.

-

But Rei didn’t want to live the traditional way, not like this. She knew the world had moved past these things, and she knew they had moved past them for a reason. She knew that if they discussed it openly, those outside the house would crinkle their nose and furrow their brows– They never seemed to understand that she was just as disgusted by it as they were. But what did it matter? Her opinion was of no importance to anyone, regardless of where they stood. Girls at school whispered behind her back about the inbreds on the verge of losing their status. At home, she walked a thin tightrope– do not express too much anger, do not express too much fear, explain that this is necessary, explain that it will be okay, explain that it is not as bad as it is because it could always be worse. 

Rei had beautiful sisters, wonderful, talented sisters– how could she lie to them and tell them to accept such a grim fate? So instead she swallowed the bitterness and terror and told herself that it would be okay, and if she did it, nobody else would have to. After all, there are only so many cousins.

But it didn’t stop the night terrors, violent dreams with men whose faces flickered with the likenesses of family. Cousins, uncles, grandfathers– she would awaken feeling nauseous and violated by events that never occurred– but the worst were the dreams about her father, the ones where she cried and tried to find a way out of the home but there were no doors and there was nobody else but the bridegroom and their marital bed. It would be hard to look him in the face those days, not because of shame, but because her mind had begun to associate him with a deep and terrible panic that did not fade with her return to the waking world.

Rei’s cycle had begun when she was nine, but by the time she was twelve, they had become so violent she would puke during the shuddering waves of abdominal cramps. The bleeding never seemed to end, and she would pass horrible clumps of uterine tissue and blood, crumpled up like little hearts. Each time, she would try to find an answer online about what could be done, but when she tried to describe what was happening in her body, the Internet would return one thing;

Miscarriage.

It was entirely impossible, of course, but between the dreams and the medical-sounding descriptions plastered across symptom lists for the layman hypochondriac, the fear lingered; What if it was? What if something had happened? What was inside of her? A child? A parasite? Some kind of terrible disease? 

Rei would wash her face, frost her cheeks until she no longer felt her heart hammering in her chest, flush the toilet, and then head out to grab her bag and shoes before going off to school. So what? It was nothing. Or if it was something, it would have to be nothing, because if something got in the way of her being able to do her duties as a wife, one of her sisters would be married off instead. But the fear lingered.

-

Rina was Rei’s closest sister, born in late November of the following year. (Rei was born on the first of December– Of course you have to be the first for everything, her sister would tease. You won’t even wait for the month to begin.) She and Rei were less than a year apart, but Rei was still older. It only stands to reason, then, that Rei was responsible for her as well. That’s how she learned to kowtow; apologizing on her sister’s behalf for wrongs that Rina, proud and unyielding, refused to even pretend to regret. Rei admired her for it, in a way. She seemed more than happy to go about as she pleased, ignoring parental threats and punishments. When they were in high school, Rei swallowed her bitterness at knowing she had no reason to dream of any other future by letting Rina line her eyes in black and smear it with her just-licked thumb, by trading her violin for a bass guitar and joining the Youth Music Club at their school– which was just a name to mask the fact it was a handful of teenagers making shitty rock music in empty classrooms after the day ended, if they weren’t otherwise preoccupied with eating snacks or complaining about parents and homework and being misunderstood. Her mother couldn’t stand it. Her father yelled at her whenever she practiced, complaining of the terrible noise. 

But it was just a game, really. She knew that. This so-called rebellion was a way to pass the time. Rei would continue to be responsible, and her parents would buy her a bass for Christmas as a way to indulge her little flight of fancy with the understanding that she would still always wear her uniform to code, never skip class, and that she would attend her etiquette lessons with her hair brushed, face clean, and clothes unsoiled. And that by the time she graduated, the toys would be put away entirely, because husbands didn’t want wives with poorly-teased hair or calloused fingers, at least not the kind of husbands that would be marrying a Himura woman. Rina begged her to just try, to push it a little further, to reach for something beyond the altar, but by the end of her high school years, Rei didn’t resent it so much anymore. She even looked forward to the idea of children of her own, and maybe a dog or a garden or a husband who liked to travel so they could see the world. 

I don’t want to ditch you, Rei. Yumiko is just now entering high school. Even with the nanny, I don’t want you to have to take care of things all by yourself. I’m worried it’s gonna get to you.

Don’t worry about me. Go to school and get your degree. We’ll all be cheering you on from here– you can always call or visit. You’ve worked too hard to quit now. Trust me.

-

It was funny, being asked what she wanted to do after high school. Rei didn’t want to do anything at all, but she couldn’t quite give that as an answer.

So instead she would say that she planned to take care of her family, which was an answer that worked fine enough and wasn’t entirely a lie. When asked if there was anything else she’d want to do, she’d say the same. Her friends gaped at her– are you sure you don’t wanna do anything else? Really?

Why would she? Why would she make herself sick with dreams? Rei had learned that one had to temper her expectations– after all, daughters do not get anything, they are raised to be given. So she never got her hopes up in the first place. 

Secretly, though, Rei swallowed her ambition and her imagination and they knotted at the back of her throat like a frog’s belch-sack. She had good dreams, too, she had daydreams and flights of fancy like anybody else– and so she had answers to those questions that she didn’t share with anybody (especially not her sisters), so that they wouldn’t encourage her to get her hopes up either. She never wrote them down. They were to lay under the permafrost in her mind and remain iced out of her ideas for the future, because she knew she would only make herself miserable otherwise. She had to protect her heart. Responsibility would crush it otherwise.

Rei Himura’s secret ambition was to be a hero. But not everyone gets to be a hero. Some people have to be wives, after all. Not all men are created equal– but at least they could reach for their dreams. Daughters, however, are raised to be given, like pigs or wives or bass guitars.

-

When Rei was seventeen, visits from the branch families became more common. Not that she minded. The cousins were always fun to talk to or play with, and it meant that they had a little bit of time away from their parents as the adults sequestered themselves to have grownup conversations once the hour became late. It was nice to meet the rest of the family.

The Mikasa branch still had their estate in the countryside of Hokkaido. They had always been one of the smaller, weaker branches, but their rural locale made it easier for them to keep what they had. They only had one child, but he was a son. 

Responsibility crushed him too. How unlucky. That’s all Rei could think when she first laid eyes on the bundle of thin, trembling limbs that curled in on himself while sitting on her home’s engawa, head turned to watch the heat waves rise off of the pebbles in the rock garden. 

“Hello,” she said. “Are you Chiaki?” She had been told to go speak with him while her sisters entertained the other cousins that had ended up gathering there that day. He turned his head towards her with crescent-moon eyes and a wide, enigmatic smile, resting his cheek against the knee he had pulled close.

“I am. Who are you?” 

“I’m Rei. Of the head family. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, giving a polite bow and taking a seat next to him. He hummed in response. 

“Thanks for hosting,” he said, not wanting to be impolite, but she can tell the words are a formality in his mouth alone. “It’s a lovely home.”

“I hear the estate in Mikasa is beautiful,” she said.

“Do you like talking about houses?” he asked, pale eyes sparkling with amusement. “Do you want to be an architect?”

“...I think houses are fine,” she said. “I guess I’m ambivalent towards the topic. I just wanted to make conversation.” 

“Oh, did you?” He asked, smile widening. 

“...I was told to come speak with you,” she said. “But if you don’t want to talk, I can leave you be.”

“I didn’t say that,” he said, uncurling a bit and leaning closer, as if hoping to discourage her from walking away. “I just want to know what you like to talk about, is all.” She just stared at him for a minute.

“I’m fine talking about all sorts of things, really.”

“Oh, just fine?” He let out something half a laugh and half an exasperated exhale, turning away again to watch the yard. “You don’t have to stay and talk if you don’t want to, you know. I’ll be fine out here.”

“Why are you out here?” She asked, waving away a mosquito with one hand. “The heat is awful. Do you like this kind of weather? Everyone else is inside.”

“I’m out here because everyone else is inside,” he responded. “There’s nothing for me in a group like that. I’d rather watch for fireflies.”

“Oh,” she said. After a moment of silence, she added, “Well, there’s food in there, if you’d like some. Melons. Grilled beef, too.” He looked like he could use some extra meat on his bones.

“Oh, how nice of you,” he said, voice flat. The conversation lapsed again.

“I don’t like how loud it gets with everyone either,” Rei said after a few long minutes, trying to find a way to fulfill the task she was given. Chiaki hummed.

“It’s not that,” he said. “You’ve noticed, haven’t you? The reason it sounds so loud is because nobody ever has anything to say to us.”

“I don’t think I get what you mean,” she said.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I know they don’t consider me one of the people the way they are. Talking is for people. Opinions are for people. Me, I’m half-formed– so I don’t count as one of the people. And that’s fine. I just can’t stand the way they look at me.”

“Oh,” she said. “I suppose I understand that.” A daughter was something other than human, she’s learned. There’s another gap, and she hesitated, but asked the question naturally raised. “What do you mean, half-formed?” The boy gestured to the pair of forearm crutches propped up on the veranda railing.

“My body is broken,” he said. “So they’re trying to marry me off as fast as possible. That’s the only reason we’re here.”

Rei swallowed tightly. So this is why she had been the one told to find him.

“I’ve got a girl I’m in love with, though,” he said.

“Can’t you marry her, then?” Rei asked. He shrugged.

“Mom and dad don’t like her,” he said. “She’s got one of those quirks. And she’s not well-off neither.”

“Oh,” Rei responded, feeling a pang of sympathy for her cousin, who so badly wanted something out of his reach. “That sounds difficult.”

“We’re gonna figure it out,” he said, raising his eyes to the flickering glow of fireflies as they began their nighttime dances. “I’m gonna marry her, no matter what.” 

“...So I guess that’s a no on this being a betrothal?” Rei offered the joke somewhat sheepishly, but it did crack a smile on his face.

“Sorry cousin. I prefer girls who fall a lot further from the family tree.” 

“Ah, I see. You’ve got good taste, cousin.” Rei gave her own sighing laugh. It felt a bit crass to be making such remarks– but at the same time, it was almost a relief, knowing she wasn’t alone. He laughed at this, unfurling his body further. He cupped his hands around one of the lightning bugs as it flew by and let it crawl around in his palms before he offered it to Rei. She took it, even though the feeling of little legs crawling around on her skin gave her goosebumps, just so she could admire the little yellow glow. 

“What about you?” he asked. 

“Me?”

“What do you want? Outside of this.”

“...I’d like for everyone to be okay,” she said, after careful consideration. “I don’t want Mother and Father to worry anymore. I don’t want my sisters to be afraid to live their lives.”

“You’re better than me, then,” Chiaki laughed. “But I’m an only child, so I guess that’s why. I’m selfish.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong to want things for yourself in life.”

“So why don’t you?” he asked. Rei went quiet, and released the firefly from her hold. She didn’t have an answer she could verbalize, because that would make it real.

“...You have lovely hair,” she said timidly, after the quiet had gone on a bit too long. “You must take very good care of it.” Even with his sickliness, his hair glowed in the light of the setting sun, falling over his shoulders in sheets of fine silk. It was the longest hair she had ever seen, much less on a boy, and it made her own look almost grey in comparison. He was paler– she recognized the signs of albinism and the smell of sunscreen in the air– but that kind of shine was more than a matter of pigmentation. He beamed at her, running his fingers through the strands of his ponytail effortlessly. 

“I try,” he said. “I brush it through every night, use hair masks– the whole nine yards. I take a lot of pride in my hair.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said, reaching for her own absent-mindedly. “Sometimes I wish I could just cut it all off.”

“So why don’t you?” he asked. “It can always grow back if you don’t like it.” She mulled the idea over, feeling a bit silly she hadn’t really considered it.

“I don’t know if my parents would allow it,” she said.

“Do it anyway, then. It’s not like they can un-cut it.” Chiaki shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

A couple days later, Rei Himura scheduled her own appointment and had her hair cut by a professional without a word of it to her parents. When she returned, she was met by shock, of course, and perhaps a little anger, but when the redness in her mother’s cheeks finally subsided, she reached over and brushed one of Rei’s bangs out of her eyes.

“...I think it suits you,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “Now that I get a good look at it. Like such a proper young lady. Don’t you agree?” She looked to Rei’s father, who had joined mostly in response to the commotion. 

“You look nice,” he said. “I like it.”

Rei lifted her gaze from the floor. “Thank you,” she said. “I like it too.” For once, her heart felt a bit lighter.

-

God took a rib from Adam in order to give him a helper. A wife. The mother to his children. God closed up the wound.

Rei had her ribs pulled out one by one as her sisters began to leave home, but the flesh never came back together. A sickening snap-crack and the feeling of bone being pulled away– the last one was taken when she was told a man had come to take a bride. Her heart had been exposed in the form of an open wound, but even then, she knew;

This was her responsibility.

She and her eldest two sisters were eligible, technically, but she volunteered. He wouldn’t want a bride who was too young, she said. She needed to be able to take care of the house and child while he worked. Heroes are busy people. He wouldn’t want a bride who had been accepted into a college and had obligations, or a bride that was stubborn and quarrelsome. She was a lovely, responsible young woman, and she would take care of her parents through her brideprice. 

He wasn’t unkind, Todoroki Enji. Nor did he seem to be a lecher or drunkard. Her parents had been ecstatic when a matchmaker reached out to them offering the picture and resume of the number two hero. Rina had told them to make sure it wasn’t a scam– just because it seemed too fortunate to be true. He wasn’t bad looking, although she had only ever seen him on TV or in photos, and he was close to her in age. 

And he wasn’t a cousin.

He wasn’t from a distinguished bloodline, but that didn’t mean much to them anymore. He had both status and money, reliable income, good reputation… He was in good health, and didn’t seem to have many relatives to squabble with. And his requests were very, very specific.

An ice quirk, with the capability to cool the body down. Good fertility. Good health. Otherwise, he wasn’t that picky. He even offered to pay for the wedding. Rei was sent off to the doctor for a physical and to a fertility clinic to be tested; she was clean of any sexually transmitted diseases, her egg count was above average, her blood tests came back with stellar results about her hormone levels and health. She even got a sonogram. Everything was as it was supposed to be. She was good breeding stock.

He did, upon receiving her iegara, ask her to take a gene test. It was perhaps the most nervewracking part of the whole affair– but she had no genetic diseases to speak of. So the pedigree no longer was of any concern to him. Which relieved her, in a way– she never wanted to have to discuss it, whether from a place of shock or pity. They first met under the crowing supervision of her father, so Rei didn’t feel the need to say much. Why risk saying anything unbecoming, when most men liked their women quiet? His gaze was frighteningly intense– not scary, per se, but it felt like his breath on the back of her neck in the pursuit of chasing his goal. Endeavor was a good name for him, she thought.

The miai was a formality, mostly. She hadn’t ever intended to say no– she didn’t ever consider it an option. Just like he had his responsibility to shield civilians from crumbling buildings, she had her responsibility. That was one thing she liked about him– he was a responsible, earnest kind of man. 

Enji Todoroki was a lot like a match. Capable of burning down a building or lighting the incense on altars, but a bit clumsy, the way match fire strives to go upwards and ends up singeing your fingers in the process of lighting a candle. He didn’t seem to know how to point himself quite yet, so his head and heart burned with a fire that singed the surface of the things around it and left soot stains on the ceiling. She didn’t like lighting candles or incense, but even if it burned her fingertips, she could never bring herself to hate the matches for it, so she figured this was much the same.

-

He tried, at first. Rei Todoroki would always say that he tried. No matter what happened later, the early days of their marriage kept her from being able to hate him entirely, even during her darkest times. Some would call it sentimentality, her eldest once mockingly called it Stockholm– but it wasn’t about love or anything like that. It was just that he tried.

Their wedding night, he had been gentle. He asked if she had ever had sex before, blinking when she said that she hadn’t, because he hadn’t either. She laughed, and tipsy with wine, the two of them fumbled about in their marital bed. She remembered when his broad palms lifted her thighs, he looked down at his wife and spoke apologetically when he tried to maneuver himself into a proper position.

I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. 

She believes that he meant it at the time. It just seemed that she remembered, and he did not. Or more likely, when his breeding stock started to wear down, he felt the need to whip the old mare back into place, like kicking a printer when it refused to work. They had responsibilities, after all.

Her first pregnancy had been troubled. He tried. She knows he tried. But he had his work– there were people who needed him more. She understood that. So she often spent her time talking to the unborn baby, trying to soothe him and herself, alone in the house and afraid of old shadows lingering in the back of her mind.

Her water broke a month early, at 33 weeks, and her husband had rushed her to the hospital half-dressed in the clothing he put over his hero costume. Touya was four pounds and four ounces, and if she held his butt in the palm of her hand, his head barely passed her longest finger and his little legs would barely reach half the length of her forearm. His hair was a beautiful, burning red, and even though he was small, the doctor told her– He’s got a strong heart. He’s much healthier than we could have ever expected for a baby this premature.

She had sobbed with joy, so passionately that her husband felt the need to awkwardly put his arm around her and rub her back, eyes squinted while he tried to determine what exactly had pushed her to tears. They had never discussed little Yukio, and they would never need to. Enji Todoroki’s greatest gift to her, she thought, was Touya’s strong heart.

But he was the eldest, and he was a son. He was born with responsibilities. She wanted to protect the little heart pounding away in his chest, and the only thing she could imagine was giving him a rib of his own, even if it would take a toll on her body so soon after giving birth.

“I want another child,” she said. “Touya needs a sibling. So they can encourage one another.” So that their two little hearts could be safe, for much longer than a measly five years. Enji Todoroki’s Christmas gift to her that year was her beautiful daughter, born on time, a healthy eight pounds, with chubby cheeks and little kicking legs and a tendency to blow raspberries while she tried to babble. Touya was immediately intrigued by the new addition to their home, just as she had hoped.

After five years, Touya’s hair started turning white. She watched Himura genes push the red out of him in a swirl, starting at the scalp. Blood being flushed down a drain. Touya’s body was broken. At what point does it stop being a miscarriage? 

She had opposed the training from the outset– but it was no different from martial arts, he argued. She could acquiesce, so long as it remained within reason, but one thing she and Enji agreed on was that the burning had to stop.

But five years of responsibility was enough to break his heart. Slower, more cruelly– and she would have to watch her baby boy die across nine more. She didn’t want another child. She was terrified– what if their body was just as broken? More importantly, Touya would know– he knew, already, that his father just wanted to replace him. She had seen six more children be born across her childhood with the same intention, but Touya’s heart was stronger than hers, and his fire burned brighter than his father’s, and he wouldn’t be able to swallow it as easily. 

But Touya comes home with fresh burns every day, Endeavor said. It’s the only way to make him give up. Since he could never be the one to surpass All Might.

Rei Todoroki could never be a son or a hero. If she was going to help her family, it would have to be as a wife and mother. She called her own mother to ask for guidance, or at the very least, for bravery.

You promised to give him a child with a balanced quirk, she said. You should try now while you’re still young. If it takes too long, you’ll get old and end up in the same position I did with Yukio. I was so ashamed. I had let our entire family down. At least try, Rei. For your husband and your son.

She had responsibilities. Being a wife was work; what had he paid for, then, if she couldn’t perform her wifely duties? If her water had to break to put out the fire she started, wasn’t it her responsibility to do it?

It took a few tries for their third. He was beginning to get impatient. She didn’t want to do it. She asked each time for a cup or two of sake before they tried (the only time she would drink)– otherwise, the anxiety would seize up the muscles of her pelvic floor and it would hurt too badly. He wasn’t gentle anymore, but he understood there were certain things that could not be accomplished by brute force. At least, not without a bit of gentle persuasion. They didn’t kiss anymore, but that was fine. Her heart would stay stuck in her throat to try and get away from him and his thunderous huffs, and each time, she would swallow it, because it was her responsibility.

Her third child was born in the summer, and he was so big she was worried it’d tear her to pieces, or that she’d collapse and spill out like an inflated, rotting melon. But her summer son was born healthy, and he laid in her arms quietly because he was at peace and his heart didn’t have to beat so quickly and so strongly as to carry responsibility the way his brother did. He ate a lot, grew quickly, and began walking early– and Touya eyed him with suspicion until the sun rose on a field of frost sprayed across the nursery by a toddler’s startled sneeze. She loved her sparkling summer son and the diamond dust he left hanging in the air– but she knew that evening her husband would demand labor of her again.

The first time he hit her was after one of the many attempts for their fourth, squabbling about trying to go another round or waiting for another day– she had made a comment about how a few hours wouldn’t make much of a difference as to when he finally outpaced All Might– if he ever did at all.

She stood to use the restroom, and he stood too, grabbing her by the arm. She spun to face him, expression twisted with annoyance, but instead of being met with words, she was met with the back of his hand as it swung through the air. His hand is about the size of her entire head– he could palm her like a basketball, if he wanted. The strike made her vision go white and she fell, his grip on her arm having been released.

He stood there, stunned, as if he were surprised at what he had just done. She was too shocked to cry. Rei just sat there, eyes wide and fixed on the hand that had hit her, comparing the knuckles to the throbbing sensation in her skull.

He opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. Then he opened it once more, muttering something about sleeping in one of the guest rooms for the night, and left her to sleep alone in her marital bed.

“Mom, what happened to your face?” Touya asked her the next morning. She had awoken to a face more swollen than the night before, and not even her frosted hand could keep it down entirely. Rei glanced at her husband while he shuffled around them, fetching everything he would need to go off to work. They both had responsibilities.

“I tripped over the diaper bag,” she said. “I guess I need to be better about putting my things away, hm?” Natsuo bounced in his chair and gurgled, and Touya went back to pestering his father while she wiped the baby’s face. Fuyumi quietly offered her a banana– her favorite part of her breakfast– as a way to try and make her mommy’s booboo better, but Rei just smiled, peeled it, and handed it back.

“You need to eat your fruit to grow your big smart brain, baby. That way you won’t trip over things the way your Mommy does. Isn’t Mommy silly?” She said. Fuyumi looked at her skeptically, but never one to turn down a “nanna”, said a ‘thank you’ and went back to eating.

She called her mother for reassurance while the children were sat watching TV, stomach churning and hands shaking as she described the night. Her mother’s horrified silence felt heavy– it felt like failure. She never wanted them to worry.

“Well… You know how men can be, sweetheart. It’s awful, but I’m sure things will be alright. He just needs some time to cool off, and you two will work things out together,” she said. “If you want, I can come help out with the children for a few days? Maybe that’ll help relieve some of the tension– you both work so hard, after all.” Rei wanted to believe her mother, but as the eldest daughter, as a wife, as a mother– she recognized that tone of voice, the same she had used when she told her sisters;

“It’s traditional. But you don’t have to do it the traditional way. It’s just for when they need to make sure something is passed down properly, is all.”

She wondered, briefly, if her father had ever smacked her mother for want of a son.

For their anniversary, only a matter of weeks after that night, he gifted her a bass guitar in a form of quiet apology; I listened, he was trying to say. That he remembered her mentioning not bringing it with her to their marital home, because it felt silly and childish to do so, but that she had genuinely enjoyed playing it. I remember you. I care about you.

She didn’t really ever have the time to play it, and she found it charming, in a way, his clumsy attempts at something like love. A match trying to apologize for burning fingertips. Rei would always acknowledge that he tried.

But more than bass guitars, Rei would prefer that he showed his remorse by not beating her and their children. Some gifts just were too much to ask for, she supposed. What do you even give a wife? Wives were made to be given.

There was nothing kind about the conception of their fourth. Rei had swallowed her sake less like a bride and more like a soldier, and followed him into the bedroom slaughter-house, feeling all too much like an aging, rotting sow. She was barely present; if she hadn’t carried him for nine months, she almost could think she hadn’t been involved in Shoto’s creation at all. It wasn’t the liquor, although the alcohol certainly made it easier– Rei just found things to be a bit gentler when she held them at a distance from her open-wound heart. There were nights where she would goad him on, angry at both him and herself, trying to talk in the language of violence her husband seemed to speak and punish them both for the dirty acts they participated in, but the night Shoto was actually conceived on wasn’t one of those nights. It was a night that was cooled by a pleasant breeze, one that floated through their room from the open screen door leading out to the engawa. The air was sweet with spring flowers and the faint promise of future rain, and she stared out into the dark and mourned the fact it was still too early to see the fireflies. More than the pain, more than the sadness, Rei remembers the night as one where she dreamed about showing the children how to catch fireflies and cup them in their hands gently, so as not to break their tiny wings. 

Her husband’s hands were too big, too rough to learn. Too hot. She would have to teach her children while they were young about how to treat fireflies with care. 

“I love you,” she mumbled, a phrase so unexpected that the man above her slowed to a halt. Even when things were at their best, it was not a saying that they shared with one another, because there was no point in pretending that this marriage was something that it wasn’t. That frighteningly intense gaze remained on her for a moment, and she smiled, covering her eyes with a forearm tossed across her face, almost bashful. “‘M sorry, I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to be able to say it to somebody.”

“You’ve had too much,” he said, rubbing her stomach in some sort of absent-minded attempt at comfort. Clumsy, cruel tenderness. “We’ll just finish up this round, and you’ll have to go to bed. You can’t continue in this condition.” She could feel his disappointment, a prickly disapproval in her decision to imbibe. 

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond. 

“It’s a lovely night out,” she said, as he began to resume his efforts. The inertia had been halted– he’d have to build things back up, no thanks to her. She was a bad wife. “But I miss the fireflies.”

Briefly, a thought blinking through her mind like the lightning bug, she thought about her cousin and the girl he loved and planned to marry, no matter what. She couldn’t recall if she had ever heard anything more of it, but she decided to believe that the two of them had stayed in love and gotten married, that they were out there living a happy life with as many children as they could ever want, that he had kept growing his hair long and brushed it out every night and was still just as proud of it. She wanted to believe such happy things could come about, even for the most unlucky of people. Even for people with hearts trampled by responsibility. 

He grunted. She screwed her eyes shut.

“I’m sorry. I’m no good at this.”

“You need to stop talking,” he said, and like a good wife, Rei listened.

Chapter Text

“I did it because it was what had to be done. I took no pleasure in it.” 

These words were offered up to him by Miyakinu Soma, otherwise known as Tantra, a First-Rank advisor in the Paranormal Liberation Front. Best Jeanist finds the man an interesting contrast to the grand commander. Formerly a Buddhist monk, he had joined the Meta Liberation Army and climbed through the ranks quite quickly, before eventually being selected to be Geten’s primary caregiver. He’s docile, soft-spoken– not at all the sort of individual Jeanist expected to have raised his little Titan. 

President Keigo had been far more willing to sign off on this interview, so long as Jeanist agreed to allow it to be used as evidence in the trial for Re-Destro. Jeanist was more than happy to do it. It also meant he had permission to record it.

“I don’t think I understand what you mean by that,” Jeanist says, fiddling with his pen. “Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t think there’s anything that necessitates what happened here.”

Miyakinu smiles. His smile always looked a bit rueful, in Jeanist’s eyes. “I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. I don’t expect those outside of the organization to understand. It’s something that even gives members of the army pause, I think. I know I had trouble accepting the calling.”

“And yet,” Jeanist says. “Here we are. Ten years is a long time.”

“It is, yes,” Miyakinu responds. “A very long time. Best Jeanist, do you consider yourself a particularly violent person?”

“I wouldn’t say that, no.”

“And yet,” Miyakinu says, “Your job necessitates more violence than most people will ever experience.”

“Nothing about this is the same as my profession,” Jeanist says.

“No,” the man responds. “But I do think it involves a similar understanding of duty. We all make sacrifices.”

“Children aren’t sacrifices.”

“I remember seeing the video our Lieutenant broadcast,” the prisoner says. “And I remember that Lieutenant being arrested by his younger brother. Do you think,” he asks, “that Shoto Todoroki would have been able to defeat Dabi if he had not trained from childhood?”

Jeanist falls quiet. His brows furrow. “Dabi wouldn’t have been created in the first place if not for what happened in that home.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Miyakinu says. “In a way, Geten was intended to avoid that very same issue.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Geten, with the kind of strength Lord Re-Destro sought to cultivate, would alleviate the burden on the rest of our soldiers. By securing victory, he would create a world where no other child would have to go to war. By eliminating enemies, other families wouldn’t have to worry about their loved ones coming home. Until we have a Liberated World, there will always be suffering. This was simply a matter of the suffering of one versus the suffering of many.” Miyakinu’s hairless brows lower over his eyes just slightly. “In a way, Geten is our own hero. Can you imagine, if Endeavor had chosen to invest in the future of his eldest instead of giving up?”

“Dabi’s body was unfit for his quirk. It would have been more cruel to force him through it.”

“Would it have been worse than it is now?”

Jeanist struggles to find a response.

“I’m not saying it was good,” Miyakinu says, leaning back a little. “But many necessities aren’t.”

“Regardless,” Jeanist says, teeth clenching slightly, “I would like to know more about Geten’s upbringing. It’s my job to untangle the knot you made.”

“Of course,” Miyakinu says. “I have no objections.”

“The reason I decided to speak with you at all,” Jeanist says, “is because I’m worried about Geten’s eating habits and mannerisms. He’s aggressive and withdrawn, has no regard for cleanliness, and most importantly, he eats until he makes himself sick. When I asked him about it, he said it had to do with training. With you, specifically. Not Re-Destro.”

“Yes, that’s all true,” Miyakinu says. “It was decided that food was the easiest way to steer his behavior at that age, and that it was something that would continue to be practical through the rest of his life. He came to us with an existing level of food insecurity, I believe. He liked to hide and hoard things, and struggled with controlling the impulse to eat. It’s somewhat common in impoverished children.” Jeanist feels a chill at how clinical it all was. “I was given a list of desired outcomes and traits, and Re-Destro would review it with me regularly. So it would change, depending on how things were going.”

“How grim.”

“Yes,” Tantra says. “Grim is a good word for it.”

“What were the traits you were told to aim for?” Jeanist asks.

“Obedient, but sufficiently independent. Resilient. He was supposed to be ambitious, but disinterested in anything other than strength. Clever, but not knowledgeable. Self-policing. There were a variety of things. It changed with age. But above all, he was supposed to look only to Re-Destro. Nobody else.”

“I see,” Best Jeanist says. “I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Miyakinu.” Tantra smiles.

“I know Enma will send me where I belong,” he says. “But if the world cannot be Liberated, then it is my responsibility to help alleviate what little suffering I can. Even if it’s just that of one person.”

-

“Geten, I’ve brought you a letter,” Jeanist says as he walks through the door, prompting the boy to spring up from his bed so quickly a pillow bounces off and lands on the floor a few feet away. He holds his hands out expectantly, yelling out a quick “Please” so that Jeanist will pass it over, which he does. Geten sits cross-legged on the floor, and Jeanist sets his things down.

“Do you want some help reading it?” he asks.

“I want to try first,” he says. “I told Mrs. Rei I would.”

“Ah, I see.”

Hello Kiyotaka!

Fuyumi and I really loved your first letter. It was very nice of you to say those things. Shoto enjoyed meeting you at the school. I heard you got injured. Please take care of yourself!

We will definitely visit more in the future! I would like you to meet Natsuo, my other son, too. 

Your sister came by today. She would like to visit you, and so does the rest of your family. Is that okay? I think they miss you a lot, too.

From, Rei.

Jeanist watches as Geten traces the lines with his finger and mumbles out words to himself, but he stalls as he gets closer to the end. His brows furrow. He looks up at Jeanist.

“There’s something in here,” he says. 

“Let me take a look.” Jeanist assumes he’s having difficulty with a word or name, but Geten points him to the mention of Akira. 

“That’s not true,” he says. “I know that’s not true.”

“How do you know that?” Jeanist asks.

“Re-Destro told me,” he says. “He said that they were nasty with him when he asked. They didn’t want to see me. And they’re ungrateful.” 

Jeanist does not want to tell Geten directly that Re-Destro is wrong, because it rarely ends well. Maybe it would just be better to show him. “Well, maybe they’ve changed their minds. Ten years is a long time.”

Geten doesn’t respond.

“You said you were lonely, didn’t you? Maybe this is a good chance to reconnect, while you’re waiting for Re-Destro’s trial to be done,” he offers. “I won’t make you keep seeing them if it goes poorly. But Mrs. Rei and Ms. Fuyumi seem to think it’s a good idea. We could all go to dinner together.” The boy ponders this.

“I want them to apologize to Re-Destro,” he says.

“Once Re-Destro’s trial is over,” Jeanist says, lying, “I’m sure they’ll have come around to the idea. You’re very persuasive.” Geten’s face brightens. He gets up, making a beeline for his desk.

“Help me write that down,” he says. “So I can tell them it’s fine.”

“What do we say, Geten?”

“Please.”

“There we go,” he says, joining the boy. “Let’s see what we can do.”

Hello Mrs. Rei and Fuyumi and Shoto and Natsuo it’s me Kiyotaka.

I want to see you again and meet you because I had fun before. I am good at taking care of my self and body so you don’t have to worry at all. Mr. Jeanist says I should try to talk to my family because they may have changed their minds and maybe will be nice to Re-Destro and we can all go eat together to talk so I think we should do it. Please and thank you.

From, Kiyotaka.

It’s not perfect. But Best Jeanist is very proud he managed to get the boy to remember the kanji for everyone’s name, including his own. And he gets Geten to pick up the pillow.

-

“Oh, isn’t he just the sweetest?” Rei asks, holding his letter in her hand. 

“Mom, he’s killed people,” Natsuo says between mouthfuls of noodles.

“Those two things aren’t necessarily exclusive,” she says. “Touya apologized to me the other day for our last fight.” Natsuo makes a sound of pleasant surprise, and Fuyumi looks over her mother’s shoulder.

“Oh, and his kanji is improving, too! I think he’s finally got the stroke count down for your name, mom.”

“Oh, let me see,” Shoto says, and Fuyumi takes the letter to show her brother through their video call.

“We should send him something,” Rei titters, fluttering about the kitchen and adjusting things just to have something to do. “Can we send him something small, like candy?”

“I dunno,” Natsuo says. “I was part of a letters to prisoners program for a while, and the rules can be pretty strict. But maybe Best Jeanist can get stuff in that the Bureau of Corrections wouldn’t normally let you send.”

“I hope so,” Rei says. “He’s such a nice boy.”

“No, not really,” Shoto says. “But that’s okay. I wasn’t very nice either.” Natsuo laughs at this, almost choking on a noodle in the process. That afternoon, Rei made sure to call Akira Himura, who was still in town with her clients looking for a vacation home in Shizuoka.

-

It took a while for things to be arranged, due to trying to align everyone’s schedules. Enji had declined to come– he felt it would be improper, especially considering he still attracted public attention. Touya, of course, was still in the hospital and he and Geten were forbidden from speaking without very strict supervision. They had to wait for arrangements to be made for travel, but Rei had opened her home for lodging to the five visitors that would be arriving. Jeanist was, of course, going to be there to supervise– and because it was a family meal, he extended an invitation to Ibara to come, which she accepted, albeit awkwardly. Shoto had proposed inviting Bakugou, since Geten seemed fond of him, but Natsuo and Fuyumi had glanced at one another and vetoed it. Twice had tried to invite himself, but Jeanist very sternly told him this situation was both intimate and delicate and he was NOT going to make it any worse, so his presence had been vetoed as well.

Chiaki looks just about as Rei remembered, albeit older now, a bit time-worn– but livelier, too. There’s a healthy flush to his pale cheeks, his limbs are thin but not gaunt, and he arrives using a walker with a seat attached. His hair is longer now, too, but still just as silky and cared for, braided down to his mid back. His daughter helps him out of the cab, but when he stands, he holds himself with a dignity she hadn’t quite expected from her scrawny, sickly cousin.

“Rei! It’s been so long!” He extends one arm in greeting, a bright smile crossing his face. He still dresses traditionally, and from the fine embroidery on the sleeves of his kimono, she can tell that they’ve put on their Sunday best to meet their son.

“Chiaki! How are you?” She asks, embracing him. “Are things going well?”

“I couldn’t ask for better,” he says. “Thank you so much for this.”

“Of course. It’s the least I could do.”

“You’ve met Akira, our eldest, but you haven’t met the rest of my family yet, have you? You weren’t at the wedding– and, well, things got as things were. But here, come here, let me introduce you.” He waves everyone closer. Chiaki looks just as she would imagine, but his wife took her entirely by surprise. Rona Himura is tall, broad-shouldered and long-limbed, with piercing dark eyes. More shockingly, she’s covered in thick white fur, has a tail that slowly wags behind her from a hole in her kimono, black paw-pads on the palm of her hands and tips of her fingers, and the broad head and snout of a white wolf. Rei had been surprised when she saw Akira’s ears, but even then, she hadn’t expected a high-content heteromorph, considering what hoops they must have gone through to get the marriage approved.

“My name is Rona. It’s nice to meet you,” she says, bowing to her hostess. Her voice is neutral, somewhat flat– but Rei doesn’t get the impression she’s trying to be cold.

“The pleasure’s mine,” Rei says. “Chiaki, is this the girl you told me about? Do you remember?” Chiaki grins.

“Highschool sweetheart. And then my twenties’ sweetheart, and my thirties, and my forties-”

“Honey,” Rona says, pressing her snout atop her husband’s head in something like a kiss. “You need to finish introducing the children.”

“Ah, right– this is my second, Ichiro– Ichiro, get back here, say ‘hi’ to your auntie!” 

Oh, she’s an Auntie now.

The young man in question seems close in age to her Touya, and he looks a good bit like his father, albeit without his same skin condition and instead had the same dark eyes as most of the family. He also has a tail curling up behind him, one that wags as he taps away on his phone from where he had wandered off on the curb. He does return, though, offering a firm handshake followed by a big hug, one he drags Fuyumi into as well, who happened to be unfortunate enough to be within arm’s reach. The colorful bracelets on his wrist clack together as he does. He looks back at his father and siblings, and then back to his cousins, smiling.

“Can I take a picture? I want to show my girlfriend!”

“Oh, I think that should be alright,” Fuyumi says, trying to get some air– which she accomplishes when he raises one of his long arms to take a selfie. He’s taller than all of them, except for his mother– possibly even taller than Natsuo. 

“Yukiiiiiiiii, stop hiding behind Mom, I’m trying to get you in the photo!” He turns his head to bark at his sister, who shuffles out from behind Rona in an awkwardly-tucked blouse underneath a Hokkaido Information University sweatshirt, somewhere between her elder sister’s blazer and skirt and her elder brother’s polo shirt over jeans in terms of formality. She wears thick glasses and boasts her mother’s ears and tail– along with white fur that runs along her chin, neck, chest, and limbs, albeit not covering her body entirely. The phone camera clicks loudly a few more times, and the tall man finally releases the two Todoroki women.

“And there’s Yuki!” Chiaki says, gesturing to her with both hands with pride, while she covers her face with her hands. “Our third!”

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Ichiro says, throwing his arm instead around his younger sister. “Hey, come on, aren’t you excited?” Her response is muffled by her hands, and he rolls his eyes, resting his chin on top of her head. “Don’t mind her, cousins!” He calls to Rei and Fuyumi, grinning. “She’s just emo!”

“I’m not!” She protests, raising her face.

“Emoo! EEEEE- MMMM–OOOOOO!” He spells aloud in English, while she tries to escape his hold, before Akira cuffs him upside the head. 

“Stop being ridiculous. We haven’t even gotten inside.”

“So I can be ridiculous inside?” This earns him a light whack on the arm, and he pulls away, laughing.

“I’m not emo,” Yuki insists, ears pulled back against her head. Rei clears her throat.

“Speaking of,” she says. “Let’s get your luggage inside and you can meet the rest of our family while we wait for Kiyotaka to arrive.” Rona has already begun unloading, carrying a majority of the luggage on her arms or tucked underneath with ease, while her husband sighs.

“Come on, Ro, I can get some of it!” He holds out his hands.

“I know, my love,” she says. “But they have steps, and if you have something in your hands, you’re going to hit it and fall while trying to juggle the bags and your walker.”

“I will not.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure!”

“Positive?”

“Positive!”

“Only fools are positive,” she says, flicking an ear. 

“Ro! Come on, I’m not going to fall.” His wife sighs, but hands him one of the smaller bags, and the two begin walking towards the house together, Chiaki steering his walker with one hand. As predicted, the leg hits the stoop, and starts to topple, but Rona grabs her husband by the back of his collar without a second look.

“Like I said.”

“I didn’t fall, though,” he says.

“Because I caught you.”

“Yeah,” he grins. “You always catch me.” She huffs through her nose, but carries him that way the rest of the walk, bag still in his hands, and they set it down before the step where they would take off their shoes.

“Ah, here, let me show you where to put it–” Fuyumi jogs off to help, a little taken aback by the liveliness of her relatives. Natsuo sends Shoto a quick text–

It’s gonna be an interesting dinner LOL

-

“Her meta ability is that her hair turns into drills, but she has a tail and wings sometimes.”

“I see.”

“She– she was created as a prank, but due to her determination and the support of the people, she’s a real idol now. Even though people left mean comments and said she was too old, she didn’t stop pursuing her dream to become the voice of the masses. That’s why she’s the most Liberated!” 

“Oh, that’s very noble. Who are these Vocaloids she mentions? Does she want to be one?”

“They’re more popular digital idols made with corporate backing. But Teto is free to use, so people think she’s cheap, but it’s so that people have an accessible means to creation. I do like Miku and her friends, though. They’re not bad. But they certainly aren’t the idols of the proletariat. Teto instead becomes an Utauloid upon realizing she doesn’t need the status of Vocaloid to achieve her dream.”

“I see… I admire her determination. And I like that she seeks to right her wrongs, even knowing she will be penalized by the DVD store clerk.” Ibara nods as she speaks.

“Exactly! She’s a representative for her followers, including their flaws. The songs serve as parables.”

“Ah. Miss Teto is Christlike in nature. How wonderful to hear such work continues in our times.”

Jeanist sighs as he listens to the teens conversing in the back seat of his car, Teto Territory playing through the speakers for the eighth time. He’s not sure how Geten got hooked on the high-pitched digital pop stars, but a certain black and grey mask comes to mind as a possible culprit. He regrets asking Geten if he wanted to listen to anything on the way to the Todoroki family residence.

“Why don’t we try listening to something else?” he asks, desperate.

“I would like to sit in contemplation of her words a while more,” Ibara says. Geten gives a furious nod. Jeanist tosses a glance over his shoulder, despair setting in at the absolute betrayal of good taste.

“Because they’re telling stories, there are songs where they sing about the abject cruelty man is capable of. But I don’t like those ones. They wouldn’t do those things. I don’t like seeing them that way, even if it’s pretend.”

Tetotetotetotetotetotetoteto…

Jeanist has never been so happy to pull into a driveway before. 

-

“Ah, Rei, Ro can’t use cups.” Chiaki informs his cousin as they set the table together, his wife’s ear flicking at the sound of her name while she wipes down counters. He lowers his vice and grins. “Sorry for not saying anything earlier. She’s a bit shy.” 

“Oh!” Rei says, pausing to think. She isn’t sure if it’s appropriate to offer a bowl…

“Do you have any sakazuki?” he prompts, and she sets down the pair of chopsticks in her hand.

“Right– right, of course! One moment.”

“You didn’t have to ask, Chiaki,” Rona turns to him, voice low. “I can make do with cups.”

“Well, you don’t have to make do,” he says cheerily. “Because Rei has sakazuki.”

Once the table is finally set, the family sits around it, although they’re waiting to serve the food until the last guests arrive. The knock at the door has Rei shooting up to her feet, conversations about universities and soccer games dying at the sound.

Jeanist hadn’t wanted them to arrive as late as they did, but getting Geten into something he considered presentable had been…a task. A task that consisted of many compromises. The first involved getting Geten to even agree to wear something other than a t-shirt and joggers (or god forbid, snow pants), which was prompted by a 

“You don’t want to be disrespectful to Mrs. Rei, do you? We’re visiting her home, after all.” To which Geten had given him a pout but acquiesced regardless. After that, it was a matter of finding where the line of tolerability was, and trying to find it without making Geten so frustrated he’d blow the whole thing off. Getting him into jeans wasn’t going to happen, but a pair of black cargo pants was agreeable. He allowed Jeanist to brush his hair, but he wasn’t allowed to move his bangs out of his face. A collared shirt was layered underneath a large sweater with slightly too-long sleeves– and of course, non negotiable; the coat. All in all, Best Jeanist considered it a success. 

Of course, he and his daughter were going dressed in their own Sunday best. It was only polite. And you’d never catch either of them dead looking sloppy.

“At least wait to put the hood up,” Jeanist says after knocking on the door, listening to the muffled sound of conversation inside. “I imagine they’d like to see your face.” 

Geten clutches the fur trim of his hood and squirms in place, shifting from one foot to the other. Rei opens the door and Ibara thanks her profusely for hosting, but even as Geten’s expression becomes steely and he straightens his back, Jeanist can tell he’s nervous by the way he buries his mouth in the fur.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Rei says. “We’re so happy to have you.”

She leads them to the dining room, but Geten stalls before stepping through the entryway. Jeanist turns to look back at him. Geten yanks his hood up, shrouding his face in darkness once more. He goes to say something, but Ibara, over Geten’s shoulder, shakes her head at her father. 

He crosses the threshold, into the view of more relatives than he had spoken to in his entire life, and immediately tenses. He’s assessing how wary he needs to be of each individual in the room– and his mother has started to wag her tail, thumping against the tatami mat, even despite her stoic expression.

“Taka! Do you recognize us?” Ichiro asks, leaning to see past his elder sister. “You know me, right? It’s Ichiro!”

“Give him a second,” Akira hisses. “He just got here.”

Geten just stands and stares. Jeanist decides he has to lead by example, so he calmly strides over to his seat, and Ibara does the same. This prompts Geten to follow, and he settles into position between Best Jeanist and Rei Todoroki, across the table from his family. He can detect the anticipation, the barely-restrained energy running along that side of the table, but he hasn’t decided if it’s one that’s friendly or not.

“Rona, do you want to help me serve the food?” Rei asks. The wolf woman stands and nods, although her tail doesn’t quiet itself. At her size, Geten bristles– Wariness and suspicion is coming off of him in waves. She places food in front of him and he snarls, yanking it close in a move Jeanist hadn’t seen from him in some time. She pulls her hand away, blinking with surprise.

“Geten!” he scolds.

“I apologize,” she says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He doesn’t say anything– he just rapidly begins to shovel food into his mouth, and when he coughs from swallowing a piece of food he didn’t chew completely, Best Jeanist suddenly feels overwhelmed by the feeling that they’ve gone backwards and there’s nothing he can do.

“Oh, you’ve still got a big appetite, huh?” Chiaki says. Fearless, still wearing a cheery smile, he leans across the table with his own rice bowl in hand– even as Geten bares his teeth, even as he twitches and coils– and offers it to his son. “If you’re still hungry, you can have my serving. There’s plenty to share.”

“You can have my meat,” Rona cradles her plate in one massive paw, chopsticks in the other, placing the strips of steak from her dinner onto the rice Chiaki was offering.

“Take my dumplings, then,” Ichiro says, sticking his plate forward alongside them.

“You need to eat your vegetables, too,” Akira adds, putting forth her own.

“Your soup bowl is small,” Yuki says. “Take mine, too.”

“You can have my noodles,” Shoto says after a moment of quiet. “Mom makes the best noodles.”

“And my fish,” Natsuo says, holding the piece in his chopsticks. 

“If you like, you can have my melon slices,” Fuyumi says.

“He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” Ibara, moved, offers her own plate of food.

“...Geten, if you’re hungry, there’s no need to rush,” Jeanist says, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We will make sure you get what you need.”

“Let me pour your tea,” Rei says, taking hold of the teapot. “All you need to do is pass me your cup.”

Geten, suddenly presented with more food than he ever could have expected, slows to a halt. Each new dish makes him slowly release his grip on his own, lifting his chest away from the table, staring out into the sea of affection in front of him. He’s silent and unmoving for a bit, but then he speaks in a soft voice.

“That’s not fair,” he says, blinking. “You all need to eat, too.” He takes the rice bowl from Chiaki’s tremoring hand, and leans over to set it back in front of his father. “You won’t get stronger if you don’t eat.”

“I guess that means we all have to eat together, then,” Chiaki says with a smile, holding his cup up in a small toast. “So eat with us.” 

“Okay,” he says, before he slowly begins to eat again, utensils clutched tightly, but no longer hunched over with fear. The rest of the table settles back into their seats and begins to eat as well, after a round of thanks.

“So, Taka,” Ichiro says, between bites of stew. “What the hell did you do to end up in prison? You’re like, what, fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Stop talking. Stop talking.” Akira hisses at him, elbowing him in the side. Jeanist sputters. Had nobody been filled in on the situation?

“Lots,” Geten says, splintering the awkward tension between the rest of the party. “But mostly because we were trying to overthrow the state and Liberate society from the oppressive shackles of heroic idolatry and metaphobia.”

“What?” Ichiro asks.

“We?” Rona asks, blinking with disbelief.

“The Paranormal Liberation Front,” Geten says. “I was the Co-Lieutenant of the Violet Regiment. We didn’t start that way, of course. The PLF didn’t exist until the League of Villains took charge after the Revival Festival. Originally, we were the Meta Liberation Army, if you’re familiar.”

“Did you say League of Villains?” Yuki asks. Geten nods at his airplane-eared sister, who simply stares.

“Dude, are you a terrorist?” Ichiro leans forward a bit.

“It’s never easy to find out,” Natsuo says. “Trust me.”

“What happened to Mr. Yotsubashi?” Rona asks.

Oh god. Oh god. Jeanist averts his gaze. Nobody told them anything!

“Re-Destro’s in prison now,” Geten says. “But he was our grand commander. He trained me and made me stronger.” The boy ignores the strangled sound his eldest sister makes. “That reminds me, you all need to apologize for being mean to him when he asked you to visit. When he gets out, I mean. Right now, his trial is still ongoing, so we can’t speak yet. But when we do.”

“Kiyotaka, what the fuck are you talking about?” Chiaki asks. 

“When he asked you to visit, all the way in the past. You were mean to him because you didn’t want to come,” the boy keeps his tone even, but can’t help the edge of sulkiness that seeps in. “You can’t do that to Re-Destro. I owe him a lot.”

“Kiyotaka, we always wanted to go see you!” Rona says, ears flattened to the side and mouth hanging open in her shock. “He told us you didn’t want to see us! He said you would refuse to go with him, to the point of having fits. We didn’t want to put you through that kind of stress!”

“I never said that,” Geten says, blinking with confusion. “At least… I don’t think I did. But if Re-Destro said so…”

“What did he do to you, Kiyotaka?” Rona’s voice cracks into a whine, the hair on her neck bristling. “What did he do?”

“He made me strong!” Geten snaps, suddenly on the defensive. “He Liberated me!”

“Oh god,” she said, head sinking into her hands. “What did I do? What have I done to you?”

Chiaki puts his arm around his wife, rubbing her back in soothing circles. “It’s okay, Ro. We’ll figure things out. Kiyotaka,” he begins. “I think we’ll have to talk more about this later. It seems like there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.” Geten huffs through his nose, but he just quietly returns to eating. Fuyumi gently reaches over and squeezes Yuki’s hand. 

“We can fill you all in after dinner,” she says. “But for now, let’s just enjoy being together, okay? Kiyotaka’s got limited time. Kiyotaka,” she addresses him with a soft smile. “Why don’t you tell them about all those ice phases we were talking about? How many are there, again?”

“Twenty one,” he says, swallowing a mouthful of rice. “It depends on the way the molecules are arranged. Ice one-H is the most common on earth, though, and makes up most of the ice we’ll ever encounter. But scientists can artificially create the others with the right pressure and temperature gradients.”

“...Badass,” Ichiro says, trying to relieve some of the tension. Despite this, Rona still stands and excuses herself. Chiaki follows, once his daughter helps him up to his walker.

“We’ll be right back,” he says. “She’s just a bit overwhelmed.”

“I understand,” Rei says. “Take your time.” Geten continues to prattle on about the physicochemical properties of ice, and Jeanist rubs his temples with a different kind of frustration. Was this going poorly? How well could he even have expected it to go? What was going to happen next? Could they keep Geten from getting agitated the rest of the night?

-

“You did what you thought was best for him, Ro,” Chiaki’s voice comes muffled through the wall from behind Rei, barely audible underneath the dinner conversation. “You never could have predicted things turning out this way. Nobody could have predicted it.”

“I should have dug deeper. I should have known– the smell, Chiaki! I should have trusted my nose! It was too good to be true!”

“It’s– Rona, please, just listen to me. It’s not your fault those people lied to us. You– You were taking care of all of us, please don’t be hard on yourself–”

“I’m his mother! All this time, we’ve been living our lives at his expense! I sold our son like a goddamn donkey! And now– and now he’s in prison– it’s going to affect the rest of his life–”

“Rona, Rona, please– please, calm down. It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We have this chance now, don’t we? We can help him now. Do you think– I know I wasn't a good father before. But we need to do what we can now. We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay. There are people who are here and want to help.”

“I know,” she cries, voice drowning in misery. “But God, Chiaki, what have I done?!”

Chapter Text

“Mr. and Mrs. Himura,” Jeanist begins, cradling a cup of tea in his lap. “What exactly is it that Mr. Yotsubashi told you? If you don’t mind my asking.” 

The ‘grown ups’ watch the younger generation of Himura-Todorokis (and Ibara) kick a well-loved soccer ball one to another in the grass. It was a game with no end; no points to track, few rules to follow– the only goal was to enjoy themselves. Rona Himura, however, stares into her sakazuki bowl, regret marking a deep furrow in between her brows.

“He said that he ran a school,” she says. “For children gifted with exceptional abilities.”

-

“My name is Yotsubashi Rikiya,” Re-Destro said, removing his hat as he stepped through the door. He had caught Rona right as she had been pulling her jacket on to go search for her youngest after her three other children confessed that they had allowed him to go unsupervised and hadn’t seen him in a couple of hours. “Is this young man yours?”

Cradled in his other arm, arms wrapped around his neck, was Kiyotaka, unharmed and dozing peacefully. She could hear his even, gentle breaths and smell the hearty meal he had just eaten. One heartier than she had ever been able to give him, she realized.

“Kiyotaka!” she exclaimed, reaching out for the boy. Mr. Yotsubashi passed him over with ease, and he mumbled while his mother held him close and nuzzled her head against his chest. His perfect little heartbeat fluttered underneath his winter coat, and she felt her stress melt away in an instant. “Oh, Kiyotaka!-- Thank you, thank you so much– please, come in, I don’t have much to offer, but we have tea, or even soda if you’d prefer–” 

The man smiled at her, and he and his companion stepped inside more fully, shutting the door behind them. Her children slowly crept back out from the places they had retreated to upon being scolded; Ichiro from behind the sofa, and the girls from the room all three of the children shared, cautious but curious. 

“Is everything alright?” her husband called from their bedroom, unable to see into the living room from the bed. 

“They found Kiyotaka!” she called back, giving an apologetic smile to the two guests. “My husband is bedbound, you see. We’re not trying to be rude.”

“Oh, not at all, ma’am.” Mr. Yotsubashi said. “We understand entirely.” Kiyotaka mumbled something about having eaten dinner already, stretching his arms only to wrap them around her head and snout in a hug. 

“Are you ready for bedtime, baby?” she asked him, and the boy nodded in response.

“I’ll get you that tea after I put him down for bed, if you don’t mind it. My apologies,” she said, but her guests simply smiled at her and sat on the couch without prompting. Rona carried the smallest of her children to the crib he had yet to outgrow. She felt guilty for not transitioning him to a toddler bed yet– but they couldn’t afford it. Another thing on the list. Her elder three each had their own futons. Kiyotaka still had nightly disturbances that made it unideal to let him sleep on the floor and free to roam– but if he hit that milestone, she may not even need to purchase a transition bed at all, ideally. She carefully detangled from his hold and kissed his forehead, removed his boots and outerwear, and set him down to stand in the crib while she retrieved a pair of pajamas. He clutched the railing and rested his chin on the top, eyelids drooping. She changed him into slightly too-big fleece pajamas and helped him lay down, tucked him in, and pressed another kiss to his forehead. “I love you, Kiyotaka.”

“Love you,” he repeated, grabbing his pillow and curling around it in a hug. 

She turned her attention back to her guests, moving into the kitchen to start the process of boiling water. “Is there any kind in particular you want?” she asked.

“Anything is fine, really,” Mr. Yotsubashi said. She tapped her claws along to the bubbling of the water and fetched her nicest mugs, returning to the living room with the cups in hand.

“I can’t thank you both enough,” she said. “I’m so sorry for any trouble we caused.” Mr. Yotsubashi and his mustachioed companion sipped at their drinks for a few seconds, and the long-nosed man continued into a carefully thought-over open.

“No need to apologize. But there is something I’d like to discuss with you, Mrs. Himura, if you have the time.” She flicked an ear, and, in no position to refuse, shooed the other three children off to bed with a low bark. She was sure they’d eavesdrop anyways, but it felt proper to at least have her focus on the men in front of her.

“By all means,” she said, nerves tying knots in her stomach. Were they law enforcement? Was she at risk of coming under examination?

“When we met young Kiyotaka,” he said, “he was using his quirk to clean the sidewalk of snow.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry, he knows he’s not supposed t-” the man cut her off with a raised hand.

“On the contrary, I was quite impressed! You see, he demonstrates a remarkable amount of power and dexterity for his age.” The man’s companion nodded in agreement. Her nose twitched, confused, but waiting to see where they were taking this. “I have a vested interest in the development of Meta Abilities, you see.”

“Right,” she said. Something about his wide-mouthed smile made the hair on her neck stand on end, but she assumed it was on account of her already being high-strung from the events of the day.

“I run a program that focuses on encouraging the development of Meta Abilities and the ability to control them, especially in children clearly gifted with a predisposition for it. I would like to offer an admission into this program– free of charge– to your young ice-mover. I think it would be a shame if circumstances caused such a fine quirk to go to waste.” 

“What program? Is it like a hero school?” Rona yawned, hands clutching tighter in her lap. 

“Ah, no, not quite. The focus isn’t on combat– simply on developing capability and technique. There are many applications of such a quirk, after all. Consider the mitigation of winter disasters, or preservation of food or medical supplies– We want to steer away from the idea that Meta Abilities are only good for acts of violence.”

“It’s called the Metacapable Youth Initiative,” his companion said. “We have a website.” The program had existed for some time– largely as camps run in Deika, for members of the army, although outsiders were more than encouraged to join. Of course, what Re-Destro had in mind for the boy was quite different– but he felt no need to specify that.

“He’s so young,” she said. “And we can’t really afford to move right now.”

“We provide room and board,” Re-Destro said. “Although visits from family are always encouraged. We have yet to set up in Hokkaido, though– in fact, that’s why I’m here! But we’d be more than willing to facilitate travel to whichever branch he attends.”

She looked over his well-tailored suit and jacket, his shiny shoes, his fine leather gloves. It all seemed too good to be true.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I would like to look into things a little, first. I’m sorry.”

“You’re his mother. It’s only natural,” the man said. “Why don’t we agree to meet in a few days and discuss some more of the details?”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”

-

The website had been well-made and all the reviews she could find were glowing. (Left largely by army members, of course.) Rikiya Yotsubashi was the CEO of Detnerat, a lifestyle support goods manufacturer; a man with an excellent public reputation, known for his investment in charitable works and his affiliation with the Hearts and Minds Party, who had been responsible for bringing about mutant-friendly legislation within her lifetime– like the kind that allowed her to request landlords for accommodations for her size, as an example.

The children were at school– aside from Kiyotaka, who was at home with his father. She had her reservations about leaving the two of them alone, but her husband had reassured her that he would keep his phone on and with him, and let her know if something happened. It’s a good day, Ro. I’ll be fine.

She hated it when her husband lied. It didn’t suit him. But she had put on her nicest clothes to meet Mr. Yotsubashi at a cafe anyways, hoping the meeting wouldn’t take too long.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Himura!” Mr. Yotsubashi said, tastefully not mentioning the fact she was a bit late, due to having to peel a needy six year old off of her leg so she could go. He was understanding of such matters, of course.

“Thank you for having me,” she said, taking the seat across from him. He had gone through the effort of requesting a larger chair with an opening in the back even before she arrived. He had even pre-ordered her a tea, in a shallow, bowl-like cup, one clearly made for hands her size and snouts like hers. “This is all incredibly kind of you.”

“I would never want a companion of mine to be uncomfortable,” he said. “Have you had the time to look things over?”

“I have,” she said. “It seems like a lovely program. But…”

“But?”

“I’m still worried about the distance. And… there are other concerns, too. On our end, I mean. I feel like you should know some things before this discussion gets too far along.”

“Health concerns, I take it?” She wasn’t sure if he knew something or simply made a lucky guess, but she nodded slowly. He studied her carefully, and even though she was larger than he was, she found herself lapping at her tea nervously. His smells were covered by the strong scent of coffee in the air; it felt like she had been blindfolded, in a sense.

“My husband is bedbound because of his quirk,” she said. “It’s too powerful for his body. He can barely move, some days. But it took some time for the symptoms to become apparent. Kiyotaka… Kiyotaka is the most like his father, and that worries me. He was born prematurely, and hasn’t caught up with the size he should be at his age. He was late in crawling, talking, walking– God, I was so scared he had started atrophying when his motor skills took longer to come in– his family– my husband’s, I mean– they wanted to breed stronger quirks.” She’d started to ramble, but something about finally saying some of it aloud made the rest want to burst out of her chest. She had never been able to talk about these things with anyone, not other than her husband.

“From what I understand, they had started marrying between branches. All of these things compound, don’t they? We don’t know yet if Kiyotaka is going to start wasting away, or if there are other conditions we need to look out for– I’ve tried to make sure he doesn’t use his quirk because I don’t know if using it will make it kick in earlier. Chiaki’s condition requires constant care, and I don’t have a stable job– What happens if you take Kiyotaka into your program and he begins to get sick? I don’t know if we’d be able to take him back and support him, not like this. It’s too cruel to pull him away and give him something nicer just for it to get ripped out from underneath him, especially because he’s still too young to understand any of this.” She lapped at her bowl of tea, licking her lips anxiously. “I love my son. I love all my children. I love my husband. But I don’t know how much worse things can get before something terrible happens.” Mr. Yotsubashi nodded sympathetically.

“Quirks that work against the body are difficult to deal with. But they are also part of the body. Mitigation and control are just as much part of our program as acceleration is.” He wiped some coffee away from his mouth. “I can promise you, if Kiyotaka begins to show signs of degeneration, we will take responsibility for his care and focus on supporting his health. Support items that work with psionic abilities are in development and looking to become more widely available in a few years time! But not only that, what we provide in our program involves support of the entire body. Food, shelter, medicine… Your husband’s condition is worsened by the stress of your current way of living, is it not? I’ve seen many cases like this one.”

She couldn’t help the small whine that escaped her.

“Mrs. Himura, I’m willing to do what it takes to make a better world for every kind of Meta Ability, including those that require a bit more support and accommodation. Clearly what you and your family need is a stepping stone to get back on your feet. We would love to have Kiyotaka in our program, but in the meanwhile, why don’t I get you in contact with a dear friend of mine who can offer you a more stable source of income from home? His company has plenty of positions for data entry jobs, and all you need is a computer, which the company will provide. I’d like to be of some assistance, regardless of whether or not you accept my offer. But, once your husband’s condition improves, perhaps the idea of visitation won’t be as daunting.”

-

Within a few days, Rona Himura became a remote employee of Feel Good Inc. Within a week, she had used her sign-on bonus to buy her husband a new wheelchair, one he could actually move himself, even with his weakened arms. Her first paycheck went to their rent, food, and her children– it was nice to be able to let them pick out new clothes, ones that didn’t need to be patched or adjusted.

Visits from Mr. Yotsubashi, sometimes accompanied, sometimes not, became more common. The children had grown to like him, especially her youngest, whom the man showed a special favoritism towards. This alone was reason enough for her to observe them closely, but as time went on, she found nothing untoward in his behavior or intentions.

He had helped move furniture into their apartment. 

“I’m glad you’re all finally able to have a proper kitchen table! Where else does one feed their family?”

He showed Rona how to repair the sink, and helped with the arduous process of installing a new fridge.

“It’s not a problem. This is simply basic home ownership! I learned this as a lad.”

 She appreciated his respect for her dignity– Mr. Yotsubashi was always careful to let her do things herself or make the choices for her family instead of doing so himself, which helped ease her mind about not doing enough for the household. Weeks went by with no mention of his program, and he began to feel more like a family friend than a solicitor. She had gone to him when Yuki began asking to shave her body hair because the other children at school teased her for it and he had given her the words she needed to sit down with her daughter and encourage her to have confidence in the body she had.

April was closing in, and made itself known with the start of shed season. Mr. Yotsubashi was helping her install an air filter to catch all the white hair abound when he asked the critical question;

“Have you enrolled Kiyotaka in school yet?” 

“...No,” she admitted. “I still… don’t know what I want to do. I want to know how Chiaki feels, too, but I wanted to wait until he was doing better.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, I’m not sure what the enrollment period is for your local schools, but it seems you may have to make the decision soon.”

As usual, she knew he was right.

-

“I went to a boarding school,” her husband said, once she broached the topic. “And if he doesn’t take to it, you can always pull him out, right?”

“I suppose,” she said. “I’m just so nervous. Yotsubashi wears such strong cologne. I feel like I can’t get a read on him.”

“Well,” her husband mused. “I can’t imagine anyone would put in this much time and energy for a random kidnapping scheme, could you? Nor would he offer it for free and help out this much if he were trying to extort us for money. What other motive could there even be?” It was true, she hadn’t been able to find an ulterior motive; but that may just mean she wasn’t looking hard enough.

Maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe she needed to trust people a bit more. But Rona Himura had been humiliated, beaten, abandoned, and insulted far too many times in life to regard the kindness of strangers without suspicion. She wished she could have her husband’s optimism.

“I’ll ask Kiyotaka how he feels,” she said. “I don’t want to put him through any more stress than necessary.”

-

“Kiyotaka,” she began, bouncing the little on her knee. “How would you feel about going to school with Mr. Yotsubashi?”

“He’s coming with me?” the boy asked, pausing in his messy rendition of a children’s tv show theme song.

“Not exactly,” she said. “Mr. Yotsubashi has a school, and he wants you to go.”

“Okay,” Kiyotaka said. “I can do that.”

“I didn’t finish, silly,” she stroked his head to soothe her own anxieties. “The school is far away, so you would have to go stay with other people for a while.”

“You can come too,” he said. “That’s okay.”

“No, honey, we can’t go with you,” she said. “But Mr. Yotsubashi said we can visit whenever we want, and that you can come see us, too.” He frowned a little.

“But I want you to go with me,” he said. She laughed a little, although not happily.

“I can’t go to school with you,” she said. “Even if you go to school here. But if you go with him, you won’t come home every day like your siblings do. You’ll have to be there for a while. But there will be people to take care of you, and lots of friends to play with.”

“And Mr. Yotsubashi?”

“And Mr. Yotsubashi.”

“I can do that. It’s like going for playtime.” he said. 

“That’s right. But if you ever feel scared or sad, you can call us, okay? I’ll show you how to use the telephone, and if anything bad happens, you can call Mommy, and I’ll try to get there as soon as possible.”

“I’m gonna learn to kick a soccer ball at school, and I’ll kick it really far, so Ichiro has to go get it,” he said. “And then, he’s gonna kick it back at me.” His mother sighed and held him closer, even though he squirmed a bit in protest.

“I love you, Kiyotaka. You know that, right? You know that mommy loves you.”

“Yeah, I know that. I know that a lot. AND. I know that I love you, and that you love Daddy, and Akira, and Ichiro, and Yuki, and I love them also, AND they love me and also love you a whole bunch too.” 

“That’s exactly right,” she said. “And we all just want what’s best for you. I want you to go to a good school and learn a lot, and eat lots of good food, and make lots of friends.”

His mommy loves him a lot. She loves him, and that’s why she knows that a mother who loses track of her child on a cold winter night isn’t a mother that can take care of him. That’s why she knows that a mother who struggles to divide her attention between her ailing spouse and children isn’t a mother that can take care of him. That’s why she knows that a mother too uneducated on quirks like his can’t take care of him. A mother that can’t afford the medical treatments. A mother still working to pay off debt. Even if things were getting better now– she could always end up being a mother who fails to sustain it. Love isn’t the same as capacity. She loves him so, so much, and more importantly, she has to take responsibility for his future. And who knows? Maybe he would go on to do great things, just like Mr. Yotsubashi hoped. He had potential. More potential than she or his father had ever had in their entire lives.

“I’m gonna show my friends how to kick the ball too,” he said. “And my friends will come with me to home and so I can show you how to kick it and we can do it together and get lots of points. You’re really big, um, so, you can kick it good. So you gotta be on a team with me.”

“We’d make a great team,” she said, rocking him in her lap. “The best team ever.” She wished it didn’t feel like lying.

-

Natsuo grunts as Geten rams himself head first into his abdomen, but if anyone there is sturdy enough to take the blow, it’s him. 

“Woah, hey! Not too hard, man!” 

“Gentle play, Geten, gentle!” Jeanist calls, and the teen begrudgingly pulls away and allows Natsuo to bounce the ball on his knee a few times. The hero turns back to the family.

“I should never have talked you into it,” Chiaki says to his wife, holding her other hand with both of his. “I’m so sorry.”

“Neither of you are at fault for the wool pulled over your eyes,” Jeanist says. “And for what it’s worth– the boy is physically thriving, in terms of fitness, and his quirk has been trained to reach incredible levels of potential.”

“At the cost of everything else,” Rona says.

“Well, yes,” Jeanist admits. “But what matters is that the past is the past and cannot be undone. Do not let this shroud prevent you from seeing the future you can make with him.” Chiaki gives Jeanist a strained smile, but Rona continues to stare into her bowl.

“It’s hard, I know,” Rei begins. “Touya’s return was much the same. But we love them, even changed. I will always love my children more than I hate myself for the things I’ve done and failed to do, and that’s what you have to focus on to move towards that future.”

“He may not even want a future with us,” Chiaki says. “And I can’t blame him. I can’t blame him at all.”

“But you owe it to him to leave that door open,” she responds. “So that at least he can live knowing he has someone who’s looking out for him. Someone who’s paying attention. Someone who knows everything and loves him anyway.” 

-He just wants you to look at him. To notice him. That’s all.-

-You’ll be glad you created me, I just know it!-

-Aren’t you just running away?-

“That’s what it means to be a parent. Even if he doesn’t want to be your child, you have to take responsibility,” she says. “Those regrets… the guilt… those burdens don’t change that.”

“I know,” Rona whispers. She shuts her eyes tightly and sets her bowl down. “I know.”

Chapter Text

Chiaki Himura was a lot like snow, she thought. His presence could fill a room and smother everything else, but with a softness that offered shelter to some and resistance to others.

He was beautiful, but inevitably trampled and stained, pushed aside for the inconvenience he caused and destined to melt away into a grey slurry, burdened with the filth of the surface.

-

“You’re Koshiro-san, right?” Rona had heard him approaching from behind long before he spoke, but she was surprised nonetheless.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said, turning her head to look at him from the side. She knew better than to face people directly; being seven feet tall at fifteen made direct body language intimidating for the average homomorphic human being. “Can I help you?” Keep your voice soft. Tone high. Clear, free of rumble.

“I was wondering if you wanted to eat lunch together,” he said. “You and I are the only ones who stay in the classroom to eat, so why stay alone at our desks?” She had figured his presence in the classroom at lunch was due to the limiting mobility of his crutches; simply a matter of finding somewhere else being not worth the time or energy, especially when trying to carry a lunch. But here he was, lunchbox tucked under his arm, carefully navigating the space between seats with the click-clack of aluminium and rubber. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“I’m not opposed to the idea,” she said. “But I’m a loud eater. I don’t know if you’d find it very pleasant.”

“I know!” He beamed at her. She tilted her head, but finally turned to face him directly as he lowered himself into a nearby seat. He began to unpack his meal, unwrapping the box, laying out his spread– a meal larger than hers, one that almost filled the desk. Her nose twitched at the smell of pork, and she watched him clap his hands together to give thanks and pull out a nice pair of chopsticks, the kind that come with their own case.

“That’s a lot of food,” she said. It’s certainly not the kind of meal she would expect from a boy his size. On crutches, he barely made it to her chest. Not only that, but his limbs were thin and fragile; he shook when he stood on his crutches for too long, and he wore leg braces in accompaniment to the mobility aid. He ate quickly, but with the smooth motion of someone well-trained in their dinner manners, and he waited to finish his mouthful before speaking.

“I eat a lot,” he said. “If I got any smaller, I think I’d pop out of existence.” Rona turned her head away slightly to take a bite of her sandwich, trying to keep the chewing minimal. It was difficult to eat with other people. A dog like her can’t chew with her mouth closed. While her face had more muscles than that of a true wolf, she still had incomplete cheeks, carnassials, and a limited range of motion for her jaw. In other words, her mouth worked like a slightly-more-complex pair of scissors, only good for chopping and slashing– and it was hard to keep food from going in all different directions. She didn’t blame anyone for their distaste of the sight, much less the sound; but she felt bad about subjecting a classmate to it so directly.

“What about you?” he asked, peering over at her desk. “Are you really just eating a sandwich?”

“I’m big enough,” she said. “And it makes a terrible mess.” He looked at her, expression blank, and then offered a container of onigiri.

“I don’t mind the mess. I can help you clean up,” he said. “But you shouldn’t go hungry. It’s not good for you, you know?”

“I appreciate the offer,” she said, holding up a hand. “But really, it’s fine.” He pushed it forward again, more insistently, but she shook her head. He sighed, and took the onigiri back.

“Your loss. But you’re in the kendo club, aren’t you?” He took a bite of one of the rice balls. “You need your strength.”

“I’m quite strong,” she said. “I’m not sure it’d be fair to the others if I got any stronger.” The boy just rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t fade.

“Still, kendo is pretty cool!” he said, leaning closer. “Do you think they’d let me use one of my crutches? I bet I could get some good whacks in.” Rona huffed through her nose, one of the closest things to a laugh a dog like her could give. 

“I regret to inform you that the point of kendo isn’t to “get a few good whacks in”,” she said. “And I don’t think everyone using a bamboo sword would take kindly to you going wild with a metal crutch.”

“Oh? That’s too bad. Maybe I’ll become the first crawling kendoka, then. Invent a new kata for the ankles.” He made a few jabbing motions with his chopsticks.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, you never know.” He shrugged, although he was clearly being a bit silly about the entire thing. They continued to eat for a while more in a comfortable silence, until Chiaki spoke up once more. “Koshiro, can I say something a bit over-familiar? Please don’t take it the wrong way.”

Her heart sank. She had done everything right. How could she have possibly offended him? Was it the food? Did he expect her to take it like a treat?

“By all means,” she said. He chewed for a second, swallowed the last bite of his food, and leaned across the desk until he was practically hanging off of it.

“I hope this isn’t improper,” he said, “but I believe if you’ve got something nice to say, you ought to say it before you lose the chance. And Ms. Koshiro Rona, I think you’re just about the prettiest darn girl I’ve ever met.”

She tilted her head one way. And then the other. He was smiling, but she couldn’t find any hint of malice or irony in his voice or expression. 

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you. I… um… like your hair,” she replied weakly. 

“I like it too,” he said, before sinking back into the seat. He glanced at the clock, and then grabbed his crutches so he could lift himself. “I’m gonna get back to my spot before everyone gets in, but we should hang out!” he said, hopping away. She didn’t respond, but as the classroom filled with students returning from their break, her tail thudded against the back of her seat.

-

“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” Rona said one day over lunch, still feeling brave after making the bold move to bring both a sandwich and a side of deviled egg. “Did you move into town recently? I don’t remember ever seeing you before.” Mikasa is a small place. There was a single high school– just about everybody knew everybody, but she hadn’t heard talk of a new family moving in. (Not that people told her much of the news around town anyways.)

“Oh, naw, I’m from here,” he said. “But I went to a private school in the city. My family’s one of those that sends everybody off to boarding school.” 

“Really?” she asked. “So why come back to come here, of all schools?” Those in Mikasa who could afford to leave usually did.

“Those,” he said, looking at his crutches. “I got too weak to handle all the travel, and if something happened while I was away from home, it’d be all sorts of mess.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “The doctors say I’ll probably just get worse, so why bother paying for school? Waste of time and money.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. He shrugged.

“It is what it is. Besides, the uniform was super ugly. They made us wear plaid pants!” He laughed. “I’m happier out in the country.”

“That’s good, at least.” That made one of them. If Rona had the money, he’d never see her again. She felt a bit guilty for the thought. 

“What about you? Why are you in Mikasa?”

“Born and raised,” she said. “My family’s been here a long time. We live just out on the edge of town.”

“Woah, that’s a pretty far commute,” he said. “How early do you wake up?”

“Early enough to catch a bus. Late enough to have to run,” she said, enjoying the rush of fondness she felt when she made him laugh. Rona wasn’t the type to make jokes, but she figured she could try. One of my favorite things, he said, is being able to smile.

“Got any plans after school? Are you gonna become a wandering bushido, cutting down dishonorable curs?” he asked. 

“I don’t really know,” she said. “But I’d like to get out of this town. Move to a big city. One with desks that actually fit me,” she said, smacking the side of the ottoman she used in place of a chair proper. Seven feet tall at fifteen was a lot for the average homomorphic human, and most dogs weren’t allowed on the furniture.

“Ambitious,” he said, grinning. 

“What about you?”

Chiaki went quiet. He looked away, and then shrugged. “Well, y’know. Get married. Have kids. Die.” His smile faded for a moment, and she found her ears flattening at the sight. But then he laughed, plastering his grin back on half-heartedly, like adjusting an ill-fitting party hat. “I’m not smart enough for all that future planning stuff. I’m gonna be a professional freeloader. Maybe I’ll call myself a philosopher, or something.” She watched him for a minute. Then she looked at his crutches, and lowered her voice.

“Himura-san…” she began, tail curling close to her body. It felt like a horrible thing to ask, but the fear had sat with her since the day they began talking, and his disinterest in the future felt like a bad omen. “You don’t have to tell me but… is your condition… terminal?”

“Huh?” he propped his head up on his hands. “Oh, well, not inherently, I guess. I was just born wrong, is all.”

“I see,” she said.

“I’m not sick with anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t have cooties.” He paused to eat a cracker. “Well, I might have cooties. But those aren’t terminal either.” She huffed through her nose, but the concern remained in the pit of her stomach. He looked at the clock, and then back to Rona and her curled tail, and spoke a bit more softly. “I’ll tell you after school, okay? But it’s kinda embarrassing, so I’m not really supposed to talk about it. I don’t wanna do it when anyone can walk in.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“I know,” he said, and he tied up his lunch pail for the twenty-fourth time, wrapping up the first month of their friendship.

They would walk out of the school together, although Rona didn’t have a particular destination in mind, and wasn’t sure if he did, either. They walked in silence for a bit, but eventually Chiaki hopped away from the road and through a gap in the small median beside it in order to reach a stretch of abandoned railway. Somewhere with a bit of privacy.

“I like it here,” he said. “I can see the fireflies best, ‘cause the pond’s just out a ways, and nobody ever bothers them.”

“It’s a nice spot,” she said, following his lead and sitting down next to him in the grass. The elephant in the room squashes conversation once more, because those sorts of things are difficult to begin. Even for a boy like him. 

“It’s my quirk,” he said, when he found the words. “My family all has the same quirk, pretty much. So it just kept getting stronger. But our bodies didn’t do the same. I was just the one that crossed the line into being botched.” Rona listened intently, ears turned his way, even though her gaze was aimed forward.

After all, direct eye contact could be a bit intimidating. 

“My quirk is cryokinesis. I can control ice. Can’t make it, but I can move it,” he continued. “Psychic quirks utilize psi– it’s a kind of energy. But it has to be made by converting existing energy from your body. It’s like any other body function, really. And you can’t really stop your body from converting energy into psi, except for when you’re asleep. It all happens automatically. My quirk factor makes too much psi. Enough that it outpaces what my metabolism can keep up with. So it starts eating at the rest of me.” 

“Like when someone starves,” she said. 

“Exactly.” He flexed the muscles of his forearms by clenching his fist, watching the limb tremble. “My whole body is atrophying. If I eat a lot and rest a lot, I can slow it down, but I haven’t been able to walk on my own since I was eight. If I use my quirk, it gets worse. That’s how we found out. Y’know, I’d play with it at home, and then I’d start having problems holding things, or standing… and it just didn’t get any better.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. The person that should be sorry is me,” he said. “And I am. I’m really, really sorry. But no amount of sorry makes up for it. No matter how much I apologize, it’s not going to change it.”

She wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for either, or to whom. Rona rested one massive paw on his shoulder. He leaned against her, and she let him, because the thick fur that covered her body was good for keeping out the cold, and so she wasn’t bothered by the frigid air that surrounded him.

“It’s too early to see the fireflies,” he said after a while, looking up at the dusky sky. “We’ll have to come back out in a month or so, so I can show you. They’re only out for a little while, but it’s worth it. I’m glad we get those few months.”

-

“You can take your goddamn bone and shove it up your ass! Might do you some good to get a spine!” 

Koshiro Rona watched on in horror as Himura Chiaki picked up the large beef bone – pet store tag still attached – from her desk and chucked it at their classmate’s head. She had made the mistake of telling Chiaki what smell lingered on it, and when the perpetrator owned up to leaving the “gift” when he asked, the small, frail boy decided to pick a fight.

“Himura! Stop it, there’s no need to fight–” She was frozen in place, watching the other boy jump out of the way of the projectile and bump into a few of the desks, although that was the worst of the harm. 

“What’s your fucking problem?!” One of their classmates asked, grabbing him by the shirt collar.

“Well, right now it’s you,” he said, never one to miss an opportunity to mouth off. “And what an ugly fuckin’ problem it is!” A round of ‘woah’s rippled through the crowd as Chiaki was slammed back against the desk. Rona took a step forward, but her friend, Kizunoha– the only other mutant in their grade, and one of five in their entire school, a girl with the appearance of a fox– shook her head and looked away. It was their way of saying Don’t. It’s not worth it. Dogs that bite get put down.

Thankfully, although the guilt was already gnawing at her, the teacher stepped in and shouted at them all to disperse, to get their hands off each other, he didn’t care who started what– and Rona helped Chiaki into his seat while the class settled. 

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” he grinned. “I’m the one that should be sorry. Sorry I missed, I mean.” Rona huffed through her nose, and dreaded the day’s end– because as she thought, the next morning, Chiaki came into class with fresh bandages.

-

If Chiaki’s physical ailments hadn’t put a mark on his back, picking fights on her behalf certainly did. For once in her educational career, she wasn’t the one getting a round of barks every time she entered a room– instead it was him, dubbed the dog of a dog. That was the nicest of his nicknames, anyways. They walked out together once and someone shouted ‘Dogfucker!’, and Rona had considered dropping out out of humiliation in that moment alone. After a few weeks, she had told him quite firmly that it was best they stop associating with one another, in hopes he might lose the stain and at least return to a quiet existence– but to her horror, she found out about a month later from Kuzunoha that he was still at war with about 30% of the school.

“He said it was the principle of the matter,” the fox girl said with a sigh. “And then he offered to bite anyone bothering me, too. I can’t even tell if he’s joking or not.”

“Oh god,” Rona said, head in her hands. “What have I done? He’s going to get himself killed.”

“Maybe that’s what he’s going for,” her friend said. “But there are easier ways to kill yourself.” 

For a moment, Rona remembered the shroud that covered his hope for the future– But surely, she thought, Chiaki Himura was too optimistic, too enthusiastic, too earnest to try and end his own life.

“Look, Ro, it’s not your fault what some stupid boy does, okay? Everyone knows you’ve washed your hands of the whole thing. Even Kujaku said she doesn’t blame you. You won’t get in trouble, I promise.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I just hate that he’s getting hurt on my behalf.”

“It’s not on your behalf, though.” Kuzunoha flicked her ear. “You told him to stop. He’s doing it now because he’s got an ego, is what I think. I mean, I appreciate his enthusiasm, but it makes things more difficult in the long run. Maybe it makes him feel like a hero. Weak boys are like that, you know? They need to compensate. I don’t blame them, of course– I mean, look at me, I’m three-foot-even, but this is really getting out of hand…” Her friend continued on, but Rona’s thoughts were elsewhere. That afternoon, once kendo club had wrapped up and things were put away, she followed the sidewalk in the opposite direction of the bus stop, until the sidewalk ended and she followed the road, until the median opened up with a gap just big enough for a boy with crutches or a girl who was seven foot tall at fifteen, and she squeezed through it as the sun started to set.

Chiaki looked up at her from where he lay in the grass. She expected a smart remark, or a frown– anger, even, but he just smiled. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she responded. 

“You know you can sit down, right? The grass isn’t gonna bite,” he said, watching her shift in place for a minute or so. She licked her lips with embarrassment, but sat down a few feet away from him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “We’re right in the middle of firefly season.” The little bugs had begun to flash– few, at first, but each round lit up more of them.

“You really like fireflies,” she said.

“No matter how sick I get,” he said, “I can always enjoy the fireflies, at least in the summer. There aren’t many in the city. So I was really happy coming back. I gotta appreciate them while I can, you know? It makes each summer worth it.”

“...Yeah,” she said. She had so much she wanted to say, but none of it seemed to be willing to emerge. They just laid there in silence, surrounded by the drawn-out parade of Hokkaido fireflies.

-

“You know, you could get suspended. Or expelled,” Rona said, chiding her friend over lunch one day. They were sitting outside, for once– the chill in the air was pleasant for quirks like theirs.

“Maybe,” Chiaki shrugged. “But what else am I supposed to do? People don’t talk about people like that.”

“People talk about people like that all the time,” she sighed, biting into an onigiri. “Especially when those people are dogs. You get used to it.”

“You’re not a dog.” he said, voice forceful.

“Wolf, whatever, most people don’t c-”
“You’re not a dog,” he said, taking her hand. “You’re a person. Not a dog, not a wolf. You’re a person.” She had never heard him sound this serious before, and it took her a bit off guard. His expression, too– it was the first time the two of them had held eye contact for any extended period of time, and she found his gaze made her pelt prickle.

“Right,” she said, prompting him to release her. She watched him drink soup from a thermos, and then looked out at the leaves. “I’m a person, and you weren’t born wrong.”

“What?”

“You’re always saying that you were born wrong,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s possible. Nobody can be born wrong. People are just born people.”

“I don’t think those things are the same,” he said.

“Why not? They’re both our quirks,” she said. Chiaki reflected on this for a moment.

“I think,” he began, mouth moving slowly so as to form every syllable carefully. “I was born wrong, because I was born to do something, and I won’t be able to do it. If not for that, I think I’d be born right, even with this body.”

“What were you born to do?” She glanced back at him, sad to see that his mouth had pulled into a frown behind his thermos. Chiaki didn’t answer.

-

Chiaki loved the summer fireflies, but winter was when he really thrived, she learned. The first snow of the year, she had come to school and seen him splayed out in front, and rushed over, convinced he had been mollywhopped before class had even begun. But instead, he just looked up at her and laughed.

“Country winter is really the best!” he said. “I missed the snow more than anything in the world! Good, clean snow!”

“Chiaki, you’re going to get your uniform soaked,” she said. His parka wasn’t long enough to protect his legs. She helped him back onto his crutches. “Can you even use these, in this weather?”

“Oh, yeah, no problem.” he said. “Watch this.” He began to hop, and with each movement, the snow flattened and then steadied the tips of the crutches– his quirk.

“Wait, aren’t you not supposed to do that?” she asked. “Your quirk makes you sick.”

“Well, would you rather I fall?” he asked. “A little bit is okay, so long as I’m good most of the time. But I can’t be surrounded by this much ice and not use it. That’s just cruel!”

“So long as you’re good,” she said, watching a snowball whizz past behind him and into Kujaku’s face. “Which I think means not that.”

He just grinned. 

-

He was full of energy in the winter, especially after each snow– an infectious, joyful energy, even if sometimes he came in to find writing on his desk or had food thrown at him in the hall. She couldn’t help but wag her tail along as he hop-danced his way into her home, somehow carrying a bucket of fried chicken under each arm.

“Christmas-time~Christmas-time~” he sang, passing off the food so he could remove his shoes. “How I love that Christmas-time~” 

“I don’t think that’s a real song,” she said.

“It’s a song if it’s sang,” he said. “And I sang it.”

“Are you sure that counts as singing?” He just laughed at her little jab, following her into the dining room. Her family had been delighted to learn she was bringing a friend over, and he was almost immediately set upon by her two wolfy parents who insisted on sniffing every guest that came into the home, even if she found it a bit embarrassing. Much to her dismay, however, her parents exchanged a wide-eyed look and pulled away.

“Do you mind waiting for a moment? We need to discuss something,” Rona’s mother asked, and Chiaki gave a polite nod, although clearly curious. Her parents pulled her into the kitchen and shut the door behind them, and Rona huffed in surprise as her mother cradled her face with both hands.

“That boy hasn’t done anything to you, has he?” she asked. “If he’s forcing you to do anything, you can tell us.”

“What?” Rona asked. “No! I mean– ma, look at him. Do you really think he could force me to do anything?” Her mother simply looked back at her father, who yawned in a display of discomfort. They were trying to figure out who would be the one to say it.

“It don’t got to be physical to be force, Rona,” her father said. “And you don’t have to be friends with anyone who treats you poorly, even if it’s him.”

“What are you talking about?” Rona wriggled out of her mom’s grasp. “It’s not like that at all.”

“We’re just worried, honey,” her mother responded. “Himuras are no good for people like us, don’t you know? They don’t usually rub elbows with us lesser folks, especially those of us with unique bodies.” Rona’s ears swivelled towards the door as she thought about their guest. He’d never spoken about his family, not really– she knew he came from money, but that was about it. 

“Well, I don’t think he’d be getting himself pummeled sticking up for me if he didn’t feel a bit differently,” she said. “But if anything happens, I’ll tell you both right away, okay?” Her mom pressed a kiss to her forehead in response, causing Rona to shake her head, and her pa picked up the stack of plates to carry out to the dining room.

“Thanks for having me, Mr. and Mrs. Koshiro,” Chiaki said when they returned. He had taken a seat so as not to strain himself on crutches, but the fried chicken stayed untouched on the table. It was rude to eat without everyone else, after all. 

“Thank you for coming,” her mother said. “And for bringing such a nice addition to our meal.” Her father began to serve the food; naturally, the guest gets served first, but he posed a question as he handed the plate over.

“So, Himura,” he asked. “Is your family waitin’ on you to get back for your own supper?” Rona almost winced at the lack of subtlety– not to mention the gruffness of it all.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the plate. It teetered a bit in his shaking hands, but he lowered it to the table without a spill, thankfully. He ducked his head a little, but offered up a smile. “There’s no rush for me tonight, no. I’d hate to have to run off before dishes are done!” Her father narrowed his eyes but took his seat, and when everyone had been served, they gave thanks and began to eat.

Chiaki was a good dinner guest, with his rich-boy table manners and the fact he didn’t complain about having to occasionally pull wolf fur out of his mouth or off his plate. He said his pleases and thank-you’s, but despite Rona’s hopes, her parents didn’t seem to relax at all. She’d put all of them in a terribly awkward situation– her parents were worried about the implications of having this boy in their home, and she was certain Chiaki would be ill at ease with two giant wolf people watching him with such frosty suspicion. If that were the case, though, he didn’t make it known– he just chattered on as always.

“I’m sorry about them,” Rona said, drying the dishes he passed to her from the sink. He could support his weight fine enough with the counter, and insisted on being part of the process. “I hope they didn’t frighten you at all.”

“Why would I be frightened?” he asked, scrubbing at a stubborn sauce stain. “We were just having dinner.” He gave this sort of answer often– she never knew what to say in response. Was it really that he didn’t understand why it was a concern? Or was he making a statement about where he stood?

“Well, I’m glad you weren’t, then.” she said. “I just hope you know it wasn’t your fault or anything. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s good. I’d hate to be rude.” The scrubbing continued on. Rona glanced down at him, his gaze fixed on the pan he was trying to clean.

“...Does your family really not have Christmas dinner together?” she supposed it wasn’t too odd. It wasn’t a big holiday, not like New Year’s. But she assumed rich people would host a party for just about anything.

“They do.” he said, rinsing away food debris. She opened her mouth, and then closed it. He had only said he wasn’t in a rush, she supposed.

“I’m glad you came,” she said.

“I am too,” he responded.

-

“Chiaki,” she asked, on a frigid winter afternoon, “why don’t we ever study at your place? It has to be easier for you than coming out on a Sunday.”

“I like studying here more,” he said, swinging his legs in his chair. “The library’s nice.”

“I see,” she said.

“Do you want to study at my place?”

“I’m a bit curious, is all,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “We have an old house, so our tables are really low. You’d have to bend way over to work on things.” The grin he gave her was a bit wry. “It wouldn’t be that pleasant for you.”

“Right,” she said, nose twitching. She hated prying, but the way he withdrew like a child that touched the stove whenever the topic came up made her want to know more. Which, in turn, made her feel all the more guilty for asking. But she hated seeing his smile fade, so no matter her curiosity, she let it end there.

-

Valentine’s Day, in February; Rona Koshiro bought her friends chocolates and sighed wistfully at the idea of including something just a bit more in his box, but firmly reminded herself that she shouldn’t get too ambitious.

“Koshiro Rona, you’re the most beautiful, kindest, smartest girl I’ve ever met. Will you go out with me?”

White Day, in March; Chiaki Himura asked her out with a steak cut in the shape of a heart, since she had a terrible intolerance for chocolate. It was absurdly large; their classmates ogled it and whispered amongst themselves. There was nothing subtle in the slightest about it. If Rona could blush, she would have, but instead she just helped him take it to the cafeteria refrigerator to store until she could take it home in the cooler he brought. Apparently he had gotten permission in advance. The school staff found it sweet.

Naturally, she said yes. She had never met a more beautiful, kind, clever boy, and she was sure she never would.

She brought the steak home to her parents, and they insisted on saving it until they could have him over for dinner to share.

-

“Man, kids are wild,” Chiaki said, watching the tantrum unfolding a few yards away. They had come to the mall in Iwamizawa on a date, and while eating lunch in the food court, a child began melting down over something-or-other and made it difficult to think above all the commotion.

“I’m sure he’ll get over it,” she replied. “But I feel bad for his parents. I can’t imagine what it must be like to deal with this in public. I was always too embarrassed to even ask for things, much less throw a whole fit like that.”

“Oh, I had tantrums,” he laughed. “I’d get popped in the mouth every time, but I did it anyways. I don’t even remember why, but I ran off once as a kid, before my legs went out, and ended up hopping onto a subway train before my mom could catch me. It about damn near gave her a heart attack.”

“Oh, wow,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, popping a fry into his mouth. “After that, my mom wrote her phone number on the insides of my clothes and on my arms whenever we were going out together. I was a lot less keen to run off after my dad gave me the belt, though, so I guess I got lucky and never ended up wandering into traffic. But I was a real bad kid, even after ending up like this. I’d wanna send me off to school too.”

“What’s the worst you could do? You’re tiny,” she laughed, scratching behind her ear. She didn’t want to say anything about it, but…

“You’d be surprised. I liked to steal ice cream,” he said. “And I’d crawl around at night to scare the other kids in my dorm. And it was funny, every single time.”

“Oh, that’s not so bad, is it? And you turned out alright,” she said. He shrugged. 

“Well, if you think so, that’s all that matters.”

“...Would you ever want kids, Chiaki?”

“My parents want grandkids,” he said. “So I guess I do.” Rona went quiet.

“If I ever have kids,” she said, “I’d never pop them in the mouth, not for anything.” He glanced at her over the straw of his soda. 

“Yeah?” he asked. “I wouldn’t either. Even if they were real dogshit kids. Just terrible ass-for-brains kids.” Rona laughed.

“I don’t think kids are even capable of being that bad, Chiaki.”

“You never met me. I was the worst. One time I used my quirk to clog up the toilet, and…”

-

It would be a year and a half into them dating before she met Chiaki’s family. They had caught wind he was dating somebody– from a teacher, from another student, from a parent, who knows– and insisted on an introduction. It was the most anxious she had ever seen him. They walked up the long path to the Himura family estate (an estate!) together, school bags in tow, gaze fixed ahead. 

“You can leave whenever you want,” he said. “Don’t worry about being rude or not.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said. He didn’t respond. The door opened upon their arrival, an elderly housekeeper stooped over and holding her hands out expectantly. Chiaki passed his school bag to her, so Rona followed suit, offering up a “thank you”. She said nothing, but eyed the girl warily and shuffled away.

Chiaki removed his shoes and grabbed a pair of crutches that was propped against the wall, ones with padding on the bottom. It had never occurred to her that he might have an indoor and outdoor set, but considering the flooring, it made sense. She removed her own shoes, hoping her thick socks would keep her nails from causing any damage to the floor.

“Sitting room’s this way,” he said, leading her further into the home. It was a lovely estate, but clearly too big for the current inhabitants, and too old. The floor creaked. Cobwebs knitted corners where nobody could reach them. The paper of the screen doors had begun to yellow. They entered the main living area, where two white-haired adults sat– his parents, clearly. The boy sullenly maneuvered himself onto a chair that had clearly only been added to the traditional room because he struggled to get himself down to the floor and up again, but Rona tried to keep her body language as friendly and unintimidating as possible. She got on her knees and bowed her head to the floor, tail tucked down behind her.

“My name is Koshiro Rona. It’s an honor to meet you,” she said. She rose slowly, met with looks of shock and disgust.

“Really?” his mother asked, looking at her son. 

“You’re being rude to a guest,” he responded. 

“That’s not a guest. That’s an animal,” his father grimaced. Her heart thudded in her chest. She lowered her head once more, mostly to avoid having to see the expressions on her future in-law’s faces.

“I almost wish he had brought home a man,” his mother whispered to his father. “I feel like we could at least address the matter there.”

“You know, both of you are gonna die in a couple of years, and none of this will matter,” Chiaki said. Rona’s head shot back up with alarm. You don’t speak to your parents like that! “You’ll be dead, I’ll be a foot in the grave, and everything will get auctioned off until somebody buys up the land and replaces it with a grocery store. Would that make you happy?”

“Chiaki,” his father said. “You will not speak to us like that. Especially not in front of company.”

“So now she’s a guest,” he responded, folding his arms. The room lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. His mother clicked her tongue, but looked at Rona once more.

“Koshiro, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

“I’ve lived in Mikasa my entire life,” she said. “And I’m in homeroom with Chiaki. I’m part of the kendo club, and…” she trailed off, unsure of what else there was to say. “I’m sorry if I’ve caused any trouble.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, honey,” his mother said, forcing a smile. “Any trouble will be handled later.”

“Ro, let’s bounce,” Chiaki said, grabbing his crutches.

“What?” she said.

“Chiaki,” his father huffed, rising to his feet. “Don’t you dare think of walking out on this conversation.”

“I’m not thinking about it,” he said. “I’m doing it.” He moved for the threshold, and his father followed. 

“Chiaki,” he said.

“What are you gonna do, stop me?” the boy asked. “Go ahead, make a grab. Hit your invalid son, and even better, do it in front of a guest. I dare you.” His father fell back. “Nana, get Rona’s bag!” Chiaki called, before hopping out into the hall. Rona scurried after him, shooting a look back at his parents one last time before they fell out of sight. But even then, she could hear the sound of their despair.

“I just don’t know what to do about that boy,” his father lamented. “It’s like he’s trying to ruin his own life.”

“Maybe this will just be a phase,” his wife responded. “He knows he’ll need care after we’re gone. Continuing the family is the only way to do that. The situation isn’t ideal, but we all came around to it eventually.”

“I don’t ever remember being that angry,” his father said. “I don’t want my son to hate me, but I have to make sure he lives an upstanding life. Isn’t that our responsibility?”

The housekeeper brought Rona her bag, and she caught up to Chiaki, who was putting his shoes back on and switching crutches. He was fuming, and she could feel it– and she couldn’t help but have the impression it was somehow her fault. She waited to speak– but he’s the one who broke the silence, looking to her gently when his anger had subsided some.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“I should be asking that to you,” she said.

“I’m serious, Ro. Are you okay?” She blinked in response, and then sighed.

“It’s a reaction I’m used to,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “I would have had to meet them eventually. But what about you? I don’t want…” she trailed off, but he understood well enough what she meant.

“It’s okay,” he said. “They wouldn’t. They haven’t for a long time. I’m too fragile,” he said. “If they try and take my crutches or put me up somewhere, I just crawl. So all they can do is bitch and moan.”

“Oh,” she said. He gave a bitter laugh.

“I can do whatever I want,” he said. “I don’t have to be frightened of anything.”

For whatever reason, she didn’t believe him.

Chapter Text

“I need to get out of here,” Geten says, appearing before him rather suddenly. The boy’s hood was pulled up, but even with its cover, Jeanist could tell he was glancing about anxiously.

“Kiyotaka, are you okay?” Rei asks. The boy flinches in response, shifting foot to foot even more quickly.

“I have to leave,” he says to Jeanist. “I need to leave now.”

“What happened? Is something wrong?” Rona asks. Every word from her mouth seems to agitate him further.

“Calm down, Geten. I’m sure we can figure this out. Maybe you just need a little break.”

“I have to leave,” he says, more forcefully. “I can’t be here anymore.”

“Geten,” Jeanist says, rising to his feet. “Why don’t we go sit out front and see what we can do? If it’s really that bad, I’ll call Ibara and we will leave. Is that agreeable?”

Geten looks around, but knowing that this is his only option, nods and follows Jeanist back through the halls and out the front door. Jeanist sits on the front step, but Geten continues to stand. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says, before Jeanist even has the chance to ask.

“And why is that?” he asks. 

“Because you’re one of them.”

“What do you mean?” Instead of answering, Geten stares out ahead. Jeanist can’t even hear the sound of mumbling. Utterly still. “Geten?”

“I need to see Re-Destro.” he says. 

“...That won’t be able to happen for a while,” Jeanist says. “You know that.”

“I need to. You don’t understand,” Geten says. “You don’t want to understand.”

“I can’t understand if you don’t tell me what it is,” Jeanist says. Geten looks at him.

“I have to leave.” Jeanist’s brow furrows unconsciously. The boy is staring at him, but he’s not taking any of the cues Jeanist is giving him. Pinprick lights watch him from the dark. With his body hunched, Jeanist can’t tell if he looks more like a prowling creature about to pounce or a frightened animal caught in a trap. There’s no mumbling. Jeanist can’t even hear his breathing. Why? Why is he being iced out like this? Why now? Things were going so well.

I need to leave. 

It hit him the moment he realized he was kicking a soccer ball to Ichiro, his elder brother– no, the first and only son of Chiaki and Rona Himura, someone he would have been filled with revulsion at the sight of only a few months prior. He needs to get away from this place. From these people. This was no good, no good at all. He’s let prison distract him from the bigger picture. This short-sighted pursuit of pleasure is making him forget his purpose. Luring him away with treats, offering their Apega hugs. 

No. 

He can’t blame these people. Really, they’re basically animals, following their base instincts. He let this happen. He did this to himself. He got too impatient, too greedy. How could he let a few months of distance destroy the decade of dedication Re-Destro worked so hard to cultivate? 

How could you be so ungrateful?

He needs to leave. He needs to cut out the rotting roots before it spreads to the rest of him. But he can’t. He needs to come up with a plan. Keep eye contact; make sure the enemy knows you’re watching. Animal or man, all predators hesitate when they know they’re being observed. Be ready to move. He knows Best Jeanist fears his retaliation– He’s seen how he flinches at his sudden movements, how he readies himself to physically discipline him at the slightest provocation, how he slows his speech when he thinks he’s treading on thin ice. Heroes are never prepared to exert complete dominion over others, not really. Sentimentality makes them incapable of committing to any true cause– they are hollow puppets of the state because they are afraid of going too far without someone to absolve them of the guilt. Best Jeanist holds absolute power over his physical wellbeing. Geten’s insubordination is dangerous because heroes are afraid of their own capacity for violence. Geten holds the mirror Best Jeanist will be forced to look into if he commits to the act of subjugation, over a prisoner, over a child. The mirror he will have to look into if things go as wrong as they possibly can– if he ends up with blood on his hands.

Therefore, Geten knows that this is a time where he is the dangerous animal. He can buy himself time by making the hero question if he’s stuck his hands too far into the cage. Be still. Be quiet. Watch. Be ready to move– and be ready to move quickly.

He needs to leave. He needs to leave, but he can’t. Best Jeanist is the one who brought him here. But Best Jeanist has been assigned to hold the leash. He will not let Geten go unless he is happy with why Geten wants to leave, and there is no answer Geten can give that will make him happy. He will sit and ask why, and why again, and he will try to tell Geten that he does not need to leave and instead should continue to indulge in this senselessness, because Best Jeanist does not like Re-Destro, because Re-Destro is a villain and he is a hero. There’s no convincing these people. Heroes are dogs. One does not reason with a dog. You either control it or put it down.

He could try running. But to what end? Even if he simply flees to a different place nearby, even with the intention of returning, he will be caught and dragged back. The hero does this because he needs to control the situation. The hero does this because he likes to control Geten. The hero does this because he knows when Geten is bound and confused it is easier to control him. 

He let this happen. He can’t blame the hero. The sense of aimlessness that overtook him– that’s just him looking for an excuse, isn’t it? Like the drunkard needs booze with dinner, booze to sleep, booze to feel better– he has given himself permission to be undisciplined. To be lazy. Like an ungrateful, slovenly, selfish child.

In the past, Geten has destroyed these distractions in order to remind himself of who he is and what he stands for. To show Re-Destro he’s grateful. But without his Meta Ability…

No, more importantly,

“You’re a good soldier, Geten. A good soldier that follows orders. This is no different. Do as you’re told, and we will see one another soon. You’ve waited for me before, haven’t you?” 

Re-Destro told him to cooperate. He needs to cooperate, so they can see each other again. Why isn’t it working? He needs to see him. 

He needs to be patient. He’s waited before. If he attacks anyone, no matter how successful, he will have disobeyed direct orders. He’s a good soldier. He’s a good soldier that follows orders.

What can he do? When cooperation means bending a knee and compromising his principles, but running is impossible…

Destro knew. Destro didn’t waver in his commitment. Re-Destro always said it was better to die Liberated than to live on your knees.

But there was no way, was there? Even if he bit through his own tongue, chances were that Best Jeanist would simply hold him in such a way that prevented him from choking on his own blood and find some way to clog the wound long enough for emergency services to arrive. And that’s if Geten managed to get it on the first try. If he didn’t and Jeanist caught on, all he’d have to do is gag him.

No. That’s just more excuses.

The real reason is that he’s selfish. He doesn’t want to die before he sees Re-Destro again. 

Greedy.

Why isn’t what he gave you ever enough? All you do is want. Even when you do things for Re-Destro’s sake, it’s because you want him to praise you. Do you think you deserve something extra, after everything he’s done for you? You’re basically only doing it in exchange for payment. Imagine if it were anyone other than Re-Destro. You’d be no better than the dogs.

You don’t even have to imagine. It’s happening now. You sit at that stupid fucking desk, doing what? Writing letters? Drawing pictures? It must be nice, being so carefree. Idiots are the happiest people in the world.

Look at you. What happened to your principles? The family unit is a tool of the state to control the flow of capital. In a world with no state, the family is worthless. The family is worthless to the Liberated, and you know that, because you’ve gone without them this long, haven’t you? You were Liberated from them, if anything. Himura blood runs thick. All it’s good for is being shed.

If all it takes is some pity and a hug to get you to bend, you were never Liberated at all. What did Re-Destro waste all that time for? All that energy? He cared about you for nothing. He’s spent more time caring about you than these people ever have. 

I’m sorry, Re-Destro. I’m sorry I made you worry. I’m sorry I was ungrateful. I’m sorry I let you down.

He has to get out of here. He can’t run. He can’t attack anybody. He can’t mutilate himself. It’s too obvious. He needs something more subtle. Something that gives the illusion of cooperation. Because Re-Destro told him to cooperate. Really, all Re-Destro asked him to do is play pretend, that’s all. He doesn’t have to cooperate inside, just outside. All he needs is to cooperate on the outside. But he needs to get out of here. 

Crying won’t work. It will only get more of them to swarm. He could faint– but there’s no guarantee they’d take him back to the facility. They may just put him in a room somewhere until he wakes up, and then they’d be crawling all over him. He can hear their voices already– Are you okay? Do you need anything? What’s wrong? Kiyotaka, tell us. Tell us how you feel, Kiyotaka. Let us inside.

You ward away evil spirits with revolting things. They won’t want to touch him if he seems diseased. But he needs Best Jeanist to be worried enough to take him back. He’s been taught a trick for this. Re-Destro prepared him for this, exactly for things like this, he should have thought of it sooner, because Re-Destro gave him everything he needed, he just wasn’t using it-

Geten retches. He retches again.

Best Jeanist watches in horror as the dinner they prepared for him, all that work, all that love, all that affection– everything they tried to pour into him– is rejected, regurgitated, and splattered across the pavement.

It feels good. Yes, this act, thought to be out of desperation– it had purpose, meaning. Re-Destro prepared him for this. He was purging that disease out of his body. He was detoxifying himself from this addiction. Yes. This is good. This is good. He was giving up these pleasures to prove to Re-Destro he was willing to give, not just take. He’s grateful. He’s so grateful. He’s so grateful Re-Destro taught him this, for this very moment. Each violent heave is purifying. He’s clean. He’s so clean now. Looking at it now– he can see that ugly, disgusting bribe for what it is. No longer dressed up in plating and presentation, chunks of mush strewn out over the sidewalk and grass– it was all disgusting. It’s so disgusting. He’s disgusted he ever fell for it in the first place. 

Thank you, Re-Destro. I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier.

He can hear Best Jeanist re-entering the house while the purification brings him to his knees.

“Ibara, we need to take Geten back– he’s gotten sick—”

Good. This is good. He’s done the right thing. He’s made the right choice. Geten is a good soldier who follows orders. He will see Re-Destro soon. He will see Re-Destro soon and he will say sorry and he will prove he can do whatever it takes to show Re-Destro he is grateful and he is Liberated. 

Multiple sets of footsteps rush out of the home, but there’s nothing to be done. They can’t do anything to undo the undoing. Still, Geten can’t bring himself to rise or turn his head to look at them. 

He has to make sure he doesn’t fall for it again. He needs to be stronger. Don’t give in. He’s figured it out. These hedonists– they’re dogs, all of them, dogs. He’s better. He’s the only one of all of them who knows what it means to be truly human. To be Liberated from such mindless indulgence. His mind has never been clearer. He’s stronger. He’s gotten stronger. He had to fail so he could get stronger, that’s all. He can see it for what it is now. That’s what matters. He’ll be rewarded for his efforts, surely. The universe brings good things to those who are patient. He will see Re-Destro again.

His mother gets the closest to him, but still lingers a few feet away from his shaking body. She doesn’t want to touch him. Good. He doesn’t want her to touch him. He will be as revolting as it takes to keep their hands off of him. Geten staggers to his feet and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. Once he’s sure the heroes are following, he heads for the car, unwilling to tolerate anymore conversation. Not even the platitudes. His rush can be chalked up to his illness, he figures.

The ride back is completely silent. The vine child had tried to ask him once or twice if he was well, but he stayed strong in his stoicism. No music plays through the speakers. Jeanist occasionally glances back at him– Ibara now sits in the front seat, leaving him alone in the back. Whether contagious or just unstable, he is now untouchable. Good. This is good. 

The vine child is dropped off first. The ride is now more silent than it was before. When they arrive, Jeanist seems to have finally picked up on the fact Geten does not want to be touched, and so he fights off the instinct to try and support the boy as they walk. Geten’s steps are surprisingly steady and purposeful– Jeanist isn’t sure if he’s truly sick and trying not to appear weak after such a humiliating display, or if he isn’t sick and was simply trying to get his way, even if it meant taking such drastic measures. After all, Geten thus far would often give up if given pushback– but Jeanist also only feels reaffirmed in his belief that this villain is unpredictable. Like a wild animal. A dangerous animal.

“Is there an infirmary?” he asks Ii, as they arrive at the doors labeled TITAN-2

‘Infirmary? Is he injured?” she asks.

“No– but I think he may be ill,” Best Jeanist says. “He got sick on our outing.”

“Oh,” she frowns. “No, but we can have a doctor come do a room visit in the morning.”

“Please keep me updated on how it goes,” Jeanist says. 

“Can do!” as they walk through the large doors, she turns to Geten and gives him a cheery smile. “I hope you feel better soon!”

Geten doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even look at her. He has to stay focused on the path ahead. Just a little bit more, and he can be alone. He can be alone and focus on Re-Destro. On Liberation. Jeanist can’t swipe his card fast enough before Geten pushes past him and into the room, almost shutting the door on the hero in the process. 

“Geten-” the hero begins. Geten sheds his shoes, his coat, and as Jeanist speaks, he begins shedding the rest so he can get changed– and more importantly, so Jeanist will leave, since he cares about these things. 

And it works. Without so much as a scolding, a stunned Jeanist closes the door and leaves Geten to his peace and quiet. 

Chapter Text

Geten awakens the next morning feeling terrible. It’s as if his ritual awakening had a hangover. 

What, did you think you were supposed to be comfy? Do you really think you deserve an award for doing the bare minimum? 

It’s been a long time since his inner dialogue has been this clear. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that it’s been a long time since he’s had to listen to it. It’s like switching from cruise control into full manual. He had never been on autopilot, per se, but, much like how one doesn’t think about each of the individual vibrating atoms that come together to create ice, the mind is made of trillions of little processes that he is now suddenly, violently aware of.

He hates being aware of his atoms.

But that’s what he gets, he supposes. Clearly he was too weak to maintain his integrity without another layer of vigilance. Geten rolls over so he can swing his legs over the edge of the bed and sit up, albeit hunched. Cleansing was step one. What does he do now? What can he do?

His Scylla and Charybdis remain. How does he cooperate without cooperating? Or, rather, how does he not-cooperate while cooperating? What is cooperating, really? To do as the heroes say entirely is simply impossible; Re-Destro would not want him to accept their fallacious philosophies. 

The conditions of his parole are as follows:

He cannot commit more crimes.

He cannot speak to his previous co-conspirators.

He cannot act violently or threaten others.

He cannot use his Meta Ability.

Ah, that’s it. Cooperation is not about doing what he’s told, it’s about not-doing what he has been told not to do. If every action taken under the instruction of heroes leads to moral degradation, it is not about doing the opposite, it is about simply not-doing.

It’s so obvious. He should have seen it earlier. All he has to do is nothing. He must not do anything. 

Ice is really a matter of stifling the action of water molecules. Heat is energy is action. It is only fitting that to prevent melting, he must perform the act of inaction. Meditating, becoming empty, refocusing himself on what matters– Re-Destro ensured he would learn these things for a reason. Re-Destro prepared him for this. He will do nothing, then.

He contemplates the matter of nothingness as the door to his room opens. This is a person he has not seen before. A doctor, clearly, accompanied by two security guards. 

“Hey, buddy! I hear you weren’t feeling so hot yesterday, huh?” The pediatrician asks. Geten decides to practice his nothing. When no response comes, the doctor laughs a bit nervously.

“Not a big talker, I see. I’m gonna check a few things, okay? Just to make sure you haven’t come down with something.”

Geten doesn’t.

The man pops open the case he brought with him. A thermometer gun to the forehead. A compressor on his tongue. Lights shined into his eyes, ears, and nose. A stethoscope. A cheek swab. A finger prick. Geten allows the doctor to poke and prod his body as if he were nothing more than a toy; he does nothing to assist, but does nothing to hinder.

He. Does. Nothing. 

The pediatrician prattles idly to himself to cope with the absence in front of him. When he runs out of tests, he makes the shaky promise of running the blood at the lab just to be sure– but otherwise he seems like a perfectly fit young man. Just a real quiet one, haha.

Good. This is good. He can’t do anything wrong if he doesn’t do anything wrong. But while stillness is a fine ward against unfunny pediatricians, that is not the main obstacle in his way.

Best Jeanist hates anything that is not tailored to fit his idea of things. It isn’t enough that stillness is harmless; he will pry it open anyways, as demanding as ever. The aberration must be corrected. Worse still, he may bring the vine child. 

No. You can’t blame them. The biggest obstacle is yourself. Your weakness. Restlessness. Boredom. Desires. Hunger. This is your fault. You lit that fire. Now you must put it out.

He has to make sure his barrier is impermeable. Geten folds his legs, leans forward and braces himself with his palms on his knees. His head hangs low between his shoulderblades. Close your eyes. Slow your breaths. The blue lotus becomes the moon. Frost blooms in infinite fractals. Each one is unique, but each one is the same. If everything is infinite, then “infinite” is simply a thing that consists of all things. Heat is energy. Energy is action. He needs to be colder. 

What’s the coldest thing you can think of?

Bitter winds that make skin blister and peel. That skin is shed. It’s gone. Shed the skin. Shed it. Leave it behind. The bitter cold that stiffens joints and makes bones creak. The tundra, frozen six inches deep. The cold that is too cold for death. Bodies preserved for eternity. Even rot is made still. Zero, zero, absolute zero, a curve that infinitely approaches complete stillness, 

No. 

The polar night. 

There are very few places Geten could point out on a map. Hell, he probably couldn’t confidently name all of the prefectures in Japan. But there is one place, one teeny, tiny place, that he will be able to confidently position by latitude and longitude.

Tiksi, Yakutia, Russia.

71°39′N 128°52′E

It is not a popular tourist destination. It is a tiny port town full of seasonal workers, and it is the northernmost urban settlement in the world. And it is the only place outside of Japan Geten has ever visited, and he cannot imagine anywhere else he would want to visit.

This was a special trip. A reward, he thinks. He had…done something difficult? Or maybe something bad had happened… A pet died, maybe? No, Geten’s never had pets… He had the distinct impression it had to do with a loss, though. He just couldn’t remember…

You’re getting distracted. Focus.

Re-Destro took him there on a private plane, to meet with an older woman he knew– they had worked together before, Geten thinks. On science sort of things. His memory is hazy. Re-Destro took him to experience the three longest nights of the year. Night without end. The second day was the darkest, and that was the day that opened his eyes to true Liberation.

It was much like his waterfall training, except instead of sitting under roaring water, he was left to lay out in the snow on the tundra, wearing nothing but his white samue. The linen was soaked through in seconds. And he laid there. In silence. Staring up at the sky, the vast twilight sky. No sun to burn his skin or hurt his eyes. In his stillness, he traced the paths of the rolling clouds, admiring the different ways the sky would find to peek through regardless.

When night descended, though…

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The infinite, cold expanse of space stretching above him, so far, but so crushingly heavy.

It was terrifying. It was sublime. The entire universe was in front of him. He stared into the abyss, but the abyss didn’t stare back. Why would it? It was so big, so powerful, so infinite– it was foolish, he thought, a childish delusion, to think that he was some sort of entity that stood in opposition to the universe, that he was important enough to be defined as an other, a thing– the universe and the self have always been the same. It would be too arrogant to even define himself as a gnat buzzing around its head. He was simply an extension of the snow. An extension of the sky. A cell in the bloodstream of a mighty animal. 

In that vast self, surrounded by everything, the voice in the back of his mind was quieted under a blanket of snow. In its place was a new awareness. A clarity he didn’t have before. Because of their sameness, he began to notice differences. Like distinguishing between an arm and a leg, birthmarks and the skin around them, one tooth from another, the forms of the universe made themselves known to him. The pink hue underneath his fingernails and at the tips of his fingers distinguished his skin from the snow. The slight yellow tinge caused by the oils of his scalp. The greyness created by the texture of woven fabric. 

The beating of his heart. The warmth under his skin. By now, anybody else would be long dead and frozen. He was cold, yes, cold enough for painful pins and needles to prick his extremities, but that feeling was simply what distinguished his limbs from the cloth and the snow. It was just another part of his form. The many veins pumping blood to the furthest reaches of his body. Thick hair. A dense core.

No. Something more than that. What distinguished him from the long-dead was the fact that he is alive. And he is alive because of his Meta Ability. The colder he got, the more his Meta Ability produced psi– which in turn raised the temperature of his body. The warmth is what distinguished his form from the cold air around him. Anybody could have blood and hair and muscle and fat. But those people would be long-dead anyways. Therefore, his Meta Ability is what distinguished his form from theirs. Therefore, if he is distinguished from the dead by the virtue of being alive, life and his Meta Ability are the same thing.

Ice and water are the same thing. Just in different forms. That difference matters in regards to function, but ultimately they are the same.

I understand now. I understand why you brought me here. Thank you, Re-Destro.

When the sun peeked out from below the horizon and bathed the world in a purple haze, Geten was in the process of distinguishing his eyelashes from the frost sticking them shut and blocking out his vision. He wasn’t quite sure at what point he had begun to cry, but it didn’t really matter. Time had no form. Therefore, time is nothing. It was simply how the changes of form were measured.

The upper crust of the snow crumbled under the sole of large black boots, and the sky was blotted out by a familiar dark figure. He wanted to greet him, but his utter stillness would not allow it yet. Re-Destro said nothing either. There was nothing to be said. He simply lifted the boy and held him close as he carried him back to the warmth of his colleague’s abode. That was what the third day was for; ensuring that the night had not been too detrimental to the boy’s physical health and ensuring that he would be fit to travel. To feed and wash and clothe him. Re-Destros hands, warm and alive, gently cleared the frost from his face with a warm towel, surrounded by the smell of cinnamon and vanilla as milk boiled on the stove.

The older woman gave him a sweater. It was thick and a dark forest green– Re-Destro’s favorite color.

But all of that is tangential. What Geten needs now is that polar nothingness, that sleep without sleep. The lotus flower becomes the moon. The moon falls as snow. The dark holds him. The white snow cradles him. In everything, he finds the Self. In the Self, there is everything. Dark. Cold. Quiet. Water becomes ice. The world becomes polar night. 

No thoughts.

No voice.

No wants. 

No needs. 

No beginning. No end.

-

Best Jeanist is alarmed when he pushes the door to Geten’s room open and it’s accompanied by the clattering of untouched meal trays that had been dropped off throughout the day. One untouched meal was strange. Three?

The boy is upright, though, albeit positioned strangely, bent over his own lap, gripping his knees to brace himself, hair hanging down over his lowered face. 

“Geten?” he asks, but the boy doesn’t so much as twitch. He shuffles in further, and his daughter stoops over to pick up the displaced food as best she can. Jeanist approaches the bed and repeats himself more loudly. “Geten, it’s time to get up. One shouldn’t sleep this late in the day.” Normally this works– he’s found Geten is a light sleeper. But Geten doesn’t move. Jeanist shakes him by the shoulder a little. Now he’s beginning to get worried. He kneels down so he can get a look at the boy’s face. Entirely devoid of expression. But at least he can hear the faint sound of breathing. Best Jeanist feels awful doing it– and is sure Geten will lash out immediately in response to being awoken in this way– but he uses two fingers to open one of his fluttering eyelids. His eyes are unfocused, pupils large– and unlike what Jeanist expected, entirely fixed in place. Jeanist pulls away and stands.

“This is…It’s like he’s catatonic,” he says. “I was told the doctor found nothing wrong this morning, though– what are you doing, my couture?” He interrupts his own fretting as the student kneels next to the bed and clasps her hands.

“I’m joining him in prayer,” she says. “Even if he is not aware of it, it is less lonely when someone else is there.”

“...Prayer?” Now that he thinks about it, posture aside, it is quite similar to a state he’s found his daughter in– although he presumed it was some sort of episode of whatever condition she had developed as she entered adolescence. Or, well, it could certainly be a combination of both.

“Yes,” she responds. “His mind and spirit have withdrawn into the most sacred of places. I am unsure if it is guidance or comfort that he seeks, and I do not know to whom he prays, but I know the waking dream well enough to know he has joined its procession.” She closes her eyes, but Best Jeanist rests his palm on her head.

“It’s very kind of you to offer him company,” Jeanist says, “but I think it would be best for our spirits to remain here. And I think we should find a way to bring his back. He hasn’t touched food or water all day.”

“One does not hunger or thirst in the cradle of prayer,” she offers, trying to be helpful.

“He doesn’t need to feel it to be dehydrated,” Jeanist says. 

“Mm, I suppose so, yes,” Ibara says, rising to her feet.

“So, how does one end… how do we get him to wrap it up?” Jeanist asks. 

“Well,” she says, covering her chin with a fist in contemplation, “Usually one is supposed to come out of it when they feel it is time. But in such situations as this…” she tries to recall the last time she had forcefully been pulled from a trance state. “With the brainwashing boy, it is broken through physical shock. I don’t really want to hit him, though…”

“I’m not particularly keen on the idea either,” Jeanist says. 

“I got a bucket of ice poured over me once,” Ibara says, “but I don’t know if he would find that very shocking, given his nature.”

“You had ice poured over you?” Jeanist asks.

“I suppose my classmates were worried as we are now,” she says. “Not my current classmates, I mean. It has been years since this occurred. They were not as knowledgeable, as children tend to be. But I am grateful for their kindness regardless.”

Best Jeanist looks at his daughter through the corner of his eyes. Call him cynical, but he isn’t so sure it was an act of kindness. A conversation for the future.

“I’d really rather not get water everywhere, either,” he says.

“But heat that can shock is that which burns,” she says. “So I do not think it would be wise.”

“Perhaps a loud sound,” Jeanist says. “Although I’m not sure shouting is the right way to go about things.” His daughter thinks on the matter. And then she gets an idea.

“Oh, I learned a trick recently!” she says. “A trick as in a fun little act for the sake of amusement, I mean. Not an act of deception.”

“Naturally,” Jeanist says. 

One of her vines begins to grow with the ever-subtle creaking of greenery, and when it has reached a sufficient length, she severs it so that the vine rooted to her scalp is the same length as the others. The vine that remains on the ground is long, and Jeanist watches with curiosity as she picks it up and wraps one end around her palm a few times. She finds a place to stand, crosses herself with her other hand, and offers up a little prayer.

“Lord, guide my eye and my hand, suffer thy grace unto me, and blessed be thy works.”

Perhaps he shouldn’t be amused, all things considered, but it clicks– or rather, snaps into place what she’s about to do, and he can’t help but raise his brows a little.

The student bounces it in her hand a few times, testing the feel. Her arm swings back, until the tip of the vine is just short of colliding with the floor— before she swings it back down, creating a beautiful, spiny loop that travels down the length of the vine and ‘CRACKS!’ right above Geten’s left shoulder.

Well. She’s certainly done the trick. Geten’s entire upper body snaps upright, looking in every direction with rapid turns of the head in his confusion.

Oh. Them.

The moment he sees the two heroes, his expression turns sour. Of course. Heroes are cowards, but they can be cruel. Was it really such an offense for him to meditate? 

No. Steady. Do nothing.

So he doesn’t.

“Are you feeling alright?” the vine child asks. Geten says nothing, but also clears his face of annoyance– Not-Doing means not giving the impression he is doing not-doing out of spite– because that is doing… Ah, this is getting confusing. Including for Best Jeanist. Was he just out of it because of the trance? Was he giving them the silent treatment?

“Geten,” Jeanist says. “Have you been like that all day?” Geten just stares, but Jeanist can tell– there’s nothing blank about it. If anything, his gaze is sharp and keen. He’s watching. Observing. He sighs. “Please don’t be difficult, Geten. We just want to know what’s going on.”

“I’m not being difficult,” he says quietly. “I’m not doing anything.”

“What?” Jeanist asks. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m doing nothing,” he says. “Which means I am cooperating.”

“Putting yourself in physical danger by not eating or drinking is not cooperating, Geten.”

“But I didn’t do anything!”

“Father mine,” Ibara says, putting a hand on her father’s shoulder. “Do not stiffen your neck and harden your heart, even if you do so out of love. You may find his words nonsensical, but I understand him clearly. If this is what makes him difficult, then I, too, am difficult.” The student looks to Geten, and then sits beside his bed.

“I do not wish to be presumptuous, and correct me if I am misinformed, for only you know the contents of your heart. But… You are doing nothing to cooperate, because you do not want to do anything uncooperative, right? I am much the same.”

“That’s right,” he says. Ibara gives a sympathetic nod. Best Jeanist stands there, trying to detangle the word salad that had been tossed in his bowl. This has often been the case in the past with his daughter. She always means what she says, but she fails to say what she means. The difference between doing nothing to cooperate and doing something uncooperative…

He remembers asking his daughter, age 13, why she refused to use the stove to heat water in a kettle as opposed to trying to boil the water in a mug in the microwave and hoping it wouldn’t splatter the walls, being inconvenienced by the constant fiddling with the time, having to ensure the cup was microwave safe–

“If I don’t use the stove,” she said, “I won’t ever leave it on and start a fire. I won’t ever accidentally drop the tea leaves on the flame. This is safer.”

Ah.

Ibara’s fear of the stove eventually faded, but it seems he’s put Geten in an awkward position. Instead of trying to do what’s right, the boy is utterly preoccupied with not doing wrong. But… he has no problem acting as he pleases. Not only that, but the night prior had been going perfectly well. 

“Everyone makes mistakes, Geten. We won’t be mad at you for trying and slipping up,” he says.

“It’s not about you,” Geten replies. “You’re just making it harder.” The words surprise Jeanist, but he bites his tongue. This was not a time for firmness.

“Oh, I’m very sorry,” Ibara says, with all the earnestness in the world, “we never wanted to make things difficult for you. Please forgive us.” Geten blows a puff of air through his nose.

“Well, you have.”

“What is it, then, that ails you? We cannot move from your path if we do not know where else to stand.”

“Re-Destro told me to cooperate,” he says. “To cooperate so we can see each other again. To be patient. But when I do as you all say, and humor these ideas…” he trails off, brows furrowing while he finds the words. “It… I am too weak, I think,” he says. “I haven’t figured out how to do it properly yet. So that I don’t betray my principles.”

“That is quite the difficult position to be in,” Ibara says. 

“That’s why I need to see Re-Destro. I need to ask him what to do.”

To think all the progress they had made wouldn’t be possible without Re-Destro giving that one simple order. If he hadn’t told Geten to cooperate… who knows if he ever would have humored them at all? No wonder he’s struggling. The foundation of his participation in a program meant to free him from the marionette strings Re-Destro held was Re-Destro pulling the strings. These two things are inherently at odds with one another. Jeanist looks at his daughter, who is deep in thought. Then she asks Geten, gently,

“Would Re-Destro be alright with you drinking some water and eating a meal?”

“I guess so,” Geten says after a moment. “He always told me I need to take care of my body.”

“Then we will start by taking care of your body. We, too, would like you to care for yourself. These things are not at odds, so it should be okay to do, I think.” 

“Right,” Geten says. “Right, that sounds okay. I can do that.”

“Ah, but the food ended up on the floor, and it’s long since gone cold,” Ibara says. 

“That has an easy solution,” says Jeanist. “We can go and get food.”

Geten freezes. Ibara looks at him. “Did Re-Destro ever go with you to get food from other places?”

“Yes, he did,” Geten says. “But… but it has to be fast. I don’t want a long visit or to talk a lot.”

“I have no objections,” she says. “What about you, father?”

“There’s nothing wrong with grabbing a quick bite. Not everything needs to be a family dinner.”

“Yes. Exactly.” Geten says. “I do not want a family dinner.”

Jeanist hasn’t eaten while in the car in years, and he has to try not to focus on the worry of crumbs– but there they were, sat in the parking lot of the fast food restaurant they drove through– himself and Ibara in the front, Geten in the back.

“Thank you, my couture,” Jeanist says. “You’ve been an incredible help.” The statement stops her mid-chicken nugget, but she’s polite enough to finish it before she speaks.

“It is my honor and pleasure to be able to provide assistance,” she says. “I am grateful to be given the opportunity to serve another in need.”

“It’s good to be grateful,” Geten mumbles from the back seat, mouth half-full. That’s why I need to see Re-Destro, too. He saved me. I need to show him I’m grateful.”

Ibara hums.”I think,” she says, “if our Saviors are in any way the same, then he knows you are grateful. I thank my savior not because he is unaware, but because it is good for one to voice such ardent passions. It’s admirable you have such dedication, but please do not fear. I’m sure your love reaches him even now. And I am sure he is grateful too.”

“I hope so,” Geten says, encouraged by her words. “I hope you’re right. I want him to know how grateful I am. Even if we lost, I want him to know that I understand it’s not his fault. He’s not a bad teacher. I’m still grateful.” 

“I think we want the same thing in that way, too. We also wish for Re-Destro to understand how you feel and what he’s done. To be able to see you in your entirety.” She puts her trash in the food bag and rolls it closed. “So please do not be afraid. We will help you achieve this goal, even if it takes time. Your gratitude will not go to waste.”

Part of Jeanist cringes when Ibara compares the villain to her spiritual guide, but at the same time, he’s impressed by her ability to connect with such a difficult individual. Or, rather, her willingness to. 

Until now, Jeanist has assumed that Re-Destro was incongruous with Geten’s recovery, but he sees now that like with any bad habit, trying to remove that stain without preparing the garment at hand is only likely to make things worse. He’s not sure if he can pretend to care for the man in any capacity, or for what he’s instructed Geten to do– but for Geten’s sake, he’ll try. 

And he’ll see about getting Ibara permission to accompany more regularly after classes. If she wants to, that is. But this may be the buffer between the two of them that he’s needed this entire time.

And maybe he’ll get to understand her better, too.