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Kyouka had found herself wishing to cry a lot lately. When the woman, Blue No.5, touched her, she knew what would happen. It really was her own fault, when she was sent into a personal hell she couldn't control. Maybe she’d watch Atsushi die hundreds of times, or see the Agency go up in smoke.
The war was over for her.
But Kyouka was wrong. She had thought she'd be sent into a hell of death and darkness. But here she was. In this place. It was calm. Peaceful, filled with the quiet noises that follow the night. It wasn't silent, not quite.
It was dark. The sky was a pool of ink, and there were no stars. Kyouka had been walking for hours, trying to find her way out of what she thought was hell.
It seemed far too peaceful for hell. There was no blood decorating the streets like a cruel painting to remind one of death. Death for existence. The streets were empty, but she could see tall buildings around her like towering guards. But they didn't feel very menacing. Kyouka could see a light on in one of the windows, and hear the laughter of children. Friends.
Kyouka looked at her hands. Stained in blood that was not her own. Her kimono looked as though it had been dipped in a mixture of blood and dirty mud. It probably had, at some point. Her hair was tangled and long. She had never had time to cut it, she was too busy running from the imminent death that followed her every move. It was no longer tied, for Kyouka had lost her hair ties ages ago. Her face was stained with tears and blood. Her eyes felt like they had given all the tears they could ever drop. Kyouka idly wondered if she would ever be able to cry again, after all the tears she had shed during the war. Was someone like her, covered in the blood of those she had killed during battle, worthy of crying again?
Kyouka had once been ashamed to have killed thirty-five people. She had promised herself never to kill again. That promise was broken long ago. At least, it felt like it was long ago. If she really thought about it, the promise she’d made herself and Atsushi and the Agency had only been sworn a little under a year ago.
The thought made her want to cry. It hadn't really been that long since she was happy, had it? Since things were as good as they could have been, and everyone was alive. Nobody back home would know where she was. Nobody except Atsushi, who was fighting with her when Blue No.5 sent her here. And even he wouldn't really know. Ranpo was gone, so who would be there to figure out where she had gone?
Kyouka started walking again. She couldn't think about that now. All she wanted was to go home. But there was no way to get there. So she kept walking. She counted her steps to keep focused on something, anything, that wasn't home. Home was gone.
One, two, three, four. Kyouka didn't know where she was going, all she did was walk. Counting steps for as far as she could go.
Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. Eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety.
She lost count at one-hundred-fifty. So she restarted. The second time she got to fifty-eight. The sidewalk was nicer here. It was nice before too, but here there are fewer cracks. It was more even ground. Kyouka looked up. A fence twisted along the sidewalk, before opening in a gate a few feet away from where Kyouka was standing.
The sign read Izumi Memorial Park. Odd. Kyouka stepped inside. Well trimmed hedges, garden plots filled with flowers. She moved towards the center of the park. Hopefully, she’d find a place to sleep. Could one sleep in hell? Maybe. But hopefully there’d be a bench for her to rest on.
There was a statue in the center of the park. A monument, probably. Kyouka frowned. The majority of the monuments in Japan were torn down when it became the main base for the gifted in the war. She walked closer to inspect. There was a plaque on the front of the statue. The pedestal was large, and Kyouka hadn't yet looked up at the stone person.
Izumi Kyouka
20XX — 20XX
“Kyouka-chan fought. She shouldn't have needed to, but she did. She was the best little sister I could ever have asked for. There are so many things I regret, but Kyouka isn't one of them.”
— Nakajima Atsushi, 20XX
Found in a letter to Fukuzawa Yukichi after the Ability War.
Kyouka didn't think she'd ever cry again, when she came to this place. She had doubted that this was hell, but now she knew. This was a torture chamber that pulled her in and tugged at her mind.
She looked up at the statue. It was her, of course.
Kyouka saw herself, before everything went wrong. Sitting down, with her kimono sculpted into artful folds. Her hair was tied back, streaming behind her. She had wide eyes, and she was smiling. Slightly, in the way she always did after she joined the agency.
…
Kyouka didn't know how long she kneeled in front of the statue, crying. Her eyes were hot with tears, her face was wet, and her throat was sore. But her tears never stopped flowing. She clutched the phone tied around her neck like a lifeline.
The words on the plaque repeated over and over in her head. The war would end. And Atsushi would live. Unless this really was hell. But if it wasn't, and god Kyouka hoped it wasn't, then the war was over. And… What did that mean for her? Was Kyouka in the future?
These were questions for later. These were questions to find out about later. For now, if the war is over, then she must be in a safer time. If the war is over, then there wouldn't be as much fear of bombings.
Since Kyouka was, theoretically, in the future, did that mean Tachihara was here too? Blue No.5 had also attacked him, hadn't she? Or was her ability just general time travel? So many questions. Did she send Tachihara here or further in the future? Or was he sent back in time? Kyouka sighed. She was going to get a headache from all of this thinking, and she didn't even have a place to sleep.
Grumbling, she pushed herself up. The sky was starting to brighten with dawn, and there were a few cars starting to move around the previously desolate streets. A few morning joggers and such too.
Kyouka glanced at the monument. It had her year of birth, and what was the current year when she was home. That wasn't very helpful on the current timeline. But it had to have been a couple decades. Everything was so rebuilt. And different. Kyouka didn't know any of these streets, or recognize any of the buildings. What town was she even in?
She sighed. Best to start moving. If she kept getting off track, she'd never get out of here. Or at least leave the park. She was covered in blood, someone was bound to call the police if she spent any longer here.
Kyouka didn't run, because running in traditional wear while covered in blood is worse than just wearing traditional wear while covered in blood. She simply walked. Quickly.
And she just… drifted, really. Staying as unnoticed as someone in her position could be. Avoiding crowds as much as she could. Weaving through alleys and backways in a maze she had no current knowledge of. She climbed fences and pulled herself over dead ends.
It was thankful that the Port Mafia had merged with the Agency a little under a month ago. Kouyou-san was a wonderful help in controlling Demon Snow. Kyouka had been reluctant at first, but Dazai had said that she had to and it was necessary for the war. So Kouyou taught her how to control Demon Snow a little more, because if Fukuzawa died then she'd need to have total control. The same thing happened with Atsushi. Kyouka wasn't perfect with her ability, but it wouldn't go around murdering people if she lost control.
So Demon Snow would push Kyouka over walls she couldn't climb, and Kyouka would scale fences on her own.
Kyouka ran into another alleyway, her lungs heaving. There was a large crowd gathered just nearby, and most of them had phones out. She scaled another wirefence, and crouched on the metal bar. She pushed herself into a leap, catching onto the ladder of a fire escape on the side of a building. Kyouka climbed up to the roof, looking around. Past the large crowd was a… fight, of sorts?
A giant woman in a skintight suit fighting some sort of other giant. Kyouka jumped over towards another building, landing in a roll. The giants were definitely fighting. And it looked like the crowd was just… watching? The woman was clearly struggling, why weren't they doing anything? Why didn't they help her? Kyouka looked at herself. She was tired, she hadn't gotten any sleep. Her hands were, quite literally, stained with blood and dirt. Her face probably was too. Her kimono was stiff on the bottom, and definitely had dried mud on it. And bloodstains.
Kyouka wasn't in any condition to fight. Her legs felt sore. She probably had bruised something, and she definitely had cuts everywhere. Her body wasn't prepared to be fighting anything right now. And sure, she had an assortment of knives on her person, and she had her katana. But fighting would be something only an idiot would do in her condition.
Atsushi probably would dive into the fight, claws out. Then Kyouka would get mad at him for fighting when he was injured and force him to see Yosano-sensei and buy her crepes. The thought brought out a bitter chuckle.
Kyouka glanced back towards the fight. It had gone in the giant woman’s favor. There wasn't any need to intervene after all.
Kyouka was brought away from the fight by way of her stomach loudly complaining about the lack of food lately. She grimaced. Food. That was something she needed. Maybe she could find a homeless shelter or something that would have free food.
She turned away from the fight. Her feet barely touched the ground as she darted over to jump from building to building yet again. She landed in a roll, pushing herself up to keep moving onwards.
It was almost mindless to her at this point. The fact that the buildings seemed practically made for people to travel like this certainly helped, though. It was honestly kind of odd. Sure, she had learned a healthy dose of parkour when the Port Mafia trained her to be an assassin, but that was long ago. Kyouka shouldn't be able to do it easily like this unless she was in a controlled setting. Which begged the question, why would anyone design buildings so that it was easy to do this?
Another question for later, because there was a man waiting for her on this roof. A man with wings. They were bright red, and reminded her of some type of angel. But the man was dressed… oddly. It wasn't as odd as the woman from before, in her skintight suit with the mask and all of that, but he still didn't look exactly normal. Kyouka slowed to a stop, looking at him.
He looked at her. She looked at him. Why was he smiling like that?
“So. Kid. You gonna tell me what you're doing up on the roof of this place?”
A beat. He was waiting for Kyouka to answer.
“No.”
He looked a little surprised, which was even weirder. Did he expect Kyouka to honestly tell him? He was a strange adult man approaching a clearly homeless teenage girl. That was stupid. She should call the police.
“Can I get a name, Miss Roof-top Traveler?”
Kyouka bristled at the nickname. Why would anyone call anyone that? It sounded stupid.
“Only if I get yours first.” Is what Kyouka settled on saying.
The winged man looked a little confused. Did he have an ego on top of approaching random teenage girls while they were running across rooftops?
“Hawks.”
An alias? That's an obvious one too. Why’d he even choose that? His wings don't even look hawk-like. (It should be noted that Kyouka doesn't know anything about birds.) If Hawks was going to be annoying about this, then Kyouka might as well give him a taste of his own medicine. Even most (cough, what kind of a name is Diablo, cough) mafiosos used their real names.
“Snow.”
Honestly, Kyouka would have told him her real name (her given name, not her family name). But he didn't use his, so why would she be honest with him?
“That's not your real name.”
“And ‘Hawks’ is yours? Did your mother hate you?”
Kyouka grimaced internally. She sounded like Dazai, and that was never a good sign. Maybe it was because he was training Atsushi and rubbing off on her poor older brother, and that was affecting her by way of proximity? That sucked. For the first time, Kyouka was honestly happy to be in the future and away from the agency.
Yosano-sensei and Dazai would never let her live this down. They would tear her to shreds. The thought made her want to shiver.
Hawks, meanwhile, had been in a bit of a stupor from what Kyouka had said. (She was sure he had mommy issues. She had found a kindred spirit!) He snapped out of it though.
Kyouka absentmindedly started playing with a lock of her hair, running her fingers through it to try and detangle some of the knots.
“My name isn't important right now.”
Kyouka raised an eyebrow. Was he an idiot? He might be an idiot.
“I beg to differ. You, a grown man, approach a child who clearly doesn't have many resources, and ask them questions without telling them who you actually are.”
Hawks winced. Maybe that hadn't been his intention after all. He was just an idiot.
“I’m a Hero, I won't hurt you.”
The only thing Kyouka could think of when he said he was a hero was Atsushi. He was a hero because he helped her leave the mafia and took care of her. This man was acting like being a hero was some sort of job.
“A… what?”
And Hawks had the gall to look like she was telling him something incredibly stupid. Like that she didn't know how to spell or something.
“A Hero? I work for the Commission and ‘Hawks’ is my hero name.”
Oh. Was it really a job to be a hero in the future? That's… interesting.
“That's… a job?”
“Yes?”
Well. The future was different. Very different. Kyouka hoped that ‘heroes’ were law enforcement of sorts.
“So you're… like a police officer?”
Hawks smiled, that weird friendly-but-fake-but-I’m-not-aiming-to-hurt-you smile. Dazai made that face a lot. But so did Mori. Kyouka had a feeling that Hawks was more like Dazai than Mori, though.
“Yeah, now you're getting it! How do you not know what a Hero is anyways, Snow?”
Huh. Maybe he could help her. Kyouka didn't really have any other options.
“I was hit by an Ability. I’m pretty sure this is the future and not hell, though. It doesn't feel very hell-like yet.”
This made Hawks freeze. His eyes widened. That… Well, it could have gone better. But claiming to be from the past is kind of insane. Hopefully Kyouka doesn't end up in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. That doesn't seem fun.
Hawks stood there gaping at her for about a minute before snapping out of it. He moved to sit on the edge of the roof, probably deciding it’d be better to have this conversation sitting.
Kyouka took his unspoken invitation, and plopped down next to him.
“You're from the war, then?”
It took a minute for Hawks to finally break the silence. He didn't need to say which one. Honestly, all Kyouka could think about was how she actually got him to believe her. She thought it might take more effort than this. But Kyouka responded with a short nod. Simple. Concise. All the things that the war wasn't.
She knew that if she opened her mouth, everything would spill over. She’d tell him who she was and everything that happened. But if she could keep her surprise factor, she might just make it through.
“Blue No.5.” Hawks starts, then he pauses. “We realized about a decade ago what her Ability really did, but we never told the public. No point in revealing it if everyone had been sent into the past like Tachihara. You're Izumi Kyouka, correct?”
Huh. That was… surprisingly helpful.
“Yes.”
Hawks seemed to think for a moment. He sighed then, and when Kyouka looked at him she couldn't help but think he looked like he was carrying far too heavy a burden. Hawks looked so tired, so ready to give up. Once again, Kyouka was reminded of Dazai. Not her Dazai, though. He hid it so much better than the man in front of her. Kyouka thought of Dazai from back when he was in the mafia. Kouyou-san had trained her, yes, but Chuuya-san often saw her during the alliance that had been established just a month ago.
Kyouka remembered when she asked the executive about what Dazai was like back then. Chuuya-san looked at her with this complicated expression, and walked away. But Kyouka remembered how he looked. He seemed… worried- but also angry. And upset. And a little frustrated too. But also somewhat fond.
When Kyouka asked Kouyou-san about it, the woman only sighed and said that Chuuya and Dazai were both very complicated people. And that they had a history that was just a little too conflicted to dig into.
But Kyouka couldn't help but feel that Hawks was like them. Like Dazai and Chuuya.
“I can take you with me to the Commission. They’ll take care of you, but they might also treat you a little less than favorably.” Hawks closed his eyes and took a breath. “Or, I could drop you off at the nearest homeless shelter and pretend I never saw you.”
Kyouka scrutinized his face. This was against his orders for finding a time traveler. That, she was sure. So these Commission people must have something going on that he's not saying. And Hawks is just one of their operatives, who's trying to help her out and keep her away from unsavory business.
And who was Kyouka to refuse a kind gesture?
“I’ll take the shelter.”
Her voice was serious. Determined. Kyouka hadn't sounded this stubborn about something since she joined the agency.
“Alright,” Hawks sat there for a moment, then, “I should probably give you some basic modern-day knowledge, yeah?”
Kyouka nodded. No need to speak yet. Her throat was sore from lack of water lately anyways, so she shouldn't strain her voice.
“Alright, so the first thing to know is that Abilities aren't a thing anymore. As in, haven't been around for a few hundred years. Right now we have Quirks. They're genetic and a lot more limited than the gifted, probably because humanity couldn't handle the powers that came with Abilities. Nearly everyone has a Quirk. As in, finding a Quirkless person is hard. Demon Snow–that is the name of your ability, yeah?– could probably fit in fine. Just don't call her that. I think Spirit Summon would work fine, or something like that. Something technical. Thanks to you, ‘Kyouka’ is a really common name. So just drop your family name. Most people won't recognize your face unless they're history geeks, but you might want to change up your style a little bit. Oh, and I’d recommend using Demon Snow sparingly.
“Then you’ll need to know what heroes are. It's really just a law enforcement thing, but heroes are ranked. And the top ten are really well known. You need to know, at the very least, the top five. First is All Might, he’s essentially the hero society pillar, Symbol of Peace, yada yada. Number two is Endeavor, he's got a fire quirk and is a big tsundere. I’m number three, name’s Hawks. Number four-”
“So that’s why you were surprised when I didn't recognize you.”
“You- okay, whatever. Yes.” Hawks sighed. He’d been talking really fast before, Kyouka was pretty sure he hadn't breathed.
“So. Homeless shelter?” She pressed, after taking a second to process the entirety of the information.
“Yeah. They'll give you a profile, so just say you forgot your last name or whatever.”
Kyouka blinked. Five times.
“...forgot?”
“Shush.”
The walk to the shelter in relative silence. It was almost comforting. Hawks would pause to mention tidbits of information sometimes, but that was all. The city they were in was called Mustafu, which was strange but fine. Apparently some old cities were still around, like Yokohama and Tokyo, while others were gone and replaced with cities like this. And the Suribachi crater was gone. Somebody had filled it in years ago. Which… was probably for the better.
Anyways, Mustafu was a super clean city. Some parts of it were dirty, but the area Hawks led Kyouka through was ridiculously clean. Like, so clean that it felt kind of wrong. The sidewalk was smooth and practically white, the streets were that perfect black with clean painted lines, the buildings had perfect finish. Barely anything was worn down, and there wasn't even much litter.
Kyouka felt out of place. This city was clean-cut and perfect. She was (literally) bloodstained and covered in mud. Her kimono was stained. Her footsteps left a faint trail of blood, though the majority that was on her was dried.
She tried to ignore the feeling with questions. The five black towers of the Port Mafia had been torn down long ago. After the war, all of the gifted went into hiding. Which meant nearly every higher up, and any of those with strong ties to the gifted. The organization was in shambles, and never really recovered. Eventually, it faded to petty crime and feeding off of the riches and reputation that the Port Mafia once possessed. It was wiped out quickly and mostly forgotten by the world, its glory days being the only thing remembered.
Kyouka started asking about deaths. Hawks was surprisingly knowledgeable, and told her a lot. There were a lot of dead people. Ranpo. Yosano. Dazai. Gin. Naomi. Kaiji. Tachihara (who was apparently sent back to London during the plague). Akutagawa. The Decay of Angels. One of the Hunting Dogs.
But a lot of people lived. They went into hiding during or after the war, and survived to the knowledge that was recovered. Atsushi. Tanizaki. Chuuya. Kouyou. Mori. Fukuzawa. Kunikida. Higuchi. Q. Hirotsu. Some of the Hunting Dogs. Kenji. Verlaine.
Not everyone lived. But not everyone died. And most of the people Kyouka cared about got to live on. And that… that was enough. Hawks didn't know what everyone did after the war while in hiding, but thanks to modern day interest, it was found that Atsushi ran an orphanage in Finland. He lived in the countryside for the rest of his life.
Kyouka thought that that was a good thing. For Atsushi to run a home for other children who lost their families, and heal from his own trauma. She was happy for him. And if she cried when Hawks told her that the way they had figured out Atsushi had originally run the orphanage was because of a shrine left in her memory that was maintained for over two hundred years, that wasn't anybody's business but her own.