Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku is going to get killed.

No, not just killed. First murdered, then dismembered; maybe he will be dismembered before he is murdered. He will be put in a trash bag, or multiple trash bags, and thrown away in the river, his body will never be found. Or, it might be found, but he will be long dead, probably after drowning with weights attached to his legs.

It will be messy. His mother will cry, but only for a bit, because she will go along with the murder; his father in his eternal absence might join in as well. Mitsuki-san and Masaru-san will probably watch as Katsuki kills Izuku, either slow or quick, but no one will do anything about it. No one will ever know, Midoriya Izuki will disappear from the records afterwards, just a void memory, an empty room, a name that never made a single wrinkle in history.

He is going to get murdered. It will be messy. It will be Katsuki, and no one will tell on him: everyone will be an accomplice, and it will not matter, because—

“Bakugō?”

Iida is looking at Bakugō, because that is who it is. There is the reason for Izuku's future demise: simply there, existing, perched on a wall, a crossbow loaded with a crystal-tip arrow leaning at his side, silver blond hair tied back with a red ribbon. A box of who-knows-what is by his feet, along with a bag filled with, if Izuku remembers right, civilian-grade firecrackers and a legally acquired, non-lethal airgun. All perfectly safe and within bounds of what a normal high-schooler can acquire, because one thing this Bakugō is most definitely not, is Hero candidate.

[‘All bought properly with my own money— I have been doing odd jobs. It is cash, father, it is fine, the purchases won’t be linked back to you—‘

‘That is not the problem here! It is a gun, where do you think— How did you even find this? Was it Hisashi, I will talk to him—‘

‘Huh. I thought the crackers might be the issue, not the—‘

Izuku looks at Katsuki. Katsuki looks at Izuku. Mitsuki continues trying not to laugh. The three of them make the wise decision to get out of the room, carrying the kilograms of pyrotechnic material and the hobby weaponry that were somehow acquired and delivered without anyone noticing.]

The boy is dressed in all black and his eyes are hidden behind red-tinted goggles. What a nostalgic sight, Izuku is going to get killed.

“Bakugō, how did you get out—“

But, this isn’t the Bakugō they are looking for, not the Bakugō they are rescuing. Bakugō Katsuki is still held inside the building, one of the targets of a kidnapping, and of their rescue. The one standing in front of them, all decked out for battle, is not their classmate. He is the reason for Katsuki’s safety, the reason for Katsuki’s everything —and also for Izuku’s future, well-deserved death.

Bakugō Hayato raises his goggles, and it becomes even more obvious this is not Katsuki, but rather a motive for murder. Izuku feels himself go cold at the sight of the dark eyebags around his eyes, tiny crystals forming on his fingertips, of the small twitch of his limbs. It is but a tiny shiver of anticipation and stored energy, ready to be let out.

A ticking bomb.

Forget Katsuki. Hayato will end up murdering them if they don’t do something soon. Izuku isn’t sure if Katsuki told Hayato about their classmates, or about their class at all: for all they share most of everything, Katsuki and Hayato like to pretend they don’t really care about each other's chosen paths. Classmates are too unimportant in the grand scale of things, especially when there are other things to worry about—

[‘I'm going to be a Hero, I can’t have something holding me back. You do that enough, Deku. I’m serious, let him forget himself as he wastes away in the library.’

‘I don’t care. You two want to be heroes and kill yourselves, go ahead. I just want to live my life in peace. Don’t come crying to me when you make a mistake.’

They both spoke with such forced bitterness, Izuku never believed a word they said. He watched in silence as Hayato’s stalkers stopped showing up, as Katsuki’s injuries were bandaged each time he knocked himself out. He watched how they trained, how they burned themselves out, so similar yet so different.

He watched, and never mentioned it. Never mentioned how Katsuki combed through Hayato’s research notes, or how Hayato kept casual correspondence with Katsuki’s assigned support student.

He might have made a mistake.]

Green eyes bore into their souls, photographic memory and genius mind working overtime to recognize them; he probably saw them in the Sports Festival. His eyes narrow, almost glowing scarlet, and Izuku is reminded of one of many encrypted files in his and Katsuki’s phones, delivered after Stein and the Swordmaster’s attack:

toga h., q:transform, w:blade melee, mo:just steal identities, it’s fine, i’m a vampire now.

Hayato signs a simple, subtle greeting to Izuku, and Izuku signs the right response back —his brain is panicking at the idea, but this is one ritual he has memorized and practiced, part of childhood games and maybe something else—

[‘In case there is ever an impostor amongst us, this will be our signal,’ Hayato said with all the seriousness he ever had, which is a lot; the effect is ruined by how he is lounging on the bed, head upside down and wearing kitty-print pajamas. The blanket barely covers them anymore: they are nine, and Izuku loves them, but the twins are stupid and always refuse his gifts, so the oversized blanket they could use is acting as a fort downstairs.

The three of them are the same, right now. They are watching some colorful cartoon, upside down, while waiting for their parents to stop fighting downstairs. Something about experiments with explosives without supervision, even though Izuku was supervising —no, it is about adult supervision, Izuku, you can’t just experiment with their Quirks without protection! I don’t care it is an abandoned building, Hisashi, speak to your son, stop laughing! Masaru, act as the common sense these two lack, please—

It has been going for a while.

‘When did you learn sign?’ Katsuki asks, almost nonchalant, but he repeats the motion. Hayato corrects his sign, because it has to be perfect, they will use it as their code word for infiltration after all. Izuku repeats the motion as well, and Hayato corrects him too. It takes a few repeats, and many months, for the motion to come out right, and by then it is just another odd quirk of the childhood friends.

‘It’s not sign, it’s flarespeech. It hasn’t been in use in decades, so it should be safe—‘]

—but now it is a reassuring sight. This is Bakugō Hayato, whose information is always accurate, whose notes on Quirks might be more detailed than Izuku’s own. He probably has a whole file on their classmates and on One for All, and maybe Izuku should be worried, but Hayato has always inspired trust.

Well, most of the time. Now he just looks like a terrorist.

“Hayato, not Katsuki,” he finally says, putting the goggles back in place. The crossbow stays where it is. He is waiting, then; for what? “They aren’t in position yet, if you’re wondering.”

“Hayato?” Kirishima is obviously confused, so Katsuki didn’t tell him about Hayato at all. If he didn’t tell Kirishima, then he didn’t tell anyone; Hayato’s identity is still a mystery.

“They?” Yaoyorozu pulls out some binoculars and looks at the building. She makes an undignified noise, quickly dropping behind the wall and pulling Kirishima with her. “The Heroes...“

Kirishima trips. Izuku follows. They end up in a curious hole in the ground and a messy tangle of limbs, protected by a wall that might have been a building once, with the wrong Bakugō looking down at them in amusement. He hops down as well, leaving his weapons atop the broken wall, and hovers besides Iida once they are out of the pitfall trap for a hurried introduction.

“Bakugō Hayato, Kacchan’s younger twin,” Izuku then motions to everyone else. “Class 1-A, Yaoyorozu, Iida, Todoroki, Kirishima. Myself. Why—“

“Mist, Sonic, AC, Baby Shark. Deku.” Oh, God, those are not Katsuki’s nicknames, he has been gossiping. The anxious tremble comes back with fury and Hayato tugs at his sleeves. “I thought you were under hospital arrest, o qualcosa. Breaking the rules, are we.”

A dangerous line of thought, that is. The others look guilty, a little sick, angry —and then there is Todoroki, who just looks at Hayato like he is an evil clone. Maybe he does think that: twin of a classmate who never talks about himself, wears all black, shows up unannounced at the right moment with barely legal weaponry. An evil clone, a vigilante, maybe even a villain; Hayato has never been good at playing civilian.

It is weird, though, because—

“Please don’t say you were planning on going there alone.” Kirishima is quick to adapt to Hayato, just as he is quick to adapt to Katsuki. He sounds accusing and oddly resigned, just like when he is trying to talk Katsuki out of his more dangerous strategies and training. So similar, yet so different.

“I’m more surprised you are waiting.” Izuku looks up at Hayato, and Hayato looks down at Izuku. Patience is not a Bakugō’s virtue, even less so Hayato’s virtue.

[‘NOT AGAIN!’

Izuku rarely hears Hayato yell. Being loud is more Katsuki’s thing, ever since they were children. Katsuki, who would run and laugh, the king of the playground and a ray of sunshine; and Izuku, who chased after him on clumsy feet with excitement and endless rambles. Katsuki was the loud one, while Izuku used to be loud along with him. Hayato prefered the quiet rustle of a tree, climbing higher than anyone else so he could read and read and read, rarely letting his own curiosity shine in front of others.

That was outside, and also, years ago. Nowadays, Katsuki is explosive in more ways than one, with a hair-trigger temper and proud declarations, only calming down when inside four walls. Izuku prefers to ramble to himself or to his notebooks, keeping his enthusiasm and words to his loved ones. Hayato… he is a night owl, dazed through the day while his brother drags him around, coming to life when the sun sleeps so he can do his UMA-spotting.

Which is why, when one of the top students of Aldera Junior High (Izuku, Katsuki and Hayato swap first to third places for their theory classes every exam season, though Izuku has advantage in socials, Katsuki in sciences and Hayato in languages; practical classes aren’t counted in their scorekeeping) yells, screams and almost throws the computer he was using out the window, people flee. Bakugō Hayato losing his immovable composure means one thing, and one thing only, and they are in a highly flammable computer room.

Lucky for them, the explosions don’t start right away. Hayato drops his head on the desk, hiding his face in his arms, while Katsuki (who is definitely not the neutralizing half of the chemistry duo) pats his arm. The elder twin is frowning at the screen as if it personally offended him, and knowing Katsuki, it probably did.

Izuku goes to see what the commotion is about and, sure enough, the screen was highly offensive: uri.djvu was running on the system, laughing at them like always. Removing it wasn’t hard, not to Hayato at least, but this is the fifth time in the month, and they are not even half way through.

‘Maybe wait for your own computer to get here?’ Izuku doesn’t know how long it takes to build a computer, especially not the one with the specs Hayato needs. It was ordered last week, after a whole year of uri.djvu deciding to nap on the school’s computers like it belonged there. They are all very lucky the teachers don’t bother with computer class: the computer room is free-for-all two hours a week.

‘Can’t wait— My research!’ Hayato practically wails, curling up on Katsuki’s side like when they were children, little deadly crystals forming where their skins meet. Izuku takes a step back. Then another.

‘Three days, Hayato. Three days, is all I ask.’ Katsuki’s defeated voice is but an echo of many, many times he asked for the same three days. uri.djvu clings to the Aldera database, licking its paw, reaching for the network. ‘You have your ridiculously overpowered computer on the way, why can’t you just… let the research wait. Have some patience.’

‘Merone might erase what I need if I wait too long—‘ Except, Merone has been toying with Hayato’s lack of virtual security for years now, Izuku is pretty sure this is a game for them by now. ‘What if I… try to get through uri, while uri is here already—‘

Izuku doesn’t know if that experiment worked, but he does know Hayato doesn’t get any sleep for the next week.]

Hayato isn’t made for waiting. Most of his plans are time-sensitive of the immediate manner, need to be executed the moment they are made or he stresses about them and explodes: he doesn’t really see the bigger picture, or a longer timespan unless it involves his long term goal of taking over the world. If he is waiting, then he probably can’t do anything just yet, and if the Heroes are here then maybe his plan is already busted.

Whichever it is, Izuku doesn’t trust him, at all.

(That came out wrong. He does trust Hayato, but that’s because Hayato would never hurt him. What he doesn’t trust, is Hayato’s common sense working properly, because Hayato lives in an parallel world of only 5.5 citizens, where the law bends to fit his needs and desires. He probably didn’t think twice about coming here, didn’t even consider that he could be found and labelled a criminal, or that someone else would fix this matter for him.)

“It is the wrong building,” Hayato finally says after too long of staring at Izuku. He is still vibrating with anxiety, hands clenched tight. He takes out a watch from his pocket just to fiddle with it as he jumps back to his perch on the wall. “Katsuki is elsewhere, so…”

“Wait, you’re saying he is not here—“

If Katsuki isn’t here, and the Heroes are here, then—

“Then, where is he? We should go there, why are we wasting time!?”

“Am just… waiting.”

Izuku has enough sense to pull his friends with him as he drops into the foxhole and, not a second later, the explosions begin.

Gokudera Hayato dies in a glow of red flames, explosions and a bow in hand. He doesn’t know what happened, how it happened, or who was there. All he knows for a long while is flames.

And then a spark of identity comes to life, and Bakugō Hayato is looking up at his crying brother. His head hurts. He remembers— a burning building, and lots of screaming, but he is outside, in a river, and he is bleeding from a head wound that should have killed him.

He has a brother, no, he has a sister, and a family of annoying little siblings, maybe even a daughter—and he is four years old, and fourteen, and twenty-four and thirty-two and he knows so much yet so little—

Dying Will Flames truly are amazing phenomena.

Hayato, the sequel, is the youngest twin of the Bakugō couple (Bakugō as ‘powerful bomb’, Hayato as ‘way of the arrow’, it is hilarious in how accurate it is), a model-and-designer couple living in Musutafu, Japan. His older brother is Katsuki, who can make his hands explode and spends all of Hayato’s short hospitalization hovering and reading out loud. The nurse asks some questions and he replies automatically: his name, his age, what year is it, what is his Quirk.

The year is 22XX A.D., and he is so confused. What is a Quirk? Hayato knows, because he grew up in this time. The scattered memories of his previous incarnation aren’t enough to put together a whole picture, but they are enough to confuse him a lot, and also why is he always the youngest brother?

At least Katsuki is not as crazy as Bianchi.

Gokudera Hayato’s memories are not enough to make Bakugō Hayato’s life worse than it should be, though. He does not remember much, only some people, some names, Tsuna, his flames. It is weird to not have them flaring behind his eyelids, but he supposes he hasn’t trained his body for them so he shouldn’t have them, but it is also weird he hasn’t awoken his Quirk so maybe he is just too weak?

No, he won’t consider that.

Hayato decides he needs answers, so he resorts to his favorite pastime: knowledge hoarding.

[1. At least two centuries in the future; Quirks, mutation of Flames, evolution? Another dimension maybe? Has been too long, cannot know.

2. No records of Gokudera, not unexpected; Namimori database is off limits. Namimori is now ‘Quirkless Autonomous Region’, weird as hell.

3. Vongola? No idea, organized crime ‘downfall’ was a century ago. Information hard to come by. There are Villains now? And Heroes?

4. Check the time capsule.]

He manages to put together a general picture of things within a few years. Finding information is really hard as a civilian, and as a child, and he doesn’t have resources to do anything. But, the scraps of information he can access help his previous memories become clearer, so it is something.

The first time he tries to get into the Vongola database, he fries his father’s computer and gets locked out of the office. When he wants to borrow a book, he needs a library card, and for that he needs an adult. His parents have already figured out he is obsessing, so they establish new rules, and by then Hayato is already old enough to realize he needs to be discreet.

Hayato was never good at being discreet. Luckily for him, he has a genius brother and an equally obsessive childhood friend, so he doesn’t need discretion: he can misdirect, and neither Katsuki or Izuku mind the attention.

(Katsuki doesn’t really approve of his research, but supports him anyways. Well, that’s fine, Hayato doesn’t approve of his Hero thing either, but he will support his brother always.)

As for resources… Well, he is Vongola.

Time travel is in their blood.

He is still surprised the time capsules have survived two centuries, the fall of an empire and the destruction of a whole city, but Merone was built to withstand a nuclear war. It is just a safety measure, Tsuna said, we won’t need it, it doesn’t need to be so strong. I would feel better if it existed, Byakuran argued, I don’t want anything like that event to happen again, please, just do it.

He is even more surprised one of his old mail addresses is still viable. Maybe not all hope is lost for Vongola.

So, he goes in.

[New! To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: aptljhwzbsl

> tc.tns/obyypjhul/

> welcome back]

Hayato almost cries when a random virus kicks him out. The last time it was active was just yesterday, that means there is someone else running around in the wrong century just like him. Of course, he can’t tell who it is —the capsule is completely automated and it is made to be completely untraceable, he doesn’t know how it works, but it works, and he isn’t alone.

He can relax for a bit. Only a bit. Maybe a week.

And then he wakes up to a cloyingly sweet smell in the room and Katsuki looking at him from the open door.

Ah, yes. His Quirk.

He is ten (he thinks, he feels so old), when it manifests. One part acetone, one part hydrogen peroxide, put them together and it explodes. Add in Katsuki and it explodes even more. It is beautiful, he loves it, but also, he hates it so much.

Because now he can’t feel his Flames. At all. Before the Quirk showed up, they were weak, barely flickering and struggling to stay aware, but there, bright Storm red with wisps of other colors. Now? They are— colorless.

Not white, not black; not Oath or Night. Just colorless. Unaligned, like they don’t quite know where to go, or what to do. A will without aim. A Storm without Sky.

Hayato doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

But, well, nothing is wrong with him, not physically. If he hadn’t thought Quirks were a sick manifestation of Flames twisted by something, then he would think so now. He would know so now, and the proof is right before his eyes. Right in Hayato’s own colorless soul that would take years to go back to red, or Katsuki’s faded will smothered under his explosions, or Izuku’s crackling lightning that shone in his eyes when he had a mystery in front of him.

[‘Anything that changes the alignment of the Flame should be feared,’ Uni tells them, quietly closing the door behind her, hiding Bykauran’s fading form from their eyes. It is the fourth month, and time has run out. ‘This illness… We can’t do anything about it.’

‘But— We all have it.’ Lambo is crying. Hayato hasn’t seen Lambo cry in years. ‘Are we—‘

‘Maybe it is the end of an era.’ Kawahira has long abandoned them, the last of the divine walking this Earth. ‘The end of the Era di Fiamma.’]

For now, though… He has to fix this mess the underworld of Japan got itself into.

Chapter Text

If anyone asks Aizawa Shōta when all this —this being the kidnapped students, the downfall of All Might, the press going wild and the League of Villains’ whole existence— started going wrong, he would openly say it was at the start of the year, with the entrance exams. Internally, he would scream and claw at his own consciousness to say everything went wrong when that man was born, but he can’t say that publicly: wishing the unbirth of one of the most popular and well-loved faces of Japan could lead to a bad ending for him. So, he will say it was the entrance exam because that’s when the Amehara Group decided to get involved with UA, when the younger brother of the current head of the group took 2nd place, just one point below Bakugō Katsuki.

At that point, they couldn’t deny the boy entrance into their school any longer. It had been debated a few times after his entrance application came in, but they can’t just not accept the 2nd scorer of the exam. Practical joke or whatever long-term plan the Amehara have going on, Amehara Takeshi is in UA to stay until he graduates or quits of his own free will.

If he is asked about what triggered the chain of events that would follow, he would respond it was the Sports Festival. Bakugō’s very loud tantrum aside, the cameras had been watching since the beginning, and while very few people could recognize Amehara Takeshi on sight, his classmates’ cheering on his final match against Todoroki Shoto didn’t help with his anonymity at all. Not that the younger Amehara was trying to stay anonymous, he had just gone through the early stages of the Festival letting all the attention and spotlights shine on his classmates, but once he finally took the stage…

No one can say Class 1-B is weaker than 1-A in any way: the class arrangements were randomized, and then some students were moved around to better fit each other. While Class 1-A has some very interesting powerhouses, each with different skills and motivations, 1-B also has their own tricks below their sleeves, their own dynamics and challenges they have to go through in order to coexist. Example A: Amehara Takeshi exists as Class 1-B’s strongest fighter, who also had zero motivation to be a Hero; according to Sekijirō, he is just there to socialize. This makes sense if you take Amehara’s version of how he ended up in UA as truth: someone in his old school changed his application forms, and here he is.

But Amehara isn’t a bad student, no, he just has no motivation at all. The most active he is ever seen is when he is playing baseball with students from the General Department, which seems to be the only thing he enjoys in school; he is good at it too, maybe a little too good, and at times the whole of 1-B will show up to watch the matches while they do homework together. He rarely speaks —apparently, he is selectively mute— and has a hard time communicating with anyone outside of his own class or the handful of baseball players, but he takes his studies seriously… though just to pass.

He barely passed Sekijirō’s Quirk Apprehension Test. He barely passed Toshinori’s Battle Trial. He uses the exact minimum of energy needed to go through the day (something Shōta can relate to), and if he does just a little more he will nap through the rest of the day. According to Sekijirō, he had to threaten Amehara with expulsion if he purposely failed the Sports Festival, but apparently, that hadn’t been necessary because the older Amehara would be watching and even someone as low-energy as the first-year student wants to show off in front of their family.

And he showed off, beautifully. All his matches ran long, simply because he wanted to let his opponents show off as well. As he only used his Quirk and martial arts instead of his weapon of choice, the fighting stage was in a constant condition of ‘cloudy with a chance of heavy rain’, rain that fell so hard when it came down it was like looking through sheets of water. He would hinder others’ movements, create his own diversions in the shape of a dog and a bird, and there was one instance when he pulled out a sword made of water out of the downpour to end a fight.

(A true Amehara, that one: if it wasn’t for the black hair, Shōta would have been pulling at his hair way, way longer than he has. A water-related Quirk, a sword, some ridiculous fighting instincts, a fixation on baseball and sushi… All he is missing is the annoying dying wish that makes him chase after Villains just for the fun of it— oh, wait.)

The fact that someone with such a Quirk, one with the Amehara name at that, is in UA is already important news alone. The fact that this someone, Amehara Takeshi, managed to just barely lose against Todoroki was talked about for weeks after. The fact that the absolute troll that is Amehara Samē was watching from the crowd, with no disguises and just one bodyguard at his side, did make it to national news, if only because the presence of the ‘most extremist and vocal anti-Heroics politician ever’ in UA was… a historical impossibility.

Some people called it fate, that the little brother of the Amehara Group’s current head lost against the son of the Number 2 Pro Hero. Some sort of retribution against the Amehara for their unmoving stance as ‘pro-Villains’, from those less informed. To the League of Villains, it just showed that an extremely powerful asset was at hand’s reach, and they didn’t wait long before taking it for themselves.

That was the beginning, yes. It was not the end —nothing involving the Amehara ever ends in a clean way, not when your name is Aizawa Shōta. And, unfortunately for him, he will have to deal with Young Lord Samē’s tantrums while trying to convince him that letting Amehara Takeshi live in their dorms is the safest option. They are lucky enough that the man agreed to meet with them, but only after Nezu confirmed his attendance, and this is only the first of many guardians he, Toshinori and Sekijirō have to meet in the following days.

The future looks so bright, maybe he should get a coffin to hide in.

It is why the four of them are here, instead of just Sekijirō. Against the madman powerhouse that is Amehara Samē, there aren’t enough Heroes. There will never be enough Heroes, there haven’t been enough Heroes even before Amehara started his very loud campaign against the HPSC and the Hero Ranking system. The worst is that, although he never used that particular agenda of his in his political career, he keeps getting voted in even though he doesn’t hide his animosity towards Heroes at all, so clearly there are people out there of similar thought. Young Lord Samē’s words made far more sense than they should in this black-and-white world, and no one can do anything against it.

Maybe it is because Shōta has his own personal history with the man, or maybe it is just because there is something about him that makes all his hair stand on end but he doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to see Amehara’s face right now, not when he knows that there is a high chance that, some hours after they leave, Amehara will go back to hunting the League of Villains on his own as revenge for kidnapping his little brother.

(How no one has connected the weapon collector Amehara Samē, the bane of international auctions, museums and the black market, with the infamous Swordmaster, who doesn’t discriminate between Villain or Hero so long as they give him a good fight, is a mystery to Shōta. They are both rude as hell, they are both loud whenever they want, they both have those legs—The HPSC has had undercover agents near him almost 24/7 ever since Amehara first went viral for his casual, anti-Heroic answer in an interview, and yet…)

There is a shark happily swimming inside a gigantic, glorified fishbowl just below their feet. Shōta knows, from his days working undercover as Amehara Samē’s bodyguard, that the shark isn’t a large fish pretending to be a shark, or an illusion of a shark, or an aquatic robot shaped like a shark. Many people who have seen the shark have their theories about it, but there is one simple truth to its existence: it is very real, very alive, and very loved—in fact, Amehara Squalo (called Alo) is considered a member of the main family, because all Amehara are insane.

The shark is said to be a mutant of its own species, much, much smaller than a Great White should be yet with the same qualities that make them so dangerous, and hasn’t been released into the wild even after dozens of complaints about abuse, mostly from Nezu, because the thing has a Quirk. No one knows what the Quirk is, but it is properly registered and cared for, even if the record is sealed for its own safety. Nezu has had fits about ‘poor Alo’s living situation’ more times than Shōta can count, which is ridiculous because ‘poor Alo’ lives a life fit for a king here.

This is a shark that was born and bred in ‘captivity’, if the setup that Amehara HQ has can be called captivity: its aquarium takes up the second and third floors of the building, leaving only enough room for corridors surrounding it, corridors that are usually only used by the older Amehara and his closest family. There is more aquarium space in the basement and the upper floors because this thing can swim vertically somehow, and Shōta is pretty sure they had this building specially built so close to the shore to make a tunnel into the ocean. He has never cared enough to look into it, and definitely does not want to know: he is already out of the Amehara surveillance team and he never wants to go back again, he will leave that to the conspiracy theorists.

What he, Nezu, and the side of the HPSC that deals with Quirk security do know about the shark and its life is this: the shark is not an experiment, has never suffered a day in its captivity, and thrives where it is. Removing it from Amehara’s care could have deadly consequences, not just for the shark but also for the whole of Japan, because Amehara Samē is insane and loves this shark like it is his own child. Shōta doubts even Amehara Takeshi receives as much attention as the shark does, but that could also be because the shark’s aquarium acts as the main office’s floor.

The worst part is, it isn’t an intimidation tactic or anything of the sort: the floor is made of glass because the madman wants to be able to see the thing ‘if Alo ever needs something’, as if the shark would ever request anything from him or need his attention for more than the time it takes for it to eat. Mentioning that people get scared of ‘cute, little Alo’ will just get you a confused look, perhaps even a condescending look or a contract termination if Amehara is in a bad mood. At least the shark can’t be seen from the welcome hall, or anywhere on the first floor which is as far as most of the public and press ever gets, but Amehara Samē never holds meetings in the welcome hall, that would be rude.

The office they are currently in is glassy and blue —the floor is made of glass and there is a miniature ocean down there, but the walls are also practically all windows on one side and painted a particular shade of blue on the others. Apart from that, it is very classy, with black couches, a giant antique desk that seems to only be used as decoration, and shelves of books between cabinets of wine between displays of weaponry. It hasn’t changed at all since Shōta was last here —he thinks even the wines are the same—, though Amehara Takeshi is a new addition, as are Amehara Ran and the… furry creature wrapped around his shoulders. Said furry creature is somehow giving them the most mischievous expression an animal can make, and Amehara the youngest keeps whispering to it and giggling creepily.

Shōta sits between Sekijirō and Nezu, with Toshinori at Nezu’s other side, on one of the couches that are for guests and guests alone, because they are not as comfortable as the ones reserved for the family —it is a small difference, barely noticeable, but dear God if this man isn’t the pettiest person alive Shōta will eat his shoe. There is a table in front of them with snacks and refreshments, and Shōta would like nothing more than to throw the black coffee that is for him at Amehara Samē’s perfect, silky silver hair, except the man isn’t here yet.

“He is late,” Toshinori smartly says as he ignores the snacks as well and decides to pay attention to the very ornate weapons on display behind glass on one wall. The one he is looking at right now are a pair of twin handguns displayed along with what seems to be a badge or insignia. “He really likes weapons, uh.”

“They could get him in prison for owning them.“ Sekijirō says, repeating what so many people who have visited this office have said before. From the HPSC to the Top Ranked Heroes to the Police, everyone has tried to find holes in Amehara’s perfect persona, and yet they can’t because either Amehara has a duplication Quirk along with his registered one or is just that good at hiding his tracks.

“People tried that before,” says the youngest Amehara, giggling into his hand. Shōta doesn’t know which one is creepier: the one who is always smiling and doesn’t talk, or the one who is always smiling and talks like he was laughing at your grave. “It won’t work, it never works! You know why?”

“We do, Amehara-kun. Don’t worry, we are just here to talk.” Nezu defuses the ticking time bomb, though the boy still giggles at him before going back to whispering to his furry companion. The UA student sitting next to him blinks slowly, shifting around so he can look at the glass floor: Alo noses at the glass, visible for a few seconds before it darts off towards the door.

“Sorry I’m late,” says the insane man’s voice as he closes the door behind him, soft, airy and rude as always. Many people say that’s his Quirk: being able to be rude while also having the smoothest voice in the world, but no, that’s just him. Shōta makes an effort to not look as their host makes his way over, but that is impolite— that’s the only reason why he is looking.

May thunder strike him now, Samē is still pretty. He practically glides on the floor, Alo following him from below making it look like he is walking on water: a predator stalking his prey. His perfectly silky silver hair, the perfectly pressed suit and shirt lacking a tie, the perfectly polished shoes— and atop it all, a black coat with a fur trim that clashes horribly with his businessman ensemble. Seductive, yet unusually conservative, his shape looks like he was pulled straight out of a film noir poster: he is both the lead role’s detective and the femme fatale, somehow, while also being one of the strongest people Shōta has ever had to fight.

He hates this man so much, why is he still pretty?

Amehara sits between his brothers, whispering something to them that makes them shake their heads before he turns back to them.

“Then, what did you come here for?”

And now is when Nezu takes the stage.

Yamamoto Takeshi’s life ends inside an indestructible bunker, tightly clutching Lambo and Fuuta’s smaller, weaker bodies as they fade in his hands, unable to do anything to help. He is not the first one to go, and he won’t be the last either: by the time he died, there were still some of them left, though none with bright futures ahead. Death is the natural end of those who had the Disease, and by that point in time, they all had it.

Yamamoto Takeshi’s life ends inside an indestructible bunker, with two dying small bodies in his arms, and three and a half swords strapped on his back. His father’s sword, Shigure Kintoki; his mother’s sword, the Asari blade; his mentor’s arm and sword, that stupid prosthetic; his own weapons and trusted friends for decades, Jirō and Kojirō, clinging to his back. Maybe it is that reason why he only returns to consciousness whenever any two of those are present, the coincidence crafted so naturally by fate that he refuses to call it a coincidence.

When he first comes into awareness— he decides to forget. It is easy as breathing, now: locking his memories away so they don’t become an issue, except he has done it so many times he doubts there is anything left. Memories of his previous life as Yamamoto Takeshi remain hazy while his body’s past memories are hidden away for his own safety, and for a whole year he lives like this: being nothing, being no one, stuck between a vague Yamamoto Takeshi and whoever he was before this moment.

And then Amehara Samē shows up and forces him back to life.

[‘Brat, you made me look around for a long while,’ Amehara says once they are at his office, the social worker sweating buckets at Takeshi’s side as the shark —Alo is here?— stares at her from beneath the glass. Behind Amehara, there are two swords on display, placed vertically in the gaps between windows with enough space around them to catch attention: Shigure Kintoki and the prosthetic, exactly as his hazy memories show them to him.

He laser focuses on them, almost reaching out for the blades before the social worker pulls him back with a worried whisper. Takeshi takes the time to look around the office better —there are so many weapons he recognizes, but can’t quite place—, but it is when he sees the tiny boy wrapped in blankets sitting on the couch, kicking his legs while humming, that he breaks free from his self-imposed prison.

‘Ran—‘ The world turns beautiful shades of blue as part of his new/old memories crash into his head. That’s right, he— He is Takeshi, and Ran is his little brother. He remembers droplets of memories, falling on the sea of history: a collapsed building, a girl covered in blood —his sister, Skies, he had an older sister and she is gone— and a tiny bundle of Ran in his arms, fading like Fuuta and Lambo, but still fighting to live—

He is there, holding his breathing, living brother in his arms —Ran, or rather Belphegor, he is related to the Varia Commander what in all hells— as the two boys laugh hysterically, Alo bopping his nose beneath their feet for some attention. The social worker is gone to his senses, all he knows is his brother, his memories breaking like waves in his head, and—

Squalo.

‘Sorry it took me so long, for some reason you two got separated, it was dumb,’ Amehara Samē —Squalo Superbi once, not anymore, though the name is terribly fitting now that he thinks about it— speaks from beside them, patting their heads as the only sign of affection he will ever show before an outsider. ‘You stay here, I will go deal with the paperwork and all that shit— Alo, watch them.’]

It is a tricky situation, the one they are in. The world is different, the system behind the world is different —Takeshi can’t feel his Flames anymore, no matter what he does— and the laws of nature are different as well. In a world without Flames, there is no Mafia; instead, there are Superpowers, Heroes and Villains and Vigilantes, and he wants to laugh at how ridiculous it all sounds. The Last Varia Commander is his younger brother, Amehara Ran (though he goes by Bel, of course), and he runs circles around Takeshi on tiny feet while Takeshi attempts to train. Squalo— Amehara Samē is his guardian, technically a distant cousin but now an older brother, and he rallies against the Hero system the way he once did against the Vindice.

Takeshi’s memories are fragmented, both sets of them only giving him sparse information of anything. He knows he is Vongola, he knows he is Rain, and he knows the sword belongs in his hands just as much as a baseball bat does. He recognizes each weapon Squa— Samē has dutifully chased after and collected from underground auctions and museums, but he cannot remember the wielders, not very well. He knows he had friends —Tsuna and Hayato and Ryōhei and maybe Kyōya at times as well— but can’t remember their faces until he visits the little, hidden and preciously locked museum Samē has built for himself, where he has photographs and paintings that survived time and battles.

Photographs of better days, photographs of dumb Vongola moments, of the scientists in their labs and Hayato at his ship, of Tsuna and Xanxus and Enma and Byakuran and Dino all gathered around a table playing cards while getting drunk, of Kyōko and Lal Mirch and Adelheid and Haru and Uni commiserating at the nearby table actually doing their jobs. Photographs of grand elegant castles and slightly smaller manors, of many groups of people whose names play hide-and-seek in his memories. Portraits, paintings of those that didn’t belong to history so much as their own blood and duty, of the Elder Generations and the Neo Vongola looking as regal as they can possibly be.

He has a moment of dissociation when he recognizes his own portrait, standing at Tsuna’s left in that expensive getup he remembers took hours to put on properly. His necklace is at his belt instead of his neck, innocently hanging next to the decorate katana they got made just for the occasion. He can’t recognize this Yamamoto Takeshi, not compared to the last time he remembers looking at the mirror: the scars are gone, the eyebags as well, he has two whole eyes. He looks determined and ready to take on his duty, not tired as was his only emotion for the last few years, and he wonders.

He wonders if this second chance is when he can fix it all, if he can say that which he forgot to say, if he can apologize to those he failed. He wonders if he can do better now, who knows how many years later, so displaced in time.

He wonders if they can finally find the peace they so craved.

He once asked Samē why he was doing all this, collecting pieces of their story they shouldn’t even remember. Why bother, when it is all over, when they have gotten this new chance to start anew, when the world seems to be better now than it was at their end. Shouldn’t they be allowed to be at ease now?

He didn’t get a clear reply, though he did get some insight.

[‘Look at them,’ Samē says, still not moving from where he is doing maintenance on the twin guns on the desk. The motions are well-practised, as if he has been doing this for years —and he probably has, even before they reincarnated in this era.

They are in the ‘family room’, a massive sitting/living room that takes over the majority of the fifth floor of this particular building —Amehara HQ, Musutafu, where Takeshi spends most of his time; they actually live in a nicer, not-business-looking home at the outskirts of the city, but Samē is, as always, married to his job.

It is a room big enough to fit the ‘main’ family and whatever they want to do, so they can have one place where they can do their jobs and still spend time together. There is Alo’s pool— or, one entrance into Alo’s aquarium that Samē uses when he wants to spoil the shark or get somewhere faster, or just disappear from reality for a while. There is a glass wall near the middle of the room with a sliding door that leads to the training room, where the one who was Lussuria is currently beating up the one who was Levi for some slight or another. On this side, there is the desk Samē actually uses to work (not the Baroque antique downstairs that was probably recovered from some dead Mafia estate, that’s just for show) and some more tables for the ‘children’ to do their homework. Most of the room, however, is taken up by Bel’s lounge and streaming setup, far too many plush couches and little tables that change location every day, books stacked into whole cities along with multiple half-built models of planes and ships.

Apart from the duo fighting on the other side, there is… well, the ‘children’. Mammon —currently going by Amehara Kasumi, another fitting name to join the family with names that fit too well— is napping on one of the couches, or pretend napping as one of the plane models is building itself on the table in front of them. Bel —legal name: Amehara Randa, because their parents didn’t think the consequences of naming their child ‘lazy’ even if the name is supposed to be foreign— is being his usual self and yelling curses in French while playing some game against Fran —who… isn’t here? Or at least, Takeshi thinks he isn’t, he can’t tell and he doubts anyone in the room will ever know where Fran is at any given moment.

But, he can see what Samē means, in some parts. Mammon is alive and at ease, no cloak or chains in sight, no Night Flames eating away at their life —no Flames, really, though without their memories they don’t miss the Mist at all. The hundreds of tiny, invisible limbs that are their Quirk is all they ever had, all that was ever theirs, and then the head of the Amehara Group had picked them up from the street just because ‘you look familiar’. With no need to hoard and save to secure a future that never came, they smile brightly whenever they get their weekly allowance before throwing it all at model figures.

Bel and Fran are much the same, living their lives at ease, with only bare knowledge of a past they can’t care enough about to remember. There are still knives, too many of them, but there are no more crawling shadows and voices only they can see or hear, no fear of going to sleep only to find out they are the last ones left. They haven’t been practically thrown into the depths of a position of power neither knew how to work, never had to struggle to hold together a failing organization for ages; they won’t have to, now, because they don’t remember, and they have a stable, if slightly dysfunctional and insane home to grow up in. Bel is still a bloodthirsty maniac, and Fran still doesn’t have anything he particularly enjoys, but if they eventually want to go and start a civil war, it will be their choice and not something they do out of necessity.

He wasn’t here when Lussuria and Levi arrived: they were already here, more or less the same as they had been before those years when Hell became their lives, and well used to the schedule of their old Second in Command. He also wasn’t here when Samē picked up a completely unrelated boy burnt half to death and decided to treat him before letting him go, because many years of living with the Disease makes people get used to seeing people burnt by their own Flames and they never want to go through that again. He was here already when Samē arrived with a little shape-shifting devil in his arms as a playmate for Bel, and when he called home early to get a lavish, expensive dinner prepared for a pickpocketer who would be staying with them from now on.

He thinks he understands, just a little bit.]

It takes a few years for his memories to make more sense, years of going through life without much purpose other than making sure Samē ate and slept on time and Bel didn’t set Fran on fire, but once he can finally put the pieces together, he completely understands what Samē— what Squalo is doing.

Squalo was always duty-and-honour bound to one person and one person only, and now he is rebuilding what that person built before, paving the path for Xanxus to take his rightful place. There might be no Mafia anymore, not in Japan at the very least —the only surviving family, according to Samē, are the Millefiore, and they rule Italy right under the eyes of Heroes—, but the Varia was more than just Mafia, more than just family. The Varia was Squalo’s pride, his purpose in life and death, the one thing he could never give up on.

Not even when they have a new chance to live.

He isn’t just trying to give them all a better life, a better future: he is gathering those who Xanxus deemed worthy and close enough to be at his side the moment his heart gave up. He is building a different sort of Varia, still ruthless, still Vongola quality, so that Xanxus can have back what he lost.

(Squalo always, always stood to the side and let the spotlight shine on Xanxus, even when most of the work fell on him at the end of the day; the title was rightfully his before Bel took it from his dying hands, but he stepped aside because Xanxus was the Commander he chose to follow.)

Their Family is really something else, Takeshi thinks. Two centuries later, and here they are, repeating the same mistakes, building the same castles, looking at the same Sky. He knows what he is missing, now, and he wants it back.

However, it isn’t just Amehara Samē looking two centuries into the past and dragging it to the future: he is easily the most active one and, having the legacy of his biological family at his feet to do as he pleases, he is also the one with the most resources to be able to secure the remnants of their Family through whatever means possible. There is also Merone in Namimori —and of course Namimori is still around, that place wouldn’t disappear after a tiny civil war, not after it survived centuries isolated; maybe the Hibari are still ruling it, even, he wouldn’t put it past them—, not just the automated time capsules hidden deep below the earth but also ‘Merone’ themselves, a gentle guiding hand without a face that makes sure they stay the hell away from their homeland. There are the Owls, cryptic as always and doing whatever they please, though those two tend to just stay at the sidelines while watching over their cherished ones without giving away their location —Takeshi wishes Mukuro would just admit he is somewhere in Japan and watching over Tsuna instead of putting everything in flowery codes no one can decipher, and Chrome is not much better.

Finally, closer to home and the key to some memories he still hasn’t managed to remember, there is Hurricane, striking like a natural disaster, slowly dismantling whatever is left of an underworld in Japan and reassembling it to fit their —his needs. Hayato was never subtle; he was never good at playing civilian, either, but if he hasn’t shown his face in the Amehara building just yet, then…

Takeshi just goes through life watching all this happen, unable to do much.

Except, there is something he can do.

[New! To: [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: re: ???

>> Why is it I have received a request to sign a UA admittance form? What are you playing at, I thought you were going into that sports school

> ?? UA? I just filled in what they gave me at school, was I not supposed to

I hate this, I can’t just delete it because UA takes priority over everything else. Just go take the exam, I will see if I can fix this when I go back]

In the end, Samē never manages to fix the mess when he comes back from yet another fruitless search around Europe, and Takeshi enters UA feeling like all eyes are on him. It makes sense: all eyes are on him for a while, whispers following his path for more than just a while, and he just wants to be like Bel and Mammon and sleep for maybe a month. The Amehara name, while useful in most situations, is a dangerous handicap in this particular building.

Luckily, there are some people who don’t mind him much, most notably fellow ‘rich/politician/whatever family kid’, Monoma Neito.

[‘Wow, you really are unlucky, uh,’ Monoma says on the very first day of class upon seeing Takeshi already trying to become one with his desk. If he had less control over his Quirk, it would be raining in the classroom and maybe even outside, but he grew up with Fran, and everyone has better control than Fran. ‘Did you really end up here because of a prank?’

‘…Samē wasn’t there,’ is all he can say back: there aren’t many people in the room just yet. It isn’t that he dislikes talking, he just… doesn’t get many chances to.

Monoma is okay with him, though, he just nods as if he understands —he probably does, he has been translating Takeshi’s mumbles for some years now. They met soon after he got adopted into the Amehara’s, in one of those weird socialite events that Samē had to attend for appearances’ sake (and isn’t that funny, a polite Squalo. He knows the Squalo family were Mafia and that Madame Laurie had been very high class, but then how did she end up with Squalo?); Monoma decided he was at risk of being ‘taken away by the opposition’ —he still doesn’t know what that means— and forcefully adopted him as a friend. Since then they just end up crowding together at events with some of the other ‘non-opposition’ children.

Monoma reminded him a little of Tsuna, really: terrible at interactions unless it is about a very specific thing or a very specific type of event or with a select group of people. Tsuna was a Mafia boss —Decimo of the greatest Family in Italy, Primo of the greatest Family in the world— and he excelled at it, but anything else… Well, he never finished high school, so maybe that didn’t help. Monoma is a lot like that, he is generally pretty good whenever there is something to go against, whatever it is.

‘Well, welcome to the pro-Heroics life. Who knows, maybe it will change something.’ Monoma stretches lightly as he takes his own seat next to Takeshi.

‘It won’t.’

‘You are very right.’

There are more people coming in, and class will start soon, so right now all he wants to do is sl—

Silver-blonde hair walks past their door and Takeshi is on his feet almost instantly, chasing after the weakweakweak Flames that are so similar to one he is deeply familiar with; rivalry and friendship, something like siblings perhaps, not-quite opposites each at one side of their Boss—

But it is not the same.

Similar, but not the same.

‘What are you looking at?’ The boy who looks and feels so much like Hayato squints his eyes at him, and Takeshi quickly raises a hand to apologize— in flarespeech.

The boy goes into the next classroom only after he has accepted his apology— also in flarespeech.

That interaction is enough for Takeshi to make it through the day in the pro-Heroics side of the world.]

Unfortunately, he is not subtle enough to stalk someone who knows flarespeech all the way back to their home, but that doesn’t mean he just leaves it alone. Flarespeech is a dead language, gone along with Flame users all over the world, and he wasn’t expecting to see it here of all places.

Who is he? Why does he know flarespeech? Why do his Flames feel so wrong yet so similar to the ones he had learned to see as his own’s sibling?

He isn’t Hayato, that much is obvious: the Hurricane continues being active even while classes are in session, and he knows Hayato isn’t the type of person to just delegate. Not when it is something as personal as continuing Tsuna’s legacy. He knows Hayato’s MO, his bombing layouts and skills, and they require him to be present for interrogation and persuasion.

But, he could be related. Bakugō Katsuki has an explosion Quirk, maybe a sibling of his would have one too. So far, Quirks seem to manifest similar to what their Flames used to be —Kasumi’s tentacles, Fran’s shapeshifting, Lussuria’s regeneration— or related to what their personal skills were —Bel’s telekinesis was limited to metals, like his knives, while Samē’s… shark-like attributes could be his Box Weapon.

But does Bakugō have a sibling?

He doesn’t stalk anyone. And contrary to what Monoma thinks, he doesn’t have a crush: he is just chasing after a potential lead, and only when there is time. He would rather play baseball with the General Department than stalk Bakugō Katsuki.

He wants to fight Bakugō. He wants to fight Bakugō.

He watches the bomber’s matches in the Festival closely, dissecting his fighting style into two main components: bombs, obviously, since that’s his Quirk, but the way he moves… The way he flips in mid-air without a care for gravity, or how he aims for an attack, the easy and almost elegant landing— That is all Tsuna.

How?

He… doesn’t get to fight Bakugō. Sadly, his Jiunoka is really weak against ice and fire at this time, as what he summons from the Sky isn’t Rain Flames but the rain itself. They are similar, they are still Tranquility and Stillness, but it is still water.

He should have won. He could have won if he had his sword—Shigure Sōen Ryū works best with Rain Flames, but water is a good second option—, but UA confiscated it the first day. They took his arm and gave him a cheap replacement for training. He refuses to bring his soul to the school grounds again, the disrespect is just— something else.

The worst part is, Samē was watching. It would have been even worse if his father had been watching too, but he doesn’t know if he is around. Maybe he is, somewhere, awfully disappointed in someone with no blood relation to him, and Takeshi will die of embarrassment.

No, he will die from embarrassment now. He got kidnapped? How? Who is he, Tsuna? At least he isn’t alone, he has Bakugō Katsuki for himself to ramble angrily at— through flarespeech, obviously. Bakugō just looks more and more amused the wilder his hand motions get, even tied as they are, and he looks just like Hayato, it is so unfair.

He sees an owl peer at them from the window and huffs in annoyance.

Still, if this League of Villains think they will get anything from him, then they can go see if it’s raining at the crossing.

Chapter Text

Yagi Toshinori had known some things about the Bakugō household and what to expect of it. Some usual, some unusual, but many things go accepted in a world of Quirks.

It is definitely the house of a hardworking family, though with divided interests. Their living room is divided in half: there are towers of magazines of all kinds and shelves of books on various topics, what he recognizes as blueprints for Young Bakugō’s support equipment and some worksheets spread on the dining table of one side of the room, while the other (where they sit now) is a mess of scattered cloth scraps, accessories hanging from mannequins and bolts of fabric half-unrolled on some lined-up chairs, with professional photography equipment taking over one corner. The sitting area is divided from the ‘work area’ by two couches perpendicular to each other, with the free corner leading to what seems to be the kitchen in one way and the entrance to the other.

It does seem a little backwards, with the working half preferring to keep their atelier more casual, while the students are the ones with orderly tendencies. Young Midoriya had said they all had their own rooms specifically set up for their jobs/studies, but that there were rush hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks when they simply ended all down here while catching up with deadlines and eating whenever they could. The one with the freest time until a short while ago was, apparently, Young Bakugō, and somehow the idea of that child tending to the kitchen is terrifying.

It is an interesting dynamic, to say the least of it.

The… odour of the house is also expected. They are a family with chemical-based Quirks, so some smells are accepted— some send his brain into warning mode for their reputation, some that don’t. The smells linger all over the place, not just near their respective users: walls, couches, pillows, even the carefully trimmed flowers by the windows secreted a similar smell (experiments?). This is to be expected in the house, and increased senses or not, the smell is not so overpowering as to bother him too much. He is wary —most of the family seems to be… volatile, with equally volatile quirks, and that the smell of explosives is a constant to them is odd, for an active Hero like him. There is some weird device sitting on the small coffee table that sends a smell of nothing every few minutes; Young Midoriya had called it a neutralizer but didn’t say more of it, not about how it works and definitely not about why it looks like it was made from a diffuser, half a microwave and a metal hose.

However, even past all that and the smell of nothing that exists somehow, there is something… out of place. Glycerin and nitroglycerin are particularly sweet smelling, he knows where those two come from. The mild acid smell should be from Bakugō Masaru, and the flowers’ scents are stronger near the corners they rest in. There is acetone, he thinks, coming from the younger Bakugō twin, mixed with… tobacco and gunpowder?

That’s concerning. Very concerning. The younger twin isn’t supposed to be involved in anything Heroics. He is also the same age as Young Bakugō and shouldn’t be smoking at all, or going to places where people smoke often.

However, then there are the things he didn’t expect, like the Midoriya deciding to join their meeting with the Bakugō family (to save time), with the ever-elusive Midoriya Hisashi joining them on video call from a monitor that seems to be multipurpose. Again, according to Young Midoriya, their families are too close as friends to not see each other as family: if one half does not agree to something, chances are the other won’t either. It is better to confront them both at the same time, though Aizawa said that is recipe for disaster. Toshinori is willing to trust Young Midoriya on this topic though, if only because he has met Midoriya Inko and the way she spoke about the Bakugō family did show she cared deeply about them all.

And, indeed. Young Bakugō and Young Midoriya’s relationship wasn’t bad and there wasn’t any tension between them, not like between them and Young Todoroki or Young Yaoyorozu or any of the recommendation students from 1-B, but it always seemed… strained, somehow. Like they were missing a piece or needed to urgently talk about something they couldn’t in public. They talked, and laughed and joked with each other, but at times they stopped as if expecting someone else to chime in. It wasn’t noticeable unless you were paying close attention, which Toshinori has been doing as they are—both of them— his chosen heirs, but it was a behavioural pattern they will have to fix if they want to become a Hero Duo.

He thinks he has found what they are missing though, and so far he isn’t sure he likes it.

It is the twin that is missing, and Toshinori thinks he understands why. Bakugō Hayato (‘actually Hayatō, but he got rid of that elongation long ago’, according to Miss Midoriya) had been the one to greet them when they knocked on the door, had been the one to close the door on their faces while yelling at them to go away and cursing in every language known to men, and is also the one currently standing the farthest from them. He sits at the windowsill, by the flowers that are an unnatural shade of neon, hiding most of his face behind a magazine —the latest publication of ‘VS’. It is mostly that that has him on edge: he can see a rather large collection of VS on one shelf, stuck in pairs between books on postgraduate topics of chemistry, physics, history and even some philosophy, unassuming and clearly given a place on the shelf as if that is where they should belong.

He honestly wouldn’t have looked twice at the collection before moving on —many people are interested in it, in the world of underground Heroes and Vigilantes and other controversial topics that ‘Cozart’ allows in their press—, but… there are too many of them. Considering the age rating, he hadn’t expected any of his students to have it in their possession (the print edition is, in fact, banned in UA, even if Nezu is a frequent writer for it), and Bakugō Hayato should be a high school student, right? If the press itself isn’t stopping him from buying them, or even his parents, then there should be some degree of control over what kind of literature he consumes—although from the book currently on the table, Corrosion and Explosion and Other Nonsense (a ridiculously extensive tome on the topic regardless of its name), he doubts anyone in the Bakugō family cares much about controlling any their members.

(Maybe he is on edge and overthinking things because of that, because of Bakugō Hayato. Or maybe, it is because they had a meeting with the Young Lord Amehara a few days ago, or because he keeps seeing signs of the ‘anti-Hero conspiracy’ everywhere he goes. Maybe it is the sudden reappearance of the most dangerous Villain to ever cross All Might’s path, or how no one can tell why a certain annoying Singularity decided to reappear at the same time as All for One. Or maybe it is the blurry images he— they got to see of the Hurricane fleeing the explosion scene, looking so very much like Bakugō Katsuki there were doubts if they weren’t one and the same— except, Bakugō Katsuki had been in the other building, not the one that exploded.

The Kamino Incident had been a troublesome day that becomes even worse with each fact they unearth from ‘ground zero’: a whole group of Villains under All for One, with a small army of artificial humans, then the Vigilante interference through the operation itself, and then hints of a rather ancient being —if history can be believed, even older than All for One— coming up to mess with their conclusions whenever they got anything close to an answer. At least All for One is in Tartarus right now, but the League itself escaped and they haven’t found a track of where or even who is doing all these experiments—how didn’t they notice all this happening right under their nose? They also still have no concrete reasoning behind the Vigilantes’ actions —were they acting together? Was it all just a coincidence?— or why, exactly, the Mists had come out now, of all times.)

Unusual choice in literature, delinquent-like appearance, reeking of smoke and guns… Toshinori has known Bakugō Hayato for a few minutes and he is already an enigma, not just because of the red flags revealed in this visit; Bakugō Hayato was the twin that was never mentioned, that Young Bakugō practically erased from his memories the moment he stepped into UA even if he is willing to admit he has a younger brother. Young Bakugō’s records said he existed, that ‘Hayatō’ was indeed a living being that lived in the Bakugō house, and for a long while, Toshinori thought they just didn’t get along well enough for him to merit a mention—and he isn’t alone thinking that. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing he has seen when it comes to twins with similar Quirks, nor when it comes to Heroes with younger siblings: Hero students, especially those of UA, tend to be proud and overachieving, and oftentimes their siblings are… left behind, struggling to catch up.

It is not the best dynamic, or the most healthy, but it is a family pattern that comes up often in their career. Siblings so close in age, personality and abilities that they are usually left trying to compete for their parents’ attention, siblings who would eventually become rivals for some, or enemies, or prefer to not cross paths with each other again. It isn’t rare and it is a dynamic that has been around since the dawn of humanity, something that needs to be worked on both by training and therapy, both halves affected in different ways. That, or they grow overprotective of each other, usually the older one keeping an eye out for the younger, but it is overprotectiveness that often becomes dangerous and a blatant weakness for Heroes.

Toshinori might understand why Young Bakugō decided not to talk about his brother, but he has seen how he and Young Midoriya react to the topic of siblings (wary glances, most of the time; at times they will forcefully change the topic even if it makes people look at them weirdly), but now that he has met Bakugō Hayato he thinks he made a mistake in his theory. The younger twin, while being someone who neither Young Midoriya nor Young Bakugō mentioned, or mentioned simply as ‘a childhood friend’, was also someone whose presence seems to be exactly what those two need to feel at ease —not relax, no: right now, they look as tense as they have since the Kamino Ward incident, both families do, and not even Bakugō Masaru, the one who seems to be the peacekeeper in the room, is spared. However, somehow the boy’s presence is enough for Toshinori’s students to stop looking behind their own backs every other minute.

And one thing he does understand, now that he has met Bakugō Hayato, is that he wasn’t the one left behind. If anything, Young Bakugō, the Hero Candidate who is a few degrees to the side of being a prodigy, is the one lagging and struggling to catch up with his brother.

“What are you looking at!?” The boy he had been thinking about seems to have had enough of Toshinori’s casual staring, for he throws his magazine on the table and comes to join them— behind his brother and to the right, leaving Young Midoriya at the left but sitting next to Young Bakugō. It seems to be where he usually stands, as the Hero student just glances up and behind him with an exasperated sigh, reaching to brush some shimmery dust off his brother’s hand.

“I apologize,” Toshinori says, his tone pacifying with a hint of discomfort. He doesn’t want to know what could happen if the boy lost his temper: there is little information on this Bakugō, and all Toshinori knows is that his Quirk is explosive and that he apparently likes messing around with dangerous chemicals. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

“I will rip your eyes—“

“Hayato!” Bakugō Masaru is quick to defuse the situation, getting up and practically dragging his son to the kitchen. He gives them all a small wave. “Sorry about that, I will be back.”

Toshinori just watches them, helplessly, and accepts the tea Miss Midoriya offers him. Aizawa doesn’t seem to mind the interruption much, simply picking up his conversation with Bakugō Mitsuki as if nothing happened. Maybe nothing did, as this seems to be the younger twin’s way of being.

[The trip between the Midoriya household and the Bakugō household is short enough for them to walk. Midoriya Inko walks a few steps in front of them, arguing with her husband on the phone, while Young Midoriya walks next to Toshinori and Aizawa swinging his arms like a child.

“They aren’t really…” Their student bites his lip, possibly realizing he shouldn’t be telling them private information but unwilling to let them go near a ticking bomb without warning. “I don’t think they understand parenting, Auntie and Uncle. Oh, they are good parents, I would know, especially Uncle who is always around but… Uh…

“Okay so, they don’t do normal parenting. Since Middle School, they haven’t really put down rules or had expectations or anything like that? Both Kacchan and Hacchan, they push themselves enough to fulfil whatever impossible goal they have and Auntie and Uncle only interfere if they are, dunno, killing themselves or obsessing.”

“That explains a lot about Bakugō’s attitude,” Aizawa says, nodding to himself and possibly thinking a hundred and one ways to help Bakugō fix that particular temper of his.

“He wants to be the best.” Young Midoriya points at the sky, at a point far away enough it is simply incomprehensible. “They are considered ‘adults’ now, especially after Hacchan got his High School diploma—“ Wait, aren’t they supposed to be twins? “Their opinions are just as valid as Auntie’s or Uncle’s, so there shouldn’t be a problem— Hi Chrome.”

A girl, maybe a year or so younger than Class 1-A, appears in front of Miss Midoriya who pats her head before moving on, not minding how the girl was running too fast to stop and had to practically dance out of the way to avoid running into her in a way that would be rather painful— considering she is running with a bō staff, it would most definitely be painful. Young Midoriya reaches to grab her before she can lose her balance and fall on the street, and she smiles at him so bright it looks slightly out of place with her goth aesthetic and eyepatch.

“Thank you, kind Hero-to-be.” That’s all she says before she lets the boy spin her by the hand, releasing her in time for her to continue running. Throughout the whole interaction, she never let go of the staff, not even to steady herself.

“That seems reckless,” Toshinori says, looking behind them to see her disappear into a side alley where she is followed by a flock of birds. Why did she look so familiar?

“Yeah, she is like that.” Young Midoriya simply walks on without care. “Anyway, what was I saying— Oh, right, the one you have to worry about is Hayato. He isn’t too happy about us getting into UA, I’m pretty sure he was thinking of tampering with the results, but well. Hacchan is probably the only one who will reject the proposal —and maybe Mom, I don’t know what she is talking about with Dad but I doubt it will be nice…”]

Toshinori isn’t quite able to stop peering at the kitchen’s entrance. Father and son stay in there for most of their conversation with Miss Midoriya and Miss Bakugō —Young Midoriya and Young Bakugō don’t have much to say apart from trading weighted glances with each other. Eventually, and almost when Aizawa is done getting the women’s signatures, the two come out, one looking wearier than the other.

Bakugō Hayato just looks at them all with a resigned expression on his face:

“I’m not taking responsibility if you get yourselves killed.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to, Hacchan.”

“Obviously you fucking aren’t, you are younger than me.”

“By like five minutes—“

“Hayato.” One word from a tired parent is all it takes to calm down what could have been a disaster, but it isn’t enough to make the younger twin look any happier.

“Whatever, I’m going to yell at Hatsume about your faulty gauntlet. Just get dinner without me.”

And that’s the last they hear of Bakugō Hayato for the time being.

Thread: U.A. Sports Festival livestream [Candidates] by sayohan

[Stream here] Go here for the whole thing, videos by student over here thanks to our mastermind @{Admin 2} idoRankings. Keep things civil, avoid <the dictatorship>, call no cops.

 See previous replies…

 uri: All I am saying is that it is inhumane to have him tied up, for the awards ceremony too. I’m not defending his actions or his attitude and I don’t know why you people seem to believe I am.

  {Mod #95} Kyoko: I remember I had a friend like him growing up, very angry and explosive. We never had to tie him up though. If he didn’t want the trophy because he didn’t feel like he deserved it then we really shouldn’t be encouraging child abuse on live television.

  SunnyShooter: As a teacher myself I do have to say this is beyond ridiculous, wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to go rogue.

   Arcida: You are like 10 years old.

    SunnyShooter: And smarter than you.

  See more replies…

  sayohan: yo what the fuck is this

   KarmicBlossoms: UA security has really reached a new low.

 sayohan: i still like the bird boy

  Dorothy: I feel it is cheating to have a whole second fighter conjoined to you by your shadow, but you do you, sayohan.

   sayohan: oh no, i do think thats unfair too, but also kind of amazing? imagine the posibilities

  TranquilShooter: I agree but only because birds of a feather flock together and all that.

 V: Let’s discuss the limits of mini-Amehara’s rain, go.

  {Admin 1} KarmicRainbows: my time to shine! but over here

  See more replies…

 FatuusIgneo: I’m sure the Idaten kid disappeared because of this nonsense happening in Hosu. What an unfortunate day, truly.

  See more replies…

 {Mod 666} Hellring: i’m locking here until we can go back to analysing the fights, go here for ‘guess that internship!’ for the term
  edit: unlocked direct replies so your dumb ocd selves can fight with each other over this without making new threads every day
  edit 2: i’m locking it again because the world is terrible and can someone from this league of villains appear and explain what is going on through your brains

In the past, so little less than a year ago before he confirmed his entrance to UA, whenever anyone asked Bakugō Katsuki about his brother he would answer truthfully. Hayato is his brother, he is adorable amazing, and he will one day destroy the curve of what is considered ‘genius-level’ simply by existing. He would, could proudly admit that Hayato would go on to change at least a part of the world, what with his ideas on technology, his political rambles or just about anything else.

And then, Katsuki formalized his desire to become a Hero Candidate, and he suddenly… couldn’t speak about Hayato. Well, not openly, not to anyone that wasn’t part of Hayato’s world of 5.5 people (the Bakugō family, uri.djvu, half of Deku) and most definitely not to other Hero Candidates, because bringing anyone related to Heroic’s attention to Hayato could have… dire consequences.

Hayato isn’t subtle. He might not be eccentrically loud about anti-Heroics as the Amehara, or openly questioning and making people think like that one copycat guy from Class 1-B or the whole ‘Cozart’ editorial, but he isn’t subtle. Hayato, in his eternal state of never seeing anything but his world of 5.5 people, doesn’t hide his animosity for the Hero system at all, most specifically the HPSC: it stands in the way, he says, it controls what it has no right to control, it stops the natural progress. He is asocial so he doesn’t express his ideas often, but his stance on the Hero industry is clear to those who listen, and the few people around him always listen.

(Maybe Katsuki agrees on some points: not all of them, he is a Hero Candidate, but there are things Hayato has pointed out that make no sense or feel shady. He isn’t speaking about it anytime soon, not in public, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t note down the little things that bother him: questioning authorities is a sign of critical thinking skills, according to his parents— which means he can question their words too.)

Still, while before joining UA and exposing himself to the press, talking about Hayato would have been alright, nowadays it is… complicated. It would bring attention to his adorable little brother, who he has tried to protect since they were younger. It would probably bring negative attention as well, if what Katsuki heard and everything that happened in the Training Camp is anything to go by, and he… cannot allow that.

[‘So, is it just controlling rain?’

They are going through their skills, just a small overview to be able to focus their training better, and while their teachers already told them enough about one another, there is someone in the crowd who isn’t satisfied. Vlad King’s casual downplaying of Amehara Takeshi’s skills is suspect, and Deku has already honed on to what is happening: they are hiding their class ace’s skills, which is fair, but Vlad King also looked… troubled when talking about it. The show Amehara put on at the Sports Festival wasn’t just manipulating rain, after all.

Of course, Deku is shameless and uninterested in Quirk politics outside of forum boards, so he simply approaches the duo standing to the side of the clearing —casually segregating themselves as if used to it— with his analyser face on. Katsuki almost facepalms but follows after him, waiting for the right moment to bail his ‘best rival’ out of whatever mess he will get himself into.

‘Hm?’ Monoma Neito looks at them with his trademark annoying expression of a teasing smirk and half-lidded eyes, like some kind of fox that doesn’t really belong. ‘You mean Jiunoka?’

‘Is that its name? That doesn’t say much.’ Of course it doesn’t: Quirk names are chosen by children, who don’t even know the full extent of their own abilities. Deku knows this, why is he asking?

Monoma seems to be thinking the same as Katsuki, as he just forces his face into a deadpan: ‘It is rain, and it changes shapes. What more do you want?’

‘I think, no, I saw, in the videos—,’ because it is perfectly normal to watch the Festival fight videos at least three times each, Deku. ‘There is a… slowing effect to it, isn’t there? It isn’t just water.’

Katsuki is looking at Amehara, which is probably the only reason why he notices the slight widening of his eyes, the small flex of his muscles as if reaching for something yet stopping himself in the same second. Through the whole introduction to their Quirks from their teachers, and then after, and through this whole interaction, Amehara’s face has remained the same impassive and uninterested that he seems to always have on, and his body slouched on itself as usual; now he straightens, attentive as if he is ready for a fight (but not quite as bright as he was, when they first met), and he focuses on Deku with the single-minded focus Katsuki has only seen on Hayato.

‘Well, obviously we aren’t going to tell you all of it, but congratulations, you figured out Jiunoka’s passive.’ Monoma just shakes his head, moving in front of his friend ever so subtly, a pointless attempt at protecting someone who is stronger taller than him. ‘Now, if you could—‘

Amehara moves. He rubs his forehead on Monoma’s shoulder, whispers something unintelligible, and Monoma freezes for a second before he sighs. He seems resigned, almost like Katsuki looks whenever he deals with Hayato and Deku in their worst rambling moods, or how Hayato looks whenever Katsuki mentions anything Heroics to him.

Amehara’s lifts his hands and makes three symbols, symbols he apparently knows (flarespeech, Hayato said, it hasn’t been used in decades; then, much later, when Katsuki asked him to teach him the whole thing and his brother smiled so very bright at him, it was used by the Casta di Fiamma, before it was wiped out, which means Hayato learned about it from his eternal research, but he was too young to have known—), and Deku takes an extra few seconds to translate what Katsuki already decoded:

Rain slows everything.

‘Everything?’ Katsuki grew up with Hayato, and he learned flarespeech through Hayato: he knows that this ‘everything’ used by Amehara, the ‘sky of skies’ sign, is rarely used, as it basically means everything in the known world, living beings included. If it can slow everything, then—

Amehara repeats the sign, his smile turning wicked, and then Monoma is pushing at his shoulder and telling him to stop being creepy, lets go meet with the others, Takeshi. They leave, talking softly to one another, leaving Deku frowning as he notes down another flarespeech word he doesn’t know and to ask about later, while Katsuki holds himself back from going after them.

Why do you know so much, he wants to ask, what is your relationship with them, he wants to scream and protest and shake Amehara until the answers spill from him, but instead he stands there.

He stands there, feeling his heart beat steadily—something in the world, belonging to a living being, protected from physical harm yet not from slowing down—, and wonders what comes for them all, after death.]

Just as it happened with Amehara Takeshi —though Katsuki cares way more about Hayato than about the odd missing link in his research that belongs to 1-B—, bringing attention to Hayato would make it easier for people to discover the full extent of his natural abilities, of his learned skills, of his knowledge. It would bring down attention from Heroes and Villains alike, who would watch this child uninterested in life and who gets easily distracted, people who would see him and see a tool, who would see him and make the right connections. They would look at Hayato and, just like his stalkers who wanted him for his ‘associates’, or like the conspiracy theorists’ forum boards who wanted to figure out his plans, they would see danger.

Hayato is not subtle. He might be willing to never step on the spotlight, to stand to the right and behind Katsuki, next to Deku in everything they do, but he is a mastermind, and he isn’t subtle at all.

Then Kamino happens.

New! hurricane_updates ({Mod #86} niharu) just posted a new thread: Young Master caught on camera in Kamino Ward? <NDA>

Greetings to our stormy fans, we bring you the latest news from our beloved Young Master, ‘Vigilante’ Hurricane —who is most definitely a single person and not a government conspiracy, as our rivals seem to think.

As most of you probably know by now, investigations of ‘ground zero’ after the Kamino Nightmare revealed a rather interesting fact of interest to us: Hurricane’s trademark bombing layout was found in one of the two targetted buildings, the warehouse where the ‘Nōmu’ were said to be kept. What you don’t know is that cameras allegedly caught sight of our beloved Not Vigilante as he was waiting for the explosion to go off!

We know from previous analysis that Hurricane uses a jamming device whenever he plants his bombs, so why did this happen? Why now? Does it have to do with the Heroes’ planned operations on the very same building and the nearby area? And also, is this really our Hurricane? Discuss!

Video is over here, preliminary incident report over here, bombing layout and analysis here; NDA applies as investigations are not done yet and this is undisclosed information our insiders got us. We will try to keep you updated on the investigators’ thoughts and theories, as well as what Hurricane is planning on doing next.

Remember, no cops!

  2Haru

 SunnyShooter: @{###}

{Mod 999} smallMight added this thread under <Kamino Incident>, <Hurricane>, <Media>, <Sighting>, <Not Vigilante>

 {Mod 999} smallMight: remember, no cops, and also remember to add your topics, niharusan. @SunnyShooter do you sleep?
  that being said, doubt
  the layout is the same, though by this point we all know of it so there is no reason at all to think it is hurricane. it could be a copycat, we know there are some wandering about even if we have unmasked them as liars. LoV does fit, partly, under the usual target criteria, but i don’t think it is enough to tell, what would the network win with them? they are simply too far from the usual scope of the young master’s reach and there was too much media attention on them by the time of the attack
  i’m more interested in what the swordmaster was doing there

  SunnyShooter: Just doing my netizen duty.

 Arcida: Doubt.
  Reason: goes against MO, we know Hurricane sticks to their own laws.

 sayohan: that was a very quick response from The Opposition if i say so myself?
  I do agree that the heroes operation could have affected the young masters usual jamming devices, i dont think anyone is ready to deal with hero-grade tech especially if said tech is brand new. it still glitches out at the end though, i suspect third party, you know the one

  Chrome: (๑･̑◡･̑๑) Just doing our job.

  baldHawks: how do you know its new tech

   sayohan: you must be new here

 TranquilShooter: Swordmaster was there for <baby rain>, right? We aren’t the <Comm> and we aren’t blind, kora!
  I also suspect a similar motive behind Hurricane’s intervention, to be honest. In here you can see a lock of hair, <explosion quirk> has similar hair, bombs, anyone?
  It is revenge, kora.

  KarmicBlossoms: Again with the legal names…

 Arcida: Revenge is not a proper motive for Hurricane to move out. It has been years and they have yet to strike against anyone who speaks ill of them.
  Summoning @{###} for legal name mention re: TranquilShooter

 sayohan: true but that could also be because he simply doesnt care to defend his own reputation. these were children, we know how hard the young master hits any child trafficking ring

 {Mod 666} Hellring: noted, thanks for the heads up re: Arcida
  i have a lengthier analysis here but summarizing my three main points:
  1) explosion layout is indeed the same down to the components used. +1
  2) mo doesn’t fit in, suspected personal reasons but why expose himself now when no one is paying attention to his usual haunts? -1
  3) crossbow is a match for model found before, including the crystal-tipped broadhead. +1
  conclusion: it is hurricane, but not acting as hurricane

 FatuusIgneo: As some others have said before, “I can excuse murder, but I draw the line at hurting children (and antique grand pianos)”. Truly our Young Master.

 Dorothy: I have to agree with Hellring’s analysis of the bow. We never see it because of the jamming device, but from the times it or the ammo have been left behind to make a point, it is the exact same.
  Where is he getting the money to buy so many bows and crossbows, and who is supplying them to him though? Just asking for a friend.

  V: There are underground armouries everywhere Hero activity is rampant. Shizuoka and Kanagawa are easily the most Hero active prefectures in Honshū, it wouldn’t be surprising if Hurricane grew up in one said armoury or something equally ridiculous. Still not convinced they are a single person though.

 {Admin 2} idoRankings: We will be discussing Hurricane and Swordmaster’s involvement in the Kamino Incident in this week’s broadcast. If you know, you know. If you don’t, get out of our forum.

  {Mod 666} Hellring: who are you inviting this time

   {Admin 2} idoRankings: @{Mod #86} niharu, possibly @Extremist if he is available!

 SunnyShooter: I wonder what Hurricane has to say about this @⬛⬛⬛

   <Some replies have been deleted by {Admin 4} Bermuda_Triangle for: stop encouraging doxxing, especially if they are members of our own community. the next time i am banning all of you from any vigilante thread>

  KarmicBlossoms: @{###} A whole rainbow of people assuming someone’s identity!

(Somewhere in the distance, in the heart of Mie, ‘Hoshizaki’ Fūta taps the mouse’s button in what could be called ‘musing’ by some, ‘weariness’ by others. He isn’t clicking it, no, he has yet to make up his mind if deleting the file he has been staring at for the past hour is for the best or not.

The file is a simple list, numbered 1 to 40: ‘Potential Ranking of U.A. Hero Class, Year 1’. 40 names are listed in an order no one except him understands —what does he mean by potential? Is it something quantifiable? Is he making up the list? Where does he get his rankings?

The answer to all of that is, he doesn’t know. All he does is write down the Rankings given by someone, something else, and they come to his head when he focuses.

At the top of this particular list are four names, divided by what would, if this was a quantitative list, be less than a 0.05 distance from each other. The difference is insignificant, so they are all up there, ranked ‘01’, each with the same amount of Potential:

Amehara Takeshi. Bakugō Katsuki. Todoroki Shōto. Midoriya Izuku.

He clicks atop the two top names in the alphabetical order of ‘number 1’, then clicks on them again, and again. Should he delete it, the whole list? It doesn’t matter anymore, it has already been accessed by their enemies and they already acted on this information, even if they wouldn’t tell anyone that what they did was because of this list.

In a way, deleting it wouldn’t do anything. But not deleting it could lead people he doesn’t care much about into his database, and he can’t allow that. But maybe they already have access to his database and deleting it would be pointless either way. But maybe they don’t and deleting it would simply delete information he cherishes from his database.

Decisions, decisions.

He sighs, looking at the time on his phone. The broadcast will start soon and he is still debating with his own consciousness on whether to delete the Ranking or to keep it somewhere safe. Decisions, decisions. He has been thinking about this for days now, ever since the news about the kidnapping came out— to them, that is. The public learned about it all some days later, but VS gets their information directly from the source.

“Fūta,” his older brother says, knocking on the door once before throwing it open without a care. Fūta just looks at him with his usual smile, making poor Ryōhei shudder before he steps into the room and kicks some clothes Fūta abandoned on the floor a while back. “What are you doing? Kyōko wanted us to visit Hana today, remember?”

“After my broadcast,” he replies, going back to tapping at the mouse with apparent indifference.

“So that’s a no, then.” Ryōhei looks around the room, at the mess of clothing and books scattered on his bed, his desk, the floor and everywhere he can see. Fūta would feel bad about it, but he has been having a moral debate with himself and there is simply no time to clean up. “Try to discover the floor later, ok?”

“Will do.”

“Also, the provisional license exams are soon, so I am being kidnapped for training tomorrow. You two will be on your own.”

“Can do.” Of course he can survive on his own, they all can: they are three orphans supporting themselves with information brokerage money and life has never been easy. Sure, they have a big house and everyone thinks their parents are still alive thanks to their older sister, but life has never been easy.

“…Just, remember to eat, little brother.”

Fūta hums in agreement, ignoring the resigned sigh from Ryōhei as he closes the door. He goes back to staring at the screen, at the file he has been debating on for the past few days, then just gives up and closes it. Maybe he can put a trap on it later —he makes a mental note to do that and send it to Fran, hopefully it will do some damage to whoever is trying to hack into his database.

He might not be Merone, but he will still protect this information with his life. Past a civil war, past a nuclear war, two hundred years and beyond. There has to be a reason they are all wandering around in this particular era, right?)

Katsuki watches the Heights Alliance —their new dorm’s pretentious name— building with his arms crossed, leaning on the car’s door. It is certainly a big building and can probably last the rest of the year with everyone inside, but he still hates it. He hates that he is staying here from now on, in close quarters with people he doesn’t trust and away from his troublemaking little brother, but what can you do, this is the school he chose. They discussed moving in for hours after their teachers left the other day, with his and Deku’s family, and this is the only possible path if they want to continue on the Hero Course.

Fuck paranoid bastards, honestly, never mind that he is one.

Deku steps next to him, loaded with their things because his strength is ridiculous, but he is also looking up at the building with something between ‘it personally betrayed my mom’ and ‘I can’t believe this is real’, something like paranoia mixed with elation. Eraserhead, to the other side of Katsuki, simply sighs.

“If you aren’t going in yet, then I will wait for you inside,” their teacher says, yawning like the lazy bastard he is before he makes his way to the building. “By the way, he got out through the other door.”

Motherfuck—

Katsuki looks behind him and, sure enough, only the old man is inside, tapping his fingers on the wheel. Hayato isn’t inside. Looking around, he finds his brother taking one final box of things out of the trunk, humming to himself and taking his time like he wasn’t a wanted criminal as of this morning.

Hayato, or rather Hurricane was charged with being a Vigilante (as always), destruction of public property (nothing new), usage of forbidden chemicals (actually, he is innocent on this one) and interfering with an HPSC-approved Rescue operation, which obviously made the HPSC double the efforts to catch him. They had even put a bounty on him and reward money for information on his actions, which is just— ridiculous, is what it is. It hasn’t even been proven that Hurricane is a single person!

Of course, Hayato looked at the news this morning and simply sighed, added another sugar cube to his coffee and downed the entire thing within seconds. Their parents, who are probably well aware and in denial, shared this weird look between themselves before they tried acting unaware and commented about badly-spent taxpayer money.

Subtle, none of them are, Hayato least of all.

Still, before they came to UA to meet Eraserhead and do all the annoying paperwork, Hayato had asked the old man to stop by a… small concrete cube a few blocks from their house, one of those things the city uses to hide emergency supplies and the like. He hadn’t even bothered to disguise his actions, clicking a device on before taking the bow, crossbow’s metal case from some hidden compartment in the car (since when?), though he did raise his hood for the short walk between the car and the building. When he opened the tiny metal door he startled slightly as an owl flew out in plain daylight, settling down on a fence nearby. Hayato gave it the finger before practically kicking the crossbow’s case inside the cube, taking out another thing that went into his pocket and closing —and locking, because apparently he has the key as well— the door, waving to the owl and getting back in the car.

At times, Katsuki is so fucking done with his brother.

“You don’t need help with anything else?” The old man pokes his head out of the car and asks, but his expression says he already knows the answer. Katsuki shakes his head, and the man smiles at him as usual. “I will wait here then, as I’m supposed to do.”

“We will be back soon,” Katsuki replies then goes to his brother, taking the box from him and finally, finally joining Deku who has been waiting for them to go in.

Even in the short trip from the car to the 1-A building, Hayato gets stares: some of the other students, both from other classes and his own —laser boy is here already, fuck, who else is inside?— look at his clone twin curiously. Thankfully, no one approaches them, and they are allowed to go into the building without having to explain anything. Their curiosity is understandable: there aren’t meant to be outsiders here, apart from guardians or parents, and Hayato isn’t wearing a UA uniform —obviously, he doesn’t wear uniforms since he already got his High School diploma and is just waiting for some universities to accept that he is 15 and smarter than them.

He has been waiting for a while now.

Hayato isn’t meant to be here: the permits for him to come into campus today and a few other days through the next weeks were ridiculously hard to get, needing Katsuki to talk with Eraserhead, All Might, Nedzu and whoever was the Dorms’ administrator —he already forgot— to explain why, exactly, his brother had to come in. Katsuki’s control over his Quirk is perfect, but it can still build up, get out of control and explode to the high heavens; usually, he has Hayato, or the neutralizing thing that he keeps in his room, but now his brother won’t be there to neutralize him before he blows up. He himself is practically explosion-proof, but the building and the other students are not and Eraserhead didn’t quite know how to fix that in two days, so they got Hayato to come in.

Now that he thinks about it, it probably sounded like he was threatening to blow up their building if he isn’t allowed to see his brother. Nedzu was quite interested in seeing the neutralizing thing before Hayato came to install it, and on Hayato himself, but they just avoided the… animal’s requests using their years of practice avoiding things.

(This will come back to bite them in the future, he just knows it.)

Once they are inside the building itself, they are immediately the target of a million eyes that make Katsuki want to put his brother in a box and hide him away. He glances at Eraserhead and Eraserhead shrugs helplessly: there weren’t supposed to be that many people this morning, but guess they just randomly chose to get up early to come to school on a day they weren’t supposed to be in. What the actual fuck.

“Deku!” Uraraka— Round Face waves and practically skips their way, making Deku look around in panic before he decides to keep their things where they are: on his two arms. Katsuki leaves him alone to deal with his bubbly friend, kicks Hayato’s ankle so he will follow and goes to Eraserhead.

“Where.”

“Pick a key. You are on the left wing.” Eraserhead pulls out a box of keys and a small map of the building; seems there are four floors besides this one, and eight rooms per floor. He is a little annoyed, there is so much extra space, why can’t he have two rooms for himself? “I made this one a storage for idiocy, but you can pick any of the others.”

“And everyone else?”

“These ones,” Eraserhead points at some rooms, but they are like, four, not the whole class. Probably Earphones and Birdbrain, he doesn’t know the other two. “Quirk priority, you know how it is. Technically you have Quirk priority as well, so pick one.”

“They are all the same?” He doesn’t want to be close to people, his classmates are noisy and he needs his sleep hours or he will go berserk. Eraserhead nods, not paying much attention. “Where is North?”

After some thinking he picks a room that should be safe for jumping out of the window but harder for people to come in, and not get too much light in the morning—thank you, Birdbrain, for needing the good side of the building. He then picks a random key for Deku, two floors below him, because Deku already told him to and he doesn’t care about his location all that much—not as paranoid as you, Kacchan—, so with that done they can go upstairs.

He gives the keys to Hayato, who has been quietly sticking to his side and looking at his phone, far too docile for Katsuki’s liking. It doesn’t take him long to figure out why: the four idiots who Deku dragged along for his ‘rescue’ are trying to stare at them, subtly, failing horribly on the subtle side. Guess that’s one thing they all share, no one in here can keep a secret and no one respects privacy anymore.

Maybe they deserve getting blown up, says a part of his brain that sounds suspiciously like Hayato when he watches news about the dictatorship HPSC.

For some reason, before they can go up, Hayato gets ambushed by Round Face.

“Hello! Are you ‘Hacchan’?” Oh, Sky of Skies, why is she talking to Hayato? And why is she using Deku’s cute nickname? No one uses that, except for Deku. “Nice to meet you, I’m Uraraka Ochako!”

“…Zero,” says Hayato after some awkward seconds, then he offers his hand for a handshake. A handshake, from Round Face. Weird nickname aside (he knows it’s for ‘zero gravity’, but there is another meaning behind it Hayato refuses to explain), is his brother completely insane? “I know you. You went against Katsuki.”

“Oh, were you watching?” Uraraka does accept the handshake, thankfully she is wearing gloves. Katsuki doesn’t know what he would do if his brother started flying. “I don’t think we saw you?”

“I was busy, so I watched on TV,” which is still something Katsuki won’t forgive his brother for: he chose to go scout one of his targets over watching him fight live, what the hell. “It was a good fight, congratulations.”

“I mean, I still lost.”

“Uh, but Katsuki calls you by surna—“ And Katsuki is slapping his hand over his brother’s mouth right now, silencing him. He only has one arm available so he doesn’t know how is he going to drag Hayato upstairs while keeping him quiet, but he will well damn try. Hayato just rolls his eyes at him, signing ‘coward’ at him, and Katsuki squeezes his face.

“Let’s just go upstairs. Right now.”

“We definitely should!” Deku says cheerfully, kicking Hayato’s ankle to make him move. Hayato dutifully does so, waving to Round Face before he bites Katsuki’s hand and he swears he will blow up his brother right now— “No explosions inside!”

“And that’s why I’m here, you know.”

New! Cozart ({Admin 0} Enma) just posted a new thread: [Pinned] Regarding the use of legal names (I reiterate, for the 11th time this year)

To the esteemed VS community;

As of the past weeks and ever since the Kamino Incident, some of you have broken several rules in your efforts to seek concrete answers. While we always appreciate and encourage the search for the truth and theorizing about our favourite Not Heroes, Not Vigilantes and Not Villains, the safety of the community should come first —that is, the physical safety of involved parties, and our safety as a secure forum. We do not need alleged CEO/politician’s lawyers coming after us, no matter how much said person seems to not care, and we also do not need alleged Hero Training Institutions to attack us for what we do either.

Please mind your use of legal names for public figures and Hero Candidates: we know who you are referring to, you do not need to use their actual names. There are some annoying people out there who look up legal names, especially when used in the context of defamation, criminal investigations, theories and the like, and they will come after us if you use them in excess, even if our board is as well hidden as it is. While some people have walls of guards to defend themselves against some claims, some don’t, so adhere to the rules:

 No civilian names (including public figures outside the context of their public activities)

 No minor names (including Hero Candidates outside the context of Institution-approved public scenarios)

 No known legal Hero names

You know how bans work and if you don’t, get out of our forum you can read the rules again until they are burnt into your brains. I will not repeat myself.

As another announcement, please be careful when mentioning our activities outside of this forum.

Some of our members have already mentioned it in their warnings and our security is good but we aren’t infallible. We are currently under scrutiny from all sides of the board for suspected ‘cover-up’ for some of our morally dubious idols. <The dictatorship> has taken this event and the ‘interference’ from Not Vigilantes as an attack on their planning, and our community is as always getting the backlash. While we struggle to defend our rights of free speech on the public side, do be careful to not expose your true alignments too openly, at least for now.

Earth and Sky help us, stop being stupid. I will not be responsible for your legal fees if you get caught, and I will claim plausible deniability if your corpse washes up ashore. We are all hiding behind screens anyway, so keep your barely-legal activities where they belong.

VS will continue our usual media activity regardless of the heat aimed our way. This is one of the last bastions of free will left in the world and we will not give up.

  Ø

 {Admin 4} Bermuda_Triangle: It is okay Enma, you can say their names.

 {Admin 0} Enma: How dare you reply to a PSA?

It doesn’t take too long for the thing to get installed and Hayato just lays down on the bed while Katsuki helps Deku put everything back in place. Cleanup also doesn’t take long and when they are done, the three of them have some fun pouring some dangerous and barely-legal chemicals into different glass bowls. The neutralizer shouldn’t have to deal with anything beyond nitroglycerin, but of course Hayato was obsessive and prodigious about it and basically created —or rather, replicated an all-purpose automated chemistry program just to work against different substances.

The two final experiments are Hayato clapping his hands together, letting some crystals fall to the ground (why do they crystallise like this? No one knows), and Katsuki snapping his sweaty fingers feeling like an idiot. Nothing explodes, which was the whole point of Hayato’s trip into UA even under danger of Nedzu. They can barely feel the reactions around them, even though the deadly smell of highly corrosive and explosive materials stays in the room.

Katsuki throws open the window with a shrug, not really caring about it: you don’t grow up with chemical-based Quirks around at all times without learning to accept some smells around your life. At least it is harmless to them and won’t explode, but Deku starts coughing and flees the room for his life after a short while. Hayato decides to risk it and clicks a lighter, but it seems whatever the machine is doing is stronger than science itself.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Katsuki says because he is good at chemistry but this goes over his head.

“Magic.” Hayato deadpans at him with added jazz hands. Then he goes into a quieter version of ‘lecture mode’. “It is just some synthetic thing I stole from Merone, not too expensive to make. It was really useful in the early-21st Century Guerrillas, especially for Namimori and Sardinia, Malta as well, because it could neutralize Tempesta and Palude.”

Katsuki nods, only half-listening—this is more Casta di Fiamma stuff he has researched before, following in his brother’s footsteps. Tempesta was a corrosive ‘component’ that could disintegrate most materials, and Palude was another that decayed most organic matter. Both were used heavily in the Guerrillas, a series of smallish conflicts that began within organized crime and exploded in relevance with the appearance of Quirks and the slow extermination of whatever the Casta di Fiamma was supposed to be.

Although, saying they were smallish conflicts would be a lie: there might not have been cities destroyed except for the one, or many lives lost, but some of the Guerrillas lasted for almost a century. Easily the worst and closest of these Guerrillas were the Namimori Annexation Conflicts—not a full-out war except for, you know, the destruction of most of a city, but small battles here and there; a great part of it was about some paramilitary organization inside the island— which failed their purpose, thus making Namimori a completely Autonomous Region by the beginning of the 22nd Century and to this day. Sardinia was the second most affected location, with Malta as a whole getting caught in the crossfire for some reason, and then there was Qing Qing City in China…

Of course, the whole topic is heavily censored to hell and back due to being both related to organized crime and coinciding with the Era of Chaos —another thing censored to the nine hells— and Hayato has been working overtime to be able to put the whole timeline together. Katsuki doesn’t understand why, exactly, but if he can support his brother on his weird world domination crusade, he can support his brother on his insane research sprees about a thing that died out a century or more in the past.

“I can’t believe we are using Merone fuckery for our own safety.” Katsuki rolls his eyes and takes the lighter from Hayato’s hand, putting it in his pocket. “Do they know you are using their secret weapon without asking?”

“Antiluce is being used for its intended purpose and they should be grateful. Besides, it is made out of soap, I don’t think they really care.” Hayato just huffs like he does whenever Merone gets mentioned, quickly wiping some grain-sized crystals off his skin before he goes to join Deku in the hallway.

Katsuki gives his new room one last look, then to his desk and tries to figure out where he is going to hide his slightly less-legal materials from Eraserhead. The small, skull-shaped box of thumb drives where he keeps his training inspiration shouldn’t catch too much attention on its own, but what if Eraserhead finds it suspicious? Just in case, maybe he should ask for Hayato’s help in securing his information, or go bother someone in the VS boards…

Who owes him favours lately?

[When Hayato learns they want to be Heroes, for real and not just because of childhood boasts, he throws a tantrum. They are just entering middle school and the decision isn’t officially set in stone just yet, but it is the path Katsuki has always been aiming for —even throughout his brother forcing him to read up on shit Heroes do that doesn’t seem right—, and it is also the path Deku believes he can follow. Hayato doesn’t have the right to tell him what or what not to do when he is going out there in the middle of the night dismantling trafficking rings.

The tantrum lasts for a few weeks. He locks himself in his room, comes out only for meals, and doesn’t go to class at all. Their parents worry for a bit, giving each other those looks that become more frequent the less Hayato cares about hiding his true nature, but eventually they remember they can’t force Hayato to go to class anymore and stand back. Father makes sure he is taking care of himself like he has always done, and life continues as usual for the rest of the family.

When Hayato finally comes out, looking like he got into a fight with a few dozen declawed cats, he drags Katsuki to watch some videos with him. They are curious videos, some very old, from the early 2000s, and some relatively newer, but none go past the advent of Heroes. The quality isn’t a mile close to what it would be today, but it isn’t as bad as Katsuki expected from the Medieval Ages: grainy, shaky, with faded colours, as expected of footage that doesn’t care about quality.

They are also… enlightening.

‘Why?’ His question comes a little too late, once Hayato has practically locked them up in the basement. His little brother who he loves and fears for with all his heart, still in his personal world of experiments and research, just shrugs at him:

‘Just watch.’

Now, Katsuki tries to be a realist, but his brother tends to break the curve of what is acceptable in reality: his knowledge reaches too far, the scope too wide, and he simply knows things and people he shouldn’t know about. Katsuki has had the time-travel or reincarnation theory in his head for a while, as outlandish and sci-fi or fantastic as it sounds, but the truth is, it is perfectly possible when it comes to Hayato.

He won’t ask, of course: he decided long ago, when he first saw signs that his brother was more than just ‘Bakugō Hayato’, that Hayato could tell him when he wants, if he ever does. A few years down the line, he will apply the same mentality to Deku, and move on with his life.

It is still a little unnerving, because—

Katsuki watches, his attention completely caught by the fights on the screen just like Deku gets when he watches All Might. The videos are shaky and low quality, cut in the middle of fights, probably caught by phone or vigilance cameras, but even then he can tell what’s going on. Many of them feature a really small man with an odd fighting style, but there are also lots of recordings that are simply… explosions, and storms of red.

Through the following months, he watches the videos, again and again, looking for anything that he misses the first time. The first time, he can only focus on the high-speed battles, on how the fuck did Hayato gets access to all this and when did all of this happen, why didn’t they study the massive levels of destruction in class? The videos seem to take place in multiple cities, probably multiple nations, yet the history behind them was not known to Katsuki, and he takes pride in his grades.

But, because Hayato shows them to him the first time, he doesn’t ask and only questions the world after hours and hours spent watching and rewatching.

The videos rarely have people in them, just shapes moving at speeds far too great for the technology of the era: when they stop for a moment, to take a breather or to go for another plan, they only do so for a second, maybe less. Or well, most of them do, as there are two or three people that prefer to stay out of the battlefield itself whenever they appear, but even those people are rarely seen behind the stormy red, streaks of green and fading mist.

Silver hair. A crossbow in hand. Black with red accents, and silver jewellery with tiny glowing stones. That is all that any video ever manages to catch of this particular person before whatever camera was recording was swallowed in red. None of the people recording or filenames name him, as expected of fights that were apparently meant to not be seen, but this is not a Villain, nor a Vigilante: this is someone from an era before Quirks, someone who made the world explode around him like Katsuki himself.

He doesn’t say it but, when he looks at Hayato, quietly watching the videos next to him, he thinks he can see that man even if his face was never shown. He thinks he knows what he could have looked like, when he thinks of Hayato shooting deadeye after deadeye at Archery Club, or Hayato laughing maniacally as he somehow manages to make an explosive out of flour and vinegar, or Hayato sighing after taking another photo of yet another red thing.

Any video containing the explosion-and-ranged expert is a rarity, but videos of his actions are many, far too many, spread through almost two decades of time. Pictures of buildings falling apart, of holes on the ground, of firework-like bursts in the sky, videos of bright and loud explosions, of arrows shooting through the air, even one of the man hiding behind a wall with only his arm shown, carelessly throwing lit dynamite into a running car. Besides dynamite, he throws around other things as well, and Katsuki can only tell it is him because of the jewellery: vials of corrosive acid broken on the ground, quickly eating away at concrete, or said acid spreading like dust in a building before the cameras glitch out.

(It takes a few more months for Katsuki to learn about the corrosive, Tempesta, something only a few people were able to use without harming themselves. Of course Hayato would know about something that is superpowers before the era of superpowers.)

Still, at that time, when watching the videos for the first time and unable to analyze them properly, to see the silver-haired man who could pass as the Bakugō’s ancestor, the thing that catches his attention the most is the man with the burning hands.

The Sky of Skies.

Finding information on that is even harder than trying to ask Hayato about his research and, unfortunately for Katsuki, he might be obsessed. Not obsessed with the man himself, though that is a can of slowly spreading gas that he puts down that day and lets lose through the following years; no, what he is more interested in is the way he fights. How he flies through the skies —in an era before Quirks—, how he uses just his hands for fantastic techniques that probably took ages to master, how he makes his hands burst into weaker and stronger flames to do whatever is it he needs to do. And he watches, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, how he manages to flip in the air like he is just jumping off a wall, how he does everything gracefully in a way All Might or other Heroes never are.

And the Sky of Skies unknowingly becomes a role model, simply because Katsuki is an impressionable child and an idiot, and he is watching videos from two centuries ago and wondering if he can do that, too.]

Katsuki sighs, rubbing his forehead at the pain that dealing with either Hellring or idoRankings will probably be if he asks for a return favour from them, but those are the two people that owe him and that also know about digital security. There is Hayato, but Hayato doesn’t know he went on a scavenger hunt for any and all media involving the Sky of Skies fighting all those years ago to try and copy his skills. Sure, he knows that the videos inspired a lot of Katsuki’s fighting style —Hayato ranted angrily as he wrote training schedules and other health-related things because he is nothing if not thorough in what he does and Katsuki was asking how—, but he explicitly banned Katsuki from attempting the fire-propulsion technique without supervision. That he went and tried to perfect it anyways, behind his back too, would probably make him explode.

Would Deku know? Honestly, Katsuki doesn’t know: for all that he mods for the VS boards and rants endlessly about Hayato’s Hurricane’s plot to unify the Japanese organized crime (so he can take over the world, obviously), Deku doesn’t do much with computers. He has his spreadsheets, the countless tracking maps following suspicious activity and that weird Quirk database of his, but there is a reason most of his notes are on paper. He hates keyboards, the noise annoys him and he ends up breaking keys if he gets too excited, so… Probably not the best to ask about this.

He really doesn’t want to talk to those two, though: they are annoying and are constantly trying to get him to go visit whenever he runs errands for them for some reason. How did he end up running errands for two people who are like, 10 years old is still beyond Katsuki, but guess when they are two hikikomori just trying to live their lives they do need people outside to re-route their questionable packages.

Ah, he will have to tell them he isn’t available anymore. Oops, sorry. They still owe him favours though.

(Somehow, he just knows this is all Hayato’s fault.)

Wait—

Katsuki pulls out his phone, quickly going into a chatroom he hasn’t dared to touch out of respect for their sudden moving situation, and wonders if this guy can help. He loses nothing by asking, right?

Villain Studies (2)

<3 days ago> kirisame (ayt80): hey do you have an in to VS

<3 days ago> Arcida (lordexplosion): I cannot confirm nor deny this.

<3 days ago> kirisame (ayt80): damn it

<Just now> Arcida (lordexplosion): By any chance, do you know anyone who deals with digital security?

There. Not Hellring, not idoRankings, not Hayato. It should be okay, and if Amehara doesn’t know anyone then he will figure it out.

The time on the phone makes him realize he has left Hayato alone with Hero Candidates and Deku for too long, and he curses loudly as he goes to close the window. He gives the finger to the owl perched on his balcony then throws on the jacket he had taken off when installing the thing and rushes downstairs. He needs to keep his stupid brother out of trouble.

As for the owl… Well, they are the most benign stalkers, he can just leave them where they are for now.

Thread: Owl Tracking — Japan [Owl] by {Admin 4} Bermuda_Triangle

Keeping track of oddly coloured and out-of-season owl sightings in Japanese soil. Keep your actual location safe. For other countries, go here.

 See previous replies…

 FatuusIgneo: Caught suspiciously lurking near ‘ground zero’. What are you planning, little owl? <Image: A snowy owl on a piece of rubble, simply existing under the daylight.>

  sayohan: im going to end this birds whole career

  See more replies…

 {Admin 0} Enma: Just the daily sighting of this monster flying overhead. Be careful Kyūshū, you seem to have caught his attention. <Image: A blurry picture of a large indigo-coloured bird flying across the cloudless sky, an orange cloth strip tied to its leg.>

  sayohan: but why is it daily

  Chrome: How do you even know that’s an owl? It could literally be any other bird, 0-san.

   {Admin 0} Enma: Doubt me again and I will go into your house and steal your hair dye. <Image: A blurry, clearly zoomed-in picture of what seems to be the same bird, the strip still tied to its leg, perched atop a parasol. Two people are sitting at a table beneath the parasol, the taller one holding a trident; the bird seems to be the same height as the other person.>

    Kumi: excuse me how big is that bird ???

    Karasu: Actual Owl sighting! What has our mysterious illusionist been up to lately?

     not_touya: stalking the LoV between trips to kyushu

     sayohan: recruiting for a cult

     FatuusIgneo: Buying lots of chocolate, probably.

  See more replies…

 Arcida: Tiny bastard. <Image: A blurry picture of a sm l round shape perched on a tree.>

  Chrome: ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ

  Kumi: how ?? do you know ??

  See more replies…

 L: STOP EATING MY FOOD <Image: A bluish-feathered owl pecking at some grapes in a bowl.>

  {Mod 666} Hellring: ? he doesn’t even like grapes, or does he?

   Chrome: He likes sweets!

 {Admin 100} Shiro: just got out the plane and im feeling so attacked rn ? <Image: Maybe a dozen owls of all sizes and colors all on a colorful table, all staring at the camera with wide eyes.>

  {Admin 0} Enma: Owlnip, if they follow you here I’m kicking you out.

  sayohan: i swear this is what hell looks like

  See more replies…

 Arcida: Found two more in Musutafu at broad daylight today. No pictures, sorry.

  sayohan: why are there so many owls everywhere please i just want to rest… at least they are the small ones

   Arcida: You aren’t even on the same island.

   not_touya: you were saying <Image: A snowy owl perched atop a broken door; noticeable is the fact the bird is about as big as half the door.>

    sayohan: thanks! i hate it! i quit!

 sayohan: what did i do to deserve this, im a good person, i swear i didnt stab anyone in a back alley at age 12  <Image: A group of fluffy, round owlets standing on grass, looking at the camera with big eyes; together like this they make a perfect circle on the ground, like a feathery carpet. There must be at least 3 dozen owlets in the group.>

  {Admin 0} Enma: Owlnip 2, revenge of the owls? Are you alright? Do you need help feeding your new family?

   sayohan: im too young to be a father please take them away

  {Admin 100} Shiro: you beat me i bow to your feet king of all owls kudos to you sir

   sayohan: i know who you are and where you live

    {Admin 100} Shiro: you have no voice nor vote here !

  Arcida: I’m sorry for the loss of your sanity.

   sayohan: i lost it long ago but thanks, rival

  Chrome: ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

   sayohan: you evil witch

   {Mod 666} Hellring: there she goes, acting all innocent when she knows, she knows…

  not_touya: tell us about the back alley stabbing

   sayohan: it never happened

  Karasu: Wh— What did you do to get his attention…

   sayohan: im very pretty

    Chrome: He indeed is very pretty (๑･̑◡･̑๑) The real reason is that he is a very kind person!

     Dorothy: sayohan… is a kind person?

     Arcida: I see the Owls have never experienced kindness.

     {Admin 2} idoRankings: Statistical fact.

     Karasu: Our sayohan?

     {Mod #86} niharu: sayohan, as in ‘lets bomb <the dictatorship> tomorrow because i have a free day’ sayohan, this sayohan?

    sayohan: you all make it sound like im a terrible person

     Kumi: we have an archive ??

     Karasu: It is in your name.

     {Mod 999} smallMight: this

     FatuusIgneo: “I will commit murder if it gets me out of this job” —sayohan, everyday.

     TranquilShooter: I have never seen a more unhinged person in all my years online, and I know myself.

  {Admin 69} Mukuro: I will not retreat.

   {Mod 666} Hellring: did you log in for the first time in ten years just to argue your case

  {Mod #95} Kyoko: Do you ever wonder what people on the other side of the forum do without this entertainment. Like, they have actual lives and stuff and don’t track down every single owl in Japan, incredible, maybe we should try that?

(Somewhere in Fukuoka, Pro-Hero Hawks shoves his head under a pillow, trying to ignore the small army of tiny owls pecking at his window. It has been weeks now, when is this menace of a human being giving up on him? He isn’t going to join whatever weird cult he has going on, he already is in a cult-like group and being made to join another, leave him alone!

If he had known helping the fluffy kid find his fluffy cat-most-definitely-a-lion would get him the attention of the worst demon in history he would have just gone the other way that day. Why, why does this happen when he tries to be a good person?)

Villain Studies (2)

<1 minute ago> kirisame (ayt80): my younger brothers probably

<1 minute ago> kirisame (ayt80): why, what do you want to hide

<1 minute ago> Arcida (lordexplosion): Casta stuff.

<Just now> kirisame (ayt80): oh conspiracy things, got it, ill ask

Obviously, when Katsuki gets downstairs he finds Hayato sitting rather awkwardly between Round Face and Deku, who looks like he is under the guillotine. Round Face is talking about something-something gravity theory with Hayato replying quietly, but it seems like they are good replies since Round Face’s expression brightens with his words.

Eraserhead isn’t here, nor is there any other adult. His four idiotic classmates who dared to meet his brother while he was being a Not Vigilante are still watching warily, though they are slightly more subdued now. His other classmates who haven’t met Hayato just loiter around, curious but not daring to approach the ‘convenient twin of the most mysterious guy in class’ as Deku calls him—Katsuki isn’t even mysterious, he just doesn’t like talking to people, and Hayato isn’t a ‘convenient’ twin, he is a troublesome one.

Still, for all that Hayato tends to keep to himself, he seems to be doing alright with Round Face. Katsuki can look away for three seconds.

Villain Studies (2)

<1 minute ago> kirisame (ayt80): if its a small thing monoma says you can ask karasu from 3f

<1 minute ago> kirisame (ayt80): he will give you her info later because he doesnt like this app for some reason

<Just now> kirisame (ayt80): neither bel or fran or kasumi like it either so idk just weird little things

<Just now> kirisame (ayt80): oh yea did you move into the dorms today we should meet up

<Just now> Arcida (lordexplosion): Thanks, I will talk to him later. Yes, I moved in today, but my brother is here so don’t think I have the time to meet up today.

He looks away for three seconds and now Pikachu is leaning on the couch next to Round Face and apparently asking Hayato something. Hayato himself is turning… dusty— if Katsuki was next to him, he could probably see the crystals forming all over and around him, but for now it is just dust. It will become deadly dust if this continues though, so alright, that’s enough for today.

Katsuki manages to save Pikachu from Hayato blowing up his face out of annoyance and nervousness by tugging him from the back of his collar, like some misbehaving cat, and puts him to the side. He can feel his classmates’ stares on his back from how weird he is acting but, whatever, time to get Hayato out of here.

“Come on, we are done here. Let's get you home before the old man murders something.” He checks on Pikachu, casually brushing his shoulder to get rid of some shimmery white on there, then looks back to Hayato who is apparently exchanging contact info with Round Face in complete silence. Okay, sure, they can talk about science together. “Deku, you coming?”

“Ah, I should say bye to Uncle!” Deku continues his act of cheerful awkwardness from below the guillotine, standing up and dusting himself of the potentially-deadly dust. “I understood absolutely nothing of their conversation.”

“It is gravity, Deku, there is nothing to understand. Thing goes up, it goes down, it gets swallowed by a black hole.” Hayato deadpans, finally taking his bag of random chemicals and nodding to Round Face. “Thank you.”

“Oh, no, no! Thank you, I think I can plan better how I can use my hands to beat up Bakugō.” Hayato is a traitor and not Katsuki’s damn brother anymore. “Deku always says you have Support qualities, are you interested in that?”

“Ah, not really? My party role is support but not… quite the same way.” Hayato tilts his head a little, like he is listening for some revelation from the world, and then smiles. It isn’t a nice smile. “But, since I came here to save you from death by future explosions—“

“And we are leaving!”

At times Katsuki wonders how he ended up developing twin telepathy with Deku of all people.

Deku practically picks Hayato up, an effortless task since Hayato weighs maybe three and a half apples, and they head outside, thankfully unbothered by their classmates and their curious stares. Round Face waves with a little adorable ‘bye’ and he thinks he can see why Hayato was able to talk with her instantly: she is very much like Deku when he isn’t awkwardly fumbling in fear of the guillotine. Maybe that’s also why Katsuki himself sees her and can only see a puppy with a terrifying gravity skill, too, but those are thoughts for another day.

“I wasn’t wrong,” Hayato argues once they are outside, stretching like a cat. “Had you stayed here without the antiluce you would probably explode by day two. I heard some of the others talking, how do you deal with them?”

“The same way I deal with you two: I close my eyes and hope for the best.”

“That’s very cruel of you, Kacchan.”

“You have no right to say anything.”

As they walk Hayato back to the safety of the old man, Katsuki thinks that they did alright for today. Nothing happened, Hayato didn’t end up in prison, Nedzu didn’t show up to offer Hayato weird opportunities in the Support department like All Might did, and there was no mention of Not Vigilantes or their out of character activities. Sure, it is what everyone is talking about on the forums, and idoRankings still has his broadcast later today, but—

Of course, something has to happen right at the last moment.

“Hayato!”

New! Cozart ({Admin 69} Mukuro) just posted a new thread: [Important] League of Villains and the future of our esteemed community.

<This thread is scheduled for deletion in 1 hour, 59 minutes, 59 seconds>

Children, it has been a long while.

Today, I found myself remembering my credentials to access this ridiculous hole of the internet I created two centuries ago to antagonize the authorities, and I logged in to antagonize a different sort of authority that exists in this era. Alas, said authority decided to rebuke my offer for aid on his current assignment and went radio silent, and our insider within the Villainous circles has disappeared off the map for reasons unknown. While I wait for an update from either of them, I believe it is time that we discuss something that has become more relevant these past few months, ever since the attack on that disgusting organization said to be a school.

The League of Villains.

As you well know, our VS board has been up and running as an archive and discussion forum for multiple topics, the most relevant of which is hidden behind clearance levels none of you have. Myself and a few others have been keeping this information on different servers in case of an emergency, and unfortunately this means we are prime targets for that inhuman creature that calls itself ‘All for One’. Censorship can come from all sides, especially when you are the ones holding the truth, and we cannot allow our treasured hoard to go down without a fight.

We are in a state of emergency right now.

 Read more?

 {Admin 0} Enma: Why are you using the Founder title for this.

  {Admin 69} Mukuro: You never make proper use of it.

   {Admin 0} Enma: I am the head admin.

    {Admin 69} Mukuro: And I am the Founder.

 {Admin 100} Shiro: can i go try to deal w afo once im done dealing w this other guy, kinda busy rn

  {Admin 69} Mukuro: What’s the other guy doing.

   {Admin 100} Shiro: human experimentation

    Cozart ({Admin 0} Enma): Destroy them.

 uri: I will never get back the extra minutes I spent trying to decipher your senseless diatribe only to realize you were quoting Shiro going on about marshmallows.

  {Admin 100} Shiro: marshmallows are great

  {Admin 69} Mukuro: We have known each other for how long now?

   uri: I do not know you, I am ashamed to call you a brother of my soul.

 {Mod 999} smallMight: this is a really great story! are you a writer, mukurosan?

  {Admin 69} Mukuro: This is quite literally my life.

  Chrome: It… really is a lot to read, Mukuro-sama. Maybe a little excessive.

 Squalo: whenever i open this site i feel like i lose a few hundred years of my life and give them to my shark, why did you add like three thousand words of autopsy transcripts

  Chrome: It is Shigaraki lore.

   {Admin 100} Shiro: he has a past ??

  TranquilShooter: How long do sharks live?

  Dorothy: Maybe you need to go on vacation for a few weeks, Lord. I assure you the League will still be here when you return, and there are no auctions scheduled for what is left of this month.

   L: are we done pretending we dont know who he is?

    Dorothy: :) No.

   Squalo: there is one in tartarus soon, it is the bane of my existence

    Dorothy: Oh! I saw that one, I remember they are bidding on that really pretty bow made of human bone they took from that sharpshooter serial killer. Ah, the dream, to just lay my hands on it once, to shoot but a single arrow made of the corpses of my enemies…

     uri: You could make one, you know.

 Arcida: Why does this mishmash of different topics that is almost a whole book in length feels like a real cult manifesto.

  Karasu: Owl Manifesto!

  FatuusIgneo: I have already copied it and will start preparing it for print, I am sure you will all want copies?

   L: give sayohan ten copies so he can preach

    FatuusIgneo: What an excellent idea!

   {Mod #95} Kyoko: What is the whole point of a scheduled deletion post if you are going to save it and print it for the future? Is this what our legacy will be, just Owl-sensei’s senseless rambling as a book that we will pass on to our children and grandchildren?

    Chrome: He says he apologizes he isn’t as good an orator as the Sky of Skies or the Tree of Life were, but he tries his best.

     Arcida: The only recorded speeches of those two are war declarations on the entire world.

      Chrome: And this is not?

      L: THERE ARE RECORDS?

(Somewhere in Fukuoka, Not Villain Rokudō Mukuro enjoys the chaos his words have created in his small online community, the pride of six consecutive lifetimes each shorter than the last and the one archive of useful, familiar information he can still access without having to bow down to annoying, tonfa-wielding children or even more annoying, white-haired godlings. Ah, how the world has changed, that he can no longer go home in fear of being treated like his predecessor was, it is not his fault he remembers all his lives even before the downfall of his society.

Careless, he taps his finger to the head of the actual child sleeping curled up around his lion —a child unlike himself, an adult hidden in a child’s body, not by own choice. Once, twice, thrice, yet the boy doesn’t wake up. Understandable, he has been tired of avoiding the Commission and they have been training a lot, but that doesn’t mean he can just nap through lunch.

Finally, the boy wakes up.

“Mukuroooo stop that, stop,” the child rubs his forehead with his hands, the little lion glowing brightly before he disappears into the boy’s arm. Small, weak orange flames try to light up between his fingers, only to fade into a rainbow of different colours, then to white then black then to orange once more. Within a few seconds, it is as if the flames were never there. “Why did you wake me up…”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“We could have had lunch later…”

“And we have a hawk to stalk.”

“You are a sadist.”

Mukuro watches as Sawada Tsunayoshi —his actual, legal name, too, how lucky they got!— rolls out of bed and, sleepily, tries to get dressed in street clothes without tripping on his own two feet. He himself is ready to be on the move at any minute now, as he has always been since… a long, long time ago. Moving, uprooting his whole life when his body dies only to be reincarnated within a few days somewhere brand new… He has been living like this for so long, he doubts he can go back to staying in a single place.

Not that he ever did, even in the most stable life he has had. His time in the Vongola was definitely his easiest life as of yet, despite all the conflict that made him meet the first Tsunayoshi and how that particular life ended —even if it felt like his heart was being ripped apart, his death two hundred years ago was still less painful than whatever came next. Living a life without his Flames that he has had since birth, not completely gone but inaccessible at times and unaligned at others… It hasn’t been a nice, or fun way to live.

At least in this life, he found Chrome, tiny and precious, still his sister even if her memories of two centuries past are hazy behind her own mental block protecting her from despair. He found Mukurou as well, an animal with a ‘Quirk’ —rare as it is— that joined him in this life and then never left, too happy to stay somewhere he could steal chocolates. And, he also found Tsunayoshi, something that hasn’t happened in the past two lives, and Tsunayoshi with Flames, something that hasn’t happened since the Vongola.

But it isn’t just Chrome and Mukurou and Tsunayoshi. In the past ten years ever since Chrome awakened to her ‘Quirk’, they have been able to find every single one of the Vongola Guardians and close family, the Arcobaleno and the Shimon, as well as most of the Varia. Even that annoying marshmallow addict is here, at the same time as everyone else, and that’s… important, no matter how much Mukuro hates the Mare wielders.

Just as there cannot be a single wielder for multiple pieces of the Tri-ni-Sette, there can’t be two wielders for a single piece of it. Byakuran, the Mare and Millefiore heir, was the true wielder of the Mare del Cielo ring; this version of Byakuran remembers what that felt like, remembers the past and —while he hasn’t been able to bring up his Flames yet— is just as much Byakuran as the one two centuries back. The piece of the Tri-ni-Sette that All for One —that disgusting creature that calls itself a human— stole at first, the one that was used as a base to create the chimera it calls its ‘Quirk’, was the Mare del Cielo.

All the pieces of the Tri-ni-Sette will return to their real wielders once they realize what they are missing. There is no way they will stay with All for One so long as all three sets of souls are scattered around the world —the only question that remains is, how to take them?

For now, Mukuro is doing what he can. He has the Cielo di Vongola right here in front of him, even if Tsunayoshi isn’t completely aware of what he is, and the rest of his Guardians are around. He knows where Byakuran —the Mare del Cielo— is, and he knows where Uni —Cielo di Arcobaleni? He forgot the title a while ago— is, as well. He found Kozato Enma —the Tree of Life, for some reason— a while back too and, while he isn’t completely necessary to retrieve the Tri-ni-Sette, he is necessary if they want to have an after.

Who could have ever thought Mukuro started out as a Villain? Look at him now, trying to restore the world to its natural order. Tsunayoshi would be proud.

“Mukuro?”

This Tsunayoshi, however, still has some time to go.

“Let’s go, we can get chocolate cake.” With quick use of both his Quirk and the half-dormant Flames he still has, Mukuro returns his body to what it should look like— no older than 13, with a baby face that is really useful to garner pity, especially when next to Tsunayoshi. Adding Chrome in would be overkill, but she is in Musutafu so, for now, the two of them will have to do.

“We aren’t supposed to have cake for lunch.” Tsunayoshi still hasn’t lost that particular way of his, trying to be the common sense in a world that has long since gone mad.

“What’s the point of having no parents if we aren’t going to break some rules?”

“You are going to get sick.”

That’s fine, Mukuro has been sick for quite a long time now. Two hundred and some more years, in fact, but at least it finally looks like he has found a cure.)

Chapter Text

Monoma Neito is a simple man. He is a simple man with simple desires, who follows his Family’s motto to the very word. Granted, this word is a single one, so it isn’t too hard to follow unless you start considering how to go about it.

Win.

Win. At best, by your own power, but if you can’t do it alone then attach yourself to someone who will and make sure they win. In other words, survive, something that becomes harder the more and more human Quirks evolve.

Maybe that’s why he decided he wanted to be a Hero, apart from a misplaced sense of rebellion. Far too many people said that he wouldn’t be able to do it, not since all he can work with is copied Quirks. Quirks are hard to master, after all, and Neito is just below average when it comes to anything—of course, if asking anyone who studied Quirks, they would say he is way above average because being able to use a Quirk only through physical and neurological cues should be impossible: children train with their Quirks since birth, and Neito only has five minutes to learn how to use them and plan how to apply them to his current situation.

Unofficially, his Family calls him a ‘Singularity’, but in all honesty, he is nowhere near the actual Singularities identified across history—the Mists, for instance, or the Sky of Skies, or any of those related to that particular group.

Still, so long as there is someone with a useful Quirk around, then Neito can be useful, for 5 minutes at a time.

5 minutes is a little too short of a time, to be honest. Well, he works with what he has. His parents’ Quirks are equally as troublesome, and they are somehow managing to live as they do with them.

His parents, or well, his Family is something else, though, and yes, the capital letter is there for a reason. They have to be with a motto like that, after all. Though they never rejected his wish to be a Hero, they also never particularly agreed with it, because at the end of the day, his Family is not precisely very Heroic, or even remotely pro-Heroics. They don’t quite work for VS but it is close enough, and they are part of what most people have come to call ‘the Conspiracy’.

(It is a ridiculous name, but one he has gotten used to since birth. ‘The Conspiracy’, what some people call the Anti-Heroic Conspiracy, though truly it is something else; something way bigger than just Amehara Samē’s speeches about the lack of progress and how Hero society is ruining the world. Something far bigger than a single country, or a single man, or even a single world: something greater than Life and Time itself.)

Monoma Neito and his family are simple people with simple desires, and one of those desires is to win. Win in what, exactly? Well, win in life, simple as that.

He is currently a Hero Candidate, though some people would say he is undercover, playing for both sides so he can win. The reasons are very convoluted but mostly involve his Family, the whole extensive network with who his family (the Monoma) works: the Giglio Nero. A side branch of a bigger Family that is, apparently, Mafia, part of a world that has long since stopped being relevant, biding its time like a snake laying in wait, a world that could collapse the laws of society as they currently are.

So yes, Monoma Neito is what most people would call a Villain; he is also a Hero Candidate though, and he is going to stay this way for a long time.

It all starts with a woman named Uni. She is his parents’ boss, the Consigliere of the real-life Godfather, and for most of his life Neito thought such things as ‘Consigliere’ or ‘Godfather’ didn’t exist anywhere but in fiction and past records. Uni proved him wrong, snatching the ground from under his feet and letting him freefall into what would, in a future not far from now, return to being the lifeline of many and the world itself.

[The woman laying on their couch isn’t tall, nor is she short; she isn’t beautiful or ugly, she is just average, with a small birthmark of a flower below her eye. Still, as average as she is, she casts around her an aura that makes Neito stop where he is, where he had been heading into the kitchen to steal some snacks past his bedtime. He stares at her with wide eyes, but she only smiles, her expression clearly visible even in the darkness of the room.

‘Neito-kun, is it?’ She speaks, softly and unassumingly, and stands from where she is laying on the couch to approach him. Her hands glow, dim, in a myriad of colours as she brushes her hand through his hair, and Neito shudders at the feeling of acquiring a Quirk he is unable to use. His brain clicks into position, but something is lacking, something far more important than just a Quirk Factor, and he will be stuck like this for five minutes—

(Eventually, it ended up being more than five minutes. He somehow acquired the skill, from now and until the end, and it takes him years to master it. As of present time, when in UA, he can use it passively, but nothing as strong as Uni ever does.)

‘Ah, I’m sorry,’ she says after startling slightly, seemingly just as shocked by the event as Neito himself is, apologizing as she takes her hands back. The glow dims lower until it practically settles under her skin, painting her under an ethereal veil of otherworldliness and mystique. ‘My name is Uni, I am your parents’ editor. My Quirk, which I accidentally used on you, is called Soul Flame, it allows me to identify the shape of your Soul.’

Neito just watches her, because he doesn’t know what that means. He can see the same myriad of colours settle over and under the skin of his hands, indigo and a gold brown shining the brightest. He watches them, curious, wondering what the colours mean: he is only 10, he isn’t well-versed in the idea of ‘Souls’. It is a very philosophical topic and he isn’t interested, wasn’t interested until that moment and some more.

‘Shape of the… Soul?’ He doesn’t even know this woman, but she instils trust in him as if he had known her all his life. He probably has: his parents mention their editor visiting often enough, though said editor changes appearances often. He wonders if this is the real one, or just another fake appearance she wears in rotation.

‘Yes. All Souls have colours and shapes— they represent your true nature. Yours, this indigo and gold, are a rather interesting combination.’ She takes his hands on her own, and he just lets her, because he is tired, and ten, and stranger danger hasn’t been quite relevant when he lives in a gated community. ‘These are called Desert and Mist, both are extremely tricky, made of deceptions and mirages, the ability to speak a truth that is actually a lie, and the true nature of illusionists. My guess is you inherited them from your parents.’

His parents. Neito knows very well how his parents’ Quirks work, having Copied them more than enough times for them to remain with acute awareness in his brain. His mother’s Quirk is Aural Mirage, the ability to copy a sound or voice so well it is indistinguishable from the real thing so long as she isn’t seen; his father’s is Stealth, he can be invisible, and make someone else invisible, for as long as he isn’t touched by a living being apart from whoever he is pulling along. Together, they make for a perfect pair of spies, and they use their abilities to look for Hero-related scandals.

Neito’s Quirk is simply Copy. He doesn’t know if he got the worst one of the deal.

‘…What does it mean, to have a Soul shape?’

‘Well, everyone has one, but Quirks make most of them become… void. Empty. Blank. The fact that you have two at this age, so defined at that… It is amazing, congratulations.’]

His parents weren’t too happy about Neito meeting Uni, but they eventually had to relent into arranging more time together once it became obvious Neito’s Copy of Soul Flame wasn’t going away— it isn’t a Copy at all, in fact, just his brain kick-starting itself into becoming aware of something that has been part of him since he was born, that he wielded easily when young and became unreachable once he manifested the ‘aberration’ that is a Quirk. It is also then that he learned about the true nature of his Family, not just being Mafia, no, but being the ones that make sure the Mafia’s culture (Mafia has culture?) is kept alive through the ages. Flames are one thing, the Casta de Fiamma being one of the most important elements of Mafia culture, but…

They also have to make sure other people involved don’t get in trouble.

His parents got the unlucky task of cleaning up after Amehara Samē’s tantrums and making sure no one notices he is actually one of the most dangerous Villains/Vigilantes in the world, as well as their main job of confirming scandals. Neito got it way easier, currently being in ‘charge’ of Amehara the middlest, Amehara Takeshi, who is a little less of a disaster than his older brother or any of his younger siblings —he isn’t wholly in charge of him, though, theirs is a relationship that is based on friendship, quite unlike his parents and their own target, or like any other member of his extended family.

(Neito pities his cousin, who is in charge of the one known as Fran because a shapeshifter without any control over his abilities is just terrifying.)

Of course, being part of the Giglio Nero also means he is Mafia and following the hundred thousand rules Mafia has around. So, he can’t mention Takeshi who he is, he can’t be too active in the VS boards because the Giglio Nero have their own, and he has to report to Uni every few weeks— it was more than just a disaster when Takeshi got kidnapped. He could technically break the rules, but there used to be Mafia enforcers and, though they are inactive, the fear of them has stayed around for however long they have been inactive so far.

So he is Mafia, and he is currently watching over Takeshi —he doesn’t mind, Takeshi was his friend from before he officially joined the Giglio Nero (just a year ago, actually), and he is as low-energy as they come. He doesn’t do much apart from playing baseball, stalking Bakugō Katsuki, and being an absolute creep of a student. He rarely talks, rarely makes trouble apart from insisting on bringing his sword everywhere he can, and he has enough control of his Quirk to not accidentally reveal the most dangerous part of it —his Soul Flames are, apparently, meant to be Rain and Tundra (a combination with a dark history of killing its wielders), but they are slowly fading and that’s even more dangerous than them becoming active out of nowhere. If they were active, the Jiunoka would be more deadly than it already is, even with the limiter on: when it breaks the limiter, Takeshi can allegedly kill a small village after a few hours, but luckily that hasn’t happened.

(He still shudders at the remainder of the Deluge of Castelsardo, one of the many historical events that got erased from history post-Guerrillas. Studying the history of the Casta di Fiamma’s extermination was not easy back then, and it will never be easy, and to this day he is still shocked at how easy it seemed to be, to simply sweep undesirable events under the rug and never talk about them again. He understands the reasoning —the underworld was terrifying on its own back then, but the Casta di Fiamma was made of nightmares embodied into humans, demi-Gods that held time and space within their hands without a care, worse than anything a Villain could do in the present time—, but it is also upsetting, that the world preferred to forget great tragedies in favour of an unstable society built atop the shoulders of Heroes.

The Deluge of Castelsardo is not even the worst of them all, though easily the one Neito feels closer to, considering who his best friend is, what he can do. The idea of a single man being able to annihilate a whole town out of sheer grief, in an era before Quirks became the norm, is terrifying, but the fact that said man didn’t bother to move to save himself is…

Neito doesn’t know what heartbreak feels like, but he thinks it looks something like this: a hotel room for three, two unbeating hearts and a falcon crying out in mourning. The last of a group of eight chased away from homes they built in short years of peace, cursed to never age past their teenage selves by a cruel game of fate, and rain that falls for a week straight. Their given, individual names did not even make it into the records of the Giglio Nero, scrubbed clean by those remaining in honour of their last wish, to be the last ones to ever bear the name of the group: I Prescelti Sette.)

Neito’s best friend and charge is asocial and low-energy, so it comes as a surprise when he suddenly jumps out of his bed and doesn’t even bother with the door, just jumping out of the window to run somewhere. Neito follows because he is a good friend and he doesn’t want to get in trouble, but the conversation they have on their way is… troubling.

“Where are we going!?” He yells at Takeshi when he has almost caught up with him, but Takeshi just looks at him like he is an idiot and continues running.

“Class-A dorms! I learned something nice!”

What can be nice enough to make Takeshi run— and yell, at that? When he hasn’t done anything of the sort in all the years Neito has known him, when he has only spoken in whispers and hand signs for most of his life?

Well, apparently, it is Bakugō the youngest.

(Of course Neito knows about Bakugō’s twin Hayatō— Hayato. Uni keeps tabs on him whenever Hurricane shows up to destroy some or other building, because that boy is not subtle at all, and the Giglio Nero’s duty is to ‘make sure everyone related to them are safe and following the rules’. Hurricane is, apparently, part of their Family, extended as it is, though he is also an independent contractor who mostly deals directly with the Godfather —Byakuran Gesso, yet another troublesome man that shows up out of nowhere just like Uni— and with Merone—yet another troublesome, faceless person who is hiding all the way in Namimori and is, thus, unreachable.)

Neito watches, dumbfounded, as Takeshi practically throws himself at Bakugō the youngest, laughing easily as if he did it every day, arms picking up the smaller and far-too-light teenager as blue and red bloom around them for a millisecond only Neito is privy to. He feels the clash of not-quite-opposite natures, one wrapping around the other like an invisible guardian as it rages and snaps around itself before it settles into a low simmer, doused by steady and calm rain. They are ragged, torn at the edges in a mangled wound that never healed and, while the cuts might have once matched each other —like patchwork, a unity yet undeniably different and individual—, now they are clearly too haphazardly stitched and healed to join as seamlessly as they once did.

He forces himself to look away with both his sight and his not-quite-Quirk. To him, it is a meeting he is not allowed into, cast away by Bakugō the youngest’s indiscriminate destruction: he can almost taste the Tempesta encroaching around him, attempting to burn down anything it feels as a danger to its brother-of-a-soul. He should not be here, not when he can barely control the unsteady Flames that are his own soul.

He turns, instead, to the other two flickering presences in his reach: crackling green, smothered by something that feels like it can swallow a world whole, and gold. Gold like Uni when she doesn’t bother scrambling herself to appear unassuming, like the Sky of Skies, like Nedzu the rare times he is emotional enough to allow his Flames to flare past the walls of a passive Quirk.

‘That explains some things,’ Neito nods to himself in understanding, Takeshi’s unusual awareness when chasing after Bakugō the oldest now revealing itself to be just a side effect of the dormant Sky tainted with nitroglycerin. That’s one of life’s mysteries solved, now to make sure there are no more Takeshi-induced mysteries to mess up Neito’s simple life more than it already is.

He is about to leave the two to their reunion when he sees the most unexplainable and hilarious scene he has seen in years: Midoriya, expression twisted into something not at all threatening (like a drowned cat, really), grabs Takeshi by the back of his collar and pulls him away, ignoring how his year mate struggles to remain attached to Bakugō the youngest by kicking and practically biting. The oldest twin slightly pushes his brother behind him, though not as aggressive as Midoriya had been, bristling.

Takeshi got scruffed, that is so funny. Or it would be, if Takeshi wasn’t about ready to murder the interlopers with a rain cloud hastily forming right above them.

Maybe it is time Neito interferes.

“Hey, hey, wait—“ He rushes to Takeshi’s side, gently coaxing Midoriya’s hands off him and dragging his friend back with him a few steps. This is a sensitive situation and Neigo isn’t quite sure how to deal with it, partly because he doesn’t know what’s up with Takeshi and Bakugō the youngest, but mostly because he doesn’t want anyone to die. “It’s alright, hey, calm down—“

“They have Hayato—!” Takeshi refuses to calm down, his cloud swirling around them in a way Neito has never seen it do before. He isn’t quite yelling, his voice raspy from lack of use, but he sounds so clearly desperate it makes Neito’s heart ache. He has never seen Takeshi like this, and they have been together through their worst moments. “Let go, Neito!”

Yeah, he doesn’t think that’s the best choice right now. Bakugō the youngest —Hayato, right— is just blinking at them, dazed from being pulled away from Takeshi so suddenly even as his weak, flickering Flames dart around him in desperation, but the other two stand guard before him like Takeshi is trying to steal their most treasured possession. Bakugō, in particular, looks at Takeshi like he stabbed him in the back right after saving him, which is a pity: Neito was happy Takeshi seemed to be making friends with someone who wasn’t, you know, an undercover mafioso, even if it’s just because of shared trauma over getting kidnapped, but he doesn’t know if that relationship will be able to last through this event.

The worst part is, Neito doesn’t know why Takeshi is so… desperate about this. As far as he knows, he has never met Bakugō Hayato: Takeshi doesn’t interact with many people outside of their usual circles, as most of his outings are carefully monitored by his older siblings and the Amehara’s staff, and the youngest twin isn’t part of that. Yes, he is allegedly Hurricane, one of the Giglio Nero’s troublesome charges, but he has never shown his face —either of them— in any of the ‘conspiracy’ meetings. It could be an online friendship, but Neito is also aware that Amehara the eldest works overtime to keep his brother away from most controversial forums and boards out of some misplaced idea of protectiveness that Takeshi doesn’t mind most of the time.

What is most curious is, of course, how their Flames reacted to each other. For most people, Flames are an unknown element in their lives, a dormant part of themselves that their Quirks keep out of reach; even to those who are aware of them, those who are part of the Casta di Fiamma conspiracy, Flames remain unusable and imperceptible, only seen and felt by the few people able to see past Quirks (and of those, Neito only knows himself and Uni). Takeshi has Flames, weak and unstable, but they are inactive; this is the most Neito has ever seen of them, the first time he has seen them act like this, wild and uncontrollable, dangerous, almost as if instinctively responding to some outside influence.

But, is it really an outside influence? It is really unknown? Hayato, for all that he looks like he is ready to faint at any time, didn’t seem too surprised at Takeshi’s sudden appearance; in fact, he was oddly pleased and smug, like someone who won a bet no one thought he ever would. His Flames rage, but they also seem to be holding themselves back, as if being perfectly aware of how unstable Takeshi’s own are and unwilling to force them off the rails.

It is as if they knew each other in a way more intimate than just friendship; the visual definition of ‘sibling-of-a-soul’ that Uni kept preaching about. A bond that surpasses the limits of time and space, of physicality, a bond almost like that of ‘soulmates’ would be if this was a novel.

Neito isn’t sure if keeping them separate is a good idea, but for all that Takeshi is slowly calming down in his arms, Midoriya and Bakugō the oldest don’t look any less aggressive than they did a few seconds ago. And Hayato, who still looks and feels faint as if he could vanish at any moment, isn’t doing anything to control his apparent bodyguards.

This is a right mess, and Neito doubts it will become better with time. Maybe, if Takeshi had waited until Hayato was alone, this would be easier, but now that’s impossible: the other two will be on their guard until Hayato leaves campus, and Takeshi can’t exactly leave easily considering most of UA and their mothers is keeping an eye on him for all the right and wrong reasons.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, Takeshi calms down enough for Neito to be able to put him down, and Hayato also recovers his coherence enough to do something about his brother… brothers? He lays a hand on Bakugō’s shoulder (strangely delicate, with long pianist fingers and an odd glittery shimmer that might be caused by his Quirk) and pulls him back, just a bit.

“It’s alright, Katsuki.”

“No, it’s not—“

“He is a friend.” His voice is oddly calm for someone with the Tempesta Flames, really, like he is used to having to control his brother’s worst impulses. What is his Quirk, again?

The other two look at him like he lost his head, though.

“A friend…?”

“You have friends!?”

That’s a terribly rude thing to say to your own brother, Bakugō.

When Bakugō Hayato first realizes he isn’t the only one in the wrong time, his first reaction is relief: he isn’t alone, he won’t have to face this new world and its twisted laws on his own. He feels like a weight has been taken off his shoulders and, well, his first idea is to go find whoever it is that is wandering around and join them in whatever is it they are doing.

His second reaction, not a mere few seconds after the first, is grief. An overwhelming, engulfing grief, a pain like nothing he has ever felt before. He knew, objectively, that he was a whole two centuries ahead of his own time, alternate timeline or not, and that his Family is probably long dead, but the confirmation that there is someone else makes him realize the harsh truth.

He failed.

(He is, first and foremost, a Storm: paving the way for the others, protecting them from harm and striking down on whatever could damage their unsteady Family. He is also the right hand of the Boss, it is his duty to make sure everyone is doing what they should be doing and not getting into trouble—)

He failed. He, Gokudera Hayato, was one of the first casualties after Byakuran, the Arcobaleno and the Varia Commanders had been confirmed dead: he had died in a storm of flames, making sure that the heirs of the allied Families could get to Namimori safely, but he remembers very well that the others were alive before his consciousness faded and he awoke as Bakugō Hayato. He remembers fire, and explosions, and a long decade of fighting back against those who would rather have them dead or under control, but he also doesn’t remember burying anyone apart from the eleven that had gone before him.

So when he finally comes to terms with what happened, he wonders for a long while: does he deserve to meet them again? Do they even want to see him again?

He spends a long while indecisive. As he tries to piece together the timeline, a hard task as most of the history he knows and remembers has been hidden behind walls and walls of censorship, he struggles not to contact whoever is that has come to this world along with him. He messages Merone a few times, trying to figure it out, but Merone remains the same cryptic bastard they have been since the old days: Irie Shōichi was a true Mare wielder before he was Vongola, after all, and the Millefiore had always been cagey about sharing what they knew. He can’t avoid them forever, though, especially Squalo —and it is impossible for Amehara Samē to be anyone but Squalo, his appearance practically untouched since Hayato last saw him before his death—, as the man becomes a permanent presence in the country’s politics soon after Gokudera becomes Bakugō.

He wasn’t expecting Mukuro, not at all.

[‘I wasn’t expecting you to be so passive about all this,’ the voice, endearingly yet annoyingly familiar, speaks from the beak of a small bird perched on Hayato’s window. He watches the owl from the reflection in his computer screen, wary, but as the bird isn’t doing much besides speaking he leaves it be.

‘What, did you want me to go mad out there, to blow up some things?’ He doesn’t turn his chair to reply, and the bird makes no attempt to come closer either: it preens its feathers and stretches its wings, remaining silent for a few minutes as Hayato continues trying to locate the Millefiore database. It is an impossible task, he knows, but he is still going to try even if it takes him his whole life.

‘Not quite, but I did think you would work harder to reunite with everyone.’

And that’s what Hayato has been working hard to not do: he isn’t worth it, isn’t worth them, and as someone who failed he doubts the others want to see his face. He thinks it is better, after all: this is a new world, a brand new chance to do what they each wanted to do, and what right does Hayato have to ruin their lives with memories they might not want to have?

If they are out there, then they are probably living well, following the path they wanted once upon another lifetime. Tsuna, who never wanted to be a Mafia Boss, is probably happy living an average life. Takeshi and Ryōhei must be devoted to their sports, Lambo might still be a baby. He already confirmed ‘Hibari Kyōya’s’ presence in Namimori —still the heir to the autocracy that is the island— and Chrome… If Mukuro is here, then there is no way Chrome is living a bad life, right?

‘It is a new life, they should do as they want.’ His response to Mukuro is the same as he has told himself time and time again, when thinking if he should contact Amehara or Hibari, if he should be out there looking for his Family. It has become a mantra, now, what he tells himself when he goes to bed and when he wakes up, what he will one day tell Katsuki about his choice in life.

The owl shrugs, fluffing its feathers to let a single one fall inside Hayato’s room.

‘Well, if you ever want to, I’m keeping track of them. Just make sure to keep out of trouble, yes?’]

As funny as it was for those words to come from Mukuro of all people, Hayato hadn’t used the contact information he had been given until much later. Piecing together what happened became harder with each layer of well-hidden truths he found, and with each discovery, he needed to know more. He was obsessed, he knows, but he is a Storm user and the idea of harm falling upon his Family makes him need to know what happened, how it happened, and why. He might never make use of the information, but for once he has no knowledge, and that irks him.

The Casta di Fiamma, the pillar upon which the Italian underground was once built, is gone, but there are remnants of it through history, sparks of Flames where there should only be Quirks. Mukuro is the most obvious, or the one who makes it the most obvious, and he has clearly been active in whatever underground this world has since the beginning; he has to know something. Thus, Hayato enters the VS boards, a place created by Mukuro ages ago and, apparently, kept active by the various incarnations of their Family through the ages.

He isn’t too active on the boards, though. He keeps to his mind that he should leave them be, especially when the one that seems to be Haru starts stalking him after the third attack he does as ‘not-Vigilante’ Hurricane. Besides, most of the close Family isn’t even there: Chrome and Mukuro are, but only Chrome is ever active, and Ryōhei and Lambo show their faces for very specific events. Kyōko, Haru and Fūta are constantly on the boards, but Hayato doesn’t know how to deal with them without Tsuna around, so he doesn’t talk to them much.

Besides, even if they exist, who is to say they remember? Who would want to remember a tragedy the like of their own death, no matter how painful and soul-shattering it was?

It takes years for Hayato to make the decision to get closer to his missing Family. He corresponds with Mukuro, Byakuran and Shōichi —through Merone—, but those are the only ones he dares approach directly. The others, he watches from the sidelines, feeling proud of their accomplishments as if they were his own and smoothing things for them to have easier times. He gets rid of information trafficking circles that Fūta complains about, he shares stolen books with Ryōhei for his medical studies, he harasses some of Lambo’s bullies; he dissolves a human experimentation trial before it can cause too much damage, he redirects information on rare weapons to the Amehara, and he slowly remakes the Japanese underground for his own amusement.

He accidentally runs into Fran in the human experiment trials, and that’s how he comes in direct contact with Squalo and finds Takeshi; following his mantra, he leaves Takeshi be. He doesn’t bother asking Squalo if Takeshi remembers anything: it is none of his business and honestly, he’d rather not stay in contact with Squalo for too long lest someone tracks him down and ‘Bakugō Hayato’ gets involved in some weird scandal. When his brother-of-a-soul gets kidnapped, Katsuki does as well, which is the only reason Hayato decided to break his own MO to interfere with the situation.

The only reason.

Still, he never expected to actually meet Takeshi, and especially not at UA. His status within the Hero system and anything related to it is as dangerous as it can be, being labelled a Villain or at least an accomplice, and even coming to UA had been something he debated with himself for hours. He can’t let Katsuki blow up his own campus, though, so here he is, hoping Nedzu doesn’t catch him before he leaves— only to be caught by Takeshi.

(It feels like coming home. It also feels like dying all over again, their previous lives and relationships somewhere they can’t retrieve them from. Takeshi might remember, Hayato might remember, but it will never be the same.)

Hayato accepts the coffee mug Takeshi gives him, thankful they managed to find somewhere discreet enough for them to talk —the curiosity of UA students felt like a hundred eyes on him, and Hayato might be developing an aversion. It is a small cafè near UA, apparently owned by past Lussuria as a cover for Takeshi’s security detail, and it also happens to be Takeshi and his class’s favourite study hall. Takeshi is now the rich kid with a dubiously moral family, it is a little funny in a weird way; although, Takeshi’s family was always dubiously moral, so that hasn’t changed much.

Katsuki and Izuku are watching them warily from a few tables away, along with Monoma Neito (class 1-B, Quirk is ‘Copy’, Amehara Takeshi’s closest friend and also a creep that wants to beat 1-A in grades) and, unsurprisingly, Aizawa Shōta. Katsuki’s homeroom teacher has kept his guard up whenever Hayato is nearby and he isn’t surprised he decided they couldn’t leave campus without an escort: Takeshi and Katsuki are still kidnapping victims, after all, and the League is still running wild. He is a very funny man.

“I missed you,” Takeshi says, both out loud and in G-flarespeech. His voice is quiet and rough, the voice of someone who doesn’t speak much: Amehara Takeshi is selectively mute, the complete opposite of the baseball freak Hayato had come to see as his partner in crime.

“Me too.” He doesn’t bother to reach to grab Takeshi’s arm, or wrist, or hand: he won’t feel anything if he does, and he doesn’t need confirmation that this is, indeed, Yamamoto Takeshi. If the small burst of Flames earlier wasn’t enough, the use of G-flarespeech would be: the Neo Vongola’s dialect of the Casta di Fiamma’s global language was only spoken by eight people, not even Reborn was privy to it. “It has been far too long.”

The silence isn’t awkward, just another part of their usual meetings closer to the end of their lives, when hiding was easier in silence. Hayato isn’t ready to ask what happened, and so he doesn’t: he simply basks in the presence of Takeshi, of his brother a few tables away, and feels at ease.

“You aren’t subtle,” Takeshi says after some minutes, tapping his fingers on his mug. “I was wondering when you would come to visit.”

Hayato looks down, and Takeshi knows then to drop the topic. He doesn’t think he is the only one to feel guilty about his own death, but Takeshi shouldn’t feel guilty at all. It wasn’t his fault, not like Hayato who threw himself in danger for years without ever expecting to come back; he had been living on borrowed time long before Byakuran fell ill. The decade and a half after he received the diagnosis from Shamal were more than enough for Hayato to lay his fears at rest, but Takeshi had wanted to live.

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” He can only murmur into his mug, the scalding coffee tasting of nothing as it goes down. “And I’m a Storm, I’m not meant to be subtle.”

“Fon.”

“A fake.”

Takeshi laughs, still quiet and stilted as if he hasn’t laughed in years (he probably hasn’t), and for a few seconds all feels normal again. If only Tsuna would be sitting between them, going through endless piles of paperwork; if only Lambo and I-Pin and Fūta could be sitting nearby playing some game without clear goals, if only Ryōhei could come into the room yelling about the extreme tournament he won. If only, if only.

If only life would be the same, then Hayato wouldn’t have to feel so dull.

“You shouldn’t try to do everything on your own,” Takeshi says, eventually, as he returns Hayato’s phone with a new contact in it. He hadn’t even noticed it was missing, he is clearly losing his touch. “We can help.”

“You can’t, Mister Heir of an Empire Hero Candidate.” Because Takeshi, for all that he looks to be half the man he once was, for all that he was kidnapped for being a particular brand of dangerous, is doing alright. Squalo has done what he can to keep his younger siblings out of the whole mess, and Hayato should help at least this much. Takeshi should continue on this path, should do what he wants, leave the dark side of their world to those who had once been born into it.

“Hah, as if— The Heir is Bel either way, we all know this.” The Rain huffs, looking around himself, at the small group of nondescript people simply loitering in the cafè. “I don’t know what all this is about, honest.”

“You went and joined UA.”

“It was some practical joke.”

“You are staying there still?”

Takeshi remains silent, watching the world with dull, empty eyes. Far too reminiscent of another time, shortly after the betrayal that brought them down, when Yamamoto Takeshi had had to dig his mentor’s body out of a pile of rubble. The same empty eyes that would not shed any tears, the Flames of Tundra forcing his heart to go cold to not give himself away; it was a look Takeshi always tried to keep from them, hiding from their sight whenever his thoughts would turn for the worst and he lost all hope of ever seeing a peaceful world again.

When he regretted not telling his father he loved him one last time.

(Hayato wonders where Tsuyoshi is, if he survived long enough to bury his own son. Namimori never fell, that much he knows, but he also knows Takeshi enough to know he never returned to his homeland. The hunts turned on Namimori later in the timeline, once most of the fortresses of organized crime had already fallen, and since then it only lost one battle. He wonders if there was ever yet another half-crazed Rain swordsman on the battlefield, inheriting the wishes of the two Sword Emperors that came before him, or if Tsuyoshi died an uneasy death at home wondering if his son was still alive.)

For Squalo, for Tsuyoshi, for Kaoru… for Takeshi’s sake, Hayato hopes Takeshi prefers to stay away from whatever is going to happen from now on. He doesn’t know what Mukuro is planning, doesn’t know what Byakuran is planning, but Hero society is about to be turned on its head, and Takeshi is a Hero Candidate. He will get involved in some or other way, but he can at least stay away from the frontlines this time, right?

Yeah, Hayato doubts that.

“So,” Takeshi finally says, speaking with few words and using his hands to complete his thoughts; “I know where the Varia is, or well, most of it. Do you know about anyone else? We should have a get-together and play some games, Vongola-style!”

Hayato sighs and tries to hide the smile growing on his face.

No matter the world or time, Takeshi never changes.

To the gentle (not so gentle) murmur (more of shouting, really; he is pretty sure their neighbours can hear the TV, even at its lowest setting) of Amehara Samē’s latest interview, Yoarashi Inasa tries to make sense of the messages coming into his Provisional License Exam makeshift team’s group chat. It is difficult, though: if he can be honest, with himself even if with no one else, he can barely hear himself think.

“Homura!” His mother’s yell comes from the kitchen, past two walls and an inner garden, yet it is still loud enough to be heard over the TV. “Turn that down, I can hear you all the way here!”

Well, so can we, you, Inasa thinks, covering his ears and eyes, trying to forget what he just read. Did Nagasama-senpai really suggest they all go their own ways? Really, them? When they have the ultimate shield with them? Isn’t part of the Provisional License Exam about teamwork?

He buries his head under one of the couch’s pillows when the TV’s volume goes up by one— make it three. His mother’s scream of frustration rings in his eardrums as if an explosion went off right next to him, and he knows very well what that feels like: he is classmates with Raimei Jun and that kid has grenades as his support item. Inasa has found himself stuck inside the ultimate shield while explosions go off around him more than enough times to know being classmates with the angry pomeranian in UA is probably a nightmare. He just never thought he would have to make use of his experiences at his own house.

His precious, annoying and tiny younger brother hums as he kicks his feet on the couch, accidentally-on-purpose kicking Inasa’s elbow as he does so. Peeking out from under his pillow reveals the TV remote is right next to him, so he quickly snatches it and lowers the volume on Amehara’s voice. He wonders if that’s possible in real life: that man is loud. Pretty, ridiculously well-spoken, but loud, and even Inasa is annoyed by it.

Xanxus loves him, though, for some reason. Amehara Samē’s voice is practically the only thing Xanxus will listen to, eyes bright in wonder as he nods along to whatever the madman is saying. Unfortunately, Xanxus also loves annoying their parents, so he snatches the remote from Inasa’s hands and turns the volume up to the max before placing it inside a vortex of raging flames.

That is very illegal.

Their mother screams bloody murder once more, unintelligible except for multiple angry calls of ‘Homura, Homura!’, calls that Xanxus obviously ignores. That’s not his name, as Xanxus makes sure to tell them every morning since he turned eight, something their parents haven’t been able to accept yet.

(It has been five years. Inasa isn’t the smartest, he knows he isn’t and Xanxus calls him dumb whenever he can —the name ‘Xanxus’ is dumber—, but he only took a few months to completely forget about ‘Homura’. He doubts anyone but their parents and the official registries still use that name: Xanxus refuses to respond to any name that isn’t Xanxus. He had a hard time responding to ‘Homura’ even before he came out as ‘Xanxus’, Inasa doesn’t know what’s wrong with their parents.)

As the remote is now unreachable —Inasa isn’t smart, but he isn’t stupid enough to put his hand inside Xanxus’s miniature sun—, Inasa decides to cover his head once more and checks the group chat again. He quickly replies to the one that should not be left on read.

Crush UA 22XX (6)

<1 minute ago> Seiji (xross): You are being stupid, we should all go together. This is the one time it is acceptable to do so, and you don’t want to?

Jun (Lambo): looooook i dont ?? care what u do? ill just go with nasa lol easier on me on u on us all

Inasa (galeforce): Thank you, Jun-kun! I will do my best to protect you!

“You are on cow duty again?”

Inasa almost jumps when he realizes his little brother is looming over him, eyes glued on the group chat as if there wasn’t anything more interesting than it. Amehara’s voice is still droning in the background, still at a deafening volume, but Xanxus’s voice carries easily over the TV, as if he was used to speaking over loud people. From this angle, Inasa’s tiny little brother looks menacing, the glow of his miniature sun haloing his head and hiding his face in shadows.

“He isn’t a cow.” Yes, Jun has an unusual liking for black dots on white backgrounds, but he definitely isn’t a cow. His horns don’t look like a bull’s, either, or at least not a species of bull that isn’t extinct: those things are a weapon on their own from how big they are.

“He is an idiot, is what he is.” Xanxus nods, turning back to the TV as he kicks his legs again. The news is on another segment now, so he promptly lowers the volume before throwing the remote somewhere unreachable. Inasa comes out from under his pillow, glad the assault on his ears is finally over. “I guess he is the best option for the exam, though.”

Still, Xanxus isn’t wrong: Raimei Jun is an idiot, but only in the classroom. He might be failing most of his classes, or would be if the class as a whole wasn’t working overtime to make sure he did well enough to pass, but he is a beast out in the field. Jun was the first one in two decades to pass the Shiketsu Entrance Exams without losing a single point (no injuries, no mistakes, nothing) and since then he has been flawlessly guiding their class (mostly whatever team he gets in the lottery) through training exercises, mock battles and obstacle courses.

Raimei Jun is clearly built as a strategist, and that’s exactly how everyone in their class wants him. He knows their Quirks, strengths and weaknesses, relationship dynamics and roles in the field like the back of his hand, he can assess terrains and situations within a couple of minutes of seeing them, and he makes people listen. He is annoyingly loud and if you don’t follow his commands he tends to throw tantrums, but that’s not enough to turn them away from him: he knows tactics, he is flexible, he has gotten them out of detention more times than Inasa can count.

Jun’s problem, apart from his grades, is… well, his Quirk. His Quirk, the Ultimate Shield, is exactly what its name says: so long as Jun’s heart is beating, the Shield will remain active. Nothing comes in and things only go out so long as Jun allows them to, and it is unbreakable. Unfortunately, if the Shield is active, Jun can’t move: according to him, each movement he makes under the Shield takes a hundred times the effort than it does outside of it, so he has to remain static once the Shield comes out. This means he can’t do much more than be an unbreakable wall, so he relies on others to do things for him.

Well, he can’t do much more with his Quirk. His weird strategies are often more than enough to clear whatever challenge their teachers set up for them, and his horns are strong enough to be a weapon, but Jun doesn’t particularly like moving around if he doesn’t have to.

(He is a shield. He can withstand all attacks, but he is a shield. Someone else should be the sword to his shield, he says, often with a wistful look in his eyes, and Inasa wonders what he sees when he says so, who is he waiting for.

Inasa wonders, what is he trying to protect so hard he turned his whole identity into a shield?)

“Eh, we still don’t know what kind of exam it will be.” Inasa shrugs, ruffling Xanxus’s hair and picking him up. The boy complains, of course: he is small, tiny compared to their family so picking him up is easy, but he doesn’t like being carried. Not that Inasa will stop doing it even when Xanxus kicks and hits him with his balled fists. “It’s time for dinner, Xan.”

“I can walk on my own!” He shrieks, though Inasa can tell he isn’t really angry. There is no flaming vortex of hellfire anywhere around them and the temperature of the room stays the same as it was a few minutes ago, a telling sign considering Xanxus tends to burn their parents whenever they are the ones to pick him up. Not always, but it is a usual enough occurrence that Inasa has learned to read Xanxus’s moods the way their parents never do.

Frustration. Anger. Sadness. Any kind of negative emotion is a fire hazard for their home, not just Xanxus’s but everyone else’s as well: for all that he denies it, Inasa’s tiny little brother is sensitive to the people around him, not quite as closed off as he likes to pretend. Even when he was younger, even when he was a baby, he would start crying or protesting whenever their parents started fighting, or whenever Inasa felt disappointed about his performance at school.

Xanxus is… not weak, but reckless, far too uncaring of his own health for the overpowered Quirk he carries and, quite frequently, Inasa worries. He is the older brother, he is here to protect him, but too often he feels himself lacking. They only have a two years difference most of the year, but Xanxus is so uncontrollable, so emotional that Inasa, and everyone else in their family, can’t help but see him as far younger than he actually is.

Maybe they have sheltered him too much, but the idea of letting the boy go anywhere without them feels like a sin, as if at any moment something would grab him and take him away, forcing him away from their family to never return. Homeschooling doesn’t feel like enough, but the boarding schools the Quirk specialists recommended for him sounded like an even worse idea. It isn’t like the Yoarashi family is lacking in any way when it comes to strength or influence, but somehow it is just never enough. Never, ever enough.

It also doesn’t change the fact that they have been lying about the full extent of Xanxus’s abilities for a few years, now.

[It happens soon after ‘Homura’s’ eighth birthday. Nothing through the days, weeks before could have prepared them for it, well used to ‘Homura’s’ emotion-based Quirk: fire is fire, and fire is not meant to be ice.

Yet, when Inasa wakes up that night, the house is freezing. Frost spreads through the walls, the radiator’s heat unable to fight against it; like cobwebs, or like cracks in the building, the frost is everywhere they can see. It is colder than just cold, more like a complete void of heat anywhere they can be, they can feel, and they all worry.

They find ‘Homura’ in ‘her’ room, crying inside a small cage made of ice, banging ‘her’ tiny fists against the wall and screaming to be let out. ‘She’ doesn’t see them, doesn’t even listen to them when they try to calm ‘her’ down: it is as if ‘she’ is stuck inside a nightmare, or something worse than even a nightmare can be. A flashback, they will call it later, but a flashback of what exactly, they do not know.

They try to melt the ice, but nothing works. They call Endeavor, but not even he can melt it; his sidekicks can’t do anything besides try and keep the family warm. It is as if the ice absorbed all heat around it and fed on it, to make itself stronger. They call more Heroes, they call the firefighters, they call the police and the ambulance, but no one can help them. And ‘Homura’ continues crying, screaming, pleading for someone to please help.

Eventually, ‘Homura’ calms down enough to help ‘herself’. Only ‘her’ own Quirk is able to melt the ice, leaving nothing behind to ever prove there had ever been an attack on their home. ‘Homura’ refuses to mention the event and, even later, as ‘Xanxus’, he refuses to bring out the frozen void that lies somewhere inside his heart.

Eventually, they will call it a Villain attack, because otherwise, no one will ever leave them alone: they can’t explain what happened, and they can’t tell anyone else that it was probably a backlash of Xanxus’s own Quirk that lead to that situation. They all tolerate the interrogations, the witness protection detail that hovers around their house for months, but they all agree unanimously:

They will not speak of this event ever again.]

They had tried going to Endeavour, at first. When it became clear Xanxus’s future was made of spontaneous wildfires and raging infernos, their family had done whatever they could to keep the Quirk in check. However, Endeavour hadn’t been of much help no matter how hard he tried, and after multiple accidents involving his own son, he decided to stop giving them his rare aid. Fire Quirks are dangerous, they all know this, but the fact that not even the Flame Hero himself had been able to control Xanxus’s Quirk was kept away from the ears of the public.

Inasa hates Endeavour. He hates that family as a whole, hates how the man just left them on their own without an answer to their troubles. He hates Shoto even more, the only person with a Quirk even remotely similar to Xanxus’s, and yet Todoroki Shoto never bothered to give Inasa a second of his time.

He thought Heroes were supposed to help people. He just wants his little brother to be safe.

Yet now, Xanxus barely leaves the house. His hands will burst into flames at the smallest provocation, flames that spread as fast as sound itself, and while his control has become better it doesn’t change the fact that he has a miniature sun waiting to light up inside him. Just like with that ice cage from years ago, Xanxus is stuck somewhere he doesn’t want to be, even if he has calmed down with time.

“We are here, you can put me down!” Xanxus kicks his feet some more and Inasa, like the obedient brother he is, plops the boy down on his assigned chair. Xanxus sulks, quickly fixing his hair back into the stylish mess he prefers it to be, and then throws one of his chopsticks at Inasa. “I can walk on my own.”

Inasa just grabs the chopstick and returns it to the table, smiling widely.

“But you are so small!”

The fireball that dissolves as soon as Inasa dodges it says enough.

Sasagawa Ryōhei dies in a landslide.

He doesn’t really know why it was a landslide, or why he was somewhere with possibilities of landslides, but he dies then. He doesn’t know what he was doing, but he remembers he died with his wife at his side. He also remembers he had a little sister who still lived, and a Family that had been slowly fading away from multiple attacks and illness, but he doesn’t remember much apart from that.

(The faces of those he once loved are fuzzy and he can’t even remember their names. He knows Kyōko, knows Fūta, knows Hana, but that is just because they are near him always. Everyone else… He doesn’t remember, and the memories remain out of reach no matter how hard he tries.)

Sasagawa Ryōhei was an extreme man, a boxer, a protector. He was an older brother, a husband, a father. He was a Sun. He knows, because Hana tells him, that he was a little dumb; he knows, because Kyōko tells him, that he was endlessly reckless. He doesn’t know anything else.

Sasagawa Ryōhei was never a doctor-in-training, or rather a ‘Healer Support Hero’-in-training, with an older sister and a little brother, yet life works in mysterious ways and reincarnation is even worse. He doesn’t really know why he came back to life in this era, in this place, but he does know that, somewhere out there, there are more important people waiting for him. One day he will meet them —he is happy enough with his sister, and his brother, and his girlfriend—, but that day is not today.

He has more important things to worry about, today.

Hoshizaki Ryōhei yawns as he watches the Hero Candidates be marched into the stadium, feeling very tired. Mostly, he feels like it is a waste that he has to stay on the sidelines when so many kids his own age are in there, competing for their right to fight, to protect. He wonders why they need a license to do so, which is very stupid, but he also understands that there are laws and regulations in place, laws and regulations that his previous life didn’t need as the ‘supernatural’ were kept under heavy watch.

Then again, he was a criminal in his previous life. A mafioso, from what Kyōko tells him. He can’t make heads or tails of that.

The day of the Provisional License Exam is here and, like other students from his tiny hyper-specific Hero training school, Hoshizaki Ryōhei finds himself watching the main characters from the sidelines. They have their own ‘Provisional License Exam’, although in their case it is simply called Certification Test. If he passes today, then he will only have one term of ‘Hero’ schooling to go through before he can join the Hero ranks. He is aiming for an early entrance into Medical College afterwards because, honestly, he hates this whole ‘Hero’ thing and this was the only way he could use his Quirk on himself to join Quirk-boxing matches.

It all goes to boxing, in the end. He will probably still need a job to support himself, which is why he is even thinking of attending college. Kyōko made the plan and he just followed along, she is his guardian after all. Sure, guardian for one year more, but guardian nonetheless.

The rules of the test are simple: while the Hero Candidates are beating each other up, or whatever objective the Exam has, the ‘Support Heroes’ will move around the stadium aiding those who have been downed. Of course, there are others around besides his class, but most of them have Quirks that are exclusively Support for the other Heroes instead of rescue or whatever. Ryōhei doesn’t really know how many labels of ‘Hero’ there are but he knows there are a lot even inside ‘Support’, and he is a healer. Or a kind of healer?

Ryōhei’s ‘Pain Relay’ is very simple: he can transfer external injuries and pain from a patient to himself, and then to someone else if he needs to. He can also ‘move’ his own injuries somewhere else to make it easier on himself, but usually he leaves them be: as someone with a ‘healing’ Quirk, his pain tolerance is naturally higher than most people and he tends to recover faster as well for some reason (Flames, they call it). Most of his training at school and with his Quirk was about learning to distinguish how much he can take away (a lot) and how much is ‘enough’ for the other person to be able to get to safety or go back to their jobs.

Healing Quirks are all about balance. Learning that balance takes a lifetime of practice.

Ryōhei would rather have a Quirk that helps with boxing, or no Quirk at all.

Still, seems like the exam will be a good enough workout. The stadium is big, there are many contestants and the event promises many fights to watch. Maybe he can challenge someone to a boxing match while out there?

For now, he watches the Hero Candidates be marched into the stadium, waiting for the examiner to finally stop hemming and hawing to let them know the rules.

He sees the Shiketsu students before they see him, and his eyes are drawn to a particular one.

He… thinks he knows him, from Before, but he isn’t sure: his memories aren’t that clear, people are unknown, but the feeling of static and ozone in the distance feels like something he should know. The boy even looks familiar despite reincarnation giving them different bodies—Hana said that the Flames remember and seek and change to their liking. He has curly, messy black hair, with the Shiketsu hat hanging from a huge curved horn larger than his own head, and a large black and green coat worn as a cape over his uniform.

The boy is walking backwards and gesturing wildly at his schoolmates but even so, he doesn’t trip and doesn’t hesitate with his steps. He walks with grace instead, almost like an aristocrat at a ballroom in the movies, and for a moment Ryōhei thinks it doesn’t match him at all. The image of a bull crosses his mind for some reason, and by then he has been watching the Candidate for long enough he gets noticed.

He positively brightens, moving as if he is coming closer before his larger schoolmate grabs him from below the arms and holds him above the ground. He struggles for a few seconds before slumping in defeat, waving weakly to Ryōhei and making a familiar hand sign he can’t translate. And then he is gone, along with Shiketsu.

Somehow, he feels he has lost something in that small exchange. He couldn’t even wave back, frozen as his mind wandered somewhere in the past, to hazy memories of lightning and large green eyes and a bazooka.

Another set of hands appears in front of him and Ryōhei startles out of his misty flashback, coming back to earth to see the UA Candidates walking past him. There are too many, but from what he heard before the Provisional License Exam is basically a progress report for them.

In front of him stands someone who lives way, way out of Ryōhei’s circle, so far away in the media world that even he, someone who doesn’t bother with TV unrelated to boxing, knows his name.

Amehara Takeshi smiles brightly in front of him, signing familiar signs that Ryōhei still can’t decode—he knows it is Flarespeech, he knows he knows, but it is as if the knowledge of the ‘how’ is past an invisible wall. There is another student with him, and it is him that Ryōhei looks at for a translation.

“He says you look familiar, ‘have we met before?’”

It takes him a few seconds to realize the two of them are waiting for a reply. The problem is, Ryōhei is an idiot, and that is one of those pickup lines he has heard when he goes out with Kyōko.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure you’re a good person—“

Amehara stumbles back as if struck, blinking at him in confusion. He looks him up and down (boy is that uncomfortable), tilting his head to the side, and makes a questioning sound. The other boy looks absolutely done.

“I have a girlfriend—“

“Sasagawa,” Amehara Takeshi, who has never spoken in front of strangers before if Kyōko’s magazines can be believed, says, out loud (though not loud) and clearly. “Ryōhei-senpai?”

Ryōhei shudders and feels his mind going away into the mist of the past once more, his thoughts unwilling to straighten themselves. He feels droplets of rain on his head, hears a joyful laugh tinted with pain, tastes the dust of an underground bunker where three brothers were once found months after their passing. Instead of the boy in front of him, he sees a man, aged through war and rugged, with too many scars and an eye closed shut forever, bright blue Flames dancing around him along with a sword; he sees Yamamoto instead of Amehara, and then sees Yamamoto’s corpse as they found him, Fūta and Lambo with him—

He runs before he can throw up, hazy memories sharpening until they pierce his mind and soul, feelings of a better and worse time scalding his skin away until he is raw and bathing in salt.

It hurts.

He can’t get rid of this pain.

[New! To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: re: re: that yakuza thing

Attachment: report final.txt, report final (6).txt, Shie Hassaikai.txt

>>> i finished the whole thing and i still crave violence ! send me to annihilate something else before i go insane. im sending the report to the backups so i guess you can have it too, shochan, enchan

>> This sure is… something. I got rid of your tracks and sent the Heroes to clean up after you, you’re welcome. What happened to the girl?

> Sent over the background we are giving the heroes and all that, get your story straight if you get caught. I’m not doing anything else for you. The girl got brought into witness protection by the heroes, this madman left her there, there were a bunch of owls circling so we don’t have to worry.

uodated to match the new bg ! ehre is mukuro right now i want to meet hi.m in person to thakn him for all the good deeds. imstaying in japan for a bit because it looks like sth interesting will happen okay okay !]

Byakuran Gesso throws his phone away after he sends that message: he is done with work for now and he doesn’t want to hear from Enma or Shōichi for the next month and a half, maybe two months. Why is he even doing work when he is the boss he doesn’t know, but apparently, the Maltese Hero Commission got an anonymous tip on one of his operations so it is better to be outside of the country for a short while, at least until it is safe to show his face in public again.

Well, they don’t know his face, but he isn’t going to risk it. His looks, in past lives or alternate timelines or anything else, have always been very distinctively ‘Gesso’ and he is sure there are records of his ‘original’ life as Millefiore Primo even if they are hidden well enough that average people can’t find them.

Besides, Japan is interesting as always, and everyone seems to be around. He wants to meet sweet, sweet Tsunayoshi once more and maybe he can even drop by Namimori to see Shōichi… Not Enma though, he already saw him and doesn’t want to be chased around at 3 in the morning for some or other reason. Enma should sleep more and stop worrying about everything, he will make his anxiety worse.

Byakuran should also sleep, he isn’t feeling too good. Dealing with the Shie Hassaikai had been a short side assignment while hiding from his nation’s dictators and he hadn’t expected much at first, but then Shōichi told him they were committing the worst crime. Maybe lots of people would say he, Byakuran, is committing the worst crimes as he is a Mafia boss, but he draws the line at experimenting with living beings. At least in this timeline, in this life—he can’t get over what one of his alternates he peeked into some years ago had been going through and the idea of people getting away with doing it makes him sick.

A child, too. A tiny, little and cute girl who never did anything wrong, and maybe he is too empathetic but thinking that that’s what alternate Byakuran and the Kokuyō gang had been like, what they went through… He had dealt with the wannabe-yakuza as slowly and painfully as possible, and he is now very tired.

At least he doesn’t have to deal with the clean up, because he is just a Maltese tourist looking around Japan and not someone who goes around dismantling Yakuza operations. He wants to stay to watch the shitshow, really: the Japanese HPSC can’t really admit they missed something as big as a whole Yakuza group doing human experimentation, so they will probably throw some Vigilantes’ names around and call it a day for the public, but luckily they have people inside the Commission to tell them all about how they are losing their heads over this whole mess. Byakuran craves that particular brand of chaos: ruining the Hero system is all he does with his spare time, as scarce as it is.

There is something else he wants to do in his stay in Japan, though. Byakuran curls up on his soft, fluffy, 5 stars hotel pillow, spreads his wings as wide as they can be (he should do something about that wound, but later, later), and grabs the drive he collected from Chisaki Kai’s safe—the information on a meeting with Byakuran’s annoying archenemy Shigaraki Tomura. It is in about a week, so he has time to plan around it for now, but since all he wants to do is sleep for a few days…

Maybe he can go meet Mukuro. It has been a while since he saw that madman after all, and he hasn’t seen him since he found a whole Tsunayoshi in the trash! Who would dare throw a Tsunayoshi in the trash? He should go deal with them if Mukuro hasn’t done so already.

Crooning to himself like the bird he isn’t no matter what people say because of his wings, Byakuran Gesso fades into a soft, fluffy dream of better times from whole lifetimes ago. A time before he fell sick, a time before he felt the world crash around him…

(A time before that disgusting thing called All for One took his Flames away.)

Chapter Text

“I met Ryōhei,” is one of the first things Takeshi says, with his voice, when he gets back from the Provisional License Exam.

The Exam was… interesting. Not as fun as the little war against the Varia, back in their first life, and also not as fun (and deadly) as playing Choice versus the Millefiore, but… interesting enough to keep Takeshi’s attention. The first part was just baseball training, the second… It felt a little like running around in the wild with Lambo and Fūta in their later years of life. Much chaos, survival, trying to keep people alive, the usual.

Sadly, his results won’t be out for a while—because he left before they were announced and his classmates won’t tell him—and he can’t share his experiences with his family back home, as he is stuck in the UA dorms until the weekend and Samē has a dumb meeting with some or other investor or sponsor or whatever Samē-related people are visiting this time. He didn’t even get to talk with Neito since his friend headed directly to bed after overworking his Quirk, so instead he got berated by Setsuna for ‘going off on his own instead of staying with the group’ as their Class trial said they should.

(He probably failed just for that. Or for leaving early. Oh well, nothing lost! Nothing earned either.)

Setsuna’s rant didn’t last long, thankfully, and Takeshi was allowed to flee until dinnertime (they are getting sushi!). He sent a message to Samē, to Lussuria and Bel to report his alive status, and then immediately called Hayato as the best friend he is.

He doesn’t know what Hayato is doing but he can hear the familiar sound of endless typing, so he is probably working on something. He can’t hear any other noises to guess where, exactly, he is, but he is definitely not outside, so he is probably in his room? In some safe room somewhere, a secret base?

“Oh? How was turfhead doing.” Hayato’s voice sounds as uninterested as it was before, when they met, and also as it was Before, back in a time when their lives were better or worse and they were all together. It makes Takeshi smile, just a bit, because it is so Hayato it is almost painful to think about it.

“He was alright?” His voice is still hoarse from lack of use and intonations are still hard, but he is working on it. “I told him he looked familiar, and he said he has a girlfriend.”

“Good for him,” Hayato replies, still with his usual uncaring tone. His typing stops for a bit and Takeshi can hear the familiar drag of one of his closest friends indulging in his addiction. “Were you hitting on him?”

“I guess it came out like that?”

“Did you want to?”

“No! Hayato, he’s married—“

“Was. He was married, in a previous life.”

Takeshi just mumbles that he isn’t interested, not paying much attention to Hayato. He has gone back to his typing and smoking, so Takeshi puts the call on speakers, lays back on the bed and checks his tablet. Lussuria is typing something on the family chat, but he doesn’t care much about whatever they will say. He checks his other chats out of habit, but apart from Kasumi sending a few dozen memes through the ‘children’s’ chat and Neito’s incoherent half-asleep messages, there isn’t anything much.

He likes this life. There are no classmates pretending they are his friends for his baseball skills, no teammates nagging about how much time he spends ‘doing nothing’ at Tsuna’s house, no Kyōya sending death warrants over the smallest slights against his arbitrary rules. Yes, he misses Kyōya, but he misses the Kyōya from before his father died and the hunts started, not the Kyōya that was so paranoid he practically kicked them all out of Nami Island the moment Kawahira vanished.

Having few friends is alright. He’d rather have the rest of the Vongola in his contacts instead of just Hayato and the Varia, but he will get there. There is time, one day Samē will have to stop the overprotectiveness and Takeshi will be free to go look for his friends.

Ryōhei rejecting him, though…

“…He didn’t seem to recognize me.” He thinks back on the meeting with their wayward senpai, of how Ryōhei had all but run away from him while looking like he saw a ghost. “Maybe, he doesn’t remember?”

“It is possible.” Takeshi moves his phone so Hayato’s voice comes from right beside him, like the old times when they would commiserate on Tsuna’s amazing luck for getting into trouble somehow or other. Hayato is the only one who understands him. “My memories didn’t come back all at the same time, for a long time I could only remember the T— Tsuna.”

“Yeah, same. I mostly remembered the Varia at first, maybe because they took me in?”

He looks at the family chat again and, indeed, Lussuria sent something. He scrolls up to see if anything more interesting was said, but no, it is the same as always:

Put the V in Vendetta (7)

<6 hours ago> samechan (Squalo): going to the meeting now, dont call me

<6 hours ago> samechan (Squalo): takeshi can call once he is done with his hero thing. everyone else is on thin ice

<6 hours ago> Not Amehara Shinzou (Lussuria): Favoritism is truly the climax of love~

<6 hours ago> outside rn don’t ping me (Fran_kenstein): should i hide in the meeting room

<6 hours ago> samechan (Squalo): i thought you were already here

<6 hours ago> not spying on the meeting don’t ping me (Fran_kenstein): done

<6 hours ago> Fake Thor (Levi): Found an assassin. Bringing it downstairs now.

<6 hours ago> The Prince (Bel): on it

<unknown> unknown (unknown): diiiiid u guys want sushi or eamen my rreat since im nearby

<4 hours ago> Fake Thor (Levi): Gesso. Get out of our chat.

<2 hours ago} the cutest (mammon): <Image: A completed miniature model of a plane atop the box it came in, multiple tools are scattered around it. Amehara Kasumi’s hand makes a peace sign in a corner.>

<2 hours ago> The Prince (Bel): i win tho <Image: A blood-splattered metal table and a dirty knife, with Amehara Ran’s, Bel’s signature crown in pristine condition placed in the centre of the largest splatter. Said splatter is… big. More blood seeps on the table from an unknown source.>

<2 hours ago> Fake Thor (Levi): One day your phone will get confiscated and no one will be able to help you.

<2 hours ago> the cutest (mammon): 😠😡😠😡🦨🔪🔪🐍

<2 hours ago> The Prince (Bel): what animal is that ill see you in the parking lot at 4am

<2 hours ago> samechan (Squalo): on thinner ice

<1 minute ago> Not Amehara Shinzou (Lussuria): Takeshi appeared in private and didn’t show his face here, how rude. He is alright and thinks he passed his hero exam thing, but why won’t he come say it here? Admit you miss us~ Should we break into UA to rescue you like our damsel in distress? <Image: Amehara Shinzou, better known as ‘Lussuria’, pouting at the camera while holding a small banner that says ‘Fight, Takeshi!’ in glitter.>

<Just now> kirisame (ayt80): i live, was going to call when the oldest gets out of prison

<Just now> kirisame (ayt80): you dont need to come here its ok im ok luss

“What are you looking at?” Hayato sounds even more uninterested and stops typing, and it is so obvious he wants to know what has him groaning in exasperation that Takeshi laughs. The familiarity of it all makes his chest hurt.

“Our family chat?” Calling the Varia ‘family’ will never not be weird now that most of his memories of the Tenth Generation are back, but it is what they are. Family, Famiglia… A group of misfits joined together by circumstances. “Kasumi and Bel are competing again.”

“I thought he fights against Fran?”

“Fran is spying on Samē’s meeting so he can’t join in! They are super cute—“

“I’m glad.” Hayato’s smile is almost audible through the phone, but Takeshi can see it clearly in his mind. It is that expression, soft and open and pure relief for someone else, the kind of face Hayato only showed Tsuna once upon a time. “It is better now, isn’t it?”

“Hm… No, not really.” Even though Hayato can’t see him, Takeshi shrugs. In the family chat, Samē is typing something, so he will probably have to hang up soon. “I’m missing people. Many people. I don’t think it will be alright until I have them around.”

“…I guess that’s fair.” Hayato sighs and possibly lights another cigarette. “People… Turfhead, he is probably protecting his mind, unconsciously. That’s why he doesn’t remember.”

“Oh. So in order to not miss people, he just doesn’t remember them?”

“Yeah.” So, like Takeshi did before coming to the Ameharas, not remembering anything from both his current and past lives in order to not suffer. “I… have seen him, through Fūta’s live streams. He… looks well.”

“In the boards? Fūta is around as well?”

“Yes, apparently he is siblings with the Sasagawas.”

“That’s so unfair? Why do you get to know about this while I don’t—“

“You are an Amehara.” Hayato enunciates his surname carefully, and Takeshi understands. His family is not precisely known for doing things subtly, and if they get found out interacting with the ‘conspiracy’, even if it’s just Takeshi… “You need to watch your actions. I know you don’t want to, but—“

“I know, I know.” He looks at the family chat again; Samē is still typing, though it will probably be a short message he has rewritten a dozen times over. “I just… I don’t know how they are, except for the Varia. It bothers me.”

“…Fūta is doing well, he is still in the information business.” Hayato sighs and there is a noise through the phone, a laptop closing shut and a heavy-duty device slowly powering down. “Kyōko, she is active on our side. I’m not sure what she does. She is with Ryōhei, though, so you can stop worrying about them.”

“Kyōko is?”

“She is, and Hana as well. I don’t know how long they were alone, before, but now… They are together, and we are Vongola. We care for our own, Takeshi, they will be fine.”

“So… We shouldn’t try to bring him back.”

“He made his choice. Maybe it will change, but for now we should leave him be.”

“And Fūta? Kyōko?”

“Fūta had been in the Mafia for longer than you. Kyōko is twenty, she can take care of herself.” Hayato voices a small growl, the one he does when he is frustrated with something. “I— I refuse to bring anyone back if they aren’t ready to face the truth.”

Takeshi sighs and, through the phone, he can hear Hayato open a door. A woman’s voice, distant yet amused, comes through the speakers and Hayato replies to her, muffled as he is covering his mic. He knows he doesn’t have much of Hayato’s time left, and he also knows Samē will come hounding him like a vengeful ex-wife soon, so he says the last he wants to say before they have to hang up.

“You grew up, Hayato.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means.”

“…I’m hanging up. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

And like that, Hayato is gone. Takeshi looks at his phone, at the countless notifications from his class’s group chat, at Hayato’s messages that consist of photos of red-coloured things—beautifully framed, as this is Hayato, their local prodigy—, and then rolls on his side to look at the tablet again.

Put the V in Vendetta (7)

<Just now> samechan (Squalo): im out, group call now before i have to go back to work

Takeshi smiles, a small thing as it never was in a past lifetime, and gets himself ready to deal with his family’s annoying overprotectiveness.

Todoroki Tōya, nowadays known simply as Dabi, carefully steps around the moaning, burnt forms on the ground to get out of this dirty alleyway. He was supposed to recruit today, but the anger got the best of him and he ended up burning them all; a pity, but not a loss for the League, so there isn’t much to do about it.

Making sure he isn’t seen by either side of the coin, he makes his way back to their hideout: he is tired, and his poor body won’t be able to last much longer today. He overdid it earlier, and then even earlier before that, and he’s starting to believe it was a bad idea to come out today.

Is the Provisional License Exam over yet? Probably, but they had nothing planned for that event so it doesn’t matter. The next event that Dabi has to care about is the meeting with the Shie Hassaikai, a week from now—

“Everyone, change of plans,” Shigaraki says the moment Dabi steps into the building, almost as if he had been waiting for him to arrive. At least that means everyone else is also back. “The Shie Hassaikai is gone. Prepare to meet Shiro instead.”

There is a collective groan around the room, from Himiko to Kurogiri; the black fog even slams his ‘head’ against the bar counter, much to Magne’s concern, but there isn’t much they can do about a cumulus of fog harming himself. Twice cheers, then protests, then cheers again, and Mr. Compress throws back a shot of a honey-coloured liquid. Spinner is probably the only one not feeling the absolute dread of meeting Shiro, simply because he has never had the pleasure of interacting directly with the nuisance.

Shiro is an annoyance. No one likes dealing with Shiro. Dabi knows for a fact not even Shiro’s allies like dealing with Shiro: most of the boards will yell at him endlessly whenever he does anything. Even the most affable of them, arguably Mods Kyoko and niharu, get annoyed at Shiro’s antics, and that’s saying a lot for two people who are constantly trying to keep people from fighting over the most controversial topics.

However, meeting Shiro they will do soon, and it is pre-planned: Shigaraki holds a white feather between two fingers, rubbing it in consideration. The feather is beautiful and fluffy, shimmering with all colours of the rainbow as it moves under the light—nothing like the chicken’s feathers, those tend to be hard and straight once they leave his body since he uses them as swords.

Shiro’s calling card is gorgeous, but the man himself is a disaster and that’s why they all dread meeting with him. He can talk circles around them for hours, the only one who is adept at talking to him is Shigaraki—All for One could also deal with him well enough, but their so-called Leader is currently in prison. Since the League of Villains became a thing, Shiro has called maybe three or four times, but those few times were more than enough to leave behind a terrible impression on everyone else.

However, and being completely honest, Dabi thinks Shiro is alright. He will never admit to it because no thank you, he will get murdered by his benefactor and the League, but he finds the man hilarious. Anyone who can get on Shigaraki’s nerves as frequently as Shiro does, without even being present, with a single mention of their name, is alright in Dabi’s mind.

Sadly, he is currently part of the League of Villains.

“He is coming here? Physically?” He asks Shigaraki once he has taken a seat right beside the man, on his left side, because that’s where he belongs nowadays. He is still building rapport, but he is quite comfortable where he is right now, thank you. “He left Europe?”

“He came here to deal with the Yakuza,” Shigaraki says, closing his fist around the feather. As expected, it only glows in streaks of green lightning instead of disintegrating into nothingness—the reminder that Shigaraki Tomura isn’t stronger than ‘Shiro’ makes him kick a chair. “Bah, he can do whatever.”

“He will probably ask about the human experimentation,” adds Kurogiri once he is done slamming his foggy head on the counter. If a cloud could look concerned, Kurogiri would do so, but instead his concern stains his voice. “You have claimed Japan as your turf, and that man hunts down anyone who dares experiment with people.”

“What the Shie Hassaikai did was not my fault?”

“But you have claimed Japan as your turf.”

Shigaraki groans, covering his face with a hand before he snaps back to his usual self. He raises his legs to cross them on the chair and leans backwards, balancing precariously on two unstable supports.

“Alright, Shiro.” He snaps his fingers to get everyone’s attention, and so begins the meeting. “We know what he wants to talk about, so…”

The meeting goes on for far too long and Dabi, who has been tired all day, can barely pay attention. They get released to do what they want eventually and, while he would like nothing more than to go to bed and let the borrowed Flames in his borrowed ring restore him to a relatively more functional state, he heads outside and ‘wanders’.

He ‘wanders’ for some streets until he leaves their shady neighbourhood, then ‘wanders’ some more until he reaches a colourful, bright building in a slightly better neighbourhood. He makes sure to give the middle finger to Kurogiri, who has been stalking him since he left, and then enters the building without hiding his steps.

Make Shigaraki, Kurogiri and the League think he is a deviant who wastes what little money he has on prostitutes, he doesn’t care. His cover backstory is different from that, but let them believe what they want.

As always, the establishment is as colourful as its outside but the lights are of a darker hue, casting the room into its usual seductive and secretive mood. Deeper inside he can hear giggles and squeals, so he tries to close his ears to that. A blue light shines on a circular counter almost in the middle, and the woman there smiles at him brightly and offers him a drink.

“We~lco~me!” As expected, her make-up is heavy and she is scantily clad. The drink she gives him is bright pink. “It has been a while, Dabi-chan.”

It really has. He hasn’t come here since he met Himiko and they became ‘best buddies’ surviving the rotten Hero world.

“Just been busy.” He offers his hand to the woman for a high-five and she runs her fingers down his palm, seductively and with a sultry smile. He just looks at her with a blank face, sipping at his drink slowly until she looks away with a giggle. “Is Requin here?”

“You never come to see me, how cruel.” She doesn’t look too offended, though, and directs him to the door directly to her right. “I don’t have to instruct you in our customer code of conduct and hourly rates, do I?”

“Salana, I grew up here.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t forget.” She laughs, high and girlish, and leans closer to wrap an arm around his neck and kiss his cheek. “You should come for me someday, I will make it worth your while.”

“Sorry, you’re not my type.”

“Aw.”

Finally, finally he feels Kurogiri leave, and he thinks he can hear him grumbling about ‘how is he supposed to report this to Shigaraki Tomura’. Dabi heads deeper into the establishment, through the right door, past some closed doors (thankfully soundproof) and down a set of stairs. There is another wide room here, though it has little tables set up and a stage with a pole right in the middle, and it is thankfully empty. Another scantily clad girl, this one a little too young to be here, takes his glass and gives him another one (bright green this time) with a wink, pointing to another corridor, before she saunters off.

Why is this place so big? He goes through a beaded curtain, being careful to not rip it off, and then he is finally where he is meant to be: the door has a little yellow charm hanging from the handle. He knocks, and a voice that most definitely does not belong to a woman calls for him to enter.

The room is… far too big, but at least it has proper lighting: he doesn’t know what he would do if he had to squint through the low-coloured lights any longer, his eyes aren’t something that will ever get better. It is still ridiculously big, but it is a premium love hotel room, and the bed is enough to reveal how expensive it is: it sits almost at the centre of the room, a round monstrosity decorated with a feathery red bed runner, and Dabi knows from experience it is just as soft as it looks. There is a small table, a couch and a mini-bar to the side, and that’s where he goes to look for something to make his drink less poisonous looking.

“Not even a greeting?”

“Gimme a moment.”

He dilutes his drink with even more alcohol and sits in front of the table. In front of him, Amehara Samē—Requin, Dabi’s benefactor, one of the most powerful men in Japan, lounges on a comfortable-looking loveseat. His legs are crossed at the ankle and placed atop the table, already holding three bottles of wine and a bunch of papers Amehara should probably be working on, but he can do what he wants. He looks like a decadent lady from the 1900s down to the make-up, a high-quality wig thrown atop the bed along with a heavy coat, and his outfit is loose enough it disguises most of the muscles underneath.

Not that he needs to disguise anything, considering what his disguise in this building is meant to be: ‘Requin’ is one of the few men who work here, usually at the bar, though as a sex worker at times. The real ‘Requin’ apparently worked here until some months back, here and as a body double that Amehara Shinzō raised for their older brother, but he got sent away to spy on ‘some annoyances’ and steal a lion. Since then, ‘Requin’ has mostly been Amehara the eldest’s face when he needs to contact his ‘spies’.

Dabi isn’t a spy, his ideals just happen to be similar to Amehara’s own. Ultimately, there are lots of people like them, people who oppose the Hero System, and many of them don’t wish to fully commit to Villainy or Vigilantism to change it, so they prefer to try their luck with Amehara. Dabi has no problem with it, but he is also in a rather annoying position of owing a life debt to this man, and he likes to repay his debts in full.

Besides, the whole triple/quadruple agent thing is very fun. It stresses him to no end, but it keeps him entertained and is a pain in the Commission’s flawless organization. He would probably be long dead, or at least barely functional, if not for the Sun Flames held in the ring keeping him in a relatively stable condition; feeding information to this man and his particular brand of ‘insane’ seems like a good enough exchange.

Dabi takes a sip from his drink, now far less sweet, and tries to peek at the papers on the table. Amehara doesn’t bother covering them: seems like a report on soon-to-graduate Hero Candidates, some names highlighted. Probably recruitment, then.

“Did you know the Shie Hassaikai is gone?”

“Oh? Is this a new development?” Amehara’s voice is usually gratingly loud in public, but right now he is pretending to be ‘Requin’ so he speaks in the rare smooth tone that has so many people swooning over him.

“Maybe?” Dabi shrugs, he doesn’t know when Shigaraki figured it out or when the feather reached his hands. “It was Shiro’s work, so it could have happened anytime last week.”

“Hah, that damn—“ Amehara clenches his fist around his glass tight enough to crack it. “We tell him to not come here and what does he do, I swear all these fucking children—“

“Isn’t he your age?” Whenever he hears about ‘Shiro’, it seems like his achievements go decades back from how many there are, so surely he isn’t younger than twenty?

“What? No,” Amehara shakes his head, taking another glass from atop the mini-bar and serving himself more wine. “He’s like 15–“

What?

“—Baby Boss was 15, too—“

What!?

“—all of them, crazy, stupid—“

Dabi just listens to his benefactor’s rambles, in shock. Shiro, the underworld magnate of almost all of Europe, is how old?

Shishikura Sēji isn’t a classmate of Raimē Jun. He has never been, he will never be—unless the boy somehow manages to skip a grade, but hopefully that never happens—and he doesn’t want to be, but he has to accept the boy is a force of nature in his own right and little can be done to stop him. Quirk aside, Raimē Jun has built himself a reputation that is as strong as his shield, and Sēji isn’t the only one who isn’t ever in the mood to go against him.

This is why today, at Shiketsu’s yearly post-Provisional License Exam debriefing meeting, he does little and nothing to stop their returnee schoolmate from loudly berating Nagamasa while picking apart every single flaw in the strategy they had previous to the Exam. The strategy fell apart on its own once they were told the rules of the first phase, with both their first years going ‘I told you so’ in their own loud ways, and then they weren’t able to recover in time.

Well, they recovered, but by then they had lost sight of their targets. It is all for the better, though: Sēji is pretty sure he wouldn’t have passed the first half if not for their underclassman’s tactics.

The Exam had only proved that they all need more awareness training: it didn’t take their underclassmen a minute to adapt to the Exam’s rules, and one of the first things they did was gather the rest of them under the shield before they set out on their own. Nagamasa’s Class Representative role has little weight against Hero Candidate Lambo’s ‘Ruthless Strategist’ moniker, especially on the field, and so they all ended up following after the boy.

They were only five and, apart from Nagamasa, they were all willing to follow their underclassman’s commands from the beginning. The problem was hierarchy, as Nagamasa was their assigned field commander: Shiketsu tends to be rather strict when it comes to such things. Still, no plan survives enemy contact after all and, though Camie was acting very weird through all of the Exam (they now know she wasn’t actually Camie), they still managed.

They passed the first half, of course. That doesn’t mean their tactics haven’t been over-analyzed and picked apart from the moment they entered the building to the very end, starting with Nagamasa’s actions. That’s what they are working on right now, with Jun’s voice loudly overpowering that of their teacher for the better part of the last hour.

He is a curious child, that one. The youngest of his class, of all the 1st Year students in Shiketsu, and yet his way of acting is that of someone much older. Not by much, no—he is annoyingly bratty and tends to throw tantrums if people don’t do what he wants—, but the difference in experience is telling. Few people know that ‘Lambo’ has been on the Hero track since his early school years wherever he grew up, enrolled in one of those foreign military-like schools that are supposed to be for Hero training (they are for the military, everyone with eyes can tell even though the world as a whole sees armed forces as something obsolete; Heroes are far more important nowadays, which is why those schools claim the title of ‘Hero Training Facilities’, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are for the military); Sēji had only learned about it from overhearing one of their teachers. The little madman had been praised as a natural-born Hero despite his grades and it is hard to deny him his superiority.

His lack of dignity, however, is still annoying. Here he is, taking up three spaces because his horns are ridiculously big, still rambling about everything that could have gone wrong with his obnoxiously childish way of speaking and high voice. The grape juice boxes and assorted candy he brought in are all gone by now, as he is one of those people who tends to need lots of sugar when stressed. If it wasn’t for the Shiketsu uniform and the literal gun strapped to it, he would look like a petulant child pouting at his siblings to be allowed to have the last say.

At times he will straighten, attempting to look down on them with his whole height of the shortest in the room, and then Sēji will feel like he is in the presence of a foreign prince, of a leader from ages long past. His eyes and voice will harden for a short time, mostly when he thinks one of their actions was really, really dumb, and a single glance from him is enough to make their teacher go meek and quiet. The grace in his movements as he paces from one corner of the table to the other looks completely natural then, and it is unnerving how everyone will bow to him and his whims from hearing his voice alone.

(That’s what they, Hero Candidates, should aspire to be. That’s why Sēji is willing to follow him, no matter what.)

However, then he will clench his fists and start yelling once more, back to his usual bratty self. Mildly unsettling, but Sēji has seen weirder things: mood swings aren’t anything special.

He hasn’t been able to get a single word out in the past hour. Most of them have rarely spoken. Camie hums in acceptance of his words at times as she kicks her legs, distraught; Nagamasa has curled on himself like some weird hair monster, the only teacher left in the room is one of those who has been inside Jun’s pocket since day one. Inasa is the only one who seems unaffected by the unnatural mood changes and the constant berating, but Inasa is also Jun’s classmate, so he is probably used to this. Used to the wild gesturing, the occasional frustrated screams, the teary eyes the boy has at times when he gets distracted and mentions how so-and-so mistake could lead to their death.

What happened to you, Sēji wants to ask at times when he sees that. What kind of childhood did this boy, younger than him, younger than most of the school, go through for him to be worried about the most insignificant mistakes? Ever since he met Jun, Sēji has wondered what he was truly meant to be; what, exactly, had his ‘home’ country wanted to make out of him? What kind of life made this child become a soldier in an era when soldiers barely exist?

“Senpai?”

Sēji startles out of his own thoughts, noticing the horn in front of him. He turns to Jun, slightly stiff from long minutes of sitting without moving, and sees him grinning in a way that makes him look at least five whole years younger.

“What.”

“Was asking if you wanted to train with us?”

“Oh.” He looks at their teacher—sweating, dabbing a handkerchief to his forehead as he taps away at a tablet with despair on his face—, at Inasa who is already picking up their things, at Nagamasa who has his arms crossed and grumbles under his breath, and at Camie who is trying to cheer up Nagamasa by talking to him about inane topics. Who is ‘us’? “With who…?”

“Me, ‘nasa, Camie, Liu An.” Jun points at himself, then Inasa, Camie, then at the door. “Today is martial arts.”

Well, it can only help to get more training, right? Raimē Jun might be mysterious at times, endlessly bratty at others, an attempt at a child soldier from a foreign country and terrible at school, but he knows his counters. He might be better at using ranged weapons than fighting hand-to-hand, but he does have some skills in that area, and it is never a mistake to try and get through his defences. Their underclassman made himself a shield in all senses of the word, and it is perfect for offensive training.

Besides, it is always nice to watch Liu An train: she might not be a Hero course student like them, but she is strong enough that most 3rd Years call her ‘sensē’ when it comes to martial arts. Sēji and some of his classmates occasionally join her club when no teachers can guide their training sessions, simply because the way she teaches is way better than some other mentors all of them have had throughout their lives.

“Sure.” He nods and makes an odd face when he sees Inasa lift a cheering Camie without a sound and put her on his arm. “What is he…”

“Lifting weights?” Jun shrugs as he throws his coat (not part of the uniform and clearly against regulations, but no one dares say anything about it) over his shoulders, holding it in place with a thick, but not gaudy, chain. His outfit doesn’t help the ‘Jun is actually a government spy in their school’ at all, though he looks more like those Mafioso from movies set in the 1800s or one of those film noir protagonists. “He does it at times, it’s mostly me he picks up though.”

“You weigh less than my school books.”

Sēji collects his things as the boy laughs and laughs, waltzing around the table and poking fun at Nagamasa’s stubbornness until their classmate gives up and flees. The teacher also escapes after confirming they can use one of the training rooms, and just like that their plans for the afternoon are set.

Liu An is waiting for them outside the door, leaning against a wall almost immobile except for her arm, doing one-handed katas. No part of her body moves except for her arm up to the shoulder, a display of mastery over her own movements rarely seen in someone as young as her. Anyone would feel jealous upon seeing her, the way she moves with grace and strength, commanding attention from her presence alone.

Jun grasps her arm when she is starting to speed up her kata, twining their fingers together as he leans on his tiptoes to kiss her cheek. The third year blushes brightly but kisses his own back, and only then does she acknowledge the others in their group.

“I take these are my students today?” She smiles with her usual politeness and bows to them in a perfect customer service bow. “It's nice to see you again, kōhai.”

“Liu~ An!” Camie jumps off Inasa’s arm and hugs the Chinese girl, spinning them around—or trying to, as the third year probably weighs more than Inasa out of pure muscle. “Are you showing us that grapple today?”

“Ah, was thinking maybe some Kung Fu today?”

She… isn’t exactly beautiful, maybe above average but still not as pretty as Camie or Jun with his prince charming aesthetic, but she still makes heads turn (Sēji will never admit out loud that he is one of them). Her long, shiny black hair is often done in two braids and held up in place either in buns or pinned to the back of her head, for comfort. The freckles on her pale skin just make her look younger than she actually is, and her constant smile or confused pouts don’t help at all.

She is Chinese, and her uniform adapted slightly with a cheongsam neckline—it hurts Sēji’s sensibilities, but he wouldn’t dare go against something like patriotism of all things; besides, she always wears the hat, even indoors, so at least that’s something. There are many uncouth rumours going around about her, mostly about her relationship with First Year Raimē Jun (unconfirmed) and what her Quirk is (some say explosions, others say she has a corrosive red aura she manipulates through her movements). What they know, as in confirmed information about their General Studies Third Year martial artist, is that she was born in Qing Qing City, then spent her childhood in Hong Kong before moving to Japan for Middle School.

Most people wouldn’t say she was raised in Hong Kong, though: her Japanese, English and Italian are perfect, she barely has an accent and she knows their customs better than some Japanese raised in Japan do. Then again, she is childhood friends with Jun, another one who people wouldn’t be able to tell was raised somewhere else. Maybe they are part of an exclusive ‘foreigners with no accent’ group, but either way they have all welcomed the two of them as fellow Shiketsu students.

They are Shiketsu students, students who stand higher than anyone else, those who act like the leaders of old. They are the future, what everyone should aim to become, and Sēji would bow at their feet if only he could.

“Hello, Liu An-sensē!” Inasa greets her brightly, wrapping his arm around the girls’ shoulders and lifting them slightly off the ground with a grunt. “We were going over our performance on the Exam! We have many things to fix.”

“It is mostly in strategy, not form?” Jun grabs his bag from Inasa’s shoulder and throws it over his own, the coat somehow remaining in place. “But as always, we could use some extra training.”

“Senpai,” Sēji finally greets her with a small bow and joins them as they begin walking down the hall. “I will be in your care today.”

“Sēji-kun is always so polite to me,” she says with a giggle, patting his shoulder. She isn’t taller than him, but it is close enough it just looks odd. “I’m glad I can fulfil your expectations.”

“You are one of the best students this school has ever had,” he admits, definitely not blushing. “It would be remiss of me to ignore this.”

“Remiss or not, I’m just happy this humble ramen delivery girl can stand next to our proud Hero Candidates—“

“That’s enough, I-Pin…” Jun sighs from where he is still hanging on to her, and she laughs and dislodges him so she can wrap her arm around his waist.

“Lambo is also a proud Hero Candidate, isn’t he?”

Sēji partly stops listening because he doesn’t want to intrude on their flirting, but Camie watches them closely with a bright smile on her lips while Inasa blushes so red he looks like he is on fire. It is a little funny, or it would be if they weren’t flirting in the middle of a school hallway—although, there is… no one around?

Sēji isn’t the only one who notices the oddity. The others are all on guard, limbs stiff and frowns on their faces, except for Jun who looks as relaxed as he usually is when not training or on the field. He still stops and pulls out his shield, the thing encasing all of them inside its lightning-like glow.

There is a man walking towards them, smiling brightly and with a bundle of something in his arms. He is… curious, elegant while also haggard looking, like some sort of archeologist from old-school movies: he wears a casual green yukata and a checker-patterned hat, both looking like they have seen better days. His hair is long, white and uneven, and he has round glasses over his indigo-coloured eyes. There is a nasty scar that runs from his cheek down his neck and disappears into the yukata, and his one visible hand is covered in Lichtenberg figures.

Altogether, and despite how put together his outfit looks, he doesn’t look like he belongs in polite society, even less in Shiketsu. Maybe it is the way his eyes are narrowed as they look at him, how his smile doesn’t reach them at all, or how he practically stalks towards them with an unknown intent. Maybe it is how Liu An holds her arm out to keep the rest of them behind her. Maybe it is how Jun pulled out his shield the moment the man appeared. Either way, he is dangerous.

The man steps right outside the shield, not daring to put a hand atop the seemingly electric barrier.

“Young Master Raimē Jun, just the person I was looking for!” His voice sounds fake, not just because he sounds like a liar, but because it doesn’t seem real. As if stuck in the middle of the uncanny valley, something that should and should not be at the same time, human yet inhuman. “You are certainly difficult to find—“

“I have been here all day,” Jun says, subtly moving to protect Liu An. Liu An, easily their strongest fighter, whose fingers tremble even if she stands strong in front of her underclassmen. “What do you want.”

“Well, see,” the man offers the bundle like a gift, holding it with both hands before adjusting his hold so he can remove the cloth covering it. “I was at an excavation the other day, in Germany. We were looking for old ruins, but found an interesting cache of early 21st Century technology buried near them?”

The bundle reveals itself to be a bazooka, though a rather… toy-like one. The shape is that of one, a cylindrical device with a grip before the trigger and the shoulder rest after a small gap. Apart from that, it doesn’t have anything that would make it a viable weapon: it has no sight, the distance between the grip and the shoulder rest is probably fit for a young child, and it is purple.

Bazookas haven’t been in use in centuries, but Sēji likes history and weaponry is part of history. He recognizes the small, toy-sized weapon for what it is, but nothing else about it makes sense.

“And that has to do with me, how exactly?”

Jun draws his gun, the gun he owns and has registered as part of his support arsenal but rarely uses in training or otherwise. He prefers grenades, everyone in Shiketsu’s Hero course knows he prefers grenades and most people think the gun is just for show, but no: it is a taser, but an odd, ranged one. Sēji knows, because he has overheard from the staff and some of the Support students, that the thing is strong enough to kill a man.

(Why do they let Jun run around with it at all?)

“Well…” The man pats his legs as if looking for something, then frowns and sighs in disappointment. “I found something similar in some old records from the Tuscan Bovino family. You descend from them, don’t you?”

Tuscan… Tuscany. Where is Tuscany, Italy? Was it Italy where Jun grew up? He heard it somewhere, some time ago, but he doesn’t remember…

“And if I do?” Well, that is as much of a confirmation as any.

“I just thought perhaps you could help me?” His words, his voice, it all sounds like he won’t take a ‘no’ for an answer. “You are easy to meet compared to the rest of your family, see, I don’t have to do a ton of paperwork to meet an old woman who is practically royalty—Nobility isn’t even a thing nowadays, why is she so guarded—“

“What do you need help with.” Jun speaks harshly, his shield moving forward to make the man step back and away from them.

“You should have more records, right? Can you help me figure out what this is?”

Jun doesn’t reply, and the man doesn’t drop his fake amiable smile. It seems to be a stalemate, but they are clearly at a disadvantage: Jun has been yelling, yet no one has come to see what the commotion is. There is no one around, not their Hero teacher who should have noticed something is going on—he is old and retired from Hero work but he is still a Hero—, not their classmates who should be either leaving their review sessions to join their club activities or going home, not any other teacher who usually walk these hallways watching out for Quirk usage outside of their classrooms.

They could escape through the window, but when Sēji looks at it there is a large expanse of emptiness past it.

“You already know what it is,” Jun eventually says, clicking the safety off his gun at his side. The man shrugs, letting the cloth fall off the bazooka so he can press the barrel against the shield.

None of them dare to move.

“I do, but thanks for confirming it for me.”

“Kawahira, you—!”

It all happens in maybe a second. Jun breaks his shield, lifts his gun and shoots, a small ball of tightly compressed electricity flying at the speed of light towards the man. At the same time, the man clicks the trigger on the bazooka, and it— it doesn’t do anything except shoot out smoke, dense brightly coloured smoke aimed at their youngest Hero Candidate, the most talented, the one who could lead the new generation of Heroes into greater heights—

Sēji doesn’t think, he has no time in the second when it all happens. He shoves Liu An’s arm and Jun out of the way, and gets hit by the smoke. It wraps around him, muffling the sounds of the others yelling around him—

And then the smoke fades away like it was never there.

And maybe it wasn’t, because he is suddenly in an open space.

This isn’t Shiketsu.

In fact, this doesn’t look like anywhere Sēji has ever been: he stands in the middle of a clearing, the heavy weight of a Quirk inhibitor field on his shoulders, surrounded by gigantic trees of reddish wood and bright green leaves. A fire, or rather purple clouds contained in the vague shape of a fire, burns merrily atop a stone pillar in front of him, and it isn’t the only one: there are a few other stone pillars around the clearing in what seems to be a circle, each holding their own oddly-coloured flames.

“What—“

“Oh,” says a voice from behind him, and he quickly turns around as he forces his oddly tired body into a defensive stance. “You are… not expected.”

Raimē Jun, or someone who looks a lot like him, stands in front of Sēji: he is older, thinner, and barely looks alive. His skin is a sickly grey, half his head made of wrongly-healed burn scars and he has heavy shadows under his eyes, yet the eyes are the same shocking shade of green, and he smiles as brightly as Jun does at times. He holds himself with effortless grace and he doesn’t look away from Sēji as he steps closer

The similarities between Jun and this man are easy to see. It is the way he walks, graceful like a noble, the way he looks down on the world as if he was meant to stand at the very top. It is the way he fiddles with his thumb, or where his thumb would be if it wasn’t missing, and the way he easily holds the gun at his side. He has no horns, and the Shiketsu uniform is gone in favour of an expensive-looking tailored suit, but the coat thrown over his shoulders is almost exactly the same—older, ripped in places, but the colours and shape are identical with one exception: the chain that holds it in place, usually of pristine gold, is covered in rust and has some broken links.

Standing in the Quirk inhibitor field as he is, Sēji can’t defend himself as he would like to, but he should be able to move. He can’t. He can’t step forward, he can’t take a step back, he can only stand here in this spot holding his arms up. It is a useless defence against a gun, though.

“Where did you come from?” The man asks with a tilt of his head, the same as Jun. “No one besides us should be able to come here.”

“Where is ‘here’?” Sēji thinks he deserves to know: a few seconds ago he was in Shiketsu, walking to the training grounds, and then there was a man in the midst of nothingness, and there was smoke, and now he is here with this man who looks like his underclassman. “Who are you?”

“Hm?” The man looks around himself, at the clearing, at the fires, as if he is seeing it all for the very first time. “I’m Lambo. This is Namimori.”

Shit, is the first thing that crosses through Sēji’s mind upon hearing those words. ‘Lambo’, Raimē Jun’s Hero name, could be explained as a coincidence: ‘Lambo’ is a word that has existed for ages, in other languages and even in Japanese—Lamborghinis are still a thing after all these years. ‘Namimori’, however, is another thing altogether: it is a place, an island very close to home, a black hole in history and maps well known for not liking outsiders.

It explains why he can feel the Quirk inhibitors all around him, why he can feel eerie eyes constantly on his back, why he can barely move. If he is somehow in Namimori…

“Ah, this is just a placeholder,” the man, Lambo, adds as if that made things better. “It is Namimori, stuck between times and worlds, simply here as a way to have a place where those hit by the Bazooka can land— Does that make any sense?”

“No.” It really doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter. Any moment now, ‘Shishikura Sēji’ will cease to exist, killed by Namimori’s hellish guardians that make sure no outsider comes in or that no one ever goes out without permission. He will become one of those creatures of nightmares that children's tales tell about, warnings against approaching Nami Island or anyone who claims to be from it.

“That’s fair, I doubt the world has made any sense in the past, ah, how long has it been now…” Lambo steps closer until he stands right before Sēji and then, carefully and gently, lowers his arms out of their defensive stance with one of his own. The gun remains dangling from his other hand, a threat in anything but name. “Two centuries? Something more? You should relax, Shishikura Sēji.”

He flinches, but can’t do anything more apart from that. He can’t move, can’t speak, can’t make sense of his own thoughts.

“You got hit by the Bazooka,” the man says as he helps Sēji lower himself to sit down and lean on the stone pillar, his trembling legs unable to hold his weight in place. “It should bring you ten years into the future, but the world you live in does not have a future in that time period.”

“That—“ He swallows. He doesn’t understand: time Quirks are rare, terrifyingly strong no matter what they do, but for an item to have that power, an item that was supposedly recovered from a two-centuries-old dig…

And what does it mean, for ‘their world’ to not have a future? What’s that supposed to mean?

“But you shouldn’t be here.” The man continues speaking, almost as if he is musing to himself, words not aimed at anyone at all. “Only those with Flames should be able to enter and leave this space— Ah, could you be one of us?”

Lambo presses one of his fingers, crackling with lightning of a colour similar to his eyes, against Sēji’s forehead. He closes his eyes tightly, but can’t feel any sort of pain from the contact—all he feels is warmth, a sharp yet welcoming warmth that settles deep into his skin and floats in his mind like heavy clouds.

“There. Now you can leave once the five minutes are done.” The man pats his head, once, twice, then leaves his hand resting atop Sēji’s head. He can feel the eyes on him, both from Lambo and from the eldritch creatures hiding in the woods, and all he wants to do is leave. “Do be careful, yes?”

There is a gunshot and something cries out in pain, distant yet too close. Things move around, crawling closer with soft scratches on the ground, and Sēji wants to leave. He refuses to open his eyes, refuses to see what comes after him, refuses to think.

“Try to not get caught by the Bazooka again,” Lambo says, though his voice sounds like it is coming from deep underwater. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you then.”

When he opens his eyes again, only once the feeling of countless eyes watching leaves, it is to Liu An’s looking down at him with a blank face. He blinks, she blinks, and then she is back to her usual gentle smile as she moves her finger slowly in front of his eyes, left and right.

He follows the finger. He doesn’t think he can do anything else.

“You seem alright,” she says as she helps him sit up, supporting the pillow at the back of his head so it comes up with him. “Jun, he is awake.”

They are in an empty classroom, but the man and the Bazooka are gone. There is Jun, coming closer to them with some relieved words; Inasa, apparently watching the door; and Camie, standing by the windows looking out from a gap in the curtains. He feels cold, as if all heat was stolen from his body, and his eyelids can’t seem to keep themselves separate, and he can barely hold himself upright.

Did he faint? Was it all a dream? No, he can still feel the light, fluffy warmth flooding his body, making him feel like he could stand at the top of the world with these two who act like everyone should bow under their feet. He can still feel ‘Lambo’s’ finger on his forehead, still smell the moss and wet earth of the clearing, still see the odd-coloured flames that surround his underclassman—

He flinches away from Lambo—from Jun when the boy reaches for him, and he leans away with wide eyes. He mouths some words at Liu An, who shakes her head at him, before folding his legs neatly under him, about a metre away from Sēji.

“You alright, senpai?” No, he wants to say, to admit his own weakness, but he nods his head slowly. He can feel a headache coming. “Should we go to the infirmary?”

(Why didn’t they go there in the first place?)

“I think home would be better, right now,” Inasa says, unlocking the door that was apparently kept locked while Sēji went through whatever just happened. His voice is subdued. “We can train tomorrow.”

(Where did the man and the Bazooka go?)

“I can walk Sēji-kun home. Must take care of kōhai, right?”

“An-sensē, always so considerate!” Inasa’s voice doesn’t rise above a certain level, but it still makes Sēji’s head pound painfully.

“I’ll go with you, can’t let our senpai snatch our Sēji away—“

“Signorina Camie…”

“Hush, broccoli monster.” Liu An grabs Jun’s horn and brings it down with all her strength, which is a lot for someone without a strength Quirk. The boy yelps as he ends up sprawled on the ground. “Sēji-kun lives in the dorms, so we dorm dwellers will walk him home. People with houses should just go.”

“Ah, I forgot I have to pick up Xanxus from the hospital—“

“Tomorrow after school, then?”

“Yes, yes, let’s meet tomorrow—“

(Why is the world suddenly so bright?)

The bus drops them in front of one of the HPSC’s owned training buildings, a huge thing that leaves nothing to the imagination as to what it is used for. The door is bigger than those at UA, made for giant mutation and other sort of nonsensical Quirks, and the proctor from the Provisional License Exam, Mera Yokumiru, waits for them by it.

Today begins the three-month-long Remedial Provisional License Exam Course, Katsuki’s personal hell. For three months worth of weekends, he will have to be here in close company with Half-and-Half Bastard and eleven other extras, training and fulfilling whatever the dict—the HPSC wants them to do. If the fact that he didn’t pass the Exam wasn’t enough of a blow to his pride, whatever they have to do while in here will probably be it.

However, an unexpected face waits for them outside the building, arms crossed and eyes narrowed: dear Hayato, looking like someone stepped on his cat. His favourite and only little brother is the person Katsuki least expected to see anywhere in Tōkyō these days, considering he is supposed to be in Shikoku doing who knows what. It must be nice to not have school-related responsibilities.

Hayato, in his usual ‘casual’ get-up that’s just semi-formal clothing worn sloppily, looks between Katsuki and Half-and-Half while drumming his fingers against his arms, either frustrated or annoyed or just amused. His hair is tied back, proof that he is out here for work or recon, and he has a long, thin bag hanging from his shoulder. They give each other two seconds to confirm each other’s well-being through sight alone, and then Hayato makes their infiltration sign without uncrossing his arms. Katsuki returns it before he throws an arm around his brother’s neck and brings him closer to ruffle his hair.

“But why—“

“Why are you even here, you damn support role?”

He can feel Half-and-Half Bastard watching them, his eyes flying from Katsuki to Hayato in something between wariness, worry and frustration. Well, if he wants to meet Hayato, Katsuki isn’t going to introduce him so he can fuck off.

“I’m dropping off things on request,” his adorable baby twin says, shrugging the shoulder where he has the bag before swiftly getting out of the headlock—Katsuki would never use his full strength on his brother. “Thought I could come to see how you’re doing.”

Katsuki wants to hiss, to remind his brother he is a wanted man, but they are in public and he can’t put Hayato in any more danger than he already is. The bastard knows what Hayato does in his spare time as well, Katsuki will have to threaten him or something. Maybe blackmail? What can he use, though?

From the location, he is probably running errands for Hellring—the Amehara Group’s building where the VS Boards’ mod tends to receive his more benign deliveries is a few blocks away, an antiquated eyesore to the HPSC that keeps most of their buildings near each other. They had apparently tried to buy it off them to upgrade the façade and turn it into another office building, but it was originally built more than four centuries ago and is considered a national monument. That it still stands is a miracle, that it’s still in use is even more of one, and the Amehara are proud enough of their ancient Meiji era style building that they refuse any kind of modifications on it.

Katsuki has no idea what that particular building is for, but considering the Group does whatever it wants he doesn’t want to know. He has gone there a few times when running random ‘favours’ for the insane child behind the screen, but it looks like any other office building inside. Now, why is Hayato getting involved with Hellring, anyway? Yes, everyone on the Boards knows that user uri is free to do anything since he doesn’t go to school, but many in there assume he is ‘Hurricane’ and leave him to his nonsense.

Did Hellring somehow connect Arcida and uri? Katsuki can’t run random errands for him anymore, so did he go to Hayato because they are related?

Thoughts for later.

“I just have remedial training,” he finally says, reaching for Hayato’s head to fix his hair. His baby brother doesn’t protest the treatment, even leaning subtly into Katsuki’s hands for a fraction of a second before composing himself.

See, the thing with Bakugō Katsuki and Hayato is, they are twins. Identical twins, to be exact: most of the time, the only way to tell them apart is through their eyes (Hayato wears contacts, has done since he was ten or something) and how they style their hair. Katsuki lets his own spike up wildly, the way it does naturally though he does use some gel at times, while Hayato keeps his long so it will fall flat on his head even without tying it up—he probably irons it too, but Katsuki has never caught him in the act. However, if Hayato’s hair is allowed to get messy like it does when Katsuki ruffles it, then they look exactly the same and it is annoying.

He recovers his twin brother, who is not a clone, and pats his shoulder, brushing some shimmery dust off them—he might look mild and uncaring, but Hayato has a wild temper and he produces even more explosives than Katsuki does on a good day. If left to build up, then it just goes boom, and it is beautiful but also a disaster. He’d rather not have his brother exploding when in front of the HPSC.

“You would have passed if you were more careful,” Hayato says once he takes a step back for personal space. Katsuki opens his mouth to reply, but he immediately shoots his arguments down with a whisper: “I saw the recordings.”

“You are a criminal.”

“That I am.”

The ice-and-cold bastard finally decides he has had enough and approaches them then, an attempt at a smile on his lips.

“Hello, Bakugō the youngest,” he greets, as impassive as always, offering a small bow.

“AC, hey.” Hayato raises his hand without waving as a greeting, a gesture that is awfully reminiscent of Amehara Takeshi’s own. “Unexpected. You failed as well?”

“I got into… an altercation, with another future Hero.”

“Oh?” He stands on his tiptoes, a pointless endeavour at trying to see the other Hero Candidates gathering by the door. “Which one was it—the cow?”

“The fuck?“ Katsuki also looks at the gathering students and immediately sees the outlier: Horns, the most annoying contestant in the Exam, is there cheerfully waving at the other Shiketsu students—all in perfect uniform of course, except for Horns himself. He is sure the results said, “He passed, didn’t he?”

“He destroyed half the competition,” the bastard grumbles, a puff of fire breaking past his lips. “Almost without moving, either, it was—“

“Oh, yeah, I read something about that.” Hayato pulls his phone out and taps some things, squinting at the screen when he finds what he is looking for. “Raimē Jun, Hero name Lambo, Shiketsu High. He has a perfect record in Hero studies, from the entrance exam to the Provisional License one.”

“I can’t believe I got beaten by a fucking cow,” Katsuki growls, snatching Hayato’s database off his hands. Indeed, there is a whole profile for ‘Raimē Jun’ on the screen, and Half-and-Half leans in to read it as well. “Hey, he is Italian. You could go practice with him.”

“Hah, no way.” Hayato takes his phone back and fixes the bag’s strap over his shoulder. “I’d rather deal with Fran, which is what I’ll be doing now.”

“You shouldn’t have come here in the first place,” the bastard adds, shaking his head and making a subtle motion towards Aizawa, who is quickly approaching them after his talk with the proctor. He looks not furious, no, but rather annoyed.

“Oops, caught by the annoying one.” Hayato just shrugs before waving cheerily at Aizawa, all smiles. Aizawa has met him before, sure, but that doesn’t mean he likes Hayato all that much, considering how suspicious his skills are.

That done, Hayato waves to Horns who is looking their way, and the boy brightens and waves back with both hands while signing something. Satisfied, Hayato gives Katsuki a quick hug before he rushes off, apparently unwilling to deal with Aizawa even if for just a minute.

Good.

“Your brother knows Italian?” The bastard raises an eyebrow at Katsuki, and he shoves his shitty classmate away as he makes his way to their teacher.

“He knows a lot.” Of course, he isn’t going to admit he knows Italian as well—Italian and Maltese are the two languages that make people get suspicious if you can speak them without being from either country, because of multiple reasons that don’t involve recordings of the Swordmaster, Shigaraki Tomura and the head of the European underworld speaking it. “Try not to fight with windy dude this time.”

“He started it.”

“I don’t care either way.”

Lambo Bovino dies in an indestructible bunker, with two of his older brothers at his side, hidden between Takeshi’s arms like the child he had once been. At thirty-two, he never did get any bigger than his 13-years-old self had been, barely reaching Tsuna’s height; the Disease, the one that changed his beautiful Lightning into its direct opposite, the illness they all had, made it seem as if they were stuck in time from the moment they contracted it to the end.

The others never stopped seeing him as 5-year-old Lambo, and likewise Lambo could never stop seeing them as the age they were when they stopped ageing.

There were differences, of course. Takeshi’s handsome appearance became rugged and hardened with the years, especially after Tsuna’s death and after he lost his eye. Fūta, stuck in time in his late teens, earned a permanent shadow of exhaustion that only vanished when replaced with desperation. The others as well, they only aged through wounds and dark and darker expressions, a happy and loving family gone in just a few years.

Lambo died at 32. He only remembers this because he died on I-Pin’s birthday, hidden inside an indestructible bunker they had been cornered into by their enemies. Takeshi, Fūta and himself, they thought they could last long enough under siege so long as they hid away, confident in winning the war of attrition… They forgot to take into consideration the traitors, or the poison gas stolen from Vongola armouries, or even the fact that Takeshi’s Flames had always been a ticking bomb.

He didn’t die of the Disease. He didn’t die from the poison either. He died when Takeshi gave in due to the poison, when he couldn’t hold on to the unstable Flame balance that had been his lifeline almost since birth. He died when Rain and Tundra Flames flooded the bunker in beautiful azure and icey green, listening to the painful and unneeded apologies his older brother uttered as he held them.

Not even the Flames of the last Sun Arcobaleno Candidate, Fūta della Stella, could fight back against the ocean of numb tranquillity that was Takeshi’s soul. The scale tipped to one side in a single second, and then it was all over for them.

Lambo died slowly, possibly in pain, but he didn’t feel anything: it was all a haze of numbness, his body slowly shutting down until it stopped completely.

Lambo Bovino died at thirty-two and returned to this world at five—the same age he had been when he met Tsuna, Mamma and the others. The memories of his death came back in a single night, one he had spent in solitary confinement after accidentally locking himself in one of his family’s storehouses. The endless dark, the locked room, the stale smell, the silence… He hadn’t cried, just curled up in a corner with a thin blanket and tried to forget, to ignore Takeshi’s apologies in his mind and Fūta’s sobs through his quiet reassurance, ignoring how with each minute that passed he felt his ribs tightening around his lungs.

Raimē Jun was five when his family realized there was something seriously wrong with him—he was five when he decided to lock himself inside his shield and not move for months. He was six when he was sent to live under his grandparents’ care in distant, achingly familiar Italy, and six when he got enrolled into the Accademia Toscana per Giovani Talenti, a ‘government’-run school for those with strong or uncontrollable Quirks, or any kind of talent. He was eight when he got picked up by the Italian Commissione for special training, and fifteen when he was returned to Japan to enrol into Shiketsu High.

All conspiracies that plague his life aside, he can’t say he has had a bad second chance. Sure, his parents gave him away, but the Bovino did the same two times in his previous life and he never blamed them for it. Sure, his grandparents hadn’t known what to do with him, but Lambo—Jun doesn’t know what to do with himself most of the time either, so it is Whatever. Sure, the Commissione does some rather shady stuff through him, but he has been Mafia for as long as he has known himself and he can’t care enough about Heroes to bother.

He doesn’t care. He stopped caring about things like justice long ago, and Heroes and Villains and Vigilantes are just an extension of it. All he works for is to meet his Famiglia again, and to do that he has to stay on the Japanese Commission’s good side because if he doesn’t he will get caught doing illegal shit and he doesn’t want that.

Hayato has it easier. Hayato has it way easier and, honestly, he chose the right answer to the whole Hero debacle. Jun isn’t sure what’s up with Ryōhei, but everyone else somehow got involved in troublesome nonsense and so Hayato is the only one free to move about as he pleases. Even Hibari, the boundless cloud who always felt freedom in his tiny kingdom, is now stuck in a tiny cell of his own making. Funny how things go.

Going down the list, Jun knows where everyone is right now. Hayato is a Not Vigilante. Takeshi is a Hero Candidate, same as himself, and Ryōhei is… kind of the same, but not really. Kyōya is in Namimori, where he will stay for however long he wants, needs, or is simply not allowed to leave. Tsuna, Chrome and Mukuro are fugitives from every kind of institution in the world, from the law to the Hero Commission to the League of Villains to the fabric of reality as they know it, but they are doing their own thing and will hopefully show their faces one day. Everyone else is kind of around, but he has had to dig deep into both Japanese and Italian information networks to figure out that they are safe.

He found Xanxus, too. He is his classmate Inasa’s brother, Yoarashi Xanxus, and he is ridiculously tiny. He wanted to make fun of him for a bit but, no matter what bloodline he is born to, Xanxus keeps his glare as terrifying as it had always been, even hiding behind his brother as he was, so he decided to flee before Inasa could invite him inside.

He isn’t going to tell anyone he found Xanxus, though. It was too much trouble dealing with the Varia before, it is too much trouble dealing with the Varia right now. Besides, Amehara Samē is too far up in society for Jun to reach him even as the Hero Candidate he is. He could try reaching him through Takeshi, but he isn’t in any condition, emotionally, to face Takeshi anytime soon, so that will have to wait.

Who knew trauma could have long-lasting effects?

Thankfully, he doesn’t need to look into his Family often: they all keep to their own things, and ‘Lambo’ is busy with school and trying to keep his parents from fighting each other and his grandparents now that he is back. Every once in a while he will show up on the boards, bother Hayato a bit, post pics of Mukuro’s terrifying spies and then return to his business. Every once in a while he will take a look into what Byakuran and company are doing to ruin the Italian Commission’s life while keeping eyes away from Malta. Every once in a while he will ask Enma how he is doing only to receive senseless anxiety disguised as rage-filled and uncaring complaints in return, or poke Reborn a few times until he gets tired and threatens to kill him.

Every once in a while, he contacts Kyōya. And Irie Shōichi. He’d rather not, but considering the new toy he just acquired he will have to do so.

[New! To: [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: re: re: re: re: K

>>>> im pretty sure i got visited by kawahira, he gave me the 10yb or at least a similar thing. it stole out one of my senpai then gave him back, no future seijikun to be seen. do either of you know whats up with that because im sure the 10yb is supposed to be in nami

>>> Namimori hasn’t been breached. Shrines are still out, Flares are still dim. No Kawahira over here.

>> Part of the 10YB was taken by Verde to an unknown location, the other part was hidden in Ireland by Spanner along with some other Lightning-channeling tools. Specialized ammunition should be with the Vindice. I have the assembly notes, but I’m sure you know them better than anyone else. No madman on my side either.

> uuh then i shouldnt experiment with this one i guess? i remember how to put it together but just in case send me the assembly notes, ye? im going to dismantle it to see whats up with all this, if i die its my past selfs fault for not securing this thing

Give me a few days to get through all the locks on it and I’ll send them to you. I’d rather you didn’t mess around with it for now, but I know I can’t stop you…]

So, Namimori hasn’t seen Kawahira. He never thought the man who visited Shiketsu was real—Kawahira was a Mist user, the strongest there ever was until Mukuro did whatever he did, and he used to send illusions to contact them most of the time, but he has a tiny bit of hope that maybe the man is back in this timeline. If it is Kawahira, then they can start doing something without waiting for Mukuro to send the all-clear (he can’t believe they are following Mukuro’s lead, of all the people), but if it isn’t then it is still progress, right? If the Bazooka he has right now is real…

He is going to have to find Spanner, won’t he? Or start poking at Verde, but the Arcobaleno aren’t the most reliable people right now considering they don’t remember anything except how to be terrifying and intimidate people.

The problem now is, he has no idea where Spanner is. He knows he is around—Irie keeps contact with him but refuses to tell them where he is, and Jun understands. Spanner is another sort of ticking bomb, one of the engineering geniuses seen only once in generations, and if the Heroes or Villains got a hold of him the world would fall into chaos. There are Mosca around still, some active in Namimori and some carefully hidden away in the Millefiore buildings, but with the current state of the world the Mosca could evolve into weapons of mass destruction easily.

So, not Spanner. No Irie or Verde either, Jun will have to do this on his own.

He places the Bazooka atop his desk, trailing his fingers over the damaged metal as if it were his own child—and, it is. The Ten Years Bazooka was originally made by fifteen-year-old Lambo Bovino of another timeline, and then sent back in time to inspire a baby Lambo Bovino to get interested in time travel. He never got to make the Bazooka in his previous life yet it stayed with them, breaking the rules of time paradoxes, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how it works. He disassembled it more than enough times in a previous lifetime, when he was younger, to try and figure out how it was able to do what it did, and it is from that expertise that he draws from right now.

As he slowly works through taking out each component, he puts aside those things that don’t belong. The time capsule drive left behind by the Bazooka’s original creator is still where it had always been in the past, held carefully in place inside the trigger. Lambo’s own message to future generations is also lodged inside the barrel, encased in the smooth cylinder of metal until Jun gently pries it off with his nail. That’s one element to prove this is the same Bazooka as two centuries back, and it doesn’t take him long to find the others.

Verde’s personal crest carved inside two joints, a small wrench right below it, and a small ring of musical notes on the opposite side. They are small enough he needs a magnifier to see them, but once he does he sighs. He tries to hold back his panic, the idea of Verde’s or Spanner’s hidden armouries being discovered settling inside his stomach like heavy lead. Germany and Ireland…

He will have to find a way to go there to look for the things himself. Or better yet, send someone else to do the treasure hunt for him.

He leaves the Bazooka disassembled and covers it with a spare shirt, though he doubts that will be enough to hide his parallel self’s creation from anyone who is truly interested in what he is doing. His family is harmless enough apart from his grandparents: no one else seems to realize he is not quite as interested in Heroics as he pretends, and the Bazooka isn’t precisely something he would classify as ‘Heroic’. So long as the HPSC doesn’t get their hands on it, it should be alright, right?

A small hurricane passes through his room as he looks for his physical phone directory, the one he owns to hide contacts (coded, of course) of people he most definitely shouldn’t be interacting with. There might be no ‘visible’ organized crime around the world anymore, but the Millefiore exists and, hidden within the field of poisonous and carnivorous flowers that Byakuran planted around Europe, there are some other Famiglie slowly trying to recover their birthright.

And those related to those Famiglie, as distant as they are, are still around. The Mafia swears by lineage and family names, and the names have persisted through time, in whispers and well-hidden records.

They lay in wait.

Luca Cavallone might not remember the past, not even the littlest bit, but that doesn’t make him any less the Mafia Boss he had been once in the past. The mind and body might not remember, but the soul does, and Luca’s soul had once been a man who had everything he had worked for taken from him right in front of his eyes. He might not realize where the frustration, the bitterness and the desire for revenge come from, but that doesn’t stop him from acting on it.

He dials the number, uncaring of timezone differences, and waits for the sharp and cold voice of one who had once been one of the most caring people in the world.

“Raimē—“

“Luca, hey, I know you’re busy being a Villain and all, but do you remember that favour you owe me…”

Superbia Squalo dies— no, he doesn’t want to think about that.

Superbia Squalo, most commonly known simply as Squalo, presently known as Amehara Samē, has a small problem. His new life is made of small problems, big problems and bigger problems, but the one he is currently dealing with is small—or rather, young. He has a young problem, because his problem is a person, and that person is an annoyance.

Well, calling Byakuran Gesso ‘small’ or ‘young’ would be a mistake: the man is greater than life, never greater than their Sky of Skies the Baby Boss, or the Dusk Sky of the Varia Xanxus, but still great in his own way. He can’t be called ‘young’ either, as he is someone who has lived endless lives through the multiverse and remembers every single one of them, capable of compartmentalizing knowledge and memories the way few adults are able to. Much like another annoyance that can’t be called either of those words, Byakuran Gesso is a deceptive otherworldly creature disguised as a mischievous teenager who decided he is absolutely done with things for now.

Samē is also done with things, right now. He didn’t think they would have a direct encounter between two of the main players in this war this early, especially not when the players aren’t the ones that should meet first. It should have been the Simon Earth versus that disgusting amalgamation of Flames and, once the ‘new’ Tri-ni-Sette had something to stand upon, only then should Millefiore Primo and one of the other Skies confront the abomination.

The male 10th Mist has had enough years to plot things, and he figured out the current course of action. So that the fledgling Tri-ni-Sette doesn’t collapse on a single person, it needs the Earth, and it needs at least two anchors to keep itself stable long enough to find its new wielders. The Rings can come later, but for now they need two fully realized Skies, and they have only one.

Samē’s sin is Pride, he knows this, but even he has to admit that Rokudō Mukuro has the only plan that makes sense without any of the Ancient Ones on the board. He won’t say it out loud, or to Xanxus, but the 10th Generation of the Vongola and those associated hadn’t found a solution to the Arcobaleno curse out of nothing. Then they went on to create some more ridiculously overpowered things and had contingencies for everything, so he can’t insult them no matter what.

Of course, out of all of them it was the Skies and the Final Arcobaleno Candidates that shone the brightest, so Squalo won’t ignore their strength either. Byakuran Gesso just so happened, happens to be the Sky of the Mare set and one of the Arcobaleno Candidates (Lightning, because there was no Sky stronger than the Baby Boss and there never will be) and, even if he wasn’t the first victim who should be allowed to take revenge, he is still… very important.

Very, very important.

Sure, Squalo’s allegiance had always laid within Xanxus first, the Varia second, the Vongola third, but Xanxus has always been the first. And Xanxus, that stupid perfectly wrathful man, saw the Vongola as his first priority, which means he saw Tsunayoshi’s circle as the most important people. Almost to the last minute in a previous lifetime, Xanxus gave everything he had and was for the Vongola.

And that’s Squalo’s, currently Samē’s, problem: he has a security risk in the shape of Byakuran Gesso (the Second) ready to face another security risk of the bad kind, Shigaraki Tomura (All for One’s successor or whatever, the kid is creepy). And, if things turn from bad to worse, he isn’t sure he will be able to protect Gesso: that child is also prideful but, most importantly, he is a reckless son of a bitch who is so used to standing at the top of everyone else, sans Tsunayoshi and Uni, in most of everything that he forgot what danger feels like.

Seriously, he is a kid. He doesn’t even reach Samē’s shoulder. He is like fifteen, and yet there he is, kicking his legs on a bench while eating an assortment of candy he bought without checking for poisons. He is probably immune, but that doesn’t mean he can just sit there without any protection whatsoever.

Then there are the wings, a liability at best: anyone can grab and break them if he holds them spread as wide as they can be like he is doing right now. They probably won’t break easily, since they seem to be reinforced with Lightning Flames, but what if there is a hidden Storm lying around? Shigaraki’s Quirk is disintegration, isn’t it? Decay or something?

Speaking of Storms, someone else learned about this meeting. Samē waves at the 10th Generation Storm, who waves back with his crossbow, and that’s all the interaction they will allow themselves to have today.

Now, where the fuck is Shigaraki? And who is he coming with?

“Came to see the show?” The voice that speaks right beside him makes him throw his sword arm up, and he is promptly blocked by a familiar red feathery katana. It is only familiar because he has seen it on television though, he has never met this man in person. “Wow, relax, Swordmaster. I’m just here to make sure they don’t destroy the city.”

The Hero who lands next to him, unnoticed in a way that will make Samē go back to perception training for a few weeks from now on, is usually colourful. An attention seeker. Hawks, the crowd’s favourite and most loved Hero, whatever the fuck he is being called right now. Now, he is trying to disguise himself, but it doesn’t quite work as his wings are even larger than Gesso’s, and bright red at that.

Well, scratch that. There is an owlet on his shoulder. Those damn 10th Generation Mists are at work again. Samē is proud of his skills at disguises but, again, the 10th Generation is something else.

(Not that his disguise is all that good, really. His hair is hidden, tied up and under a hat, but the mask does little to hide his features. Then again, that was what Aizawa said, and Aizawa is a piece of shit.)

“This isn’t your jurisdiction,” he says (quietly, okay, he can do stealthy!) once they disengage the swords. He quickly confirms Gesso’s situation—unchanged, he has more candy now—before facing Hawks. “No need for you to be here.”

“They could destroy the city.”

“Still no need for you to be here, you’re a kid.”

“We are the same age—“

“Hah, no, we are not.” Even not counting the 34 years of a previous lifetime, Samē is still older than this upstart Hero. Fuck he is old, soon he will be useless—he really should do something about this constant feeling of inadequacy because of his age, but he also can’t stop, not now, not ever.

Xanxus is somewhere out there and Samē, Squalo will not rest until he finds him.

“Oh, really? So how old are you?”

Hawks sits down next to Samē, letting his legs dangle off the roof’s edge as he watches the scene below. A sleek black van parked itself close to Gesso, Tōya sitting atop it with some lizard kid, and when the door slides open a large… woman? Yesh, woman, she steps out followed by a lithe teenager.

“I’m not answering that question.” How no one has noticed who he is just yet he doesn’t know, but he isn’t going to throw any information that could lead people closer to him away.

In silence, they watch as Shigaraki comes out of the van, dressed in a tailored suit that doesn’t fit him at all, and heads towards the angel-like teenager with the women at his side. Gesso stands then, opening his arms as he greets them effusively, and Samē hisses through his teeth when the suicidal little shit offers a hand in greeting. How dare he put himself in danger like that, how dare he. Make Samē’s life any harder and he will decide to just give up on it.

The surroundings of the discussion below don’t give any red flags: Tōya watches from atop the van, the lithe teenager balances on the balls of her feet as she whispers to the big woman behind Shigaraki, the lizard hasn’t stopped watching Gesso who has not stopped talking. However, the problem here is Shigaraki: Gesso has an amazing ability to talk circles around everyone he meets and Shigaraki is no exception, except with each word he grows more and more tense. Any moment now he will probably explode, and then Samē doesn’t know what will happen: his Quirk might need finger contact, but he has had a few episodes when he just dissolved everything around him, according to Tōya…

“What do you think they are talking about?” Hawks asks next to him, sharp eyes locked on the interaction. A part of Samē that is still Superbia Squalo admits that those eyes would make him a perfect partner for his Mother.

“The League of Villains claimed Japan as their turf,” he says, channelling the same part that is still Madame Laurie’s child, the part that makes him research endlessly about anyone that could be a danger to his organization. “Under another name, they are still part of the underworld, and Japan’s organized crime has long been allied with the Millefiore.”

“I see…” Hawks rubs his chin in consideration before he grins, apologetic. “And what does that mean?”

Samē sighs because, for all that the Mafia is most of his life, telling a Hero—and one of the Japanese HPSC agents, too—about underworld politics could very well be a breach of Omertà. He doubts the Vindice are active these days, or if they are they are probably in Europe where the Millefiore are reconquering the territory they had two centuries back, but it is still something to worry about. Talking about it, the ‘conspiracy’ or Flames in the Boards, or with his own Varia family, is alright; talking about any of them outside, he’d rather not do.

This man doesn’t know that Byakuran Gesso, current head of the Millefiore, and VS Boards’ user Shiro are the same person—not many people do, since ‘Byakuran’ has kept his face hidden since he started moving around—, but he does know that ‘the Swordmaster’ is part of organized crime. He thinks by now most of the HPSC and other government organizations know, as he isn’t subtle about it, not like he has to be when he is being his sunlight self. He will drop Lussuria’s operations midway through if he senses a good fight nearby, and those fights often involve three ways between Heroes and Villains: there is a reason why the press can’t decide between ‘Villain’ or ‘Vigilante’ for him, he has brought down about the same amount for each.

Still, between Lussuria’s casual trafficking of all sorts of goods, Levi’s weapon smuggling he runs through proxies in other countries, Bel and Fran’s… whatever they decide to do on any day, Samē is the one with the cleanest hands. Seriously. He has only killed one person and that was because that pathetic excuse of a swordsman was a personal offense. He watches over Lussuria’s operations and helps with Levi’s money laundering, but all the assassination commissions he gets are taken by Bel and Fran without even asking him. The others say he has to keep his image clean to not ruin his reputation as businessman and politician, but even if they didn’t try to protect him that way, he refuses to kill someone with this sword—it is a cheap thing with terrible balance, but the better ones are part of his collection at home, and shitty people keep track of what he has—, and he also refuses to take any assignment without Xanxus’s approval.

He is the Varia Second in Command. They don’t have a Commander—well, there are Bel and Fran, but they are young and can’t take over yet—, so Squalo, Samē can’t just travel around and leave Headquarters empty. Even before, it was very rare that both Xanxus and Squalo would be out at the same time—there was the Ring Conflict, and that’s that. The Varia would collapse without one of them in—heck, even Xanxus couldn’t keep the officers from getting into trouble when alone, it is so fucking stupid that Squalo of all people was the only one who could keep their squad functioning.

(He did leave once to travel, with Xanxus, but that was near the end of his life, after he resigned and passed his badge to Bel. He can’t say he regrets it, though he does regret not finding Xanxus so he can stab him as promised.

Damn it Xanxus, where are you?)

So, he is as underworld as possible without doing much of what he did back in the Varia: he watches, he collects things, he makes sure people don’t find out about Lussuria, Levi, Bel or Fran, he tries to keep Takeshi away from all nonsense. It is hard work, but he did raise Bel almost on his own (two times! How do you end up raising someone two fucking times!?), and so he is more than experienced enough to herd around his squad of Varia Quality bastards in this world where the Varia doesn’t exist. Where organized crime as a whole supposedly doesn’t exist.

And yet, here was the Shie Hassaikai, the Millefiore in Europe and, well, most of the Amehara Group. He could have dealt with the Shie Hassaikai on his own, but he has been busy with business and politics and trying to get the HPSC off his trail and away from his family. There was just no time until Gesso got here, and the kid dealt with everything as cleanly as he could. Even now he doesn’t have much time, but he made Levi sit through his meeting claiming he had a headache and would go take a nap underwater. He can do that now, it is nice, okay.

He has grown weak. He is old—if his hair wasn’t naturally silver it would probably be grey either way—, he is weak, he has no time, he hasn’t found Xanxus yet and he has no Flames. He doesn’t deserve even half of his Varia badge right now, he should just quit—

No, no, he can’t do that. Too much to do, like make sure Gesso doesn’t die when confronting fucking Shigaraki.

They are still talking, it has only been a few seconds, but Gesso has a metal briefcase with him and he has folded his wings back. Not nervous. Not worried. Not quite smug, but something close.

Well, it should be alright to reveal some things about the damned situation, right? Just small things, especially since Hawks seems to have been forcefully adopted by the Tenth Generation Mists.

“There are… rules,” he ends up saying, carefully watching as Gesso brings out a vial of something from the briefcase to hold it between two fingers, mocking. Shigaraki doesn’t respond to the bait, but the women do, shifting their positions into vague, rather awkward and impractical defensive positions. “Some centuries back, there was a fucked up case of human experimentations that created a nightmare—“ That’s what Rokudō Mukuro was, is and will always be, no matter what Baby Boss says: “—so there was a unanimous agreement that such experiments would not be tolerated.”

“Really?” Hawks makes a curious noise, something like a chirp and a croon, and tilts his head to the side. “I would think they wouldn’t mind at all, considering their lack of morals and common sense.”

“Unanimous decision,” he repeats, holding back a shudder.

Lack of morals and common sense… He remembers when he found Fran and brought him home, suffering from malnutrition and countless illnesses, his whole body made of bruises, and no control over his own Quirk. His face had been even blanker than usual, movements robotic and voice a mere whisper, as Samē coaxed him closer. Turns out that not being able to feel pain is really attractive to psychopathic scientists, and Fran suffered for it.

He shakes his head. Reminisce later, work now. Besides, Fran is doing much better even if they still haven’t managed to find a way to control his Quirk apart from the occasional Quirk inhibitor. Samē had offered to try and get him into Namimori, but Fran had been cutting when rejecting him: he will stay where he can keep an eye on everyone he knows.

“So, why Shigaraki if it was the Shie Hassaikai…?”

“When the League of Villains claimed Japan as their turf, they became responsible for everything that happens in the local underworld.”

“Then this is about responsibility?”

“And possibly ending the alliance, yes. Villains aren’t quite Mafia, but—“

He squints his eyes when Gesso throws his hands up, holding the briefcase, and twirls around for the drama. He extends one hand to Shigaraki and possibly says something provocative since Shigaraki leaps at him in an attack. He gets blocked by a wing, the white fluffy shield coming up at the speed of light before Gesso flies into the sky.

Hawks’ hand tightens around his feather blade, eyes locked on the scene below. When Samē lifts his head to look at where the Tenth Generation Storm is hiding, he can see a small iridescent dot of an arrow in position.

Somehow, Gesso is brought down by what seems to be a harsh tug on one of his wings: he crashes to the ground, yelling something, and that’s when Gokudera releases his arrow. It flies at an impossible speed towards Shigaraki’s exposed back, but the big woman intercepts it and loses her arm in the explosion. The gory sight does nothing for Squalo’s bloodlust, and he ignores Hawks’ yell as he jumps into the fray.

Fighting alongside Byakuran Gesso isn’t something he has ever done before, not that he remembers. They were in the same team in the Representative Battles, and maybe they did fight together then, but Squalo knows himself, knows his pride, and knows Gesso’s skills: he is a nuisance, is what he is. Squalo is a swordsman, he is a melee fighter, and Gesso is mostly a ranged one with destructive attacks, so they were just a bad match.

(Squalo and Xanxus were also a bad match, but they worked through it. Usually, it ended with Squalo getting injured.)

This Byakuran Gesso, with his Quirk and without the complete arsenal of his Flames, is not as much of a nuisance though. Yes, his wings in defence mode are annoying, but Squalo doesn’t use his Quirk to fight (it is useless for anything above water, really) so they don’t affect him at all: the field covers a small area since Gesso is grounded, but it is big enough to hinder Shigaraki and his ‘allies’. The big woman does something with her hands and her… magnet, and he feels something tug at him, but he quickly shakes it off and slashes at her chest to throw her off balance—she only has one arm left after all.

This will be over in a few seconds at most, and he doesn’t even have his Flames. Boring.

Some arrows land around them and explode, but Squalo is well used to explosions from Kasumi’s dumb experiments in this life and countless spars against the Tenth Generation from before. They aren’t even big explosions, more of a distraction than anything else, but not even Gesso’s weakening field can do anything against the noise and that is apparently enough to make the lithe teenager stop trying to cut Squalo with her flimsy knife to cover her ears. Gesso quickly knocks her out with a chop at the back of her neck, but then he has to deal with the lizard ninja-wannabe who appears out of nowhere.

Hawks doesn’t join in the fight—Squalo can’t see him, but he can feel the mass of Mist Flames that surrounds him staying where they have been since the beginning. Even hidden as he is, he can’t just show himself to the Villains, especially not considering what Tōya told Squalo about the whole double/triple agent thing. Gokudera stays hidden where he is, but he seems to have endless arrows and a hidden ace under his sleeve, one he can probably use only once: Squalo feels the small, minuscule flicker of Storm Flames coming closer just in time to grab Gesso and pull him away from the danger zone.

As expected, the arrow hits the ground and the Flames eat it fast before they fade, leaving behind a hole big and scorched enough for Shigaraki to hesitate on his steps—will it continue disintegrating, is it stable enough to step closer?

The lithe teenager is far too close to the hole, Shigaraki is unpredictable at best, and that seems to be the trigger for hellfire to bloom around them. Tōya’s control has improved, but that doesn’t mean Squalo wants to be anywhere near the blue flames when they break free of the tightly condensed rope they are currently in. He drags Gesso further away, ignoring his complaints and claims that he can walk on his own, and holds his sword up in the direction of the lizard kid who is on their side of the fire. If he dares attack, Squalo will go against his own unnatural no-killing policy.

“Those are some annoying party members you have,” Shigaraki says, scratching at his neck once he realizes his own ‘ally’ is stopping him from continuing this fight. At the very least, Shigaraki has a rational head on his shoulders when he wants to: Tōya doesn’t, can’t discriminate, and he also rarely hesitates.

The big woman clutches at her shoulder, moaning in pain now that the adrenaline is gone. Another person, this one in a full-body suit, rushes out of the van with a bundle of bandages—Squalo doubts they will be of any use.

“I have many friends!” Byakuran cheers from somewhere behind Squalo, a little too far to the side for comfort, and he reaches to push him directly behind him again. “I didn’t even know they were here but, hey, the more the merrier…?”

What a liar, Gesso definitely knew they were here. Thankfully, no one else knows, because they apparently have support from one of the Tenth Generation Mists whom Hawks dragged along.

They are currently two cities away from the HPSC’s domain and cloaked from the world, so what’s stopping them from just ending this all right here— Oh, right, the long-term plan to revive the Tri-ni-Sette.

Fuck all of this.

“The Swordmaster…” Shigaraki watches Squalo warily, then looks at the vague direction the arrows came from; Gokudera no longer has the crossbow out, so he is invisible. Shigaraki taps his finger against an almost imperceptible bud in his ear (where are they getting the money?). “Hurricane as well… Kurogiri?”

Whatever response the mist thing gives doesn’t make Shigaraki too happy: he kicks the ground with a snarl, which makes Tōya’s fire burn brighter in warning. The potential Sun Flames wielder is already by the hole, picking up the teenager in his arms without a hint of his struggles—Tōya can’t even lift Kasumi, Squalo is sure he is over-exerting himself enough that he will collapse in a few minutes. Shigaraki probably knows that as well, as he gestures for the lizard kid to move closer.

Squalo watches as the lizard kid takes the girl off Tōya’s arms and, only once he is past the flaming rope, drops his sword to put it back where it belongs—not inside a sheath, because this shitty blade doesn’t even deserve that. The ‘Sword Emperor’ he killed for it wasn’t even good enough to get a proper sword, how insulting to his rightful crown. Now they call him ‘Swordmaster’ instead of ‘Sword Emperor’ because no one wants to stain the name of their pathetic swordsman-wannabe Hero who stole his title, and he doesn’t really know how to feel about it all.

Shit, Takeshi could have beaten that man—no, he doesn’t even deserve to be called a man, he was just a pathetic lump of flesh. Takeshi could have beaten it with an arm tied up and his eyes closed. Hawks, with his terrible form and bland style, could have beaten it with a single feather, and not even that. Shit, even Stein would have done better and, while Squalo can honestly say that man has talent, he has never wielded a sword properly in his life.

In conclusion, Genkishi would cry, Tsuyoshi would roll on his grave, and Takeshi and Squalo from a previous lifetime would have had to bleach their eyes after seeing that thing. The standards for swordsmen in this era aren’t even on the ground, they are five feet under and if Squalo must wear the title ‘Swordsmaster’ just to show the world what a swordsman is truly like then he will do so, with great prejudice.

Once the girl is secured by her allies and Shigaraki doesn’t look like he will run headfirst into a fight he can’t win again, Tōya dismisses his fire—or tries to. It flares wildly, uncontrolled enough it makes everyone yell in surprise, before it goes out, leaving cracked concrete, scorch marks and embers behind. It takes a short while before they all feel comfortable moving again after that.

“Did you want to recruit Hurricane?” Gesso says, incredulous, his head peeking out from behind Squalo’s arm. He pushes him back once more—what part of stay there does he not understand?

“Our ideals align—“ Shigaraki starts what promises to be a long monologue, and Gesso claps his hands to silence him.

“No, wait, no, you can’t do that, you already have a maybe-Storm—“ Oh, does he? Squalo looks at the gathered Villains, trying to figure out which one is the lucky potential Storm. Maybe the magnet woman? Lizard kid? “You two would clash horribly!”

“Our desires for a Hero-less world are compatible— You two, as well. It would be easier—“

“You suck at fighting,” Squalo says with an affronted huff.

“I have my own group, thanks,” Gesso adds almost at the same time, his wings flapping audibly as he repositions himself to sit cross-legged in the air. “And I should go back to them now.”

Squalo looks behind and above him, frustrated—stay in place, you are like eight years old, just stay—, but he also knows he can’t control this man at all. He isn’t the Baby Boss who is willing to listen to everyone’s opinion, he’s just someone who does whatever he wants. He checks the flying brat for injuries: the wing that had brought him down is ruffled oddly, the tip bent unnaturally, but it isn’t bad enough to keep him grounded for long. Gesso isn’t paying much attention to anything, preening his injured wing with careful use of his inhuman nails—he is a bird no matter how much he tries to deny it, he is even crooning.

“You will stay out of our business,” Shigaraki adds after a tense silence of watching Gesso ignore him in favour of his wing. “Go back and bring the key item with you.”

“The Distruggere?”

“Yes, that. Don’t bring it back to my territory.”

“Don’t let more human experimentations happen and I’ll stay away.” Gesso shrugs, going on to preen his other wing. “That includes the Nōmu.”

“I—“ Shigaraki hesitates, chewing on his lip. “We can’t do that.”

“Then I can’t take the Distruggere with me! How simple.” Gesso laughs cheerily before his expression turns solemn, a thin strand of white bringing the forgotten briefcase closer to him so he can put it on his lap. “I can’t bring it with me either way, so this negotiation is pointless.”

“You have it right there—“

“It is key evidence and will be handed to the,” Gesso frowns in distaste, his gaze wandering to where the mass of Mist Flames still keeps Hawks hidden; “…authorities. They will deal with it—“

“Overhaul is going to Tartarus, isn’t he? Is there even going to be a trial?”

The lizard kid asks the man with the bodysuit in a too-loud whisper, and the man nods before shaking his head vigorously. He managed to stop the woman’s stump from bleeding out, but now her shoulders look twice as big from how many bandages are wrapped around them. She is curled up on herself, squatting on the ground and whimpering quietly still. Maybe they should get her a painkiller—nah.

Next to them, Tōya covers his mouth with his hand, his eyes darting around wildly. He seems to have realized the problem—honestly, Squalo wants to do the same, maybe break some valuable items, but he is away from home right now. Besides, Lussuria and Kasumi would never let him go wild on their tastefully (not) arranged decor, and Levi would protest about wasted money. A pity. If Xanxus was here, they would turn a blind eye to the casual destruction.

“Yes he is, he will die there! No, he isn’t, he’s already out—“

“How is he out—“

“Well, see, I learned something ve~ry confidential while digging around.” Gesso stretches his wings and arms, possibly getting ready to leave. He has to board a ship soon and go through a few hundred border controls if he is bringing the ‘key item’ to the ‘authorities’. “Chisaki Kai was born in Namimori.”

Shigaraki freezes for a second before he stomps the ground a few times while cursing loudly. Tōya buries his face in his hands and lets out an almost inaudible hysterical giggle while the lizard kid looks like the whole world collapsed under his feet. The woman stays where he is but her body visibly tenses, and the man in the bodysuit wails loudly before slapping and berating himself. Everywhere around them, the Mist Flames keeping them unnoticeable to the world spike dangerously as their wielder possibly paces around in contemplation and worry.

“Well, most specifically Kokuyō, he made his mask himself—“

Chisaki Kai experimented on humans and kept a child as a guinea pig for her Quirk, an immoral act even to the underworld they are all part of. Chisaki Kai should go to Tartarus for his crimes after a fixed trial and rot in jail until the end of his days. Chisaki Kai would be sentenced to life for unethical experimentation and being part of organized crime; that is, if he adhered to Japanese laws.

If.

Unfortunately, Chisaki Kai was born in Namimori.

Only one group of people can judge those born in Namimori and, as far as Squalo, as far as Samē knows, there is no one in Japan whose surname is ‘Hibari’.

Hibari Kyōya… doesn’t remember how he dies. He doesn’t know why, if maybe the memory was too traumatic for his young mind to comprehend, or if the loss of his past and older self was so humiliating he simply preferred to forget; he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really care, either. He doesn’t know what the memory of death will do to his mind, not when he was all of two years old and remembering burying his mentor overwhelmed him to the point his body shut down, not when he was twelve and the memories return in a slow and steady trickle into his mind, phantom pain of battles two centuries into history assaulting him every single day of his life, and definitely not now.

Hibari Kyōya doesn’t remember his death, but he does think he died a lonely and miserable death, a man with nothing left except for the town he swore to protect. Hibari Kyōya possibly died the death of a coward, tasked to protect the last sanctuary of the Casta di Fiamma left standing, tasked to protect what little remained of the Tri-ni-Sette. Hibari Kyōya might have died without ever knowing if there were any of them left alive at the time, watching the fading embers in shrines his family had guarded for generations.

What Hibari Kyōya remembers are funerals he almost never went to: he remembers burying his direct family in person, then receiving grieving calls from Family as they fell one by one. He remembers hearing of natural disasters around the world, the Disease doing away with people in bright and explosive chaos: fire tornados that ate away at everything they touched, deluges that drowned whole cities, lightning storms that went on for days, flashes of incandescent light that boiled the blood of anyone near it. He remembers hearing of the unexplained case of half a town becoming statues overnight, while the other half was trapped in nightmares even in their waking hours, losing hold of reality and kept alive only to be hostages for a dying man.

He remembers the first invasion. The second. The first air raid. The second. The supplies shortage and the short period of uneasy ‘peace’ that were the siege years as his people struggled to make everything last. The weeks without a steady power supply and blocked communications from the outside world. The endless negotiation requests with nonsensical demands before their whole island were labelled ‘war criminals, an affront against humanity’ without a proper reason besides harbouring ‘unnaturally enhanced’ people and keeping weapons ‘against international regulations’.

(He remembers a dull-faced Dino Cavallone looking desperate for the first time in decades as he yelled at Kyōya to get underground right now, I will be fine—he wasn’t. He remembers Sasagawa Kyōko’s last call to beg him to take care of the twins before the gunshots grew louder and the call ended abruptly. He remembers Kozato Enma taking the Simon Rings and promising he would hide them somewhere no one would ever find them, and weeks later hearing of the tsunami in the Americas after a large area of the ocean was ‘mysteriously displaced’.

He tries to fit his memories into a timeline that makes the most sense. He fails. Everything comes to him in tangled disorganization along with endless pain and crippling grief. He doesn’t know how many years he lived. He doesn’t know how many years he was the only one of the Tenth Generation left. He doesn’t know how many years he spent defending Namimori from the anti-supernatural factions’ disorganized invasion attempts or the repeated ‘requests’ from the outside to surrender.

What he does know is that Hibari Kyōya survived having his connection to the Vongola Ring of the Cloud severed, and from then on his perception of time became non-existent.)

Hibari Kyōya had a child in the middle of tragedy, and his child got married and had another, and for two centuries more the Hibari reigned, and still reign supreme in their homeland. Nami Island, Namimori and Kokuyō and Midori and their small port town; Nami Island, still under the dominion of the Hibari family as it was for two centuries before the end of their world and two centuries after. Namimori, an island that was separated from what was meant to be their mainland since Kawahira settled down there, and an island that nowadays remains isolated from the world for their own safety and comfort.

Hibari Kyōya, child of Hibari Masato and Hibari Mei Lien, possibly died a miserable and lonely death devoid of any purpose besides protecting his homeland. Hibari Kyōya, child of Hibari Mēichi and Hibari Nōhime, lives a miserable and lonely life with a single purpose, and it is that purpose that makes him remain where he is.

He isn’t the first ‘Kyōya’, and he will not be the last either. The name ‘Hibari Kyōya’ is important to the city and to his family, and to be named after the man who rebuilt their city is a badge of honour. When Kyōya, then simply Bō, turned 49 months of age, he was given the name as a pledge and a promise to an ancient duty, and also as a plea to the Skies for strength. ‘Grant this son of mine the strength to live to see the next year,’ his father said then, and every few weeks he will repeat the same words at the feet of the temple, the temple where Flames visibly yet dimly burn as they should in 48 other locations around the world yet haven’t for more than two centuries.

It is funny, he thinks at times. He was named ‘Kyōya’ for strength, yet no one could have ever thought he would be the reincarnation of the ‘Kyōya’ he is named after. It is funny in more ways than just that, however: in this life, he was still raised mostly by his father and the town as a whole while his mother stayed in Okinawa, and he was once again born to a father still in High School—what a coincidence, his life still consists of family issues right and left. He is still prone to random naps, he is still called little prince, he still excels at most forms of martial arts, he still has his Cloud Flames. In this life, he is still related to ex-Arcobaleno of the Storm Fon (whose name is Shen in this lifetime), Kurokawa Hana is still his half-sister (she kept the name but changed the surname, she is now Hibari Hana), and his family is still as overbearing as always.

Well, they are worse in this lifetime, because Hibari Kyōya is a ‘frail’ and ‘weak’ child who can mostly only function at night, and only barely. Photophobia and severe photosensitivity have turned him into a failed attempt at a vampire, he is sure Tsunayoshi would laugh at him on reflex before apologizing profusely for his mistake. Everyone else would just laugh, except maybe Chrome Dokuro who would relate, and then they would commiserate together for maybe a minute before returning to their respective duties.

Chrome visits at times, but rarely: she is busy spying on everyone they have found of the ancient Alleanza Familiare and some other people. Rokudō Mukuro also visits, more often than Chrome, and Kyōya hates himself for missing him when he hasn’t been around for a long while. He mostly just sees his family or their retainers, Irie or the Sasagawas, now Hoshizaki, and at times he receives messages from the cow or the little animal. He knows more of their people are active out there, but he doesn’t like crowding or leaving Namimori, and they can’t come visit without going through a hundred border and background checks, so they just don’t.

He isn’t lonely.

He isn’t.

However, he still lets out a sigh of relief when he sees ‘Hanārashi Byakuran’ in the entry list for the week. ‘Official business - judicial’, it says, but it is something: news from everyone else that the others insist on keeping from him, news from the outside world from an actual person instead of his phone, just anything Gesso can tell him about what’s going on will be appreciated.

He closes the ledger with a slam and Hibari Mēichi gives him a weak, very fake glare from his desk. A little difference from a previous life: his father is less of a spider disguised as a vaguely shaped and harmless insect, and more of a spider laying in wait. A mild improvement, but he is still an insignificant carnivore that can be knocked out with a flick of a finger—he is pretty sure Mēichi shares a soul with Masato, how else would one explain the similarities? Kyōya ignores him and snatches the top document from said desk, looking it over with feigned disinterest. Judge, trial, human experimentation, evidence— who?

“Chisaki?”

“Kai, yes.” Kyōya’s father rubs his forehead with two fingers, letting his pen fall on the pile of papers he still needs to go through. “It is a headache and a half, Japanese law enforcement is asking to be allowed to investigate his past actions, from whenever he came back.”

“He returns for a week every two months,” Kyōya points out. “That’s a lot of records to go through.”

He knows Chisaki Kai because he is an outlier, someone who willingly comes back to the island and its Quirk inhibitor field despite having one. Out of all the people they have sent out for developing Quirks when inside their land, only a handful return frequently, if at all: many people see having a Quirk, thus leaving their isolated community, as a door to a better future. Some return to visit family, but even they tend to tell them to not give up on their new opportunities after some time. The laws of Namimori are too strict, they say; people deserve freedom, they say, and then they willingly throw their children to the outside world while refusing to leave themselves.

Kyōya doesn’t get it. Yes, coming in and out of Namimori involves lots of tedious paperwork, but it isn’t impossible. If they think their lives would be better outside, why not just… leave, and stop whining about how they want to leave while not doing anything to do so. It isn’t like all of those who develop Quirks have to leave, or like Namimori is the only place where Quirkless people can live: they are an autonomous region and mostly isolated from the outside by personal choice, but they aren’t holding their people hostage. Life is life both in and outside Namimori and no Hibari would ever deny their citizens their will to improve their lives.

Things have changed since Kawahira left, thankfully. Before, people stayed through conditioning, subliminal messages, media manipulation, and tampering with memories and emotions, but things have changed. They no longer need to keep their people nearby to maintain the precarious balance of the great pedestal where the Tri-ni-Sette lay on, the Flames of the world itself: there is no Tri-ni-Sette anymore, only small wisps of what was once the whole reason behind Namimori and the rest of the Casta di Fiamma temples’ existence.

At times he hates his people, just a little. There is no Tsunayoshi or Dino around to talk him through the worst of his moods, though, so he just grabs a heavy paperweight from his father’s desk and throws it to the ground. In another time, two centuries ago, his throwing anything so viciously would have broken either the item or the ground, but now it just thuds on the carpet with a dull sound.

How frustrating.

“I’m not letting them check the records so rest at ease, Kyōya.” Mēichi waves his hand up and down, so Kyōya returns the document to him before he goes back to his own desk to get his coat. “They might still come in with their disgusting self-righteousness though, so make sure to warn Merone before you leave.”

“We should just—“

“Bite them to death, yes, I know.”

The island’s true ruler makes a dismissive gesture so Kyōya leaves the office, fuming quietly. Maybe he can go fight some of the old Mosca to release some frustration once he is done with his rounds, but for that he needs to first debrief his sold— volunteers, see if there is anything that needs his attention in the city proper and visit Irie’s underground fortress. He should probably go ask around Kokuyō if anyone knew about Chisaki Kai’s experiments or about any of his activities in Japan, but he… kind of doesn’t want to.

The night hasn’t even started and he already wants to take a nap. The sun hasn’t set yet when he finds Matsuaji for her shift’s report, not paying much attention to her as she drones about ‘no change anywhere, sir, but the stray near the river crossing gave birth to six puppies!’ She could do with some more professionalism, but eh, she is efficient—not Kusakabe efficient, but he doubts anyone could ever be as good as Kusakabe.

(He died in a shootout defending Sasagawa’s children and some others, in Oita. Kyōya hadn’t even been there to see him go out and all he could do was give him a proper funeral without even a body left behind. He hadn’t been able to comfort his grieving wife, nor his family, or even the small Sasagawas who had lost yet another person in their lives—his sister’s children, whom he hadn’t been able to approach at the ceremony out of concern for their public images.

He hates himself at times, hates how cold he pretended to be for the sake of a reputation that did nothing to improve his skills. He hates himself at times for allowing his family to suffer on their own.

He hates himself always, for everything he did and didn’t do, for the battles he didn’t witness, the people he couldn’t help, as he chose to follow Tsunayoshi’s suggestion and remained in Namimori until the end of his days.)

Matsuaji leaves to brief the next shift with a skip to her step, so Kyōya heads underground through the first entrance he finds. He nods at some of the underground dwellers who greet him politely, but eventually he gets tired and just gives up walking through the main pathways. He hops off the block he is in and goes through increasingly obscure shortcuts, meets a decreasing number of people who all look like they haven’t slept in days—Merone’s, the base as a whole, maintenance crew—and finally gets to the lower level. Classical music drifts from the supposedly soundproof metal doors, which means it is open, so he pushes it aside and goes inside without announcing himself.

Irie looks like he is getting ready to leave, packing the few belongings he usually brings down here (a bag, a book, some device to tinker with, tools). The main time capsule is slowly powering down to allow uri.djvu, its diagnosis tool and main defence mechanism, to run its scans for the day, while a Mosca stands close to it, analysing it for any kind of physical damage or displacement that might have happened through the day. Nothing has happened to it, because no one enters this place except for Irie, Kyōya, his father and maybe Hana when she wants to drag Irie out to socialize.

“Most people knock,” Irie says after his usual ‘startle, drop everything to look at the door, startle some more and moan in self-pity’ routine.

“I am your future boss.”

“That doesn’t mean you can come inside as you please.”

The Mare del Sole Ring glows brightly at his finger, the only piece of the Tri-ni-Sette they managed to keep apart from the Sky and Night Jar. The Sun Mare Ring was hidden deep inside Merone while it was in its earlier stages of construction, soon after Deisy was confirmed dead, and from there it was never taken until Irie Shōichi (whose name was originally Akira-something, but Kyōya has only ever known him as ‘administrator of Merone, Irie Shōichi’) started digging into the foundations of Namimori’s underground city looking for something that called to him. He found it eventually and had a minor mental breakdown before he settled down into the mildly infuriating person he currently is.

As for the Jar, that one was hidden away by Bermuda before the assault on the Vindice. No one knows where it is and Bermuda has been in hibernation for decades now according to just about everyone they ask, so they will probably be unable to retrieve it until the Tri-ni-Sette is a little more stable. Many people had tried to find it, most noticeable Rokudō Mukuro in his different iterations and Skull when he comes out of hibernation, but the only one who had managed to find even the smallest hint of the thing had been Gabriel Rohemaa some years ago—

A small, quick set of feet move around the empty hallways outside the heart of the underground city, the pitter patter echoing across the cold metal of the building. Think of the devil and he will appear: a small head pokes out from behind the door with a grin, glasses askew and blond-green hair as messy as always. Gabriel Rohemaa himself rushes into the database’s room, almost tripping on the ridiculously large lab coat he tends to wear as he runs to his almost-guardian with some twitching device in his hands.

“Shō-chan! Look!”

Irie subtly rolls his eyes up to the sky with a small sigh before he kneels in front of the boy.

“Verde. What did you decide to break now?”

“It broke on its own, it’s one of the inhibitors. I picked it up at the shipwreck—“

(They should probably get rid of the shipwreck. It is an idea that gets brought forth in council meetings every year, at times even once every few months, but it constantly gets ignored: the pros of having the Waterspout fleet’s wreck outweigh the cons by a lot. The Arcida alone, the only one they bother to actively maintain and make sure is functional even if not seaworthy, is a huge deterrent for people who dare try to come near their island as it is still armed.

The Millefiore’s hegemony over weaponry was visibly revered and feared around the world through the Guerrillas era, but the Vongola was the single most advanced Empire when it came to all kinds of technology, both Flame-powered and not, and that remains true to this day. Quirks have made the world stagnate when it comes to technological advances, something Irie rants about every day: Merone itself was the result of the two greatest Famiglie’s inventors coming together, designed to last through nuclear wars and maybe even the end of the world, its structure ever-changing to the point Namimori’s underground city is unbreachable, and it had been designed and built in the 21st Century.

So far, Kyōya hasn’t heard of anything around the world that surpasses the complexity and usefulness of the base, or the contained impossible paradoxes of the original time capsule. There are support items but, according to Irie, no matter how they look at them even a 10-year-old Lambo Bovino could replicate them—then again, the cow-child was a savant when it came to technology.

The shipwreck is a small junkyard of Vongola technology, yes, and most of it is unusable as it is right now, but no one really knows what to do about it. Gokudera Hayato’s war fleet, the Waterspout, had been one of the greatest creations of the Vongola’s R&D and engineering prowess, a masterpiece and work of art in both offence and defence. Maybe one day Gokudera will come to retrieve it to rebuild it if he feels like playing 4D Battleship in this life as well, but for now, it remains just off-shore of Namimori, being a threatening entity between Kyūshū and Shikoku.)

“Why were you at the shipwreck?” The cliffs and skerries on the south coast of the island are tricky, especially for a small person like the ex-Lightning Arcobaleno.

“Because the inhibitor fell down?”

This is getting nowhere and Kyōya still has to do his rounds.

“Irie.” He rudely interrupts their conversation and he has to tolerate the miniature Verde’s glare (well, he is bigger than he was as an Arcobaleno), his eyes hard as stone and glowing electric green. He ignores the small child—Kyōya’s body might be ‘frail’ and ‘weak’ according to most of the city, but he can definitely fend off an attack from a twelve-year-old scientist. He gestures to the broken Quirk inhibitor in the boy’s hands. “Fix that thing and prepare for lockdown. We are having visitors.”

“Visitors…? From Japan?” Irie looks insecure for a second, but he quickly has to dive next to Gabriel to save the Quirk inhibitor before it crashes to the ground.

“Oh!” Gabriel hits his palm with his fist, his attention promptly shifting from the broken device to the new topic. “Is this about Chisaki Kai?”

“You don’t have clearance to know that information.”

“Your defences aren’t strong enough to keep me out, though?”

Kyōya wants to sigh in despair and irritation, he really does, but instead he just ignores Gabriel, looking at Irie with a raised eyebrow. The Administrator looks long-suffering as he nods.

“Should I gather records…?”

“No.” Kyōya is already halfway to the door. “They have no jurisdiction here.”

“He experimented on people.” Gabriel adds casually, as if Chisaki Kai’s sins were already made public.

“And he will be judged by the laws of Namimori, not by those of Japan.”

Kyōya leaves the underground city to find it is already night. He forces his sickly body to the fastest speed he can manage right now, parkouring across roofs and alleyways as he heads to the temple. He might not be as strong as he once was, his family might consider him ‘frail’ and ‘weak’, but he is still Hibari Kyōya: everything he was, is and will be is a chase for strength and peace for his people, pride in his skills and his city, and a desire for his Flames to find his long-gone companions once more.

He might not be as strong as ‘Hibari Kyōya’ two centuries back, but he is still the strongest in Namimori, the city and the island, and he can deal with a photosensitive and sickly body so long as he knows his limits. His previous self never knew about pacing himself to be allowed to rest, never learned about his own body’s limitations and pushed himself even through broken bones and starvation, but Kyōya is different now. He has had to train endlessly, to strengthen himself past what the doctors said was possible, and to learn how to deal with his own condition.

His body frustrates him, but he has lived fourteen years like this. Fourteen years of phantom pains, of watching the day’s sky wistfully through tinted glasses, of flickering Flames when there should be no more of them. Fourteen years of life and twelve of craving for a Family that is out there, building the same castles and looking at the same Sky, waiting for the day they can finally begin putting things right.

A young Kyōya of the past might not have cared, might have seen the whole thing as supernatural nonsense and a waste of time, but that Kyōya hadn’t known loneliness, hadn’t known misery. He hadn’t felt the pain of watching the few people close to him be ripped apart by their own burning souls, hadn’t felt the grief of burying a mentor who remained by his side even after his family collapsed, hadn’t lived enough to see the world become twisted while he could only struggle to keep a city under siege alive.

That young Kyōya saw a future in black and white, of weak and strong, but that’s not how the world works.

The scattered temples and shrines of the Tri-ni-Sette around the world might have gone cold centuries ago, the pillars of Namimori might no longer be lit as they were since the world first breathed with life, but there is still hope. They hang on to a rope, frayed and close to snapping, but it is a rope that Rokudō Mukuro kept whole for them for two centuries. Now, Sawada Tsunayoshi, Byakuran Gesso, Uni Ariane and Kozato Enma rebraid the rope their own way, fixing frayed ends and slowly adding what they need, preparing it for when the Casta di Fiamma can finally climb up.

The Flames of the temple are lower than they should be if the world was healthy, humanity rejecting their duty to the earth they were gifted, but they still burn. They still burn, around the temple, in Kyōya and his wayward Family, in the people that see reality as it is. They still burn, not as bright, not as beautiful, but that means the Tri-ni-Sette is still alive.

This time, Kyōya won’t stay in the rear, won’t be stuck in a defensive position. Not anymore.

Not long after, somewhere else, Takami Kēgo stands in front of the Madam President of the Hero Public Security Commission, grinning widely as she rubs her temples. She is trying very hard to not lose her composure, but Kēgo doesn’t care: she made him what he is and she should learn to deal with the consequences of her own actions.

“Let me see if I understand,” she says, bringing his report closer to her and opening it in the timeline of events. “The older of the Mists, the most dangerous person alive in the world next to All for One, contacted you yesterday about a meeting between an envoy of the European underworld and the leader of the League of Villains.”

“Yep.” He pops the ‘p’ in a way he knows she hates—he wants to leave already. He gave his report a while ago, now he was just dropping his picks for the Work-Studies students he wants.

“Of all people, they contacted you.” He shrugs at her dubious expression, he really doesn’t understand why those two follow him around. “Then you went to witness this meeting, met the Swordmaster and possibly Hurricane, and didn’t think you should capture them. At all.”

“Nah, they weren’t doing anything illegal, they were just watching.”

“You are a Hero—“

“President, I might fight with a sword, but I also have a strong desire to live with all my limbs attached.” And the Swordsmaster might not have killed anyone but the Sword Emperor years ago, but he was known for crippling people unless he ‘saw talent’ in them. Like Stein.

“Even with an unknown Quirk, you should be stronger than some obsessed Villain.”

Kēgo blinks at her, then looks at his hands. Is he? There is no way he is, he saw that man fight for those short seconds, the fluid grace of a swordsman who had made his fighting into an art. He also felt the bloodlust, falling over him like heavy rain and hail, each strike he saw making him flinch as he feared what would happen if it was aimed at him.

The President stares at him for a few seconds. Kēgo doubts she would understand, she has never met the Swordmaster. Or Shiro, dancing circles around Shigaraki as he laughed. Or Hurricane, who was able to cause mass destruction with just a few arrows.

She finally speaks again:

“You could have gone after Hurricane.”

“Ah, that one…” He hadn’t felt any desire to chase after Hurricane, really: he does good work for a Vigilante who causes public property damage wherever he goes. Who knew there were so many smuggling and trafficking operations in Japan? Besides, if he did go after the kid he would have become the target of some very annoying people led by a Pomeranian.

The President sighs, rubbing at her forehead and looking dead exhausted.

“Shigaraki and this… ‘Shiro’ talked for a while— Did you manage to hear anything?”

‘…a Quirk destroying drug, the answer to all my problems!’ A gleeful, manic laugh echoing in countless voices, a sharp whistle and the sound of glass cracking and falling, falling, falling—

“No, nothing at all. They were too far and I didn’t want to abuse the Mist’s generosity.”

“So you didn’t want to provoke them.”

“I had no backup.”

“‘Shiro’, the Swordmaster and maybe Hurricane dealt with them just fine when they started fighting.”

“They got lucky, I think. Toga was knocked out and Dabi jumped in to stop the fight, maybe to protect her.” And hadn’t that been a surprise, Dabi protecting someone without expecting anything in return. Why can’t they be friends, too? “Then they talked some more and parted ways.”

“And you didn’t think to follow?”

“Who, the League of Villains?” He raises an eyebrow at her, feeling awfully confident right now. She nods slowly in acceptance of that argument: he has rapport to build. “Shiro vanished in a burst of white, I don’t know how. I wasn’t going to chase after the Swordmaster.”

“You were protected by the Mist.”

“And the Swordmaster could tell where I was right away.” Sure, he spoke to him first, but he isn’t going to reveal that. Besides, the Swordmaster, Shiro and possibly Hurricane as well, they could all tell even when he moved as they fought: he felt eyes on him all the time he was there.

The President watches his report for a few minutes while Kēgo straightens some misplaced feathers—he isn’t preening, no, he doesn’t do that. He wouldn’t usually be this disrespectful, but it is late, it is supposed to be his free day, and he wants to go home.

“All of this,” she starts, slowly, looking up with a frown. Hawks snaps to attention once again, the picture-perfect of a child soldier before Kēgo catches himself and relaxes. “What does this have to do with the sudden interest in Hero Work-Studies, and why Amehara Takeshi?”

Ah, well, how can he explain that?

How can he explain that he finally, finally saw the Swordmaster fight in person and that his style is, to his slightly more experienced eye, a polished version of Amehara Takeshi’s own? How can he explain that he wants to improve his swordsmanship now that he knows there is a Quirk-destroying drug out there, to not be left in the dust if he falls from the sky without his wings? How does he explain that he is terrified for what the future can become now that that particular Singularity has declared war on the whole world?

How can he explain that Amehara Takeshi is the most accessible swordsman out there to spar against? Most Villains, Vigilantes and Heroes that ever dared to wield a sword have gone down by now, in Japan and all over the world. It is ridiculous how far the mad swordsman is willing to go to prove a point. Kēgo has only been spared because he has met the man twice, and he can fly while the Swordmaster can’t.

His silence seems to have lasted too long, as the President sighs once more and pulls out her stamp.

“You will have to deal with Amehara if you do this.”

“Ah, the Young Lord?” Why do they still call him ‘young’, anyway? “I think he likes me so I am counting on at least getting to talk to him.”

“You… think he likes you.”

“Well, he hasn’t insulted me on live television even once even though I’ve been in the top ten for a while!”

Elsewhere, Shigaraki Tomura holds a small crystal shard between two fingers, looking at it in the light. Kurogiri had brought it to him after losing sight of Hurricane, a tiny piece of Quirk-created material left behind in the crime scene. How rare, for that particular Vigilante to be careless about something like that, leaving behind a proof of his identity for Tomura to find. He hasn’t in all these years, so what happened?

It is an explosive, like Bakugō Katsuki; what are the chances it is just a coincidence? Low, very low.

How hard can it be to find a chemical Quirk that crystallizes into explosives? And how difficult would it be to corral the elusive bomber long enough to talk to him? The Shie Hassaikai is no longer around to be the obvious target, so he would need to find some other shady group of people on his turf, one that hasn’t fallen into Hurricane’s grasp just yet…

Should he set a trap? Tomura always did like hidden side quests, but this one might need more time and resources than he can afford to spend right now.

Or well, who knows. Maybe the Vigilante has a fixed address and he can just do a friendly and polite visit—

Ah, but first.

“Have you found out where the rest of Overhaul’s minions are?” Tomura twists his head to look at Mr. Compress, who gives him a bland smile. Shiro is an annoyance, but he did give them some good information that he can make use of. Mr. Compress had already been working on this, the new knowledge just makes the future look easier.

“They are scattered in various prisons. Law enforcement is rather… busy with negotiations, and they haven’t managed to process them just yet.”

“How very unfortunate.”

“Indeed.”

Well, prison breaks shouldn’t be too difficult. He has done it a few times already, and for once he is thankful for Namimori’s whole existence. All he needs is for the uncooperative micro-nation to keep distracting people and buying time, and soon he will have Overhaul’s minions in his hands.

Maybe he can use them to set a trap for Hurricane?

withering orchids

They get a whole lot of three years of peace after the Representative Battles before chaos starts anew.

Yes, they were exciting three years, with many territory scuffles, assassinations and massive conspiracies, but they are Mafia: it comes with the name. Many things happened in those three years, like Tsunayoshi graduating High School (not really, he got a diploma from Reborn and that was it) and officially ascending as Vongola Decimo/Neo Vongola Primo or, before that, Byakuran and Uni—now without her mother’s curse hovering over her—signing their future alliance as the Millefiore and establishing themselves firmly at Tsunayoshi’s and Enma’s sides. The Tenth Generations of Vongola and Simon swiftly took over most of Kyūshū and Shikoku, Hibari built his own organization to protect Namimori from whatever underworld nonsense happened in the mainland, while the First Generation of the Millefiore began taking over Malta and the regions of Italy that weren’t part of the Vongola.

All this happened in three years, with Tsunayoshi and Enma delegating while still studying, Uni herding the ex-Arcobaleno to stay out of trouble, and Byakuran himself setting down the foundation for the Alliance’s empire in many other European countries—by toppling organized crime in those areas, of course.

So, as the recently titled Millefiore Primo, head of the newest yet easily the most historically influential Famigla—both branches of the original Giglio Nero, though the new Giglio Nero kept the name—, Byakuran was planning on spending the future years expanding his territory, playing with his fellow Skies and Earth, and making a nuisance of himself to the rest of Europe. When chaos began anew, he had been smoothing things over in southern Italy, especially with those Famiglie who managed to defend against the Vongola and who didn’t accept an ‘upstart’ Famiglia trying to steal their dominion. Well, too bad for them: the Alliance was recent, but they were in their prime and the whole world would be theirs sooner or later.

And then a glowing baby was born in China, and the world turned itself upside down at the first outwardly visible signs of the supernatural invading their Madre Terra (it would take some years for science to discover the baby wasn’t the first, but then Byakuran would no longer be around).

He tried. He really did try to care, but he was Mafia, part of the Casta di Fiamma, and he had been part of the ‘supernatural’ since he was born. He was, is, and will always be a God in a teenager’s body, something between Tsunayoshi’s own Transcendental Sky and Singularity of Diachronicity roles, Bermuda’s Singularity of the Night, and True Earthlings like Kawahira; just like his cousin, really. He knew this, everyone close to him knew this: he and Uni descended from Sepira, a True Earthling and one of the divine that once walked the land, and they inherited traits from her that put them above plain mortality.

Uni inherited her future sight, the gift to see the future, to see a possible path that the world will follow; she also inherited the ability to see the truth of the world, precariously balanced on the Tri-ni-Sette as it had been for millennia, and that made her worthy of being the Sky Arcobaleno. Byakuran, however, inherited the Mare’s Miracle: he was one who traveled the Horizontal Space-Time Axis, witnessing countless paths and the results of past choices, a skill he takes pride in.

While it was a way of life he fully awoke to just a year before the Representative Battles, it had always been present before, just like it was present for many other Gesso heads and children. He could only catch glimpses of his parallel selves in dreams, hear their voices if he paid close enough attention, maybe share a word or two, but if it hadn’t been for dear Shōichi, he would probably have been unable to take that destiny in his hands.

(He remembered, though, he still does. He remembers his aunt, frail and bedridden, mumbling about rotten branches in the tree. He remembers his grandmother, always inside four walls with her arms held close to her body as she rocked back and forth. He remembers his father, smiling with teary eyes as he told Byakuran the world wasn’t meant for a single person before falling to his death.

Insanity is the curse of the Mare, of the Gesso more than the Giglio Nero, and at times he wondered how far gone he was, that he wasn’t able to tell there was something wrong with him.)

When the glowing baby was born, he barely paid attention to the news before sinking into the branches of the World Tree, sending a wide query to everyone who would listen. ‘What is that,’ he asked, ‘why did it happen?’ Most of his parallel selves claimed ignorance, as nothing like that had happened in their worlds, but there were a few who displayed similar confusion.

He dug inside the branches for days, weeks and months, each time getting more information. There seemed to be no shared variable between the worlds that developed these non-Flames ‘supernatural’ abilities, and it would always be the baby that first got noticed. They could be born earlier, or later, but if there were ‘supernatural’ abilities in the world, the baby would show up.

Weird.

They tried to ignore it. They all did: this matter didn’t concern the Casta di Fiamma, and they should not get involved. Let the normal people living clean lives deal with it all, and leave them out of it.

Of course, it couldn’t be so easy. Omertà was almost broken by a rival Famiglia and soon after that scare, the Alleanza Familiare found themselves with far more on their hands than they knew how to deal with: they needed to hide, to hide everything before they got found out. Those with ‘supernatural’ abilities were being hunted down, both openly and not, and who would be more of a target than a whole society built around Flames of the soul?

They had been running themselves thin and dry trying to salvage what they could, hiding and neutralizing weapons and making contingency plan after contingency plan in case any of them were brought down, or worse, captured. They were rough years, and Byakuran will feel the exhaustion of it all even two centuries later.

It was, perhaps, two years into the chaos that that child showed up. He was just a child, maybe five years old, a child who dragged his little brother around to watch the Mafiosi go on with their lives and admire the bright, bright Flames that glowed in the shrines around Nami Island. He was a curious child, awfully obsessed with villains from comic books, but he was kind. Gentle. Not a thief, nor a monster, or at least he wasn’t back then.

Byakuran came to meet Shigaraki Minase because of Bermuda and Neil Spanner, and it was the most unfortunate meeting he would ever live through, in any alternate or future life. He had been in Japan for a meeting with his fellow Skies, Earth and Arcobaleno Candidates from the Representative Battles, when the back-then-current strongest Rain had run into the room waving a lollipop around.

“I found something fun,” Spanner said, barely louder than his usual self, and Bermuda rudely interrupted as he came in next carrying an unkempt child on his chains.

“Fun is not what I would call this, no,” the Enforcer added, putting the still-chained child on an unused chair. Shigaraki Minase looked at those present, bewildered, with beautiful orange-gold Flames burning in his eyes.

“A citizen of Namimori with Flames, yes, this is very rare,” Tsunayoshi admitted with hidden sarcasm, throwing back his mug of coffee before going to help the child get out of the chains. “Sure, he is a Sky, but that doesn’t mean you can just kidnap people—“

“No, no, listen,” the Rain Arcobaleno Candidate, Spanner, had grabbed Tsunayoshi’s shoulders then and shaken him. “They aren’t his.”

Byakuran became interested then, but not enough to add to the conversation. The child, Shigaraki Minase, had a particular ability they had never encountered before, an ability to steal—and give back—Flames from others with a touch, completely, and this time he had stolen a full set that became Sky. Sure, the Flames had to be visible for him to take them, but they were in Nami Island: every single person kept Flame conduits in their pockets.

It was dangerous—people being completely drained of their Flames, their souls, their wills to live didn’t come back the same—, but Shigaraki was a child, one loved by his family and who loved them back, and after some Tsunayoshi magic Bermuda didn’t have the heart to get the kid locked up. He was watched, yes, but not locked up.

He asked questions, of course he did, he was curious and a child. He wanted to know everything, to see everything. They made him promise not to tell people, not to steal anyone’s Flames and to keep out of trouble. He bargained as five-year-olds do, and in the end he was allowed to tell his brother only, so long as Shigaraki Yoichi also promised to keep the secret.

He was harmless. There was no way he was planning anything nefarious, he was a child, a child who could steal flames but still a child.

“Mister Gesso, that’s a nice ring you have,” Minase once said, a few days before Byakuran was set to return to Malta.

“Thank you? It is a family heirloom.” He didn’t dare reveal anything else about the Mare del Cielo, he never did, the Tri-ni-Sette is a secret kept by few. By then, none of them dared wear their Rings in public, kept hidden in fear of the hunts.

He shrugged at the child and proceeded to ignore him. Minase didn’t do anything else to get his attention through those days, still dragging Yoichi around to watch Tsunayoshi and Enma spar, still going through his gigantic collection of hero comics that Tsunayoshi kept adding to due to his bleeding heart, still trying to tail Hibari and Adelheid as they went on their patrols. Just another child from Namimori, running in the wild and playing endless tag with the children of Kokuyō, or visiting the temple in hopes of awakening his own Flames.

When Byakuran returned home, the Mare del Cielo wasn’t in his possession. He looked for it everywhere. He called Tsunayoshi, Enma, Uni, Xanxus and who knows who else. Every day more frantic, every day more desperate.

Every day slowly losing his head to the inflow of information from parallel worlds he couldn’t silence anymore.

Everyone helped look, but he was scared: his unusual white-coloured Sky Flames, the pride of his soul, dulled and shifted until they became a sickly grey with black streaks.

Everyone worried about him, checking on him regularly, but he was terrified: the world twisted oddly in his eyes at irregular times, showing him sights from other worlds, worlds where the influence of ‘Byakuran’ was slowly fading.

Hefearedhefearedhefeared like he had never feared anything before, and he could

do

nothing.

When his not-white-anymore wings came out without prompting in a burst of black, he knew. He knew it better than anyone.

He had no time left.

Chapter Text

XX/XX/204X; ???, ???, ???

NEW! Mukuro just posted a new thread in Akasha: Log - XX/XX/4X

I have decided to document life in this place, partly because a lot of things happen every day around the world, mostly because I feel like my memories are slipping from my hands like water. The very first life (Greece, sometime before AD) feels distant and faded around the edges; maybe I have reached the limits of what I can remember in a single lifetime, or maybe I am just losing hold of what I’m meant to be. Either way, I don’t like it, and I don’t want to forget.

Currently, I am still unable to move much, at least not independently. The Pereira family has taken good care of me, better than some of my previous life and, so far, it has been definitely better than the life as ‘Rokudō Mukuro’. I don’t know if I’ll ever meet dear Nagi again, other half of my soul, or anyone else, but for now I should worry about myself. Can’t really afford to worry about anyone else.

Flames are still unaccessible, but at least I don’t have one of those ‘supernatural abilities’ that other people are manifesting more often nowadays. The little sister has one, but none of the Pereira do apart from her. My guess is that they are a bastardization of the gifts given to us by the most ancient, but I still need to research.

I managed to get access to this weird prototype time capsule I stole from Spanner (I should probably repay my debts one day), so I will use it to try and put my life back in order. Merone isn’t particularly active to help me with that task, not that I would trust Merone at all, and Namimori is currently under siege. I found traces of the Foundation, the CEDEF and the Varia moving around the world, obviously in disguise, and the remnants of the Millefiore show themselves at times. However, of those I knew, I don’t know who still lives, but I also don’t want to find out.

Things to do once I’m old enough to get out of here:

1. Recover access to the scattered bank accounts because I will not live in poverty. Take everything in the Vongola Mists’ account because there shouldn’t be anyone left to use them. Get hold of Tsunayoshi’s investment portfolio and we will be set for the next few centuries.
2. Secure the Pereira’s safety.
3. Retrieve Mukurou.
4. Find Bermuda or Skull, if they are still around. They should know something about what’s going on.
5. Search for R&D research records on these ‘supernatural abilities’ that aren’t locked behind Namimori or in the Millefiore’s possession. From what I remember, Verde and Irie hid some away around Czechia, Peru and Egypt. There may be some others in China. I know the cities, the memories are just hazy, return to topic later.
6. Don’t die again.

…

Read more?

Day of the UA Sports Festival; Kasadoshima, Yamaguchi, Japan

Despite everything that has been his life these past 16 years, and ignoring his own feelings about the whole Hero thing, Bakugō Hayato does have to give his brother some credit: he knows how to stir up a crowd. His voice rings true and clear through the speakers of the small television, stating a fact of life that isn’t all that far from Hayato’s own dying will:

“I will be number one.”

Yes, the crowds went wild: students, teachers and even those watching at home, they all have comments to yell at his brother. Social media casually explodes in Hayato’s hand and he suddenly regrets checking the hashtags in real time. Even those around Hayato, tourists and travellers resting in the ryokan who are still wandering around the reception lobby, react to his words, loudly and without consideration for those who are here to relax:

“What a troublemaker,” the woman in front of Hayato says, tightening her hand around her daughter’s hand. “Don’t grow up like that, Sae.”

“Hero students get more simple-minded every day, I swear to—“ The man behind Hayato mutters, his companion giggling at his words.

“You could have been that, too.”

“So glad I didn’t.”

Yes, Hayato is also glad the man didn’t. One less Hero wannabe who didn’t fulfil that particular death wish of theirs, one less Hero ruining the natural progress of the world with their presence. He doesn’t know what this man’s Quirk is supposed to be and he doesn’t care, but he thinks the man is a little smart.

Katsuki isn’t. Katsuki is digging his own grave, and Hayato hates it. He could have gone watch the whole event live with their parents, but he refuses to step into that supposed school that is broadcasting, and possibly capitalizing on a bunch of high schoolers beating each other up in games. The idea that they are willingly exposing their students to the whole world without considering future repercussions apart from their own benefits is disgusting.

He prefers the Olympics, thank you very much. Even Vongola events are better than this.

The first event is an obstacle course, and Hayato listens to the broadcast idly as he hands over his motorcycle license and checks in for the next few days. The room is already paid for by his parents, who tend to let him wander Japan without a care: he is currently on a quest to visit all national parks as he waits for the universities to respond. Of course, that’s a cover story: his parents know it is a cover story, Katsuki knows it is a cover story even if they all still ask for souvenirs, but it is a cover story that works surprisingly well given their family’s particular way of being.

What he is actually doing right now is trailing after a rather annoying lady elbow-deep in arms trafficking and her co-conspirators, hoping to figure out said co-conspirators. They are awfully slippery when they want to be, but they are supposed to have a meeting tomorrow, in this wide-open, defenseless place for some stupid reason, so here he is. That, and he wants to visit his ‘student’ over at Shūnan to make sure he isn’t getting into trouble because Flames know what that kid gets into in his spare time.

The race is over once Hayato is done arranging the ryokan’s room to his liking, listening to the announcer as he secures his location. Izuku gets first place due to a crazy stunt, and Katsuki gets third as he has enough common sense to not blast himself with a bomb and a piece of metal. That’s fair, that’s his Family and he is proud of them, but he is still going to yell at them later for being stupid. Some of their classmates also make it to the next stage, but Hayato doesn’t recognize their names: he knows their names and Katsuki’s nicknames for them, but legal names? No, he doesn’t want to get too involved.

Takeshi gets 42nd place, barely making it into the second stage. That’s possibly because he wasn’t trying to win at all, but the Amehara overlord is also present (the commentator was rather loud about that; well, louder, he is loud about everything) so he probably doesn’t want to throw the whole thing. Who even knows with Takeshi, he doesn’t seem to be as competitive as he was Before, but that doesn’t make him any less of a monster when it comes to sports.

He gets ready to go out, listening to the Squalo-volume commentary on the participants’ classes, Quirks and other random facts. Next up is a cavalry battle and they have to collect points by stealing headbands, which means Izuku will be everyone’s target. Fun. He watches part of the broadcast as he waits for his taxi and rides to Shūnan, so he gets to identify some of the people in their teams.

They are… interesting teams, yes. Izuku is with the gravity girl, the bird with an amazing fashion sense, and Hatsume Mei, who he knows from young inventors’ conventions in the past (he isn’t an inventor, he went as an espectator). They are probably aiming for mobility, then: according to Katsuki they are all speedy annoyances, and Hatsume is allowed to bring in her creations so she’s a wild card. Katsuki’s team is a little more varied: a good defence in the baby shark with the hardening Quirk, range with the guy with the tape, and a wildcard Pikachu. Katsuki himself is also very mobile since he can fly, but Hayato won’t be able to understand his strategy until he sees it in action.

Finally, Takeshi teamed up with the purple-haired kid from the General Department—Present Mic sounded quite ecstatic when he said that for some reason—, and two others who… don’t look as if they are completely present in their bodies at the moment. It is a little eerie, but it probably has to do with Eyebags’ Quirk or something: he is from the General Department, so the commentary hadn’t been able to explain what he does. Equality, ladies and gentlemen and gentlepeople, would be treating everyone the same, but it is obvious they didn’t know about his Quirk because he is from the General Department.

Troublesome. Troublesome and very annoying, and also illegal as it is blatant discrimination (in live broadcast, too!). His driver speaks up then, since he has been listening to the broadcast from Hayato’s phone:

“They are supposed to have all Quirks registered, yeah? Poor kid.”

“They probably only took notes on those they assumed would pass.”

“Tsk, it’s the same wherever you go.”

“And it is starting! The Cavalry Battle begins, and everyone is targeting the 10 Million Points headband, listeners! Cover your heads because we have a light drizzle right now!”

Oh, Takeshi is going for the kill. It might just be drizzle and not the downpours he is apparently able to do—he doesn’t want to kill anyone—, but it is still his rain falling on his opponents. They will be slowed down, maybe only the riders at first, but even if they manage to stay dry the water will pool on the ground and affect their legs as well. And, of course, the longer it rains the worse it will be for everyone else, and this event lasts 15 minutes.

Hayato won’t be surprised if Team Eyebags steals all headbands, to be honest. Takeshi will be the only one not slowed down eventually and, even if his team ‘leader’ gets sluggish, Takeshi is ridiculous enough to carry his whole team through.

Now, it all depends on how everyone reacts to the rain, and how fast they are: their wild dash at Izuku’s team freezes as many of the students realize what’s going on, that this isn’t just rain and it is someone’s Quirk. The commentator also hadn’t been able to, or was unwilling to fully describe Takeshi’s Quirk, only calling it the Jiunoka and mentioning something about hindering the opponent. The camera drone moves to focus on the teams one by one and most of them are trying to make some cover for themselves. The teams made exclusively of Katsuki’s classmates act the slowest, while every group made of not-Katsuki’s-classmates (so, Takeshi’s classmates, probably) is quick to curse Takeshi with their words (that the drone can’t catch) or their hands or any other way.

Hayato is very, very amused when the camera focuses on a blond boy with his face buried in his hands as his teammate builds something that could be an umbrella out of thin, solidified air.

Hayato only cares about three teams, though, so he analyzes their actions from what little he can see. Team Eyebags, Takeshi’s team, is cheating so they don’t do anything: as previously mentioned, Takeshi can win this whole thing on his own. He doesn’t seem to be able to control the rain enough to keep all of them dry, but that doesn’t matter when he is Takeshi. Izuku’s team hides under the shadowy bird for now, but they don’t seem to be content with that as Izuku is talking and pointing at the ground—is it made of tiles? It might be made of tiles, they could be planning to take one and use it to hide under.

Katsuki’s team is abusing their wildcard Pikachu privileges: Takeshi’s rain seems to be made of pure water, so using electricity on it should evaporate it without endangering others… much. The shiny Pokemon evidently noticed that and acted accordingly even without his teammates' input, so now the whole team is wrapped in arcs of bright lightning that snap around wildly like snakes. Steam, most likely at boiling temperatures, surrounds them all like the veil that surrounds Namimori, but this one isn’t just going to go away when someone approaches, no; they are lucky none of them are too bothered by the heat except for tape dispenser, who shakes his head and when the others speak to him in concern since he is getting… very red.

Katsuki frowns and taps Pikachu’s shoulder, mouthing something the camera drone can’t catch (it hasn’t short-circuited yet so it is quite a good drone). The Lightning Flame user-wannabe lowers his arm and the electricity arcs move higher up: if the rain evaporates away from them they should still be safe and their classmate won’t have to suffer as much. Hayato is so proud of his brother, he is taking people into consideration! Sure, Pikachu will probably have to work harder to keep them away, but he obviously has enough energy for that, and so do his… weird amalgamations of technology.

Hayato doesn’t quite know how canaluce works, to be honest: he worked on the development of antiluce, the nullifier, not the strengthening proluce or the limiters and controllers canaluce. He knows they don’t work as conduits—those make Flames visible and usable for external effects, but the user still needs training in order to control their output. Canaluce was used for people like most Lightnings or Clouds, or young Skies, or for those in the later stages of the Disease, people who had no control over how much of their Flames they used each time; how exactly it works, how it calculates how much to let out, however, is a mystery. A mystery that Skull, Verde, Lambo and Spanner brought to their graves—or maybe not, since it is present right here.

From what Hayato knows from Katsuki, Kaminari Denki, the rare shiny Pikachu that is a Namimori native training to be a Hero, has a rather annoying Quirk: it electrifies himself and everything around him, without discrimination, at a high voltage. It is an elemental Quirk, the worst category for self-control, survivability and keeping collateral damage at a minimum, simply due to their inherent strength and side effects. His body is capable of tolerating high voltages, yes, but the Quirk itself goes above that tolerance most of the time—usually it is a single discharge, terrifyingly powerful, that leaves the boy unable to do much for a while. He has gotten better at control through the months of training, though.

From what Hayato knows, from Irie Shōichi when that irritable man allows himself to drop the Merone façade, Kaminari Denki is powerful enough to short-circuit Namimori’s Quirk inhibitors, built to nullify everything in the island and its surroundings—including All Might—with his Quirk. In short, that Quirk might be Hero-worthy in Japan, but he wasn’t born in Japan: it is a liability and, as the law goes, no one in Namimori is allowed to be a liability or endanger others around them. The presently-Hero-Candidate, previously Namimori’s most hyperactive Sun-leaning child (of course he is a potential Sun, nature really didn’t think things through with that one), had needed a specially developed device to control his output and his Quirk as a whole: an intricate piece of technology using the present-time versions of antiluce and canaluce, more Quirk inhibitors, and old school lightning rods.

Hayato hadn’t known about Kaminari until the start of the school year: Katsuki had taken one look at the conduits and sent Hayato a photo of them because ‘look, it’s your rival’. And, indeed, the twisting lines of the devices gave the impression of a field of daisies, marking them as both a Vanda (Millefiore’s Sun Squad) creation and an Irie Shōichi design; he is sure that, if he could look closer at the things with a magnifier, he would find the musical notes that are the mark of Irie’s personal craftsmanship. That is also the only reason why they know Pikachu is from Namimori, since the boy seems to be fully motivated in not revealing his origins.

The event continues once everyone has secured their dryness somehow, and those who haven’t will soon be in trouble. Some people in the crowd apparently notice the devices on Kaminari and start protesting about a Hero Candidate having access to support items, but Present Mic explains that they are approved civilian aid devices—that is, tools that make it easier for civilians with difficult Quirks to live. The canaluce conduits aren’t considered support items, just as the antiluce in Katsuki’s room!

Thank Flames for Quirk priority. It might cause problems for Pikachu later on, since Hero Candidates are supposed to have full control of their Quirks so it could lower his ‘value’ as a Hero, but he also has a flawless defence called ‘my Quirk is SQM12’.

(Is he SQM12? He probably is, All Might is 13 and Mukuro is considered to be 14… 12.5? Surely not 13?)

Hayato watches the battle. As expected, Katsuki aims for Izuku or the bi-coloured hair guy almost exclusively, while everyone else tries to get in the way as they do their own thing. Also as expected, Izuku and friends dart around quickly (though slowing down, since they can’t quite protect their feet from the collected water) as they struggle to stay out of the conflict area. Takeshi’s team is still cheating by, uh, politely asking for the headbands, and getting them; that has to be a new record in Takeshi’s nonsense scale.

A light drizzle continues falling.

The event ends with Katsuki’s team in second place, good enough for Hayato but not good enough for his brother. He doesn’t yell, though, just thanks his teammates with a disgruntled face on and leaves. And then, Hayato reaches his destination.

“Thank you, sir,” he says as he pays his fare. He can already see his ‘student’ practically hopping in excitement across the street.

“No worries, kid.”

Once he is out of the car, he waves at Ren to come over before he goes to sit on a bench. His phone rings almost immediately after.

“Where are you.”

“Ciao, congratulations on making it to the third stage—“

“Seriously, where the fuck are you.” Oh, Katsuki is angry. Nothing new, though he rarely gets angry at Hayato.

“Shūnan right now, was in Kasadoshima.”

“Excuse me!?”

“I’m on a spiritual retreat, remember? Visiting Setonaikai this week.”

“You are out on your ‘spiritual retreat’—,“ Hayato can see Katsuki making air quotes in his mind, he has seen it so many times it is an image carved in his eyelids; “—in Setonaikai again, while I’m here defending our family’s honour—“

“Don’t you mean your honour—?”

“Who cares!? I can’t believe you would do this to me—“

“I’m watching the broadcast and sending all my love and support—“

“You should be here! Watching it live! Even the old hag is here and you aren’t?”

“I have a… time-sensitive appointment— Hi, Ren.”

His tiny ‘student’ slides onto the bench right next to him, kicking his short legs like the child he is. His jet black hair is styled as usual, sideburns neatly curled at the side, and there is a small lizard perched on his shoulder. The oversized flute case he is carrying is gently put at his side, but Hayato quickly grabs it and puts it on the ground, held between his feet. Better not leave this thing where it can be easily taken.

“Hey, kid.” Katsuki calms down for three seconds to greet the actual, literal child next to Hayato, loud enough to be heard through the speakers.

“Ciaossu, Arcida, Hurri—“

“Bye, Ren.”

Hayato covers his ‘student’s’ mouth with his free hand and turns his attention back to Katsuki, who is patiently waiting for him to come back to the conversation. His next words are as angry as before, but quieter: he doesn’t want Ren to hear. Ren also doesn’t do anything to free himself, too busy playing with his lizard.

“Is the kid your time-sensitive appointment?”

“No, I’m just near enough to visit. My appointment is tomorrow.”

“…Are you bringing him along?”

“Not unless he wants to come—“ As he expected, Ren shoves his hand away from himself so he can lean closer to the phone. Poor Leon goes flying and lands on Hayato’s head, so he grabs him to return him to Ren’s shoulder.

“I want to come!”

“You are like 10 years old—“

“I’m in middle school now, Arcida!”

He… is, as of this year, which means Hayato has been ‘teaching’ him for three whole years now. How did things end this way… He is thirteen, as if that would be enough to convince Hayato to willingly bring him along to stalk illegal arms dealers—yes, Hayato also started doing barely-legal shit around the age Ren was when he asked Hayato to teach him things, and in his old life he started even earlier, but he has been trying so hard to keep the people from his previous life safe that bringing Ren along is just…

Unfortunately, he can’t really do anything about Sō Ren following him to places: Reborn was, once in a previous lifetime, one of Hayato’s role models, a mentor and a brother all in one. All seven Arcobaleni had been undeniable constants in any Mafioso’s life, unchanged for decades (except for Luce, Aria and Uni), and the respect they were owed was more than anyone in present time could ever deserve. Even if it wasn’t Reborn, Tsuna’s teacher, Takeshi’s teacher, his teacher, Hayato wouldn’t be able to say ‘no’ to any Arcobaleno if they asked anything from him.

It is funny. He didn’t have ‘actual, literal child Reborn’ or ‘ridiculously childish Reborn’ in his bingo card for this lifetime: he didn’t think he would ever have to add ‘Reborn’ to his bingo card at all. He was perfectly content with leaving the reincarnated Arcobaleno to live his life at ease, occasionally dropping by to check on the ‘odd, too mature, too strong’ child and maybe crossing his path once.

(Then again, he was perfectly content with leaving Tsuna alone as well, and as of now he is still chasing after owl sightings, golden lions, and petrified wrongdoers.)

After finding him by chance, hidden away in this peaceful city, he had tried to distance himself, to leave him be, but Reborn wouldn’t be anything less than Reborn even in a second chance at life. Sō Ren had found him, found out who he was, what he did and why he did it, and attached himself to Hayato’s side without letting go, threats and all. And Hayato, well, he hadn’t been able to let go either, not after seeing how Ren lived, how he was treated for being different, the scattered memories he can’t fully retrieve leaving him as an outcast even from his own family.

(He thinks of Gabriel Rohemaa, thrown away to die in the exclusion zone for being Quirkless when Verde was once revered as the greatest mind of his generation. He thinks of Amehara Kasumi, left to rot in the streets for their lack of voice and visible emotions when Mammon’s quietness and mind had made them one of the best illusionists in the world. He thinks of Liu Shen, of Jora Sapir, of Merrill Jágr, of how each and every one of them remembers enough to feel out of place but not enough to know why.

He thinks of Skull, who is still Skull, now and before and since the beginning of time, and he wonders what it is like to watch the world change for the worse without the strength to do anything about it.)

Hayato had once been a mid-range fighter, something he learned from Shamal and his own experiments; his range expanded with the Sistema CAI and G’s Archery, and that became his backup position as the Tenth Generation Guardians didn’t have any other ranged fighters apart from Tsuna when necessary and Chrome at times. At the end of his life, he was the ranged fighter simply because his body wasn’t able to tolerate the recoil of his favoured weapon, but that was after years of training.

He wasn’t always a sharpshooter as he is in this life, no: nowadays he doesn’t miss, but he didn’t start that way. He never had any particular talent for guns or bows, wasn’t born with the natural eagle eye that Reborn and Colonello had: he had to train endlessly, and he still has nightmares of Colonello, Lal Mirch and Reborn chasing after him when he missed a shot or was in a too-exposed position. They call ‘Hurricane’ one of the best sharpshooters now (never compared to Sniper, though), when he gets caught shooting his triggers, but that’s only because the world has yet to meet Reborn, or Colonello, or any of the other people who had been born to carry firearms in their hands.

Reborn had been his mentor as a hitman, in sharpshooting, in diplomacy, bureaucracy, management and so many other things: as he trained Tsuna to become Vongola Decimo, so did he train Hayato to become the right-hand man he aspired to be, and for that he revered and respected Reborn with everything he was. He still does, which is why the current situation feels so awkward yet so right to him.

The Arcobaleni gave their lives for the world, suffered for years for their ideals, and in this second chance at life they should be allowed to live. To live and grow and move as they please, not stuck in time for decades watching over a system they were unable to save.

Verde had once taken in Irie Shōichi, Spanner and Lambo under his wing, and now Irie Shōichi is practically his legal guardian and Lambo has a whole network of connections to get the small inventor what he needs; Spanner is a mystery. Mammon had once managed the Varia estate with an iron fist and was a Quality assassin with a 100% success rate, and now the Varia protects them, lets them live a life without concerns. Fon had once trained an explosive little girl to be a graceful fighter and to control her explosions, and now he has an older sister who is willing to destroy the world to make sure he can go where he wants, follow whoever he wants instead of having his children held hostage for his compliance. Luce and Aria, who had once been young mothers cursed to live short and cruel lives, became the youngest of three, with Uni paving the way for her sisters to live as long as they possibly could.

So, then, why can’t Hayato, who was once Reborn’s student, make sure that Sō Ren is capable of making his own choices? Why can’t he guide him, mentor him to hopefully stay away from a life where every choice could mean death, the life a hitman leads? Why can’t he give him the attention his family refuses to give him?

(It should be Tsuna. It should be Takeshi. Hayato is a reminder of Reborn’s final, painful and torturous years, and he doesn’t deserve this.)

Their age gap is only two, at times three, years, yet for some reason Ren looks at him as if he is older and greater than he actually is: he looks at Hayato with the respect of a student to a teacher, and it is… oddly flattering. That he can now return what was once given to him, freely, and he can do it this way…

It helps, it heals his aching soul, and it helps Ren as well. If Hayato could take him away from his shitty family right now, he would in an instant, but laws are laws. So, to Shūnan he comes every few weeks, to make sure his endearingly childish past-mentor, present-student doesn’t get himself in too much trouble.

Unfortunately, Ren is still Reborn and will snap at Hayato if he worries too much or tries to stop him from joining his barely legal dealings, so he stopped fussing a while ago. However, Katsuki found out about him, and Katsuki sees Ren as the child he physically is, so Ren antagonizes him endlessly…

“—just listen, I know you think you can do anything—“

“I don’t think I can, I know!” Ren takes Hayato’s phone and he just lets him, grabbing Leon again to get him out of the danger zone. He puts the lizard on his leg and strokes his tiny, scaly head—what species is he supposed to be? Some chamaleon mutation?

“—but you could get him in trouble, you know this, right? And you will be in danger, you know what he is involved with—“ Katsuki speaks quietly, as he is still in UA, possibly not in public but still near too many people to feel comfortable with his usual volume. The fact that he is aware of Hayato’s less… acceptable hobby isn’t something he usually speaks out loud, especially not near Hayato himself.

“I have been learning and we will train today, and tomorrow I will join in. You can’t stop me, Arcida.”

“For fuck’s sake, why won’t you ever listen—“ Katsuki giving life advice to Reborn of all people shouldn’t be as funny as it is, to be honest.

Hayato lets their voices fall into the background as he mentally notes what he has to do today to prepare for tomorrow. First, training session with Ren, because that’s why he came to Shūnan for. The Sō couple won’t notice he is missing for a few days, so Hayato can bring him along to pick up his barely-legal package and look for a good location in the ryokan. His target and her cohort have already arrived, scattered around the southern coast of Yamaguchi, but Hayato doesn’t know their specific locations so he needs to wait.

He also needs to decide what to do with the woman once the others leave: should he try to contact her to make the transition of power easier once he collapses their operations, or should he let her be so she realizes what a mistake it was to bring her dirty business here without protection? This is technically Simon territory, but Enma is in no state to be cleaning up his lands on his own and he gave Hayato carte blanche for whatever needs to be done. The other Simon are scattered, even more than the Vongola, so it is… difficult.

Then, there are the Heroes to consider. Most of the ones he has to keep an eye on are either stationed permanently in Kyūshū or Shikoku, so Yamaguchi should be out of their jurisdiction as it belongs to Honshū, but he doesn’t know enough about the Heroes of the Prefecture to know if they can be a risk or not. Shūnan is a peaceful location, however it is also part of the exclusion zone’s border since it stands near the intersection between Shikoku and Kyūshū: would the Yamaguchi Heroes react fast enough to danger here if Hayato speeds up his timeline?

Things to think about.

“—and then what will you do, huh?”

“Pretty sure I can flee to hide somewhere! It isn’t like my family cares either way—“

“That’s not the point! You are…! You know what, give me Hayato.”

Ren dutifully passes the phone over and Hayato gives him a fistful of hard candy he keeps in his pocket for these kinds of situations. Katsuki sounds a little exasperated and exhausted when he speaks again, but this is normal when he deals with anyone from Hayato’s less legal life.

“Don’t endanger the kid, it isn’t a crime to retreat.”

“Hm, it’s alright. He’s good and I’ve drilled him on contingency measures.”

Said contingency measures are mostly either escort him to Mie, to the Hoshizakis where Fūta will do his best to keep him out of trouble and clean up whatever mess he made, or send him away to Miyazaki where Enma will keep him locked up for a few days while he nags Fūta to clean up the mess as well (Fūta is their one and only saviour). If this was the past, he could send the kid to Ōita or Sukumo where the Vongola and the Simon had fully equipped bunkers, but one, he doesn’t know if they are still there and two, they are inside the exclusion zone now, ‘lawless’ lands with no Heroes. Law enforcement is far more strict there than anywhere else.

(Hayato doesn’t know when humanity learned to deal with nuclear radiation, but he is happy they did. He doesn’t know how he would cope with losing his fleet if he hadn’t been able to visit Sukumo, or Saiki, or Ōita. The Waterspout didn’t spend much time in Setonaikai in their earlier years, but by the end they stayed near Japan so often the port cities still have records of their meanderings. Many of those records speak fondly of his ‘GH’ and his crew.

They have some of the few remaining records that ‘Gokudera Hayato’ ever existed, and he is so thankful.)

“You know, I only have one brother.”

“I will do my best.”

“Take my reputation into consideration for once in your life.” His words are a lie, just a mask he puts on to act as if he isn’t a total softie. Still, he is back to his usual rough way of speaking, something between anger, generalized hatred and ambition, with some disbelief in the background (he is so often done with everything that it has become part of his voice, it is so funny). Typical Katsuki.

“Of course.”

“Good. Watch my matches, I’m still mad.”

“I will send a long critique on what you did wrong, don’t worry.”

“Tch, you are so annoying. Come back soon.”

“Don’t overdo it.”

They don’t bother saying goodbye to each other: they are brothers and there are certain things that don’t need to be said between brothers.

Hayato grabs the flute case from the ground and stands up, stretching his arm above his head as Ren hops off the bench and skips in place in front of him.

“What are we doing today!”

“First, find a place to hide.” Shūnan might be peaceful, but who knows who is watching. Besides, firearms possession is still illegal, and Ren’s guns might be non-lethal airguns like Hayato’s own, completely legal to have (for someone older), but they look a lot like the real thing. “Then, your routine. I will fix your mistakes.”

“O~kay.”

Hayato smiles as Ren reaches to grab his hand, the touch starvation caused by a family who won’t look at him driving him to do things Reborn would never have done in the past. This actual, literal child Reborn, Sō Ren, deserves the whole world, and for now, Hayato is more than happy to give it to him.

Back in UA, Midoriya Izuku stands casually next to a locked door. He just had a rather difficult conversation with one of his classmates and he could use some emotional support and someone to rant at. He won’t reveal Todoroki’s secrets, no, but he will at least complain about the Hero society’s blindness to Katsuki. Again. For the… third time, maybe, this month.

Right now, though, he guards the door. Kirishima, Sero, Kaminari and Mina had already come around asking for Katsuki, but he was talking to Hayato, so… They hadn’t really accepted that their asocial classmate, almost friend (Katsuki does see them as, even if he doesn’t show it) was talking with someone outside of the class and his family who is in the audience, and had insisted on trying to drag him out. Thus, Izuku guards the door.

The door unlocks and Katsuki comes out, looking like he is absolutely done with the world as he often does after dealing with Hayato. They walk together in comfortable, amiable silence towards the spectators’ area, meeting some people on the way: Izuku greets some of them, but Katsuki is doing his best impression of a mute person right now.

“They are still doing the recreational activities, apparently.”

“The extra’s filler episode,” Katsuki finally speaks, a mild insult to others but a neutral expression for him. It is just how he talks, just as his usual explosive attitude is just how he is.

“Yep. Mom brought us lunch if you want, we should have enough time. I think Mitsuki-san wants to yell at you a little as well.” Just an everyday thing in the Midoriya-Bakugō… household? Joint household? They aren’t related at all but it is hard to see them as anything but family.

“Figures. Better go see what they want before they come down here.”

“It is for the best.”

“Deku.” Katsuki stops for a second, and Izuku does so as well. There is no one around. “You better do your best.”

“—What made you think I wouldn’t?”

“You never aim for victory.”

“Yeah, but that’s—,” ‘something else,’ he wants to add, but Katsuki just glares at him half-heartedly. He has had years of learning how to read his friend’s expressions, and this is just his default ‘dealing with Izuku’ face: not actually angry, just keeping a façade, a glare for the sake of looking menacing.

“Aim for the top, Izuku.” His tone is rough and sharp, but his posture speaks for him. “We are supposed to be rivals, what good is a rival who is always on the defensive?”

“Aah, that.”

He hums, understanding Katsuki’s words for what they are—a warning, a request, a small tug and push for him to do better and fight against what other people say. To those other people, Izuku might seem reckless, willing to do anything to win, but there is a pattern to his recklessness: he is only so when there is something to protect. Katsuki, Hayato, their families, his classmates… his right to be a student of this school. He rarely fights for his own reputation, rarely aims higher than the ‘average’ position he has gotten used to.

He is comfortable standing in the middle of the rankings right now, not like Katsuki who chases his own dreams, not like Hayato who naturally stands at the top yet hides in the shadows. Yes, he was at the top of some of his classes in Aldera, second and third in the others, but that was partly because the twins refused to let him stay behind. Yes, he is possibly the best Quirk analyst in their mildly problematic online community (after IdoRankings, who is an informant by trade and also an outlier), but he only shows it outwardly when someone asks him to.

He always, always screamed, yelled, claimed that he wanted to be a Hero, an impossible future for the Quirkless, and yet it was only when he was promised a Quirk that he took his path in his own hands. He could have started physical conditioning earlier, following Katsuki’s extensive regime as close as he could. He could have aimed for a future as a Quirk analyst, could have studied more of the field he loves so much than what little he learned on his own. He could have become more involved with their online community—he is a mod, but he is only a mod because he is almost always online, reading everything he can but rarely giving his own opinions.

He stagnated. He drifted aimlessly for years and years, willingly hiding behind others even though he wanted to be at their side. He could have done so much, yet he didn’t dare get out of his comfortable and safe space.

A rival who stays on the defensive in life would never be able to stand next to someone else.

They told him he was Quirkless, and then the one dream he shared with Katsuki became impossible because he was ‘disabled’, ‘broken’, not strong enough. He watched Hayato, Quirkless for 10 years, reach higher and higher until he became a sand-sized speck in the sky, yet he never tried to do the same. He wasn’t content with his society-assigned mediocrity, but he never did anything to prove himself as someone who could do better.

Then he got his Quirk, inherited it from the top Hero and his personal idol, and suddenly he could do it, he could aim for the top! He could fulfil his life dreams of becoming a Hero—

But he was already behind, and used to being so. A little more than a year of training is nothing next to Katsuki’s ten or so years of physical conditioning, training and experimenting with what he could do. A little more than a year of training and countless broken bones, yet he is still waiting for someone to tell him how to control his Quirk, how to dive into the vast lake of power left behind by eight others he can feel beneath the enhancements he has easy access to. A little more than a year of training, countless broken bones and surviving a Villain attack, but has he bothered actively looking into the organization that attacked them?

When did he become so accepting of being ‘average’, or even less than so? When did he settle into complacency for what society told him he should be for most of his life?

He used to be better than this, didn’t he? He used to fight back, to yell at his bullies and childishly insult them to their faces in a way they never noticed, but then he stopped. He used to get angry, furious after people insulted him, used to fume in his room claiming he would ‘show them’ and writing endless analyses on how their Quirks could work against them, but then he stopped. He used to be the best student in his class earlier on simply because his classmates annoyed him so much with their scathing words and mockery, so if he could have just one victory, that victory he could claim as his own, then he was already better than them.

When did he stop fighting back? In Junior High he was already hiding behind the twins, letting them pull him ahead without doing anything for himself. He was already keeping his rambles within his circle of friends, small as it was, instead of pointing out obvious mistakes in Hero newscasts. Katsuki still called him his rival, Hayato still listened intently to his ideas, Satoki and Nagashi never stopped considering him and Tsubasa when planning outings to do anything together, and yet—

Izuku thinks about Todoroki. Todoroki who was unwillingly put on a pedestal by society, forced on the path to being ‘the best’ by his father, unable to escape the limelight. He thinks of Todoroki who is stronger than him, maybe stronger than Katsuki, than everyone in class. His thoughts when they were talking were mostly about how terrible his life was, how oppressive it must be to live as he does, but not about what he should really be thinking about.

Todoroki sees him as someone worth beating. Katsuki sees him as someone worth beating. The whole class and even 1-B look at him and think ‘this is a difficult foe’.

And how does Izuku return those feelings?

By staying on the defensive.

Yeah, Katsuki is right. He hasn’t been doing things right so far, he should work on that. What’s stopping him from aiming for the top now, when he is in UA and has friends to support him? What’s stopping him from trying to be his best self when his friends are also rivals, and even his brothers are apparently done with his complacency?

“I have been a bad friend,” he says after a while, noticing that Katsuki is now looking at him with the impassive expression that says he is ‘very tired of your bullshit, Izuku/Hayato’. He motions for them to continue walking: their parents are still waiting, with food, and Izuku has had enough intense conversations and mental breakdowns for today.

“More of a bad rival, really. You suck.” You can be better, his tone, his posture, his eyes say; you are already so much better. “Did you see the bracket?”

“Not really, wasn’t paying attention.”

“You’re up against Eyebags.” Oh, of course Katsuki was paying attention, he probably memorized the whole thing. Curse these twin prodigies. “There’s something weird going on there, Tail and the other one resigned for some reason, wasn’t paying attention either. You could ask?”

“Hm… No, I think I will play fair today. You?”

“Round Cheeks. Tricky, but I’m not in the mood for puzzles today.”

Izuku cringes, wondering what dangerous, dumb and brother-worrying thing Hayato is doing today. Why else would Katsuki not be in the mood to enjoy a fight? He isn’t in the audience, which means he is probably not in Musutafu, so then where is he? And, most importantly, can Izuku get him back so this overprotective eldest doesn’t speed through the whole event to go find him?

“Going all out?”

“People are going to hate me.”

“Eh, I think she would appreciate it.” After all, Katsuki going all-out against someone means he respects them, and his few interactions with Ochaco so far have been… cordial, for Katsuki. He has an unexplainable apprehension for gravity-related Quirks so that might explain some of that well-hidden respect. “Any other interesting matches?”

“Not really, some of them are, uh… not promising. Rock wall versus steel wall, acid versus plants…”

“My bet is on the acid.”

“I guess it depends on how fast the plants grow— Oh, there is, shadow bird against a printer.”

“Could be interesting! Ah, but Yaomomo doesn’t have good spatial perception when it comes to herself.” It has been a problem many times in training: she focuses too hard on making things, on the situation, that she forgets where she is in relation to everything else. Not a big issue in a controlled setting, but a misstep could be fatal in the real world.

“Skies, imagine a loss by out of bounds… Would be disappointing. But, it could become a battle of time.”

“Do you mean of stamina?”

“No, of time.” Katsuki shakes his head. They are already by the gate to where their parents are at the audience stands, but he doesn’t go through; instead he heads to an isolated corner and crosses his arms, tapping a familiar pattern on his elbow; Izuku joins him, so his friend continues his explanation. “The bird is a shadow, right? It depends on when the match happens, so, a battle of time.”

“Have— Have you been watching him?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t? It is a sentient Quirk.” Katsuki shrugs, and Izuku nods in agreement. Sentient Quirks are very interesting, and Dark Shadow is always out. He has lots of opinions, many of them about how Tokoyami does things and how he should just give in to his anger— but then he turns around and happily eats someone’s fruit.

“Fair.” He shuffles on his feet as he tries to remember Dark Shadow’s pattern. “I think he won’t be fully solid until a few more hours, so it would depend on when they fight and how long the other matches last…”

“One of the last ones, I think. Might have a chance if he sweeps in before she can start building things.”

“But if the match is too early that won’t be possible, hm…”

They let a contemplative silence fall upon them for maybe half a minute before Katsuki sighs.

“We will just have to watch them. Ah, what else… Machine squared,” that should be Hatsume and Iida, right? “Flat face against a blizzard.”

“Ow. From steam burns to frostbite, uh… Sero-kun probably hates elemental Quirks by now.”

“Yeah, it is… disappointing, the worst matchup in the bracket. Flat face seemed happy enough with his standing, though, I don’t understand—” Katsuki’s face twists into one of mild offence for a friend, then disbelief, then into fury as he grabs Izuku’s shoulders to shake him. The few people around murmur loud enough that Izuku can almost understand what they are saying. “He’s going to flash freeze again, isn’t he!? The bastard has no technique at all, Deku, none!”

“Thoughts empty, only freeze.”

“No strategy! At all! That pretentious simple—”

“I don’t think he can afford to have a strategy, to be honest?” He isn’t telling Katsuki anything from his conversation with Todoroki, but he can say something else, mostly what he has noticed from training. Katsuki stops shaking him, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “Not from time, at least. It is a double elemental Quirk of direct opposites, and I’m pretty sure he has a thermoregulatory dysfunction.”

“Seriously? On both sides?”

“I’m not sure yet… Must observe…” Izuku feels his mind drifting away into calculations and observations, but Katsuki shakes him again. He shakes his head when his brain is back on earth. “But yeah, he probably has to end things fast. He would be a bad matchup against everyone except maybe 1-B’s raindancer—“

“You can’t say.“

“—except maybe Amehara.” Now he wants to know if UA’s Amehara can dance at all, maybe he could earn the title through other means? “He’s fighting Kaminari-kun then?”

“Yeah, Pikachu. His burns should have healed by now, but who knows if he can pull that stunt in a 1-on-1…”

“It doesn’t seem to need much attention though?”

Then again, there must be a reason why Kaminari usually only uses his Quirk near himself. It isn’t the first time they have seen him wrapped in crackling arcs of lightning: they tend to appear whenever he moves his arms, small flashes that are gone within the second, or when he is napping in the classroom. Short, small, with a dangerously high voltage, seemingly an instinctive thing more than anything else. However, it is the first time they have seen him actively controlling them (somehow, who even knows), to surround four people at that. The arcs above the team, the rings and rings of lightning pulsing around him, the way one moment he decided to just discharge everything to the ground to get rid of the puddles…

Actually; “That move near the end, did you tell him to do that?”

“It was Shitty Hair. He noticed his movements felt… heavier, and we couldn’t figure out what caused it.”

Yeah, Izuku had noticed that too, as if he could only move in slow-mo. Dark Shadow had also complained about feeling trapped, they had to use Ochaco’s Quirk the most throughout the match to regain their mobility. It got better after Kaminari vaporized the water, but by then there was little time left and the rain kept falling from above.

“It was a good strategy, that rain was… very annoying. I didn’t expect you to pick Kaminari-kun, though.”

“Honestly? I was going to ask the raccoon, but the smiley bastard creeps me out. We didn’t know what effect the rain had either, I wasn’t going to risk it.” Katsuki checks his phone, at the little ‘ting’ noise of Mitsuki-san sending him a message. He ignores it. “It was a bit risky since we didn’t know how pure the water was, but it worked out. Now he knows how to fight against the rain, at least.”

“So, if it was Quirk only, it would be a battle of attrition.” Katsuki speaks the last words in tandem with him, and Izuku beams because it is always nice to have someone who understands his thought process. “Emitter, elemental… Can he fight close range?”

“Ah, close range, the bane of all emitter types.” Katsuki shakes his head and heads back to the gate, finally deciding they should rejoin the masses. Izuku smiles at some of the people who look like they want to either congratulate them or scold Katsuki (or both, wouldn’t be the first time), a smile he borrowed from Hayato, and they stay away. How nice of them! “I think Pikachu has some knowledge of martial arts, but don’t know about the smiling freak of nature.”

…This is nostalgic.

“…After this, we should watch some of 1-B’s training sessions.”

“Oh, definitely.”

They cross the gate and the noise of the crowd is deafening enough that Izuku’s next words go almost unheard:

“Thank you, Kacchan.” Almost, because he sees the small change in Katsuki’s eyes, softening before they return to his default.

“What? I couldn’t hear you—“ Is this what they call a tsundere? “Hey, old hag! Over here!”

Present time; JSDF-owned anti-radiation freight and passenger ferry ‘Tsunami’, Namimori Exclusion Zone, Setonaikai

Todoroki Enji dislikes many things but hates few.

All Might’s permanent presence in his life is one—not so much lately, but it sure was annoying before. The HPSC’s hidden agenda, the state of his family, some other things as well. He has a… disagreeable personality and he recognized and accepted that long ago, but he tries to lean more on the ‘vindictive’ side of his worst feelings instead of ‘hateful’.

At times it is difficult to control himself, yes. Most of the time, his first reaction to something irritable or annoying is to remove it from his sight. He gets easily annoyed, easily angered, and his response to that is to burn everything down. Part of it is a natural side-effect of his Quirk, but a lot of it is just because that’s just how he is.

When it comes to things he hates, he tries not to think much about them. He hyper-focused on All Might for long and the damage that it made—he made, is vast and painful. He tries not to think much about the mess behind the HPSC, or the slowly collapsing society, or anything else he can’t do much about. He doesn’t think about the fractures in his family at all, because that road leads to self-hatred and remorse that he has no time to deal with.

Today, however, he really wants to give in to his baser instincts and just burn everything down. This ship. The sea. The mist-covered island in front of him. The towering constructs he sees as they sail past one, the ones that are scattered all around this particular area of their nation, gigantic stains in the history of Japan and the world as a whole.

He feels the slight weight of the outer boundary’s field wash over him, making him shudder at the sudden cold that assaults his body. He is probably slightly warmer than the average human being right now, a little warmer than he was when he was a child, but it is upsetting. The world tilts to the side, reality shifting to reveal the bubble of anarchy that came to be inside their country, and everyone on the ship can feel it.

“That never gets easier,” Fat Gum says from where he is leaning on the handrail, skinny and weak as he has to be when he does this trip. Unfortunately, he is one of those who have adverse reactions to the Quirk inhibitor field when in his ‘Hero Form’, so whenever he has to board this ferry he will travel like this. Thankfully, for him and for everyone else, he isn’t one of the usual passengers: no one really is, but there are some people who use it more often than others.

Now that he is the Number One Hero, Endeavour will have to become one of those frequent users, just as All Might was before him. Enji isn’t looking forward to it, to the cold, to the cottony feeling in his brain, to everything.

“One of the perks of the job, I’m afraid,” adds Ryūkyu from Enji’s other side.

He makes a non-committal sound, not really in the mood to talk about the topic. He is never in the mood to talk about Namimori.

Namimori has, since he has been old enough to understand, remained at the top of the list of things he hates. He absolutely despises this place and everything it concerns and stands for: the exclusion zone is an ugly reminder of how far the world leaders of the past were willing to go to get rid of something they praise nowadays, the island follows laws long outdated and non-understandable, and the people he has met that managed to get out always have the hollow-eyed look of someone who endured nightmares for years before they saw freedom.

Oh, he knows now that the island isn’t actually that bad, but it is hard to forget the endless stories his parents told him when younger. Stories of horrors beyond human comprehension, of nightmares wearing human skin, of the torture and abuse that went on inside its borders. Namimori might be one of Japan’s oldest settlements, but it doesn’t inspire anything positive in anyone who calls themselves ‘Japanese’—or most people in the world, really. It is a peaceful land with no tolerance for violence or discrimination, but there are things that are hard to ignore, hard to forget.

The child soldiers, for one. Enji knows that he is the least suitable person to comment on the topic considering the sins he has committed against his family (not thinking about it), but Namimori trains their children systematically. They are brought up with rather… extreme views on peacekeeping that are difficult to get rid of, to the point many international children’s rights organizations have tried to get Japan to do something about it.

Sadly, Japan can’t do anything about Namimori, they have never been able to. Even before the island earned its status as an autonomous region, Japan had almost no say in whatever went on in its territory. They were considered citizens once upon a time, but that was on name only: Namimori has had its own micro-government running for a little less than half a millennium. Surprisingly enough, relations with the island have become easier now that they have stopped pretending they are part of Japan.

It is still unsettling. One of the Namimori natives in the ferry, a crewmember who was bubbly and loud when she greeted them, has been quietly pacing the deck ever since they set sail from Sukumo into the exclusion zone. She is allegedly anxious, but her steps are measured and her eyes don’t stop moving as she goes from group to group, quietly speaking with them for a short while before moving on.

She is doing rounds, and it doesn’t seem like she even notices she is doing them. Then again, maybe she is doing them this time because they are escorting a criminal.

Enji looks at her once more, then at the Namimori native UA student (how?) who was belatedly included into this ‘escort team’ as a miniature goodwill ambassador, and then at Chisaki Kai who is walking free on the deck as if he wasn’t a criminal charged with human experimentation. The three of them are following an unknown protocol, have been ever since they left Japan, and they do so seamlessly around each other as if they had been doing it all their lives.

This whole situation is… more than a little problematic.

The Shie Hassaikai was one of the organizations that the HPSC kept an eye on and regularly tried to bring down through bureaucracy, a fossilized remnant of the late 1900s that somehow survived to this day. Before Chisaki Kai became the head, it was tame for something meant to be ‘organized crime’: its previous leaders understood the precarious position they were in and maintained the status quo as best as they could. They couldn’t be classified as ‘Villains’: all the crime they committed was without the use of Quirks, so Heroes couldn’t do anything about them. Law enforcement had tried, but organised crime is organised for a reason, and in the end it stayed around.

Then someone dismantled it.

One night, the Shie Hassaikai existed under the rule of Chisaki Kai. The next morning, the Shie Hassaikai was no more, its headquarters collapsed, and between Heroes and law enforcement they had managed to chase after the fleeing yakuza. Chisaki dutifully turned himself in when all his people were taken into custody, oddly calm, and a few hours later a little girl was brought in by Sir Nighteye who found her calling for someone in one of the few intact corridors of the collapsed building.

From there on, there were multiple headache-inducing issues. They put the girl under witness protection while trying to retrieve records of her identity, but apart from a birth certificate that named her simply ‘Eri’ they couldn’t find anything else. Questioning Chisaki led to the reveal of his experiments, but after combing his headquarters for days they hadn’t managed to find any proof of them: the logs he claimed to have kept were gone, the samples of his product as well. After interrogating the other officers, they found large stashes of Trigger and other drugs scattered across Nagoya and seized them, but many of them had been cleared out beforehand.

The yakuza questioned revealed some names. Not all of them knew the same names. Chisaki Kai admitted he was rather indulgent with his management and he didn’t know everyone who worked for him: his officers had people, and those people had people, and no one knew how wide the whole network was. They also didn’t know how loyal those subordinates-of-a-subordinate were, at least for subordinates that weren’t directly under the person being interrogated, or if there was any contingency in place in case they all got captured. Information was fragmented, split across the inner command, and putting together the whole picture was impossible with what they had so far, especially as they seemed to be missing some of the officers.

Along with that came figuring out where Chisaki Kai came from, because apart from adoption paperwork and some bank accounts, there was nothing. It was as if the man simply appeared one day in Japan when he was young. Some people said he just didn’t have records, maybe an abandoned child, but the most suspicious of the bunch did the logical thing to do in Japan when there are no records: look into the ports.

Indeed, there he was: every two months without fault, at times three, Chisaki Kai would take a week-long break and sail from Sukumo into Nami Island, in one of the Namimori-owned ferries.

That… made things complicated.

Requesting information from Namimori always involves too much effort from all authorities involved. First, proving there is a reason for the request; thankfully, Chisaki was very open about his personal information and his official records were forwarded quickly after the authorities mentioned his charges. The man was born in Kokuyō and abandoned (though his parents were caught and dealt with when the micro-government figured out what they did), he was raised by the community as a whole as most abandoned and orphan children in Nami Island are, and left for Japan when he was eight. He kept travelling back to his hometown regularly through the years, even after he was adopted by the then-Boss of the Shie Hassaikai, a habit he didn’t abandon when he became busier as he was trained to inherit the organization.

It is probable one of the reasons why he kept going back was for his education: he graduated from Yumē Mandatory Studies Institution, a sort-of school that allows students to take highly demanding trimestral exams for credits as they know most of its students have little time to attend lessons. He graduated early and at the top of his generation and, while many people were interested in mentoring or sponsoring him for further education, he decided to stay in Nagoya most of the year with the yakuza.

His history is clean in Namimori, in fact he could be considered a model citizen: no charges bad enough to ruin his record, only some cases of pickpocketing that were quickly dealt with when he was young. No mentions of suspicious behaviour or interactions with other convicts, though a psychological assessment from when he was 16 said it was worrying that he was so obsessed with Quirk history and genetics.

So, Chisaki Kai was an exemplary Namimori citizen, according to Namimori.

After that, came bargaining. Criminals from Namimori can only be judged by one of three different institutions on the island: the Judge (there is only one, it is a historical title), the current political leader, or the citizens through representatives—despite being a dictatorship, they place lots of importance on what their people want. Unfortunately, the political leader and the Judge are the same person as in the present day (apparently not in the past), and that’s a problem. Trying to convince the ruling Hibari to leave their kingdom for official business is an impossible task—it has happened once, they always send envoys when needed—, so they had to figure out an arrangement. Figuring out that arrangement, however…

Enji has never seen such a ridiculous amount of paperwork in his life, and he doesn’t want to ever see it again. Not even establishing his Hero Agency was as painful and annoying as bringing Chisaki Kai back to Namimori so he could be tried by the law.

In the end, they figured it out, mostly thanks to the help of the one who, possibly, dismantled the yakuza organization. Key evidence for the case had been delivered directly to Namimori by one Hanārashi Byakuran, another man with no records on this side of the globe. He had demanded full confidentiality in exchange for the evidence—countless of experiment trial logs and the finalized product of Chisaki’s madness—, and he has apparently already arrived in Namimori to serve as an anonymous witness to the proceedings. Who he is, what he does, what he looks like; everything is unknown to the Japanese, yet not to those from the island.

An escort team had promptly been created. Endeavour, as the current Number One Hero on Japanese soil. Some Heroes stationed in Nagoya—Fat Gum, Ryūkyu and Sir Nighteye to name a few, along with some of their sidekicks and the Hero Candidates they had under their Agencies for their Work-Studies experience. Enji himself had decided to leave his own students behind: he isn’t exposing any more children to Namimori than is required.

(He once brought Tōya over, when the full extent of the damage possible by his Quirk had revealed itself. He had offered to support him wholeheartedly, they had looked into homes and schools and different sorts of civilian aid the micro-nation could give him if he decided to stay. The people of Namimori understood his concerns, and Tōya wouldn’t have been the first person to move into the Quirkless region for their own safety.

In the end, Tōya was a stubborn fool and chose to return to Japan. He met his end soon after. Enji has never forgiven himself for not being more convincing with his arguments.)

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, UA decided to interfere by sending their one confirmed Namimori native (again, how?) as a goodwill ambassador, and with that the escort party was finalized. The Number One Hero, Heroes with jurisdiction over Nagoya and their students, one Kaminari Denki and, finally, Chisaki Kai.

Chisaki, who is still unrestrained and just watching the sea as they sail through it, a wistful expression on his face. Sir Nighteye stands close to him, though not too close, and his student trails closely behind as all the Heroes asked their interns to not go too far from them.

The middle boundary presses heavily on them all as they pass beside one of the first monuments: a rusted metal tree growing from right below the sea’s surface, with six glass orbs held on its branches. As usual, the spheres are clean enough that the endless names carved on them are visible though unreadable from the distance, yet the tree remains in its unkept form as it has for decades now.

There is an octopus clinging to the tree’s trunk, red and rather big for its apparent species. Below it, surrounding the platform the tree stands on, the sea bubbles with what seems to be countless fish and other small marine animals just… there, almost immobile.

Enji looks away when he sees a huge fin under the water, coming from what may be a whale swimming right under their ferry. He points at the odd oceanic gathering, talking to Fat Gum and Ryūkyu:

“Does the tree feed the fish?”

“Oh, apparently they do that at times,” Ryūkyu says, also looking away from the water so she can ignore the giant whale just casually, dangerously following them. “Most people think it is something with a Quirk that lives around.”

“But the Quirk inhibitors?” Fat Gum looks at her, confused, pointing at the tower-like construct they passed earlier that is, of course, still visible—the things are massive, visible from most of the coasts around this area.

“Maybe they don’t work under the sea?” Ryūkyu shrugs, casually, and starts heading back to the cockpit. “It is just a theory! Let’s go, we will be there soon!”

sailing the seven seas (6)

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): going off grid for some days, to uncharted territory

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallmight): its namimori, if anyone wants something speak now

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): my dad back home

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): difficult request

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): can we change my name now

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): why would we lie about your role

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): my grandfather not being a villain

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): yeah i have like 1200 yen

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): @Medic do we need anything urgently.

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Photos of the shipwreck.

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): i have those in my list dont worry

<2 days ago> Gunner (satokikiki): armory

<2 days ago> Medic (uri) is typing…

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): something legal hacchan, satchan.

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Okay so. There is going to be this guy with the welcoming party, possibly at the rightmost side (for you). Red hair, glasses, probably with eyebags a mile long. Maybe wearing ridiculous amounts of white or a lab coat, and headphones, also white. Can’t forget the headphones.

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Be very, very obvious. Wait for the overlord to go greet the Heroes, then pretend you are taking a picture of Red. Record his freakout. Send it my way immediately.

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): what kind of psychological warfare

<2 days ago> Gunner (satokikiki): torture? in our chat? from our sweet medic?

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Hayato what the actual fuck.

<2 days ago> Gunner (satokikiki): nice nice

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Blackmail.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): thats the intelligence chief isnt he

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Yeah, that’s him.

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Are you making Deku do something dangerous because of your lifelong rivalry. Hayato no.

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): i’m going to get murdered! beautiful!

<2 days ago> Gunner (satokikiki): (hayato yes)

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Honetani Satoki, walk the plank. Now.

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion) has kicked Gunner (satokikiki) out of the chat.

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): It’s alright. The only one who might try to stop you is the DC commander.

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): and thats better how

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): pretty sure deku can beat him if it’s stamina battle

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): If he does, tell him it’s what the leopard wants. He will understand.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): even without quirks

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): The military commander? Are you joking?

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Do not engage. He will destroy you.

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight) has added satokikiki to the chat.

<2 days ago> satokikiki: i live!

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion) has changed satokikiki’s nickname to Gunner (Impostor)

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): hhhhhave i been named traitor now, wasnt it hayato last week

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): unfair ?

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Hibari Junior is a monster, you won’t win, Quirk or no Quirk. Think Katsuki but instead of bombs and flying he has a miniature armory hidden in his pockets, knowledge of at least ten martial arts, and repressed bloodlust.

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): our kacchan also has repressed bloodlust tho

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): dc commander loves fighting! but its illegal to fight in nami or with fellow islanders so he has to wait for visitors to beat up

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Still not seeing how it’s good for Deku.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): all the pent up frustration has to go somewhere and it usually means some broken bones

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): i’m sorry for taking your last tiramisu

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): and like four different assault charges! not for him tho

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): don’t sentence me to death

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): is he the police

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): hacchan please

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): yeah pretty much

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): If you do fight and you happen to win or just barely lose, he will follow you back. Somehow. Somewhen. He will challenge you endlessly until he gets bored of you. I’m being very, very serious when I say, do not engage.

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): that sounds very illegal. and nepotist

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): I will trade the tiramisu for the blackmail material.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): hibari rule eternal

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Hibari rule eternal.

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): How can I formally request to fight him so he won’t fight Deku.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): talk with his sister!

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Can I do that, I want to do that.

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Hana, ye. I can find out how to contact her?

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Oh, nice. How does it work.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): theres a whole website just let me

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): a whole website!?

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Appreciated.

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): are we ignoring the fact this is namimoris heir you want to fight

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): if theres a system then it shouldnt be a problem

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): and that they have a whole website to challenge him to duels

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): why is this website advertising luxury vintage cruises

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Will I have to go to Nami.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): noooo theres a. thing. a battleship. nami battleship

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): The Flower of the Desert is a great place, Deku, strongly recommend you go for a few days.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): like an actual battleship. for battles

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): it doesn’t look very safe

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Can I go and say I’m a pirate.

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): ive heard the fotd is a villain nest tho

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): it has graded quirk inhibitors

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): is there any cruise that isnt

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): It’s our motif.

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): the heroes rent it for quirkless training

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): when will society take back the seven seas

<2 days ago> Medic (uri): Maybe it’s time we move on from the pirate motif.

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): its a lawless ocean

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion) has changed Medic (uri)’s nickname to Medic (in Jail)

<2 days ago> Medic (in Jail) (uri): fuc

<2 days ago> Captain (lordexplosion): Let me live my piracy dreams, Hayato.

<2 days ago> Gunner (Impostor) (satokikiki): how come i walked the plank but he just gets put in jail

<2 days ago> Stowaway (naga4444): (nepotism)

<2 days ago> Lookout (tsubanbang): nepotism!

<2 days ago> Navigator (smallMight): can you spell nepotism

Dynamic Dyad (2)

<2 days ago> Kacchan (lordexplosion): I doubt you can, but see if you can look at records.

<2 days ago> Deku (smallmight): what about!

<2 days ago> Kacchan (lordexplosion): History, mostly. If you can’t, ask for a Namimori-written book on it.

<2 days ago> Deku (smallmight): gotcha. gimme money

<2 days ago> Kacchan (lordexplosion): Right away.

The moment they disembark from the ferry, Izuku keeps his eyes on everything. Namimori has always been an unknown element to most people in Japan, and Hero Candidates aren’t excluded from it. Izuku may know more about it than the average citizen due to Hayato’s research, Tsubasa’s stories (he did live some years in Namimori when he was under witness protection) and Katsuki’s… obsession, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything there is to know about Namimori.

He likes knowing things. He loves knowing things, and Namimori is one of the greatest mysteries of the world.

They don’t disembark on the port itself, though apparently the ferry will dock there once they cross the gate. They get off next to a gigantic Torī gate that stands right above the sea level (it is low tide right now, which means the theory that Namimori is inaccessible sometimes is true!), atop a platform that could have once been a road but is now almost completely submerged under the water. No matter what they do their shoes will get wet, and everyone complains about it except for Kaminari who is from Namimori.

One by one, guided by one of the crewmembers who is also from Namimori, they cross the gate. Izuki notices that it is made from wood, not metal as most people assume from its flawless appearance, and it is barely painted: the gate is made of red wood, of a shade so bright it seems almost unreal. The shimenawa is coloured a beautiful orange, the colour almost the same as the one Hayato tends to get lost looking at, and the almost invisible carved decorations the gate has are filled in with the same colour. Ropes of small flowers in all shades of the rainbow hang from the kasagi along with the shimenawa, so long Izuku can almost touch them as he walks past them.

Their presence here is both a relief and a sudden, harsh reminder of what the people of Namimori believe those who live in the rest of the world are.

[Hōzaka Tsubasa returns from his stay in Namimori a changed boy, not only emotionally but also physically. His experience while kept captive was horrifying, the full extent of what happened to him kept deep inside his heart and undisclosed reports. The boy that had once been their gentlest, the soft smile that calmed them all, was no more; only a few things of their childhood friend remain.

It is difficult to get used to it, to the way he flinches when anyone comes near from behind, to the smile frozen in time that is nothing like the one he had years ago, to the way he talks about Quirks as they come from hell itself—it is understandable that he thinks that way, however, after what he went through. Most noticeable, it is difficult to get used to the lack of wings: what had once been lustrous red leather, thin and malleable like velvet that draped over their friend’s shoulders like a mantle, are now mere stumps of flesh on Tsubasa’s back, jagged scars that will never heal properly from the wings being ripped off from the very base.

They get used to him, eventually. He has been their friend since they were almost babies and, traumatized or not, he is still their friend.

He brings souvenirs from Namimori, though. Books on history for Hayato and Katsuki’s unhealthy obsession, banned-almost-worldwide books on Quirk theory for Izuku, some model guns for Satoki and random assorted tools for Nagashi’s tinkering. He doesn’t bring anything for himself except a small flower pot with tiny, wispy-looking flowers in all colours of the rainbow.

They watch him care for them for a week, and watch him panic when they wither. The next week they bloom again, little colourful wildflowers kept in a pot, then a small terrarium, then a bigger one. He tends to them lovingly, hanging some garlands from his windows when he can get enough of them to flower at the same time, and even dries some to make them all bookmarks.

No matter how hard Izuku looks, he can't find the flower species anywhere besides 21st century paintings and photographs of assorted places around the world. Even then, finding the name is impossible, only finding out they grow in locations with many supernatural sightings or obscure local folk tales with deep cultural meaning. They seem to be mostly extinct, with Namimori being the only place where they still grow freely and wild as they are meant to be.

‘They are called flares,’ he says when they ask, hands cupped lovingly around a patch of bright violet flowers. “They keep the lies away. They break through the mist—“

“—and guide you through the night.” Hayato finishes the sentence with Tsubasa, and Izuku can see Katsuki mouthing the same words to himself.

Later, Hayato thanks Tsubasa profusely and ends up owing him a favour, but Izuku can’t keep the implications of the sentence away from his mind. The whole event only makes Katsuki’s wild reincarnation theories stronger than before, so Izuku knows he can’t discuss the topic with him, but somehow bringing it up to Hayato or Tsubasa sounds even worse.

They keep the lies away, and their friend tends to put them on the window frames and some doors, like amulets from an old age. They break through the mist, and everyone knows Namimori is constantly shrouded in mist. What does ‘guide through the night’ mean then, to the folklore of Namimori, to the folklore of all those places that had once been named gifts of nature to the mortal world?]

They keep the lies away, and yet here they are right at the entrance to Namimori, like sentinels meant to guard against something. Outsiders, perhaps? Something else?

Izuki shakes his head and goes through the gate, only to be stopped by Kaminari.

“Sorry, can you go through again?” His classmate smiles at him, sheepish, but Izuku has no reason to reject him.

He crosses the gate again, and only then does he notice the flash of a camera up in the kasagi, well hidden by the flowers. He looks at Kaminari, subtly pointing at it, but the other boy just shrugs and goes to rejoin their group.

Huh. Is it for identification, perhaps? Or another reason? He does feel the weight of the Quirk inhibitors fade for a few short seconds before it returns, a little heavier than before, but surely it isn’t related?

The walk to Namimori is quiet, subdued even, everyone who has never been here looking around in awe. The barely-submerged path isn’t the only thing that stands out: now that the mist has somehow lifted, Izuku can see the whole picture of the boundaries on this side of the island. The massive towers, 28 in total, in a concentric circle around the exclusion zone including Sukumo, Ōita and Saiki and the other cities that got hit with the strongest radiation a whole century ago. The memorials, 21 of them, in a slightly distorted circle yet still very clearly marking the middle boundary. The gate should be the inner one, then, but how many of them are there?

Still, the anti-radiation towers, the memorials… that means, the small lighthouse he can see to his left should house a kamidama, one of the outer shrines to Namimori’s ‘protectors’. Following the pattern, there should be 14 of those, or 7 depending on if the gates count to their odd customs, but he has no idea what they are supposed to represent.

They reach a small port town after a short walk, and they can all see their ferry docking where it should be. The ‘port’ is more beach than anything, surrounded by green cliffs and rocky formations, with some small boats scattered around, probably for the fishermen. There is only one path out of here and it is all rather ominous.

He takes some pics, keeping his phone hidden, but apparently Chisaki Kai notices enough to raise an eyebrow at him before he moves on.

There are two buses waiting for them, both positively ancient models, and a sleek white car—also ancient—awaits Endeavour, Kaminari and the actual criminal in their midst.

“This is so backwards,” Uraraka mutters once they are seated in the bus, as the ferry’s crewmember (whose name Izuku never learned) makes sure they are all inside.

“Well, they live in the 21st century,” adds Tsuyu, also quietly. They are quiet enough that the Big 3 don’t look at them two rows ahead, and Izuku drags Kirishima so they can join their classmates’ gossip.

“I’m still shocked about Denki.” The redhead pouts, dropping his head on the back of Tsuyu’s seat, and she pats him.

“I think we all are.”

They talk through the ride, at times commenting on the landscape they see past the windows, at times mentioning wild Namimori conspiracies (there is no way there are giant dogs around!), but mostly they listen to Tsuyu as she reads them about the trial from the ‘Midori Paperplane’ she borrowed from the driver. At least the micro-nation has their facts about Chisaki right, though the commentary is awfully skewed in his favour.

Namimori is… peaceful, maybe even idyllic. The road they follow (the only road) leads them through mostly hills of wildflowers and grass, with few people and even fewer animals. Izuku sees a goat chasing after a shepherd dog who follows them for a short distance. He sees some stone markers around an orchard, and some houses scattered here and there. On a nearby hill stands the biggest Japanese-style estate he has ever seen, and its many buildings seem to sprawl around it endlessly. When they slow down, he can see groups of people just laying on the fields, or sitting up in trees, seemingly enjoying their lunchtime.

Greater Namimori is mildly disappointing: it is definitely a city—maybe a town?—stuck in the 21st century, though it is well-kept and unusually clean. There are almost no cars, and those that exist are old models that look more like death traps than those from the 23rd century. People, not many, walk everywhere and watch their bus warily. They pass one stoplight, but the lamp posts are evenly distributed and decorated with colourful paper garlands; maybe there was a festival recently? Or is it always this… bright?

In the end, they park outside what seems to be the same gigantic Japanese-style estate Izuku saw up the cliff: the design of the roofs is the same and so is the colouring. It is well maintained just like all of Namimori, but the most amazing part is the trees.

All the trees inside and surrounding the estate, every single one of them, are of that bright red. The same colour as the Torī gate, some with more shimenawa in orange. Red and orange are almost everywhere he looks, reminiscent of the sunset, and it is…

Disquieting.

He prepares his camera, hiding it in his pocket. He doesn’t have reception but he can still fulfil Hayato’s weird request.

Their escort team gets greeted by five people, most of whom Izuku can recognize from Tsubasa’s and Katsuki’s stories simply because of what they are wearing. Chisaki has already made his way over along with Endeavour, the Hero greeting the man in the middle with a handshake while the Villain bows reverently. Kaminari is waiting for them at the door, letting the Heroes out before he stops them, the students, and quickly ushers them back onto the bus.

“Do you know who they are?” Kaminari asks, almost in a whisper, motioning to the five Namimori representatives who are currently going through the formalities of everything. Izuku nods—even if he hadn’t known before, they got a briefing about the ridiculous customs of Namimori’s court—, but apparently someone doesn’t so Kaminari smiles widely (fakely) and claps his hands. “Okay, okay.

“First, middle. Hibari Mēichi.” The man Kaminari gestures to is, indeed, the reigning Hibari. He can easily be recognized because of the perfectly straight long black hair and the narrow eyes (they should be silver), the superhuman genes of the Hibari shining through even after all these generations. He is short and lean, compact-looking (‘they are meant to be fast,’ Hayato said one day when Katsuki asked him as he was busy with something else, probably not even thinking about his reply at all), and he looks like he will fall asleep any moment now. The perfectly pressed suit accented in orange and the colourful kanzashi keeping his hair up are just overkill to identify him. “Don’t approach, don’t touch, you will be killed, dismembered and discarded of in a way no one will ever find your body.”

Yikes. The worst part is, none of them can tell if Kaminari is exaggerating or not: Hibari are historically vicious, they have guarded this island for more than four centuries now, but surely they can’t be so bad? Still, there wasn’t even an attempt to make the blow softer.

The others exchange glances, but Izuku just nods. Hibari rule eternal and all that.

“You greet him with a bow, don’t use any honorific at all and simply don’t refer to him by name, not to his face. If you must, call him Judge.” Kaminari chews on his cheek as he considers something, looking back at the ruler of Namimori with a small frown. “Ah, preferably don’t even look at him. And never be alone with him because he likes talking with outsiders but his bodyguard is always watching.”

“Bodyguard?” Amajiki’s voice trembles as he whispers, but Kaminari hears him. He tugs at his bracelets as he looks through a few of the bus’s windows.

“Kuroaki,” he says, almost as if the sole mention of the name would summon the person. “Seeing her is bad news, but usually she hides from everyone. She tends to hover around one of the Hibari, though, so you shouldn’t meet her if you follow the rules.”

“How many Hibari are there?” Mirio asks with a tilt of his head, his eyes not moving from where Sir Nighteye is talking with the overlord.

“Five.” Kaminari then gestures to the next person in line. “To the Judge’s left is one of them, Hibari Kyōya.”

He is a… rather unhealthy-looking boy wearing what Izuku recognizes is the DC Chairman’s regalia, which means that literal child is the DC Commander that everyone in Japan, and their grandmothers, is scared of in some way or another. He is a Hibari of course, with short black hair, narrow eyes, relatively short and some distinct Okinawan features, but otherwise he looks like any other Japanese middle-schooler. Sure, the red and gold armband is rather distinct to his rank on the island, but otherwise it is a plain uniform. The black gakuran hangs from his shoulders over a plain white shirt, held in place by a thin chain, but otherwise… Average.

What Izuku can recognize, even from this distance or perhaps because he has seen enough pictures of his ancestor to notice, is the sheathed dagger strapped to his right thigh and the three coins dangling from the left side of his belt. Two centuries ago there were two coins, but times change and they have apparently changed a lot to add a new one. Izuku doesn’t know what either of the three means, however he does know what the dagger means: this boy, who seems to be younger than them, is the Commander of what is usually called the Namimori Self-Defense Force by everyone except those of Namimori.

Everyone is afraid of the DC Commander for historical reasons, but now, there is something else. A general feeling of discomfort settles over them along with awkward shuffling, Kaminari watching them in what could be exasperation while tapping his foot on the floor. The truth is, most people don’t know about the Hibari or what their family tree looks like, and Namimori is enough of an enigma that the names of those who ruled before tend to disappear, but ‘Hibari Kyōya’ is a name that everyone in the world knows.

Two centuries ago, Hibari Kyōya absolutely decimated anyone who dared approach Namimori with bad intentions, and the morale of the world as a whole. Two centuries ago, Hibari Kyōya somehow survived a nuclear bomb only to then aim the full force of a shipwrecked fleet at Asian coasts that threatened them for decades. Two centuries ago, Hibari Kyōya waged a war of attrition as the besieged party on a tiny, unnoticeable island and won. Two centuries ago, Hibari Kyōya almost saw the complete reconstruction of Namimori, from the ground, which he had been in charge of for years. Those who know the history, like Katsuki with his particular obsession, know very well that if Hibari Kyōya hadn’t died of old age when he did, Japan’s political map would be very different nowadays.

(At times, even Izuku forgets the bomb fell when Namimori didn’t have a reliable treatment for nuclear radiation or their towers. How, exactly, they survived after that, and how they keep surviving, is a mystery only a few people will ever get to know.

Izuku is also very confused about Namimori’s reasons for just about everything, back then: the Guerrillas, the war against the whole world, the… secretiveness. They started as pro-supernatural abilities, fighting with all they had to protect them, yet with time they became strictly against everything related to Quirks. There has to be a reason behind it, and he will find out.)

Now this boy shares a name with one of the nightmares of all of Asia, one of the war heroes of the Era of Chaos, one of the heroes of many Quirkless people around the world including Izuku, and yet—

“He looks like the wind could pick him up,” Tsuyu says, voicing what everyone probably wants to say.

“Yeah, no, he could beat all of you easily now that you don’t have your Quirks.” Kaminari waves his hand in dismissal. “My recommendation for dealing with him is just, don’t. He lords over everyone under the age of 21 and tends to know most of everything that happens in the city from his minions. He doesn’t like groups of more than seven people and will attack you if you dare crowd, litter or break the rules. At least he is visible and announces himself so you can run?”

Izuku really doesn’t want to meet him, though! He will leave that to Katsuki, Katsuki wants to fight him.

“Next to him is Shiraishi Hajime, Editor-in-Chief of the Midori Paperplane.” Kaminari continues his small introduction of the relevant people, and Izuku pretends he is paying attention while staring at the redhead who wears too much white, just like Hayato said, that stands to the other side. “He isn’t insane like the others, but he likes asking the uncomfortable questions and he might corner you for an interview. The only scary thing about him is his eyes, so you can be at ease. Now, on our right we have Skull—“

“Skull?” Someone asks, startled, but Izuku can’t really tell who it is. Hayato’s eternal rival is now looking at him while pretending he isn’t looking at him, so he raises his phone and presses ‘record’.

“Yeah, Skull, that’s his name. I think he is the prison’s warden right now? His role changes just like his clothes, hair colour and piercings and I honestly can’t ever tell what he is supposed to be doing. He can be very intense, but is more of a puppy than anything else. If you find him fainted somewhere outside, just let him be, he will get up eventually and go on with his day. Now, besides him is Shō Akira, written exactly as you think it is; you can call him Shō-chan without issue!”

The redheaded teenager, Shō-chan apparently, looks more nervous with each second Izuku spends recording, now fiddling with the file he holds in his arm and tapping at his headphones. The purple-haired man at his side, the warden, seems to ask something of him, but all he does is shake his head and tug at his collar.

“Shō-chan is the Intelligence Chief so if there is anything you need to know, he is the one you should go to—if you can find him, that is. He is usually deep inside the fortress! He also knows everything that goes on in the city, but that’s because he has cameras and sensors everywhere. You probably won’t meet him, ever, and that’s for the best—Midoriya, are you recording him?”

“Yep.” He doesn’t think too much about his words because the Merone Administrator that Hayato fights with so much is now trying to hide behind his folder, his eyes darting left and right like a cornered animal even as he tries to act like everything is alright. Hayato was right: this is mildly entertaining, subtle as it is.

“Why the fuck are you recording Shō-chan?”

“It is what the leopard wants.”

“…Oh you’re friends with that guy? Okay, then, carry on…”

VSMF (4)

<2 weeks ago> only responsible adult (calenduni): Why is Byakuran in Japan?

<2 weeks ago> phalaenopsis (whiteorchid): oest contr9l!

<2 weeks ago> 0000 (graviga): As he said, pest control. There is a Thing.

<2 weeks ago> only responsible adult (calenduni): Anything I can help with?

<2 weeks ago> phalaenopsis (whiteorchid): im a,ready done!

<1 week ago> 0000 (graviga): Tsuna, status report?

<1 week ago> sos (primefailure): hokkaido for some reason

<1 week ago> only responsible adult (calenduni): Why are you in Hokkaido?

<1 week ago> sos (primefailure): mukuro kidnapped this little girl so now im hiding with her

<1 week ago> 0000 (graviga): Oh, that’s where Eri went. That’s fair.

<1 hour ago> phalaenopsis (whiteorchid): please return her to me i need her for the trial

<Just now> sos (primefailure): this is the most coherent ive seen byakuran in my whole life

Namimori doesn’t really live up to its name if you ask Eijirō. Yes, it is the most mysterious city in Japan, the most technologically advanced according to some sources, a place that stood on its own against the world. It is just…

Well, it is a countryside city, small-ish, from the 21st century, maybe very early in the 22nd. Greater Namimori, the biggest city on the island, is… positively tiny, apparently taking over not even half of the land itself, maybe more than a half of it if you include the ‘port’—just a handful of small houses gathered on one of the cliffsides—and Midori. As amazing as it is that such a small island has, apparently, four whole settlements, Eijirō can’t make sense of the map at all: most of what isn’t labelled ‘Greater Namimori’ is labelled simply ‘Kokuyō’, but according to Denki (and he will never get over the slight hurt that their friend hadn’t trusted them enough to tell them about his nationality) Kokuyō is made up of less than two thousand people.

He looks at the map again. He isn’t good at maths, but this is an island that is supposed to have a population of sixty thousand, right? According to themselves, at least, and everyone knows Namimori is secretive about everything.

“No, I still don’t get it.”

“What is there not to get?” Denki looks at the map over his shoulder, leaning closer from where he was trying to get a puppy off the rather high branch of a tree it somehow got itself on. Maybe he gave up on it?

They are currently waiting, sitting on a stone bench outside the Hibari estate, where the professional Heroes are going through more and more formalities. They aren’t supposed to be away from them for long, but Denki argued they would just get bored and this is the safest city in Japan so they could wait outside. Uraraka and Tsuyu are still going over the Midori Paperplane, and Midoriya is writing endless notes in one of his notebooks. Their senpai are playing a card game two benches away, whispering to each other, but apart from the eight of them there isn’t anyone else around—except for Hibari Kyōya, calmly sitting atop the gate to the estate with a parasol and a book.

He isn’t even looking at them, but the pressure…

“How is all that Kokuyō?” He turns the map upside down, but still can’t see it. They have a temple and some shrines marked, but not the small town or even a vague outline of where it is. If it is a settlement then it can’t be all fields, right?

“Kokuyō is that way,” Denki points towards a direction, the opposite of where they came from, but Eijirō knows that much! “You don’t need to know where it is.”

“But what if I want to know?” Eijirō twists around so he can look at Denki, who gives him a confused look.

“Why would you want to know where it is?”

“Maybe we want to visit?” Uraraka, bless her soul, asks him with an amused lilt in her voice.

Denki hasn’t given up on the odd, tree-climbing puppy though, as he kicks off the bench, then off the trunk of the tree to end up swinging from the branch right below where the poor animal trembles. He swings back and forth, twice, then uses the momentum to pull himself onto the branch, nimble as he has never been in training. He picks up the dog and simply drops off the tree, falling neatly as if he has been doing it all his life.

“Why would you ever want to visit Kokuyō?” Denki asks back, putting the puppy on Midoriya’s head since it is small enough—how did it get up there? “It is a sacred site, most adults only cross the river for rites.”

…Is it? Well, who even knows what kind of beliefs Namimori has, it hasn’t been that long… And why did he specify adults?

“Did you grow up climbing trees?” Tsuyu looks at Denki, then at the tree, then at him again.

“Yeah? I grew up here?” He seems to be distracted checking the puppy to make sure it isn’t injured, which is of course Midoriya’s cue to strike.

“Have you ever gone to Kokuyō?” Midoriya’s voice sounds so casual as he asks, well used to attacking with his endless questions when people are distracted—he and Bakugō are vicious in different ways and yet exactly the same.

“Ye, to play at the flare fields.”

(“Flare fields?” Uraraka whispers softly and Eijirō has to motion at her to be quiet.)

“Not much to do in Midori and my Quirk didn’t let me go underground so it was that or sneaking around the Hibari compound, but getting caught there means the elders trying to burn my Quirk away so—“

“WHAT!?”

“Kaminari-kun—“

“Are you—“

“Uh?” Denki just looks at them, surprised at their outrage. And of course they are outraged, what does he mean by burning away his Quirk!? Why isn’t he more worried about that!? “Why are you yelling—“

“They tried to burn your Quirk!” Uraraka exclaims, horrified, a hand covering her mouth.

“Well, yeah?” And yet Denki still looks at them all as if they are the odd ones here. “It is a Quirk, and a liability. It put people in danger, so they kept trying to see if the Flames would do anything—“

(Somehow, Eijirō can hear the capitalization of the word, although it makes no sense.)

“Flames!?”

“Oh, are you worried about those? It’s okay, they don’t burn at all, they are just a little warm.” Denki waves his hand in dismissal and then finally puts the puppy on the ground, pushing it slightly so it can go rejoin its family wherever it is. The small dog barks and quickly disappears into the Hibari estate—

“Kaminari Denki,” a voice that sounds very obviously like a teenager who has yet to change his voice completely and insists on speaking deeply says, and they all look almost as one to their new guest. Hibari Kyōya, holding his parasol above him as if he was perfectly used to it, watches them through half-lidded eyes, looking very much like someone about to fall asleep. “Your crowd is being too loud for this hour. Lower your volume or I will be forced to take disciplinary actions.”

“Yes, sir.” Denki salutes, or at least stands ramrod straight with a hand snapping in from of his heart and then down in a sharp movement. “I apologize.”

“Hm.” The boy—younger than them, definitely younger than them—nods slowly, seemingly pleased by the quick answer. “If you keep an eye on them, you can go… sightsee. Just be sure to not—“

“Kyōya!” A sweet, gentle and unusually soft yet carrying voice comes from somewhere behind them all and, far too quickly considering how far away she sounded, a girl makes her way into their group. “Denki-kun as well, welcome back.”

Denki offers her his hand and kisses the air above her knuckles, much to her amusement. She leans up and kisses his cheek in response, and Denki becomes a red lightbulb from how red he is. She is lithe, maybe a year or so younger than them, dressed in what looks like a school uniform customized by someone with a morbid sense of humour and fashion. She has an eyepatch over her right eye and a bō staff neatly strapped to her back. Midoriya startles at her presence.

“Chrome!?”

“Oh, Midoriya-san, our kind Hero-to-be.” She kisses his cheek as well (maybe she’s European?), making the boy go bright red and splutter something out, then she bows to everyone in what could be a curtsy mixed with a sweeping bow. “It is nice to meet you, Hero Candidates of UA.”

“What are you doing here—?“

“I’m here for treatment?”

“Wait, you know Chrome?”

“Yeah? She lives in Musutafu.”

Behind her comes another girl, this one with long black hair, Hibari features and possibly older than them, and Eijirō has half a mind to greet her respectfully with a deeper nod of his head than he usually would. She looks at him as if she is looking down from somewhere far above, but eventually nods back.

“Chrome. Hana.” Hibari, idly twirling his parasol over him this and that way, greets them by name. Denki said that he usually uses both surname and given name when addressing just about everyone except those close to him, so Eijirō moves so he can let the tall, definitely a Hibari girl pass through.

“Kyōya. Are you on escort duty?” She doesn’t bother saluting him or dropping the almost condescending way she speaks, and he doesn’t seem to mind her standing next to him.

He just shakes his head: “Kaminari Denki is. The Heroes told them to stay nearby, but I’m overruling them.”

“You got bored of watching.”

“I got bored of watching.”

So Hibari says, so it shall be done? Are they allowed to go, really? Just because he got bored?

“Hm, then you can lead Chrome to my room. Kaminari is enough for them.”

Hibari sighs heavily, almost letting his parasol fall when he twirls it harder than before: “Shīja. Stop trying to matchmake.”

“No can’t do, uttu.”

“I’m not even in high school.”

“Chrome isn’t either.”

“Chrome doesn’t go to school.”

“And that’s no fault of mine.”

Eijirō leaves the two apparent siblings to each other and turns back to his party of Hero Candidates, just in time to see ‘Chrome’ clasp her hands before her chest, the soft smile on her face at odds with the goth aesthetic she wears. She is leaning uncomfortably close to Midoriya, who seems to be completely used to it as he just leans back slightly.

“I’m glad my dear kōhai can visit my second home.” Kōhai? She doesn’t look as if she is older than them at all, short and lithe as she is, her face still childishly round and eyes sparkling with mischief. “Welcome to Namimori, I hope you enjoy your stay here.”

“Do you recommend anywhere to see?” Tsuyu subtly pulls Midoriya back, possibly unnerved by how little the other girl cares about personal space.

“Hm, I mostly only stay in either the compound or the hospital,” she says, finally straightening herself and bringing a knuckle to her lip in consideration. “You could go see the river crossing—,“ Denki makes a face at that, something between worry, disgust and concern, and Eijirō can’t understand what that’s supposed to mean; “—or visit the tiered district at Ground Zero.”

As worrying as that sounds (ground zero of a nuclear bomb?), Eijirō looks at his map again, turning it around from the island’s map to the one of Greater Namimori. The ‘tiered district’ is clearly marked to the northwest of the Hibari compound, a rather big area that belongs to both Namimori and Midori. There are lots of little downward arrows around it, apparently marking ‘underground’ entrances, and right in the middle of it is a plaza labelled ‘Blessing of the Oath’. The paths in that area are odd, far too close to each other and forming a spiral, and Eijirō puzzles about it for a few seconds before Midoriya speaks.

“That’s the main entrance to the fortress, isn’t it?” Another mention of the ‘fortress’, just what is that supposed to be?

“Ye, it leads to Merone’s main commercial district on one side, and to yet more boring Midori homes on the other.” Denki pulls Eijirō’s map, and Eijirō himself, closer to the others so they can all look at the map as he points at the places he mentions. “The main entrance to the Sun Shrine is also around there, so I can probably drop by while you guys look at the robots or something.”

“Oh, there are robots then?”

Uraraka asks in excitement as Eijirō nods at her words. This is supposed to be the most technologically advanced city in Japan, isn’t it? Yet he hasn’t seen any robots or flying cars at all. There are lots of motorcycles, though, maybe far too many.

“…Yes? You saw one already?” Denki, once again, looks confused at them, but his eyes widen when he notices they are all confused at his words—except for ‘Chrome’, who has yet to introduce herself to them. “The bus driver? She is an android?”

“…What?” There had been nothing on the bus driver that revealed she was anything less than human, a human really focused on her job but human nonetheless.

“Most of the robots look very human,” Hibari Hana says as she joins them, dragging her brother—and his parasol, wide enough to cover them both—to the group despite how he looks like he’d rather eat a whole lemon. There are now eight people here, eleven if you count the Big 3 who look like they want to come over. “The Mosca don’t, but they are mostly underground or monitoring the coasts. Hope you don’t meet them.”

“Mosca are fun,” adds Hibari Kyōya in a small mutter, trying to free his arm from the far taller woman’s hold. He is only released when ‘Chrome’ joins them with a kiss on his cheek, something that surprisingly simply makes him nod at her and not turn bright red as Midoriya and Denki did earlier.

“That they are,” is the general agreement between the Namimori natives and ‘Chrome’—who seems to be Japanese, at least, despite her name.

“Alright, do you three want to come as well?” Denki asks the Big 3, who are now at their side, making Hibari Kyōya’s frown even more pronounced. Their small gathering now numbers eleven people.

“Where are you going?” Hadō asks with a tilt of her head, curious as they hadn’t heard the conversation.

“Ground Zero! To see the tiered district before I have to bring you underground to the hotel.”

“The hotel is underground?” Tsuyu peers at the map, but there is nothing there that shows anything like an underground city.

“Can we leave the Heroes behind?” Amajiki nervously fiddles with his sleeve, glancing at the Hibaris warily.

“I will tell them, you can move at ease.” Hibari Hana nods at them, then with a slight bow—too small for respect, but more than just a nod—, she drags her friend and brother away. “Safe travels!”

“Take care!” Denki waves at the three of them even though they can’t see them, then points in a direction. “Alright, we have to take the train, so this way we go.”

“Is there a bookstore in the tiered district?“ Midoriya asks for some reason, and Denki agrees effusively. “You still use yen, right?”

They reach the train station, and Eijirō has to give the people who say this is the most technologically advanced city in Japan some credit. They have to go up an escalator after they cross the gate, because the train hovers way above street level and even above two-storey houses.

This is amazing.

(Once in the safety of being inside and away from the sun, Kyōya secures his parasol closed and holds it as he would a bō staff. Chrome does the same, twirling her own staff behind her as a show of mastery before settling into her usual starting stance. Hana sighs in exasperation and leaves, claiming she is going to tell the Heroes their students went away.

“Best of three?” Chrome asks, smiling the same way she usually does.

“Best of five,” Kyōya responds, because he wants to have at least some exercise before he has to go take his mid-evening doctor-mandated nap.

That said, they lunge at each other with matching grins—or what counts as a grin to the two of them, at least—, and they allow themselves to give in to the battle lust they keep repressed most of the time.)

Illusionists & co inc. (7)

<1 day ago> Kasumi (thecutest): 📝📩❓

<1 day ago> Older Twin (dokuro): I sent it! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

<2 hours ago> Caramel Flan (Fran_kenstein): did you get to nami already @dokuro

<1 hour ago> Older Twin (dokuro): I’m here! With full reception too. I’ll keep you updated.

<1 hour ago> Victim (primefailure): take care chrome, send greetings to everyone

<9 minutes ago> Kenken (noteethforyou): can us of kokuyo go see the trial

<9 minutes ago> Needles (poisonedpotioneer): If you can’t I will stream it.

<3 minutes ago> Pineapple (sixpathsofchocolate) has added Eri (reverseswamp) to the chat.

<1 minute ago> Pineapple (sixpathsofchocolate): We have a new companion, say hi.

<1 minute ago> Victim (primefailure): shes a baby but she is also part of us so shes now in this group. can’t write tho

<Just now> Kenken (noteethforyou): and yet mm isnt around

<Just now> Needles (poisonedpotioneer): Do you want her to be around?

<Just now> Pineapple (sixpathsofchocolate): We haven’t found her yet?

<Just now> Caramel Flan (Fran_kenstein): add bel you coward

<Just now> Pineapple (sixpathsofchocolate): Denied.

Shiraishi Nagi Chrome Dokuro dies in peace.

No, that’s not quite right. She dies in an illusion of peace she forcefully pulls herself, M.M, Ken and Chikusa into the last minutes of their lives, mere minutes before the Flames going wild inside the four of them surge out the way they shouldn’t ever have to do. They die mostly at peace, knowing well they will never get out of the pleasant dream they all find themselves into, but at least at ease that they will not be leaving any of them to their own after that.

Except for Fran, but Fran had long since made his choice to remain with the Varia then, and Chrome can’t blame him for it. After Verde’s and Mukuro’s deaths, there wasn’t much keeping the five of them together apart from familiarity: they would each go their own way for a while, sending regular reports, and then they would join again to spend some days reminiscing all together. It just so happened that the last day they had on Earth was one of those days, and Chrome is thankful for that.

The last thing Chrome Dokuro remembers before letting herself fall into a neverending dream is red. Destructive red with streaks of calming blue and invigorating yellow, not quite the way they should be: it is not, in any way, the beautiful way of Fon, Collonello and Reborn sparring against each other, or the well-practised dance of Hayato, Takeshi and Ryōhei fighting together on the field. It also doesn’t feel at all like the few times Hayato and Chikusa, or Takeshi and Ken sparred, or even the rare times M.M managed to corner a Storm or Rain to train in her unorthodox ways.

It was a death both painful and beautiful, something she remembers well due to the nature of her soul—a split of one into two and a merge of two into one, far too linked with her other half to be separated for too long. She remembers just as she remembers Kaiji’s Mukuro and Boss’s graves in that decimated city, just as she remembers the news of the Arcobaleni’s deaths, just as she remembers the last grin and promise Lambo gave her before he left for I-pin’s birthday.

A death both painful and beautiful, clear in her memories unlike most of her previous life.

Aizan Makoto becomes aware of her true identity the moment her little brother, three years younger than her, opens his heterochromatic eyes to peer at her and their family for the first time. Perplexion falls on the Aizan couple like a weightless veil, as neither of them nor their close family have indigo or red eyes, or even Quirks that could manifest as an eye colour variation, but in the end they stop questioning themselves. Genji is definitely their family’s child, with their characteristic blue hair and facial bone structure almost identical to Makoto at that age.

They leave it alone and raise their child the way they have been raising Makoto: with love and care in their society-imposed secrecy, an almost unnoticeable family living in a small house in Musutafu. Makoto, at age three, at age five and even at age ten, never understood why they had to hide, from society and authorities and everyone else, why their parents had to go through such painful lengths to be allowed to work and bring in their livelihood. At age seventeen, she still doesn’t quite understand why things had to be that way, but she is also old enough to know it is for the best.

Maybe their paranoia, with its strong foothold in their minds, is completely justified.

Genji, small and pure and mischievous Genji, goes missing when he turns five—it is a reenactment of the Shiraishi twins’ life previous life the siblings went through centuries back, when they were forced to live apart from each other for years before they met again. Their parents never understood what happened, or why it happened, if maybe an old enemy of their family had come to them for revenge: Genji disappeared one night from his bed, taken by someone cautious enough to move nothing in the room, by someone wary enough to deactivate all security measures in the house. Had it been an enemy, someone with a misplaced sense of justice coming after a ‘Villain’s’ estranged family, then surely they would have made more noise, made sure the event was noticed by everyone to make a statement. Had it been just someone looking for some quick money via ransom—from a family barely managing to sustain themselves?—, they would have taken some valuables, maybe the priceless paintings left behind by Aizan Tsui’s phantom thief relative, maybe the rare books Aizan Kaname worked hard to make easily accessible.

Makoto knows the truth behind Genji’s disappearance, of course, but she cannot reveal it to their parents. Rokudō Mukuro isn’t a man who is comfortable with inaction, and he had a self-appointed mission he had been moving towards for the past two centuries. He left on his own, once he was sure Makoto, or rather Chrome, would be safe, and since then the Aizan family has only seen him in hastily recorded videos or shaky photographs that evidence his survival. His missing person case was dropped when he was but eight, after a letter signed in Flames inside one of Kaname’s books assured his continued well-being and a plea to stop looking for him.

The police were confused by their decision, but they acquitted to the family’s request.

Since then, Genji only exists to their parents as irregularly delivered letters and monthly allowances from multiple bank accounts, money that makes them endlessly grateful yet even more worried about his whereabouts. They worry, of course: Genji is still their child, still Makoto’s brother, and he seems to be involved with something immensely dangerous or worse, illegal. They constantly question themselves on if they should go look for him, at least to make sure he isn’t being taken advantage of for his Quirk, and they ask endless questions about his actions.

What is he doing that is so important? Why continue supporting them? Why did he decide to leave so young? Why, why, why, every day of their lives, every single month and year and possibly until the end of their lives.

(It is justified. Their family has many enemies, and their Quirks tend to be far too useful for people not to take notice. Kaname’s Paper Impression and Tsui’s Masterful Creation aren’t the only ones that can be used for criminal activities: Makoto’s own Eagle Vision makes her a perfect spy, and Genji’s Seamless Illusion cannot be cancelled, or even noticed unless someone knows it is active.

They remain hidden, trying to live easy lives away from what the couple was forced to do when young—counterfeits, the reason they met—, keeping bare contact with the community around them. They must be careful to not be found, by either the authorities or their own families, but they are well aware they are still being hunted down: the phantom thief has been waiting for them inside their house for ‘favours’ far too many times in Makoto’s arguably short life.

It is a cruel way of living, and Chrome wants it to be over.)

As for Makoto, her life moves on. After her brother left, her parents had her under constant watch, but that didn’t stop fate from bringing Chrome’s long-forgotten tragedy to life. At least she didn’t lose any organs this time, but the accident does have a heavy and painful aftermath. Her limbs didn’t work properly, she had seizures and headaches, at times she could barely breathe, but after years of treatment the episodes have gotten better; the treatments’ side effects are less painful, but no less annoying.

From then on, her parents don’t question Mukuro’s odd financial support any more. They are grateful that they can afford to send her to Namimori for the best treatment possible, thankful that her life will not be cut short due to medical malpractice—she was just thirteen, just a child, a bright future ahead. It is far better than it was Before, in the past, when her blind mother and absent father hadn’t even noticed her fatal accident until the elders of Kokuyō made them see the truth.

Kaiji Mukuro keeps saving her life, Before and now and probably in the future, and Chrome feels thankful yet filled with as much shame and guilt as she once was, two centuries past. She is, Before and now, a burden to her younger brother, to her family as a whole, and she hates it.

While Mukuro hadn’t wanted to get her involved in his mission, Chrome didn’t leave him any choice. Namimori made her remember the better days, those peaceful days of joy and laughter and helping Tsunayoshi not die of overwork, days of chasing after myths and legends and rumours with the others. She remembered Ken’s boisterous and dangerous self making a mess of their kitchen for a plate of the most delicious food any of them ever tasted, Chikusa’s composed and impassive face and talking a mile an hour about cryptids with all the excitement he could show, M.M’s… questionable love that made her yell loudly when she fussed like a mother hen around her chicks, Fran’s monotone teasing and dubious interests as he studied and learned under all of their teachings as well as the Varia’s.

She remembered Mukuro, as he was before everything collapsed under their feet: light and ethereal, at ease with himself for once in a decade now that he wasn’t constantly on the run. She remembered how he brought her Flames to life to keep her alive, even before knowing of their biological relationship, how he cared for her even locked up as he was in that particular frame of time. She remembered his amazement at the smallest things society could offer, from Kokuyō and Namimori and their ancient traditions, to the glow of Jura when the renewal fire burned in ceremony, to the beauty of the world he had been deprived of seeing for so long.

She remembered her brother, and she wanted him back, and she isn’t allowing him to stay alone as he has for the two centuries he has been wandering the world like a wraith.

(She does not remember the worst days, not very well. The minds of illusionists are an entity of their own and hers has decided to keep most of the conflicts, most of the war, away from her until she is old enough to not collapse under the memories.)

So, she joins him. She can’t do much from her location, still living with their parents—parents who are well aware their children are not quite what they show others—as Makoto most of the time, but when she can go out, when she can travel to Namimori, when she can connect her eyes to the birds all around her; when she is Chrome and can help, she does as much as it is possible within her limitations, even if that is just attending a trial her brother can’t.

He is in Hokkaidō for some reason, and he has taken in another child that deserves all the love, all the care he was denied; yet another experiment in a time where Heroes roam the land and pretend to be just. No matter the age, no matter the state of the world, humans can be the worst living beings on Madre Terra.

Today, as she walks through the hallways of the underground fortress that is Nami Island and its Merone base, she tries to keep an eye out for anything interesting. Chikusa (Haikō Yōichirō, with all his memories, even some that belong to other clones that didn’t make it as far as him) walks at her side, forcing their pace to slow as he is too busy playing some game on his phone. Ken (Tsume Ken, with most of his memories of the Estraneo but almost none of the after) couldn’t come, as he was pulled into some or other task along with the wildlings of the island, probably to take care of one of the shrines or secure the gates.

They reach one of the reception blocks, where they will have to wait until they can be let into the Courthouse. She doesn’t quite know why they are holding the trial in this courthouse when the Hibari compound has a perfectly functional one, but she has an idea of the reason that becomes a sure thing when she notices the cameras.

“It is being televised,” Chikusa says, also noticing the Japanese press loitering around. “Guess it is a serious case.”

“Alleged human experimentation,” she says, because she knows the most probable outcome and she is sure the experimentation will be swept under the rug for this trial, to be dealt with by Namimori alone afterwards. “Do we wait here, or…”

“We should stay here.”

They stay in this block, even though it is the one usually reserved for Namimori natives in the government or similar. Hana invited her here, so it probably won’t be an issue.

She can see Hana in one corner, in a beautiful and cumbersome traditional kimono with her hair holding a kanzashi that is probably a Hibari heirloom, where she talks to the Lady Kuroaki without much emotion in her movements. The lady ninja is, as always, clad in dark colours yet still elegantly dressed, and motions around wildly as she usually does.

Since they are in that corner, Chrome turns to the opposite corner, where the Lady Nōhime and Kyōya stand in complete silence. She is also wearing a traditional kimono, probably heavier than Hana’s, while Kyōya is of course wearing the DC Chairman regalia complete with the coins and the dagger at his sides. Elder Kō isn’t here, back at the compound watching over Kyōya and Hana’s minuscule brother whom Chrome has yet to meet.

“I feel underdressed,” she admits, though Chikusa just huffs at her. He knows she isn’t, she knows she isn’t, Hibari are just extra like that, but still… She had once been the heir to one of Namimori’s founding families and, despite blindness and… dubious state of aliveness, Shiraishi Natsumi and Shigeru had always been impeccably dressed. She used to wear her school uniform for official events as most school-aged children did, but now she isn’t even wearing that. “It feels weird.”

At least she can take comfort in the fact Shiraishi Hajime isn’t wearing anything eyecatching, just a purple-accented haori over a black suit. The descendant to her bloodline still retains the Shiraishi looks after all this time, a lanky constitution, straight hair and delicate features, but his smile is all Miura in nature. A mildly disturbing sight to Chrome: the Shiraishi were a branch of the Miura originally, but the particular smile hadn’t shown up in them for at least five generations before Nagi.

She is glad, at least, that they managed to secure their bloodlines. While the founding families had lost much of their relevance by the time Tsunayoshi was born, they had been an important part of the temple’s balance as they each had the inherited Flames that got stronger with each generation. The many procedures were annoying, but the surrogates they had all chosen had done a good job surviving to keep their legacy alive, not just for the sake of the Namimori and their ancient history, but also because they hadn’t known if there would be any Flame users left after the worldwide purge.

Someone had to keep the balance of the world steady, after the Tri-ni-Sette went and collapsed on them and, by the time Chrome last remembers, most of its temples had decayed to the point they could no longer bring them back. She greatly regrets leaving such tasks to children she didn’t live long enough to meet, but they endured. Their island, their nation, their culture; this is all proof that Namimori stood strong against the assault, and—

At times, it makes her cry, just a little. She sees the features of old friends in the faces of unknown people, and she knows well it will never be the same. She feels similar Flames still burning in the temple, layers and generations burning around what they had placed in it, and it pains her she can barely feel her own. She watches, and she remembers a sleepy island that became livelier after Kawahira loosened his fist around them, and she wants it back so badly.

The bloodlines survived, and now their souls are here as well. They might not be the ones who will be called to respond to the pillars once they light up once more, but they can watch, and protect that which is theirs. So that Namimori will exist for decades and centuries more, not just surviving but living as they should.

“Hajime-san looks so excited,” she eventually says, after she has been watching the man for so long he notices and waves at her with that Miura smile.

“There is never anything new around here, Chrome.”

“I know!”

She moves her eyes from Hajime and his cloudy self—the Shiraishi family at least keeps their duty as the guards of the unlit Cloud pillar, even when this one is Kaiji’s Mukuro’s descendant! That’s nice to know—to the Lady Nōhime who is, oddly enough, the sunny brightness of the island. The Yamamoto-Asari heir (whose surname is probably neither of those) has approached her to try and get some words from her with her soothing rain droplets and, a bit further away and watching his friend warily, stands the one she believes is this generation’s Lightning pillar. The Lady Kuroaki, wrapped in raging and overprotective storms, fusses over Hana’s hair as she often does, and…

Once again, the Mist isn’t showing themselves for an official event, evading their responsibilities gracefully and very, very illegally. Chrome knows they exist—Ken knows them though he refuses to elaborate, the lighthouse is well-maintained and working, and the veil that protects the island is still active. They really should show their faces someday, but Mists will be Mists, and she can’t ask much more from them.

Flame septets in Namimori are loved and respected, which is one of the reasons why their members are often in high places in society. The next generation will probably be Kyōya, Hana and Irie Shōichi (not his actual name, but she has never known him by any other), but none of them knows who the other four will be. There aren’t any Sawada left in Namimori any more to take over the beacon of the Sky but, while this generation has their own unnatural Sky, there is hope yet that Tsunayoshi will return to take his rightful place.

Him, or Byakuran, but that is nigh impossible. The man is too busy with the Millefiore and reorganizing the underworld while evading Heroes, too busy to worry about the one remaining temple. It should be criminal to be this negligent.

However, speaking of Skies, Hibari Mēichi finally gets himself awake enough to move from wherever he was hiding, and enters the room with a flourish. She bows to him, as does everyone else, and then watches in amusement as the Ladies Nōhime and Kuroaki glare at each other across the reception block to see who gets to him first. Everyone is watching their stare-off, well used to them, because the Hibari family drama is still as hilarious, and scandalous, as it was when Nagi was still alive.

(Hana is older than Kyōya, and Kyōya was born right before their overlord graduated High School. Seriously, it is just as funny, awkward, unsettling and disturbing as it was the first time around, but at least this time the Ladies Kuroaki and Nōhime are the same age as Mēichi.)

Chrome knows, because she had to study it before the Vongola got into Namimori and turned everything upside down, that the Hibari don’t produce Skies—or rather, they did, very rarely, but their living conditions at childhood (thanks to Kawahira) usually left them barely clinging to their fractured selves until they shattered under the pressure. Hibari Kyōya hadn’t been one such Shattered Sky, but Hibari Masato had been, his constant and reassuring sunny smile hiding the truth of his soul until he eventually died from the strain when the Tri-ni-Sette was close to giving up. His septet never recovered, especially not since Sawada Iemitsu existed in an eternal state of ignoring everything related to Namimori.

So, because she knows this, and knows the story, she is honestly amazed Hibari Mēichi (who they all agree is just Masato under a new name) glows as bright as he does. Yes, it has been centuries since Kawahira released the family from his nonsense, but even then the few Skies born inside the family just… kept breaking. Her wanderings around the hallowed grounds have led her to find many, many Hibari children with scratched-out Skies on their grave markers and five other Flames barely lit, so… How is he a Sky?

(Now that she thinks about it, wasn’t Hayato also a Shattered Sky? She wonders how that happened.)

She doesn’t look directly at Mēichi for too long, only long enough for him to start yawning while one of the lawyers (she doesn’t know if he is the prosecutor or the defendant, it is all the same either way) talks to him. Instead, she turns her eyes to the woman who follows after him, red curls falling neatly over her shoulders as she looks over a small bundle of papers. If Chrome isn’t wrong, this woman should be Suzuki Kuniko, the current Earth… beacon? Pillar? Enma’s heir as ‘Boss’ of the Simon and the tree, or something like that—though of course the actual Boss is, and will always be, Enma himself.

Chrome… doesn’t really know how the Earth temples work, or how they will manage to recover. While the Sky temples were a total of forty-nine spread across the world, the Earth ones were only seven, and almost all of them had been neutralized by the moment she died. The only one she ever saw had been in Simon Island where she rarely set foot on; according to Kyōya, it had been destroyed by Enma’s final display of Will on Earth which also happened to raze Simon Island to the ground.

Then again, there hadn’t been any Simon left before Chrome’s death except for the Decimo himself. Each of them had died from the purge, not from the Disease, and each of them had left taking dozens of enemies with them. Enma had been in a terrible state the last time Chrome saw him, and it didn’t surprise her much when Kyōya told her the story.

But to restore the Tri-ni-Sette… They will probably need a legitimate place to build some new pillars. The small shrine for Shokaku in the hallowed grounds Namimori maintains is small, kept clean and barely functioning by loving hands and centuries of tradition, but it is no temple. Even the Mare shrine, by the port, is bigger than the Earth shrine, and that one isn’t even needed.

This is all a mess.

“Chrome.” Her head tilts slightly to look at Kyōya, who is now next to her with Hana at his other side. He nods at Chikusa, who is finally paying attention once more: “Kakimoto.”

“Cloud,” is all her closest friend—next to Ken!—says, his eyes scanning the room for danger. Some things never change, and the instinct for survival remains strong two centuries later.

“So.” Hana taps the wall to an unknown rhythm, her voice curious. “Any bets?”

“Hm…”

“Any bets against Chisaki?”

They all reject the idea in their own ways, because if there is one thing they can all be sure of in this trial, is that Namimori doesn’t lose.

A few minutes before the first fully broadcasted trial in Namimori, many around Japan, and some around the world, settle down to watch.

The Quirkless Autonomous Region of Namimori, a self-sustained city with the population of a small nation despite being an island in the middle of a nuclear exclusion zone, has always been a mystery to the world. A mystery, a regret, a stain in their society and a scorched era in most history books, yet it perseveres in its prosperous enigma. An island ravaged by wars, both those of their own and those that others brought into their lands, and yet it is easily the most peaceful place in the whole world.

It is an island without Heroes, and yet it is peaceful.

From the military feat that was surviving nearly a complete century of attacks, threats and economic penalties until they gained their status of ‘Autonomous’; to their characteristic rejection of everything considered ‘Heroic’ including the labels of Hero, Villain and Vigilante; to the way its small size and isolationism didn’t stop it from being one of the most technologically advanced places in the world; all that, and more, had made Namimori an interesting area of study for many, and a topic of debate for most. Should they be allowed to remain as they are? Should they attempt to reincorporate it into the global world? Should they really be wasting so much time worrying about a small nation that does its best to be as unobtrusive as possible?

And yet, this is a small nation that hides what happens inside it. Information on news inside the city is a rarity worldwide. Information on the people inside it is hard to come by. Information on how the city works, how it somehow manages to function like a well-oiled machine despite being so small, is almost nonexistent. Many nations had tried to negotiate exchanges of technology and goods, but Namimori constantly rejected them. Many nations had tried to establish diplomatic relationships with it but, apart from Japan since it stood right in the middle of their inner sea, no others had managed to do so.

It is an enigma.

It is also an enigma that is currently broadcasting a trial on one of its citizens, and that becomes the headline news across the media legally allowed to own such information.

A mere ten minutes before the trial of the decade is meant to begin, there is a ping that comes from many, many phones and computers and other devices across Japan and perhaps the whole world. It is a ping that reminds them the ‘main event’ will soon begin and that the discussion room is now open, idoRankings, Hellring and Kyoko hard at work to keep the conversation civil. The usual fourth member of their real-time moderation team for these kinds of events, niharu, is unusually absent this time, but no matter how many calls the other three try to get through she isn’t picking up.

The denizens of the VS boards are drunk on excitement over the new controversial topic. This isn’t rare, as they tend to care a lot about certain Villains: Chisaki Kai is, for many of them, a person of interest due to his occasional essays on the nature of Quirks that show up online, though he has never been a true member of their community. He is, was considered an honorary member, but it is up to the boards as a whole to decide if they can continue respecting his opinions.

There are far too many people online and active, mostly in Japan as the case wasn’t meant to be released for an international audience, but the online world doesn’t care about such things. The voices from other nations, other continents, are fewer, scattered here and there, and there are far, far too many people who should be asleep.

The VS boards aren’t the only ones active like this, however—though, perhaps in the current context it is better to call it by its true name: the Akasha, a creation of Rokudō Mukuro for his personal memory and information management that evolved into something even he could never have predicted. On the other side of the world, the Millefiore’s internal communication network, commonly known as the Flower Tower although its proper name is the Sephirot, is also teeming with activity. The usual people working under Calendula’s or Paphiopedilum’s command to keep the network in check flail around like chickens at the lack of words from their leaders and work overtime to keep everyone from forming a team to assassinate Chisaki Kai for taking so much of their leader’s time. They haven’t heard from Shiro, the spokesperson for the Gesso head, at all in weeks, and they are getting worried.

The last sibling, and also the oldest, of these massive technological constructs and repositories of information is simply known as Merone. Its creators hadn’t really thought much about its name when it was originally built, but after the other two came to life one of its administrators decided to follow the naming convention and jokingly called it the Pleroma. The name stuck in the files but not in most people’s minds, so it continued going on as Merone to this day.

It is, unsurprisingly, the least active as of the moment of the trial, as the people who use it are too busy paying attention to the trial that takes place in their own homeland.

All three of these databases, these backups for a group of people long forgotten, receive the same message the moment the trial itself begins. It is quickly shared through the communities, it even shows up in some public communities before it quickly gets taken down. Many people react in amusement to the whole post, some in despair, and some in complete understanding.

Somewhere, in a quaint home in Musutafu, a young man sighs, leans back on his chair and considers his task done.

New! uri just posted a new thread: Chisaki Kai will get community service and here is why. <Mad rambles> <Shie Hassaikai>

Hello to everyone on this cursed side of the interwebs, this is uri. I know I don’t post here often, but that’s mostly because my interests rarely align with whatever you are talking about at any time. However, this is my time to shine. Why? Because we have a trial.

A Namimori Trial.

(In one of the upper layers of the fortress known as the Merone base of Namimori, a young man covers his face with his hands and tries very hard not to scream when he sees the post. He takes a few seconds to panic, quiet and subtly, ignoring his friends’ worrying glances.

“Midoriya?” Tsuyu lays her hand on his arm, concern in her voice, but he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to get his friends involved in this.

“Sorry, I just— I saw something dumb.”

Yes, something dumb, something like his brother, his childhood friend, deciding to speak up on the most controversial topic of the year, as if he wasn’t a wanted person who could easily be found by a very dedicated hacker. Just, discussing the topic, as if he wasn’t being chased by the government, the Heroes and just about everyone else, as if he wasn’t a very vulnerable Not-Vigilante sitting right in the middle of a Hero-infested city. He isn’t worrying about the fact that the VS boards are allowed in Namimori anymore, no, now he is worried about everything else.

Izuku closes his eyes tightly. Maybe when he opens them the post will be gone— no, it’s still there. He ignores the official procedures as he begins reading, hoping deep in his heart Katsuki hasn’t noticed this yet.)

I love these things and know quite a lot about them, so I want to give my predictions on what will happen with this one: as this thread’s title says, Chisaki Kai will get mandatory community service, maybe a parole officer, and here is why.

Now, let me first start going through the laws of Namimori, because we haven’t had a Namimori Trial in the last two decades.

Namimori is a closed community, a micro-nation, and their laws are quite different from those of Japan or even the rest of the world. People who leave tend to be heavily scrutinized by just about everyone and try to stay under the radar, but they have protection, and quite a sturdy one at that. One example is this whole mess: Chisaki Kai was born in Namimori, and so he can only be tried by the authorities of Namimori.

But that’s not my main topic right now.

(“It shouldn’t be a topic at all, kora!” One Merrill Jágr almost throws his phone across the room when he sees the post, struggling to keep his anger in check. He is supposed to be Rain, to be soothing, calming—but each day that passes trying to survive so far from his friends, from what the few memories he sees in his dreams tell him is right, he becomes angrier and fussier and—

“I mean, we aren’t supposed to be watching the thing, you know?” Jora Sapir’s high voice comes from his computer’s speakers. He sees her, in the screen that is split in six, taking over one corner even though he’d rather she take the whole screen. She isn’t looking at the camera, just working on one of her ‘model’ guns, her Quirk twined around her arm and glowing purple from its activation. “What did Hurricane say.”

“‘Chisaki Kai will get community service and here is why,’” responds Liu Shen, also looking away from the camera. He takes another sip of whatever hellish concoction he has prepared himself to stay awake, even though he isn’t the one on the opposite side of the world.

“That’s what’s most likely to happen!” Gabriel exclaims, almost cheerfully, as he continues fiddling with whatever is it he’s doing to get them access to Namimori’s courthouse’s live feeds. Will his guardian care? Probably not, but they still have to be careful. “He did human experimentation, so he will probably get some months working in the mines—“

“With Skull, you mean.“

“Yes, those are the mines!“

Merrill sighs and goes back to reading the post, but not before checking on the other three members of their little group. As always, Kasumi is going on with their life placidly, mic silenced and ignoring the chaos their brothers are making behind them. Skull’s screen is blank, but his mic is working and they can hear some mindless droning in the background. Ren…

Ren is muted, Merrill muted him when he started cackling madly after seeing the post, and he is currently still laughing in the empty warehouse he has holed himself in for the next few days. He shall remain muted until he stops being a madman aiming for world domination— or, until Kasumi notices he is muted and unmutes him.

He counts to three. Then counts to three again. And again. Deep breaths, deep breaths, you’re supposed to be calm…)

So, Namimori. It is ancient, it has been autonomous for about a century now, you can’t change your nationality from ‘Namimori’ to something else. No, you can’t, and that’s why law enforcement is very careful when it comes to people who come from Namimori. I don’t, but I sure wish I did, because Namimori is a small paradise for nonsense and I love it.

(“Of course you do, you little madman.”

In the distance, in a far-off country, a man enjoys his break from work by reading this wild and conspiratorial post online. He doesn’t know why he feels so… familiar, with the anonymous existence under the name ‘uri’, but he does know that, wherever ‘uri’ is, his life is better off without him in it.

He glances at the clock, watches it tick away, and then the nurse on shift calls him for another emergency. He puts his thoughts away. Mosquitoes buzz around him, as they always do, white noise ever present in this life and his odd dreams both.)

Namimori follows the Vindice Laws, it is one of the last places on Earth that do so. The Vindice were an organization founded in the early 1600s, they originally came to be when a man known as Bermuda went mad with power and decided he would rule the world. Fortunately for us, he couldn’t rule the world, but the organization stayed behind as proof of his actions. They aren’t active anymore, but their main job was law enforcement to those who hide from the law; that’s right, the Vindice were the police, the judges and the jurors of all organized crime across the globe.

They were pretty strict about what was allowed and what wasn’t, but they were also a group of self-serving sons of multiple bitches and they cherry-picked whatever they wanted to fulfil their ideals. A lot of their own Laws didn’t apply to themselves and they were generally pretty damn insane. They tried to go after All for One, but they couldn’t and then entered a period of dormancy they are still in; we shall wait until they return, but for now there is one place that sticks strictly to their Laws, and that is Namimori.

Namimori follows Vindice Laws. Why, because they just do, don’t ask me. The Shie Hassaikai, where Chisaki Kai comes from, also follows Vindice Laws: their history goes back a little more than two centuries back, to Shikoku, and they were a split of the Simon who were another group of completely insane people. Since the Shie Hassaikai is fucking ancient and had, thus far, stayed in their line, nothing was done about them, because they were acting within what is acceptable to the Accord of the Night—that is, the final amendment of the Vindice Laws.

(A couple dozen metres above the luxury cruise ship Flower of the Desert, a red-haired man scoffs at his phone. He has an aborted instinct to reply to Hayato’s post to tell him about the imminent danger that is cross-posting his very valid theory across the database backups, but he is also not in the mood to get in a fight with the single most volatile member of their Family and Alliance. No, thank you, he has enough dealing with Byakuran.

He looks at Namimori, where this whole thing is happening, and then at the ship’s bow where part of the crew is gathered around a screen illegally watching the broadcast. Their guests for the week are also gathered in groups of associates and allies, Villains and Vigilantes and maybe one relatively corrupt Hero, some of them just relaxing as they should while others—including Irinaka Joi, who managed to evacuate himself from Nagiya before the authorities got to him—focus on the various media currently talking about the topic. Technically, they are on international seas, so they shouldn’t have access to that media, but who cares? The Flower, the Paradise and other Mafia-owned cruises had long since rigged their communications to intercept anything around them, even before Enma’s life as Decimo, and that hasn’t changed despite the ships being destroyed and rebuilt multiple times.

It is still a cruise ship pretending to be legal, so they can’t just go into the Japanese Inland Sea without proper authorization and annoying paperwork, but they can be here right at the border in case Namimori needs to smuggle someone out. In fact, the Flower is rarely allowed to dock anywhere for longer than a day since the whole world knows about their ‘allegiance’ to Villains, but they are still one of the most luxurious cruise ships in the world and some important people defend their right to enter national borders. They can’t even dock at Simon Island, though there isn’t much to see there nowadays after he destroyed it in the past.

Ah, he wants to go home. He doesn’t know which home he wants to go to, if Simon Island or Nami Island or Miyazaki, but he is absolutely sure he wants to go home and hide away under his blankets for a few hours before he needs to return to the world and scream himself hoarse at everyone he knows. He had to clean up after Byakuran, then do more cleaning up after Mukuro and Tsuna, then he had to come all the way to the ship that most of the time doesn’t recognize him as the rightful Simon heir, and now he has to send some people to clean up after whatever Hayato missed when hiding his tracks…

For now, he sends a bunch of worst-case scenarios to Tsuna, who will dissect them for him so he can stop worrying. He will start worrying about another thing in the next few minutes, and send those to Tsuna as well, and maybe he can defeat his anxiety sometime this lifetime.

Doubtful. He continues watching over the source of half his anxieties, Namimori itself, from high up in the sky, and goes back to pretending he is a functional human being.)

The Accord of the Night was signed circa early 2000 by all living underworld groups of organized crime, most specifically the core of the Casta di Fiamma—Sky of Skies and those people—, and it is… very, very self-serving. Nothing wrong with that, but you will see what I mean in a moment.

First, let’s go through what makes organized crime and what crimes Chisaki Kai committed that align with those:

(Somewhere, at a HPSC-owned building where the Remedial Provisional License Exam Course is held every year, Bakugō Katsuki covers his face with his phone as he faces the skies. Quietly, he prays for some strength to deal with his brother for the next however long they stay alive for, his ridiculously careless brother who is somehow a certified prodigy—Katsuki ignores the fact he is, technically, also one—, and regrets ever allowing Hayato to go around without an eye on him.

It is even worse when he thinks about how Hayato was here just an hour ago, when he came to see Katsuki off as he has been doing since he started this course. It has only been three weeks, but that’s three weeks too many of his baby brother exposing himself to the HPSC without a care for his own safety, and now this. This, because clearly the world isn’t sure enough about where uri’s allegiances lay and needs to be reminded of them.

The kid isn’t the only one who knows about uri and Hurricane being the same person, and he probably isn’t the only one who knows who uri is outside of the online community. He knows his Villain Studies companion Amehara Takeshi knows too much to not know who Hayato is, and he has gotten weird looks from too many of his classmates to feel comfortable about it—then again, one is already too many, but thankfully Deku is good at keeping secrets.

Around him, the twelve other Hero Candidates that he is taking this course with chatter mindlessly. Half-and-Half, that complete and absolute bastard, is giving him suspicious looks, so Katsuki decides to just ignore him, and all of them, and go back to Hayato’s post.

Why did this whole thing have to happen on a weekend, don’t people know the meaning of weekends?)

Chisaki Kai was found guilty of organized crime, duh. Most specifically he is Yakuza, and that involves any of the following: extortion, blackmail, smuggling, prostitution, drug trafficking, gambling, loan sharking, day-labour contracting, and others, as well as control over certain businesses in their territories. They did… two of those on record, actually, the Shie Hassaikai was very clean for Yakuza. Smuggling and drug trafficking are the only crimes we can associate with the Shie Hassaikai as a whole, as it has yet to be proven if they were involved in any other sort of organized crime-like business.

I will also add that the Shie Hassaikai is linked to Japanese leadership, and certain types of organized crime require some sort of tie to the government and/or large business conglomerates. From what my research shows, which I go into more detail here, the Shie Hassaikai is directly connected to the Mitsui family, one of the oldest surviving Japanese old money families from the late 1600s. Yes, they are older than the Ameharas, one of those ancient keiretsu most of the government refuses to talk about (I wonder why).

So, how exactly are they related? That’s a long story, but right now it is mostly through Kurono Hari, Chisaki Kai’s second in command, right hand and the Shie Hassaikai’s interim leader, who is somehow related to the Mitsui family head. In fact, it was probably the Mitsui that bailed out the inner circle of the Shie Hassaikai who are currently missing.

Yes, they are missing, the Heroes went and lost them, it is hilarious.

(Somewhere in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, a girl by the name of Mitsui Koharu kicks her legs on her bed as she reads the thread. The trial is on the large TV in front of her, on mute as it hasn’t started yet, but for now she is just going through uri’s thread like it is the most amusing thing in the world. In fact, it is the most amusing thing in the world for her!

“Our Hayato never changes,” she says with a giggle, thinking back on times when she put him in beautiful traditional outfits and made him parade around Namimori. “None of us have changed much, have we?”

She laughs at each new sentence she reads in the post, at each word that is proof that this is Hayato and not an impostor, at each ping that tells her someone new has replied to the thread. She also laughs at each message she gets in the mods’ group, from Kyoko gently scolding her but not bothering with asking her to come back, to Fūta’s incoherent words and key smashes that are probably him slamming his head on the keyboard, to Fran’s endless single-word messages that she isn’t going to bother reading.

Dear, good old Family. She misses them so much, but they all have their jobs and situations and she can’t ask them to just come visit, not when she can barely leave her house. It is rather unfortunate, but well, she has lived this way for years even if she fights against it loudly every chance she has.

She might not be Miura Haru anymore, heir to one of the ruling families of Namimori, but she refuses to give up her old self to her newer family.)

Now, if we delete the crimes related to organized crime and what it involves, we are left with three charges, all of which are related to the alleged human experimentation: abuse of a minor, torture and, arguably, attempted genocide due to what the experiments were aimed at. And here is where things become a little more nuanced, harder to label, because even by Vindice Laws and the Accord of the Night, ‘human experimentation’ is difficult to define and it is, thus, difficult to judge.

I ask of you, what is human experimentation? What makes a Villain? And why is Chisaki Kai being condemned of human experimentation when he has been doing exactly the same as some governments around the globe do?

(“Isn’t my little brother just the cutest?” She presses her palm against her cheek, cooing at someone she can barely remember in the back of her mind. She has long since given up on questioning her feelings for unknown ‘little brothers’ she has never had in this life, and isn’t planning on starting now.

Her manager looks at her through narrowed eyes: “You’re an only child.”

“I know, but isn’t he just the cutest?”

She flicks her hand at her manager, laughing when the poor woman has to lean back, hissing in anger. Her poison eats through the table and falls on the ground with a wet plop, and she doesn’t bother apologizing for the damage she has caused. There is no point to it after all, not when she doesn’t need to pretend to be a functional adult for a little brother who isn’t here any more.)

What is human experimentation? Well, obviously it is experimenting with untested medications, medical procedures, or other such things, on a human being, willing or not. However, the original purpose, ideals and goals behind the experiments are also important when judging these cases under Vindice Law.

There are three cases of human experimentation that the Vindice considers as relevant precedents in any and all cases of human experimentation.

First, the Grim Reaper case, a little over 500 years ago: this was carried on by the Vindice themselves due to a request from the ‘Grim’. It gets rather confusing but basically, the Grim needed this to happen for their own sanity, and if it hadn’t happened there was a possibility that part of the world would have collapsed on itself. It wasn’t completely successful, but it went well enough and it is considered a net positive. Do not ask, I will not answer, if someone named K asks then you did not see this.

(Skull twirls a pen around his finger, trying to ignore the mindless droning still going on in front of him from some or other Namimori elder. There isn’t much to do currently, not even in his present role as ‘warden’ or his occasional role as the only Vindice-adjacent person capable of moving right now. He either waits here for a few hours until he can take Chisaki Kai to Namimori’s mildly illegal and ancient prison, or he waits a few hours until he can take Chisaki Kai to Namimori’s official prison.

He throws the pen up, watches it spin and then catches it with a single finger, balancing it vertically by the tip. Through his headphones, he listens to Shen who is still reading Gokudera’s predictions into their group call and to Gabriel’s cheerful commentary—he isn’t in the courthouse, so he’s probably at the heart of the fortress enjoying his time free from Shōichi’s usually watchful eyes. Ren and Kasumi remain muted—not that Kasumi needs to mute themselves—, and he can hear Merrill’s grumbling and Jora’s almost silent coos at her ‘children’, her many, many weapons. Just an everyday group call, without Luce or Aria since they have a responsible guardian, and without Uni as she can’t be bothered to look out for them for longer than it takes her to confirm they are alive.

He hasn’t heard from her in a while. Maybe he needs to visit, just crash at her home and stay for a few months while she tries to be the responsible adult of the whole Alliance.

What a time to be alive. Not that he has ever stopped being alive for… a long, long time, but at least he got the right moment to wake up and retake his place within the Alliance. Bermuda will hate him forever if he finds out what Sull has been doing, but…

Eh, Bermuda has always hated him, it isn’t anything new.)

Then we have the Estraneo case, from two decades to a few years before the Accord of the Night: a couple hundred children got ‘stolen’ from their families (they were sold off) and made to go through all sorts of experiences to awaken ‘hidden potential’ in them. They were planning on making weapons. This wasn’t properly dealt with as the Estraneo were Italian and the children were undocumented from all over the world, but the survivors were three: two from Japan, one from Namimori. They got their revenge and the Vindice did not start chasing them until they overreached with their revenge. The experiments were… arguably successful, but it was a net negative due to all the losses.

(Somewhere in Hokkaidō, Aizan Genji Rokudō Mukuro clicks his tongue as he crushes yet another failed Flame conduit under his boot. Another day, another failure, another waste of resources that get harder and harder to find with each day.

He is going to need to visit Namimori, or that other Earth temple struggling to survive in Iceland, for the weird trees’ sap, and then hide away in one of the laboratories he hasn’t destroyed or visited lately so he can steal whatever alloy they have managed to mix in the past few years. The one in Brazil should be fine, he hasn’t gone there to steal their shit in almost a decade now and he doesn’t doubt they are still trying to reproduce Flame-powered technology for their useless skills.

That, or he could actually use the extensive network of people he has amassed under himself to secure his resources. If he pays them enough they would do it, wouldn’t they? At least the informants, maybe even some of the people who are completely unrelated to the Casta di Fiamma? He usually wouldn’t mind bothering the Tenth Generation for his own selfish purposes, but they are all so young… Going by himself would be faster and less costly in the long term, maybe he can even destroy that ridiculous defence mechanism the laboratory has.

If he leaves, though… What should he do with Tsunayoshi and Eri, while he is away? He knows he’s a terrible example and Tsunayoshi can take care of himself better than Mukuro ever could, but he will still worry. It would feel like leaving M.M and Chikusa alone with a limitless credit card, a promise for trouble that he won’t be happy dealing with afterwards.

Sighing, he looks at the boards, then peeks at the Millefiore community just in case he is allowed to be in it for longer than a few minutes. Of the Tenth Generations, or the First Generation for the Millefiore, there has to be someone in a good enough situation to watch over his wards, right? Someone who is hopefully not Chrome nor Kyōya, or Byakuran… Uni, perhaps? Everyone else is compromised.

What to do, what to do…)

Finally, All for One. That thing experimented on itself and I won’t go into details, just know it was highly illegal and it’s an open case.

So, then, when do the Vindice Laws allow human experimentation? The short answer is, when they are done ‘ethically’ and aim to improve human life. The long answer is the following points:

One (from the Grim case): human experimentation can be conducted on a willing subject(s) so long as consent is expressly declared in written form or otherwise. The experiments shall be ethical, cause no permanent damage to the subject(s), and there must be enough time between each trial to allow the subject(s) to recover.

Two (from the Estraneo case): human experimentation shall not be conducted for the purpose of creating human weapons, child soldiers or any sort of creature beyond the realm of possibility. In the case of unwilling subject(s), permanent unwanted damage, subject(s) death or catastrophic failure, the survivors are allowed to enact revenge on those who have tortured them at a scale of one life per one life, and nothing more.

(Somewhere in Hokkaidō, in an upscale hotel room they are most definitely not paying for, a fluffy-haired Sawada Tsunayoshi holds a little horned girl in his arms. They are still covered in blankets since they just woke up, but she has been fussing for cake and he is rather hungry, though he isn’t going to get cake for breakfast, he isn’t Mukuro. Their unhealthy lifestyle isn’t particularly sustainable and if they go and get sick from terrible diet habits, Mukuro won’t be the only one hearing from him.

“Tsuna, what are you reading?” Eri tries to take his phone with her tiny hands, but he keeps it away from her. He isn’t worried about her coming in contact with the darkest side of society, no, but he’d rather keep her away from it for as long as he possibly can. Innocent lives are rare in this day and age, and Eri is particularly cute in that she really doesn’t understand anything.

He is working on it.

“A madman’s manifesto,” he says instead, finally deciding he isn’t going to bother worrying about the others today. Enma can dissect his scenarios on his own, he will go back online after he makes sure Eri is comfortable and eating healthy. “Let’s go eat breakfast before we get kicked out of this hotel, alright?”

“Okay!” She cheers as she carefully gets out from under the blankets, then stops for a second before she looks at him in confusion. “Why are we getting kicked out?”)

Three (from the All for One case and partly from the Estraneo case): human experimentation with the goal of achieving immortality, modifying the nature of the soul or creating life where there should be none are strictly prohibited. This one is a little difficult to understand, but it’s basically just ‘don’t try to become God’.

They are pretty specific, aren’t they? Well, there is one I didn’t mention because the precedent is recent, and is in fact done everywhere there are Heroes, Villains and Quirks as a whole. I will now ask you, what makes a Villain, and why do we have tools expressly made to suppress them?

That’s right, the fourth one (not written down, I’m writing this from memory) is as follows:

Four (from the Grim case, countless trials on people with Quirks at the beginning of the era, countless trials on uncontrollable and dangerous Quirks, and countless trials on ‘Villainous’ Quirks for the sake of ‘rehabilitation’): human experimentation may be conducted for the sake of public safety, to improve the quality of life of people, to control those that might go against the law and to aid those who have trouble controlling their own selves. These experiments should be conducted under the best possible conditions, under watch of at least two unrelated parties, and the results should be made public as soon as conclusive data is found.

(Hidden in a tiny workshop unlike those he remembers, vaguely, from a life previous to this one, a boy saves the thread for further inspection. He isn’t really worrying about secrets long forgotten being revealed to a certain part of the underworld, but he does have to worry about not having his secrets revealed. That can’t happen, no matter what: now that his mind is in the right place and not being constantly numbed by the eternal Tranquility that had been his old life, he realizes that his inventions, and those of his friends and mentor, might have been a little too dangerous to just leave around gathering dust.

Of course, they didn’t just leave them laying around. Each of their creations, both from their lifetime, a future that was not and another future that never came to be, was carefully disassembled and neutralized by the time they realized things weren’t right with the world. Flame technology was very problematic to carry around when the ‘supernatural’ purges were going on, or at least that’s what he knows from scattered memories, and that’s a truth that continues to be true to this day. Some of them couldn’t be neutralized, but most of them were: Flame Boxes, Weapons, Animals, the entirety of the Vongola, Simon and Millefiore’s Guardians customized equipment…

Even the one unethical creation he and Shōichi made, the product of some wild experiments they thought about in an alcohol-fueled fugue and the memories inherited of a future that was and then wasn’t, was put down until they could be retrieved. The Flame-draining Moska, his life’s work, would be deadly if found nowadays: without knowledge of Flames or an objective way to measure them, people would probably assume the robots ran on ‘nothing’ instead of on the soul of the one controlling it from inside.

What had they been thinking, anyway? Since when did the Vongola or the Millefiore of the timeline they lived, ruled by the two people who were the most against any sort of inhumane creation and who held victims of the worst procedures dear to their hearts, take part in human experimentation? Research is one thing, but that…

He doesn’t remember why, exactly, they created that monstrosity, but he does remember the feelings of pride and shame he felt afterwards. Maybe Shōichi felt the same. And now whole governments are doing the same thing, slowly destroying lives for their own hegemony on this world domineered by ‘Heroes’. If they truly think Chisaki Kai, the Shie Hassaikai and even the League of Villains are the real Villains in this world, then he doesn’t know how the world will get back on track.

He unwraps another lollipop and returns to his current creation. Things to think about later.)

There we go, the four precepts of human experimentation according to the Vindice, to Namimori, and the last one belongs solely to the official governments. Don’t ask me how the last one is legal, I don’t know; the Vindice don’t go after them because they are not organized crime, and also the Vindice are dormant, so it is whatever.

Now, we have Chisaki Kai. What do we know of his goal? The result, which few people know about and everyone will soon learn about, is a Quirk-destroying drug. That’s right, he created a drug that doesn’t just nullify a Quirk, it destroys the Quirk factor of the affected person. Now, the perfected drug might never be able to be mass-produced, but the weaker version is a complete Quirk erasure drug that lasts up to a month, two weeks on average.

I think some of you might understand exactly what this means: this drug could be life-saving to some people out there, people whose Quirks harm themselves or who can’t control their own abilities due to a lack of understanding. We have Eraserhead, sure, but he needs to be looking at the target; law enforcement uses Quirk inhibitors as well, but the technology isn’t advanced enough to affect certain Quirks (mutant Quirks, for instance! Or Quirks that are too strong, like, well, my own! I can get out of those things easily).

So, this drug? If used well, it could improve the quality of life of countless people out there, even if it’s not the perfected one. Many people out there don’t want their Quirks: they find it hard to live with them, they are discriminated against for what they can do like most Villains, or they don’t see any other option for their abilities other than hiding them forever. Even temporarily, these people would find relief in not, say, needing to drink someone else’s blood every day.

(In an empty warehouse, Dabi cringes at his phone. uri, as always, hits too close home for comfort. He knows he isn’t the only one who would benefit from such a drug—he had had to hold himself back from stealing the thing from Shiro, if only to have a backup means to extend his life—, and he also knows he isn’t the only one terrified about such drugs. Many people see their Quirks as their lifeline, the very reason they are alive, even though they should definitely not.

Toga, his precious ‘sister’ and ‘bff’, finally leaves Twice alone to hop over to Dabi, and she leaps at him for a hug that could easily crush his ribs. Thankfully, she knows how weak and delicate his physical condition is and controls her strength, but he still feels a stitch coming loose on his side, still feels his lungs constricting painfully, still feels like he is breaking from the inside. However, he has gotten used to her, so he quickly shoves his phone into his pocket and pretends to push her away.

“What are you looking at?” She asks, voice lilting in a sing-song he thinks is adorable but will never admit. “Your weird friend told you something fun?”

“Just Chisaki news.” In the end that’s all uri’s weird history and ethics lesson is.

“Oh, is it about the des— destro—“

“Distruggere, yes, that one.” He knows the knowledge of the drug, even if not disclosed to the public, will make waves in the underworld and Villains worldwide. Even the Heroes’ carefully built empire could crumble under it. He, for once, won’t be the only one keeping the secret. “They lost the girl, so I don’t know how are they planning on condemning him.”

“Hah, imagine, all your plans ruined! By a! Three years old!”

“I’m sure she’s older than that?”

“Well, probably, but it doesn’t matter since they lost her.”

“True.” She hums, swaying back and forth for a few seconds before she points at Twice with a grin. “Help me take off his mask.”

“Sure, why the hell not.”)

Conclusion: this drug fits the fourth precept, the one that wasn’t even put in place by the Vindice. It was made by the Hero society and I don’t doubt that even they are working overtime to try and find the few vials of the perfected drug.

And now, back to Chisaki. Pay in mind he is from Namimori and his Quirk, Overhaul, is at least a Level 10 in the SQM (Standardized Quirk Measure, the value Namimori’s inhibitors use to know how much strength to use on each person; the max is 14), if not higher: there is a high chance he suffered the worst side effects of long-term exposure to the Quirk inhibitor field when growing up. We don’t know how long he lived there when younger, but do note that All Might could only stay in Namimori for a week at most, and his Quirk was SQM13 (14 is reserved for All for One and One Other Person, you know the one).

(In a comfortable family home, an unusually short and compact boy drums his fingers on a desk. His mother has been screaming for him to ‘stop doing whatever you're doing and come help me’ for a while now, but he is honestly too busy watching the ongoing shitshow to care. Besides, she is calling for him with a name that hasn’t been his in a long while, now, so he shouldn’t be expected to answer, right?

Unfortunately, he was born in Japan this time, which means he has to be filial or whatever. And he does care for his current family, sort of, even if the only tolerable one in the long-term is his loud, loud brother. Most of the time he doesn’t mind the loudness, from any of them, it is just when she starts nagging that he wants to put a bullet between her eyes and run away very, very far.

She reminds him of Squalo. She reminds him a little too much of Squalo, it feels mildly uncomfortable. Loud, overprotective, married to their jobs, has a sword—though in her case the sword is made of wind and is more of a whip than anything else. Still, the similarities are annoying, in a painful, tight way he doesn’t quite understand even with the full spectrum of his emotions available and not tinted with the constant wrath that plagued his previous life.

However, right now he is watching the shitshow, right? It figures the Vongola would be very loud and opinionated when it comes to human experimentation considering who the Tenth Generation were. Baby Boss despised anything that went against his misplaced sense of justice and the hatred spread from him to everyone else—except for the Mists, those two were fucked up before that. From the Estraneo’s experiments to the Lightning Arcobaleno casually breaking the laws of nature to that ancient creature’s extreme ways of keeping ‘his’ people where he wanted them, even the one particular lifeline of Millefiore Primo who threw away morals and ethics even further than the one that took over time and space did. And, since they are loud and opinionated, and most of the world also has that sickening ‘Hero’s are better’ mindset, this whole event exploded out of its containment before the time it was meant to do so.

It is funny, in a way. Experimentation on ‘Quirks’ has been happening since even before Xanxus died, and abuse of people too strong for the norm has been going on for even longer. Not everyone is as forgiving as Baby Boss, someone who could have gone off the deeper end one day and then destroyed everything around him, or as… selectively vindictive as Millefiore Primo or the male Tenth Generation Mist—those two did go insane, but they were only insane against certain groups or in specific circumstances.

And yet, it is the moment someone trespasses on what they think is ‘natural’ that the authorities decide to act: something that can delete Quirks? Oh, this isn’t about the Shie Hassaikai being organized crime, they can all see that. It is probably not even about the ‘alleged’ human experimentation. Even now, as limited as his scope is, he sees people going on about conspiracies and at least three different edits of the Tenth Generation Storm’s getting forcefully deleted by whoever rules this annoying site.

Well, it is the generic Hero discussion board that Shiketsu students use, so it is rather surprising that the very illegal thread managed to make it this way. It is probably the cow’s fault, but he does owe say cow something since he didn’t reveal his location.

Fuck the Tenth Generation, honestly. They insist on being helpful despite everything.

…Still, ‘Overhaul’ is SQM 10, or even higher. Maybe he can fight him? Just shoot him endlessly? One day, when he can get out of this awfully useless body?

His mother is still yelling, so he should probably go see to that.)

There is also a high chance he originally started running trials on S1 (Subject 1, who is supposed to be in witness protection but the Heroes lost too) to figure out how S1’s Quirk worked and what it could do: according to the logs, because Chisaki kept extensive logs of every single session, S1 erased their father from existence (much like Shigaraki Tomura did, actually!). S1 was, I quote from one of his earlier logs, ‘a ticking bomb with an unknown activation requirement, unknown stressor conditions and unknown lowest or highest output; if left alone, if we don’t solve this soon, S1 could easily erase this whole of Nagoya from existence, and even more’.

All these experiments were made to create this drug, the drug that, according to another of his logs, he planned on using on himself in order to return home (to Namimori) without the need to leave, and on S1 in order for them to live an easier life. Well, he is Yakuza so he probably had some ulterior motive, but that’s what his own logs—in his own handwriting!—, and I have been reading these things for days now.

(“How does he know that, anyway,” Hoshizaki Kyōko asks herself as she deletes reply after reply, especially the automated replies from Reborn who seems to be dead set on outing Hayato to the rest of the world. Everyone is always interested in knowing exactly who uri is for some reason and Reborn has the most information, so she also has to make sure to keep him from noticing the constant mentions until he isn’t dying from laughing too hard or something.

Keeping Hayato safe should be Tsuna’s work, not hers. She is tired, she has been tired ever since their parents died and she had to take over their parental duties so her younger brothers wouldn’t be taken from her, but she feels she has been even more tired ever since this school year began and someone had the great idea to leave Gokudera Bakugō Hayato without something to keep him partly busy and not causing trouble. Sure, he never cared much about High School since he could just breeze through it in a single year—as he did Before, in better days—, but at least having his brother around kept him from doing anything stupid. Now he doesn’t have his brother or Tsuna around to watch out for, he put Takeshi, Ryōhei and Lambo in the ‘can take care of himself for now’ file of his mind, and the other three in the ‘how am I supposed to do anything about this’ file, so he has been obsessing.

An obsessive Hayato is a dangerous Hayato. He just… doesn’t care enough about himself to stay put, as they all noticed years ago when he started his whole Hurricane thing. Then he met Ren before Tsuna and, unfortunately, they just hype each other endlessly without their wayward Sky keeping them in check. As if it wasn’t enough that they both think they can do everything on their own, even a Reborn who barely remembers, the people around them just let them do whatever they want without a care.

She should have kidnapped Ren when she had the chance. Leaving him with those negligent parents of his was the worst idea ever, but she couldn’t just report them without getting Ren taken away and out of her sight.

So here she is, working overtime on the thing that isn’t her full-time job even though Mukuro pays her barely enough to cover her usual expenses. Sadly, or maybe thankfully, the others don’t have three bodies as she does, so she is in charge of what is basically the heaviest duty for today, as always. Everyone else is busy with other things and, of those who spend far too much time on the boards, Haru isn’t coming, Fūta has been collapsing from overwork for almost a month now—ever since Byakuran entered Japan, to be precise—, and Fran exists in a void of creating chaos and making it everyone’s problem so he takes his time reading everything before deleting the dangerous replies and threads. Kyōko has been temporarily banning people who talk too much, unlike him, but she can’t get to Ren’s Gabriel-powered automated posting fast enough to keep him from saying too much.

Seriously, Reborn used to be wary, now it feels like he chose unhingedness over whatever little, madness-driven responsibility and reliability he had before.

And, to be honest, that is absolutely fair. Kyōko is just about done staying in the rear, hiding, and if it wasn’t because it is for the best right now, that thing who calls itself All for One still has eyes on us, she would have gone to renew her diplomat qualifications long ago.)

So, he falls within precepts one and four. ‘But uri, his subject wasn’t willing—‘ We don’t know that, because S1 is missing and cannot testify. ‘But uri, he tortured S1—‘ Again, we can’t tell because they are missing, and from what records say of them they were ‘perfectly healthy, if a little shocked’ after each session. If they don’t appear, how can anyone prove that what Chisaki Kai was doing wasn't just and for the benefit of all of humanity?

There was no permanent damage done to S1, they can’t prove that torture happened and, most importantly, Chisaki Kai believes this drug would improve the lives of many people.

He will go free.

Mark my words.

Edit to fix my estimation of the bastards' SQM: he’s 12. Motherfucker, I want to fight him.

Belphegor dies… somehow, somewhen, for some reason. The thing is he died and that’s all that matters, except it isn’t because now they are suddenly alive, and ‘Belphegor’ who only had to watch over one person, became ‘Bel’ who has… far more people.

And that’s a problem.

Maybe someone else would tell him their lives are made of small problems, big problems and bigger problems, but Bel was never one to worry about ‘problems’. He lived. He did things. He killed people. He survived, and then he died. Now he lives again and he is actually living, not just surviving, but it also means he has things to appreciate now that he has people to appreciate them with, and that’s…

That’s a problem.

Before, death meant leaving Fran alone. If Fran died, death meant nothing because there would be no one else to keep him from throwing himself into the fire in revenge. Revenge for who? Well, obviously, revenge for everyone: he might never have cared much for problems, for people, for just about anything, but the Varia had been as close to ‘family’ and ‘friends’ as he could ever get and, well.

The world had been awfully boring without them around.

But it’s pointless to think about that, so he won’t. He has things to think about now, present time, things that go beyond his 99% success rate, Fran’s continued survival and the Rings on his finger. Things are different now, now he has things, people to care about, a revenge he has yet to enjoy, and a livestream that will hopefully not damage his reputation as the Horror Prince (who only tells fictional stories, not very real stories he collected and retold from his previous life or from something anyone else told him, no).

Right now, he is focusing on revenge.

Only one person can hurt Fran and that’s him.

“How did he even get a hold of those,” Amehara Randa, who forgets that that’s his legal name most of the time, whispers to himself as he looks around Fran’s computer to see if he has the logs that the Tenth Generation Storm has for some reason. He probably does, doesn’t he, he has everything around since he has so much free time he can just do whatever he wants with it, even if he is apparently a mod for some weird forum board that is barely legal and bordering on high treason. “Show me the mini-Storm, Fran, show me the logs—“

The chances that Chisaki Kai kept some sort of contact with, or even records from some other madman who did human experimentation are low, nigh impossible, but they aren’t an absolute zero. He has been hunting after that particular madman for a while now, ever since he learned about Fran’s circumstances (so, some years by now) and said madman escaped the Tenth Generation Storm’s rampage, but so far he has found very little. Some mention here, some sighting over there, just nothing in a sea of nothing just like Samē’s wild hunts for relics of better days.

Fat, old, ugly Ujiko. Where the fuck is he?

He resists the urge to throw the keyboard to the wall, hoping it breaks into tiny little pieces, and buries his face in his hands. There are paranoid bastards, there is Samē, and then there is Fran with his newly acquired interest in anything digital. Why is everything hidden under a thousand and one encryptions!? Where did he even pick that skill, from della Stella’s mad ramblings? Fran doesn’t talk with anyone and surely this can’t all be self-taught? He doesn’t have the attention span for it!

“You do know that if he has them he won’t be showing them to us, right?” Bel doesn’t jump, doesn’t scream, doesn’t startle, but he does send a small barrage of knives in the voice’s direction. He is supposed to be alone?

The one who was once known as Levi, Amehara Tadashi, speaks from where he is just lounging on one of Fran’s ridiculously plush couches. This isn’t their main room, just Fran’s odd storage unit that Bel decided to break into some hours back, and he honestly has no idea what Levi is doing here. Levi doesn’t even like this room, it is full of electricity he can’t take for himself and it has this constant annoying white noise that bothers him to no end.

No one is supposed to be wandering around the building today, not when most people are worrying about the fate of Villainy as they know it in their respective haunting areas—especially Kasumi and Fran, who abandoned their hikikomori routine to be social with one another and break Samē rules about not getting too involved with the others, fuck’s sake, have some brain for once in your life, if we get found out it will be on you. Not that anyone follows that, Samē might be a hypocrite who has many plans, but so are they and they have all somehow become Squalo-soft when it comes to others: dangerous, deadly, will kill you, cares endlessly but will only show it when he is dead.

Fuck if that wasn’t a heavy blow. Feelings, bleh, Bel was doing fine with his untreated psychopathy that no one knew was psychopathy until he was almost forty. He got along with the others, only killed his targets, didn’t show how much the world bored him most of the time, treated Mammon and Fran like amusing toys he picked up like they were roadkill, had a criminal record longer than Squalo’s hair but didn’t care about getting captured or anything since he would just kill himself. Now he has emotions, and attachments, and the idea of anyone getting themselves in dangerous situations because they are too fucking dumb to see past the next week makes something cold settle inside him.

They are all soft, now. Maybe the lack of Flames made them evolve into functional humans, but either way, Bel has never been one to stay on the defensive about anything. He is a Storm, his job is to keep the danger away so that’s what he will do, from anyone else or from themselves.

(It is difficult being Varia, but hey, there is a Varia. It is a million times better than before.)

At least, Lussuria and Levi are the safest in that regard: for all they have their own business in the background, they also have no one they are particularly close with outside their family who could be a security risk, which is weird considering Lussuria used to be the most social of them all and Levi was the only one who could get Xanxus to talk without being immediately shot in the face. Their Mists have the Arcobaleni and the ex-Kokuyō gang to bother, but they mostly stay inside the building doing whatever is it they want to do, while Takeshi might not care much about the state of the world but he does worry about almost everyone, constantly, and he somehow ended up being a Hero Candidate—Bel almost killed the kid at fault for that, he held back, he is trying to not cause trouble, alright. Samē is in constant danger because he is a public figure for some reason and has to socialize and leave the building, but it isn’t too different from the many, many missions Bel took that were just ‘protecting Squalo’s bitch of a mother’ in disguise.

At least the witch doesn’t exist in this life. Maybe. Hopefully, for their sanity’s sake and everyone else’s.

Things would be easier if Xanxus was here. Unfortunately he isn’t here, and Bel can’t blame him for not showing his face until now despite the Amehara being very loud and very obvious. The role of the Varia Commander isn’t something anyone enjoyed considering they all used to be insane, Xaxus least of all with his short fuse. Squalo was probably the only person in the world who could deal with the constant overtime since he has always been married to his job, but he also had Levi and Lussuria and occasionally Mammon who he trusted to be efficient, unlike Xanxus who only had Levi on a good day. And Mammon, because they only dealt with money with their customary tight fist.

Well, it isn’t like Xanxus did anything Boss-like besides yelling and drinking a lot. He probably signed off commissions and other jobs when no one was watching, but who even knows… He did go to meetings, at least? He became more hands-on after the Disease spread, but Bel and Fran were in agreement that was to keep Squalo from making his condition worse through overwork.

Bel hadn’t had anyone, not really, but then again the Varia was mostly done for when he took over completely. He kept them spread out but, after Lussuria died, he had at most thirty to forty people available in both active members and staff, unlike the few hundred Xanxus or Squalo commanded.

His Varia was small, but they were cared for, unlike what fucking Tyr did.

Trip down memory lane aside, what is Levi doing here?

“What are you doing here?”

“I am on Bel-sitting duty,” Levi confesses, looking bored out of his mind.

“What!? Why!” He doesn’t need a minder, he isn’t doing anything wrong! Except for, you know, trying to break into Fran’s ridiculous security, but he does that every once in a while. Fran will just look at him with his dull, dull eyes and then forgive him as always.

“You know why.” Levi shrugs, getting off the couch so he can point at the door. Experience tells Bel he will get bodily carried out if he doesn’t leave, so he gathers his knives around him and steps out of the room, grumbling. “Don’t blame me, blame Samē.”

“He is supposed to be working and not paying attention!”

“Do you really think he isn’t paying attention?”

Damn micromanaging old men who act like they are omnipresent. It is one thing Bel doesn’t miss about either Xanxus or Squalo, especially because most of the time they were micromanaging him.

Well, he isn’t as much of a ‘loose cannon’ as he was in a previous life, now, but for some reason Samē keeps his eye on him always. Don’t get involved, he says, while being very involved with just about everything.

He clicks his tongue, following Levi back to where everyone is gathered. Samē is at a meeting, because that man will not stop working even at a weekend, and Alo is still recovering from yesterday’s use of his Quirk to creep the Heroes out near Namimori by just… having too many oceanic creatures gathered around, so the sharks aren’t here today. Lussuria is sprawled as long as they are on a pile of pillows as they read something on their tablet while Kasumi is in their usual corner on video call with the other Arcobaleni, working on a gigantic Lego set. Fran, surprisingly in his human form, doesn’t even look at them when he waves at them, too busy with his weird board on one screen and the very illegal live feed of Samē’s meeting on the other.

“Go do your thing, you aren’t leaving here,” Levi says before he retreats to his very own couch and table, where endless mugs of coffee from the past three days are still scattered around.

“Wha~t do we want for lunch?” Lussuria pipes up in that tone that demands attention.

“It is only 9?” Fran says after he has turned his chair around, head tilted to one side like a puppy. Lussuria ignores him in favour of looking at Kasumi, who is signing some endless string of words that probably translates to a single dish.

“We aren’t getting takeout.”

“Ah, should order soon then. I want Dreikönigskuchen!” Bel shrugs as he heads to his own corner, already set up for today’s stream. He waits for Lussuria’s reply before putting on the soundproof curtain.

“For dessert?”

“Sure, but I’ll fight you all for the biggest piece!”

“You can get the biggest piece. Kasumi wants Daube, any other picks?”

“Daube is fine for me,” Fran agrees before he returns to his screens.

“Throw in some gnocchi and we are set,” Levi adds from his corner, not bothering to look up.

“Alright!”

That done, Bel closes the curtain and takes his seat. It is a weekend and also a rather busy day, so his viewers are more than usual, already chatting amongst themselves as they wait. Not one to act patiently, he starts the stream before its set time (it is only two minutes), clapping his hands for attention.

“Good morning people who are awake at ungodly hours! This is Belphegor, your Prince and everyone’s ruler, and today we are doing something a bit different than usual!” He goes through the usual platitudes and other annoying pleasantries (ugh), then sends a link in the chat for his viewers. “We are going to react to the trial of the year that I will stream for you since I don’t care about the law, to people’s indignation at the Japanese Heroes because as you all know the HPSC sucks, and to other conspiracies around the world! Isn’t that interesting?

“We have set up a different chat for you to send your opinions for me to read; it is completely anonymous but we will moderate it so you don’t send unrelated things! Then we are going to watch a comedy from the 1900s called ‘The Shining’ to cleanse our palate, because what’s the point of being political 24/7?

“That being said, the trial begins in— Right now, actually! Let’s go!”

Back in Merone, in one of the uppermost foundation blocks that don’t move since they hold much of the base’s structure, Courthouse 1 buzzes with activity. Of course it does, people, both foreigners and locals, are already calling this ‘the trial of the century’ for absolutely no reason at all. Mildly infuriating, if Kyōya can be honest.

Still, nothing to do about it. This is what they are doing today, so he will accept it.

The courthouse is set up as a theatre, because whoever designed it was an overdramatic fool: Miura Haru edited the plans without anyone’s notice and so they ended up with this place with three seating layers, a stage where the involved parties stand, and what is basically a throne acting as the Judge’s bench. At least it isn’t overly decorated like a theatre, built in a utilitarian way just as the courthouse in the compound is, but it is annoying that there are people looking down on him.

He looks at his people, every official and public figure in their assigned seats while the audience watches from the upper levels, and they are… acceptable, even if they look down on him. At least he knows they are safe, members of his troops the DC scattered amongst the civilians as they should, and Kuroaki is hiding near his father’s ‘throne’. He then looks at the foreigners, taking over one measly area of the lower level, and at least they are being as serious as they can be for Heroes.

He tries to ignore the cameras set up around the ‘stage’. Very infuriating.

Chisaki Kai stands on the ‘defendant’s’ stand, one hundred per cent confident about the outcome of this whole thing, and rightfully so: unlike Japan, Namimori follows the principle of presumption of innocence, and they all know there isn’t enough evidence against the worst charge he is accused of. His hands are cuffed, his mask is on the table, and he proudly displays the Mountain Flame-coloured stones in his bracelet. Apparently, his Quirk manifested a few years after his Naming ceremony, a little belated considering it’s supposed to manifest at four years of age or something; he was claimed by the Earth Flames, most specifically Mountain. A rather unorthodox Mountain, according to Kozato Enma comments he heard from ‘Hanārashi’ Byakuran, but Kyōya wouldn’t know since he has no idea how the Earth Flames work.

Except for Tundra. Those are an annoyance and, sadly, they are an important part of one of the old families of Namimori.

How annoying.

The bells ring outside, the sound transmitted to the fortress through speakers scattered everywhere, so it begins. Kyōya’s face remains as impassively bored as he can as he steps down from beside his father and to stand in front of Chisaki. This should be Hana’s job, or grandmother’s, but there was an annoying unanimous decision to send him in today. They said it is because he looks cute and for the cameras, but he really doesn’t know how sending a ‘child soldier’ to act prosecutor would help at all.

“Good morning,” he says mostly to the crowd once he is close enough to the man, his hand resting on his dagger’s handle. His next words are exclusively for the sake of the cameras and those watching outside: “My name is Hibari Kyōya, current Chairman and Commander of the Disciplinary Committee of Namimori. I will be in charge of the initial interrogation, if that’s agreeable with you.”

The foreigners whisper to each other and he has to hold back the instinct to reprimand them, but Chisaki Kai just nods.

“Very well. You stand here on the charges of association with yakuza, crimes adjacent to it, and unethical human experimentation. How do you plead?”

“Guilty of all except the last one, Commander.” Chisaki smiles, still confident and very, very smug. Kyōya wants to punch him in the face, but at least this means he doesn’t have to prove the links to organized crime! Less work for him.

“Understood.” He knows someone else is taking notes, so he doesn’t bother. “Remember, lie under danger of breaking the Oath to our land, and tell the truth to be favoured by the Flames that are our life. I shall now ask questions.”

He doesn’t get a response and he isn’t expecting one, so he just crosses his hands behind his back. Behind him, in a special niche well hidden from the world, he can feel the Oath Flame coming to life, just slightly stronger than it usually is, and so does everyone born in Namimori. This trial is in session under the eyes of the Ancients.

“State your name, place of birth, age, alignment and occupation.”

“Chisaki Kai. I was born in Kokuyō twenty-seven years ago, blessed by the Mountain. I am, or rather was as of my arrest, the leader of the Shie Hassaikai, a yakuza organization.”

“You left the island for Japan at age eight with official permission. Why?”

“Unfortunately, I developed a Quirk. The side effects of the inhibitors were a hazard to my health, so I left about a year later.” Chisaki looks mildly ashamed of that confession, and Kyōya thinks everyone from Namimori understands why. However:

“Your health?”

“My Quirk turned out to be too strong and my alignment didn’t work quite well with it.” Although people with Quirks can’t usually use, or feel their Flames as they are somehow sent into an unaligned state (how), some do manage to retain their alignment. He is right in that Mountain Flames wouldn’t work well with Overhaul, so Kyōya (and his father, behind him) nod in acceptance of his words.

“What would you rate your Quirk on the SQM scale?”

“SQM12, as confirmed by the previous Commander. You may ask her.”

“There will be no need.” Kuroaki Naomi had given him Chisaki’s Quirk analysis records, since she was the one who had the enjoyable (not) task of getting him tested. Such records are usually sealed away, only accessible by either present or past Intelligence Chiefs and DC Chairmans, but they are… a mess, since they are in physical paper, so Kyōya hadn’t bothered and just asked the ninja. “What did you do once you left Namimori?”

“I wandered for a bit… Then I was taken in by the head of the Shie Hassaikai. He adopted me.”

“As an heir?”

“A candidate, yes. His children wanted a peaceful life and had no intention of taking over, so he took in a few of us. I was the one who won, the only one who remained.” Kyōya wonders if it was like with the Vongola Decimo, then, just lots of fighting and murder? Or did they die because of natural causes? Ah, who knows, this trial isn’t about that.

“The Shie Hassaikai is an ancient organization who originally claimed part of Shikoku as their turf,” he says, now crossing his arms because he is getting bored. Chisaki nods again at his statement. “Yet it is now in Honshū?”

“That wasn’t because of me, it happened decades ago.” Chisaki shrugs rather impolitely, but Kyōya decides to ignore it. “Our allies weren’t there anymore to need our help, and Honshū had better opportunities.”

“For business.” The Simon are technically still around, though, they just moved to Kyūshū in secret. Maybe they didn’t inform their side branches for safety reasons.

“Yes, for business.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” the part of him that is still Vongola can’t help but speak up, something that gets him a rather heavy Sky-tinted stare from behind. Guess his father isn’t too pleased about him voicing his opinions and going off script. He coughs into his fist, ignoring Chisaki’s amused expression, and continues: “According to records, the Shie Hassaikai is over two centuries old, thus they should have signed, and currently follow, the Accord of the Night. Am I correct?”

“You are correct.”

“However, you broke it.”

“Ah, the others had no say in what I was doing, I was already the Boss by then. And I didn’t break it at all.”

The smugness is back and, yes, he is once again rightfully smug. Kyōya read everything he could even though he is following a script his father (the actual Judge, both by studies and his Namimori-given title) wrote, he knows they have no way to prove ‘unethical’ experiments happened unless the Heroes brought something Namimori doesn’t know. They won’t know that until Kyōya is off this stage, though, so for now he pulls out a vial of the ‘Distruggere’ that ‘Hanārashi’ Byakuran gave them.

“You claim you didn’t break it, but I have the result of your experiments here.”

“Yes, that’s mine.”

“A result you made through human experimentation.”

“I will admit to that.” Chisaki nods, once more, then tries to raise one arm but gets stopped by the handcuffs. He frowns at that, yet continues speaking. “I did not, however, break the Accord: I followed all of its clauses regarding human experimentation, those related to creation of drugs of any kind and especially those concerning the documentation of intricate procedures.”

“Continue.”

“Yes. I have never performed unethical experimentation on another living being, not for my sake or those of others. My actions, while originally selfish and I do confess to that, were aimed at the improvement of Japanese citizens’ quality of life, and they followed workplace ethics as agreed in the Accord. I am sure you have possession of my logs, so the court already knows what I’m talking about…”

Kyōya tunes out, partly, watching Chisaki as he defends his case the way they all expected him to. Much to the outrage of the Heroes, the ‘Villain’ is allowed to continue speaking for long minutes, uninterrupted by any of the officials present. The moment one of the older Heroes begins fussing and whispering far too loud, Kyōya changes targets and ends up staring at said Hero until she goes quiet. The moment one of the ‘press’ starts moving awkwardly around the camera as if wanting to turn it off, Kyōya targets him instead: if they want to televise this whole play, then they will do so until the end.

When Chisaki is done eventually, Kyōya nods his head at him and moves to the side, turning slightly so he isn’t showing his back to his father and instead partly facing him. He can’t see it very well, but he is pretty sure Hibari Mēichi is grinning in victory.

“These are the convict’s words. Does the Judge accept them as true?”

“I accept them as true and clear as the Sky, from the convict’s point of view.” Everyone from Namimori knows that’s practically an acceptance of his ‘innocent’ plea; Chisaki bows deeply at the Judge’s words, his smug smile back and leveled up. “Shall we see what our neighbours say about the topic?”

Kyōya can finally retreat and rest, back to where he is supposed to be next to his father’s ‘throne’, and he ignores the poor court clerk who just gives him a tired glare. Whatever, he is done for now, he is going to take a nap and pretend he wasn’t doing that once the whole thing is over.

As predicted, Chisaki Kai receives his ‘guilty of organized crime, innocent of unethical human experimentation’ verdict, much to the foreigners’ horror and disbelief: they weren’t able to prove the ‘unethical’ part. He also gets community service and a parole officer, because Namimori can’t convict someone for crimes done outside Namimori without knowing the full extent of the damage, and so far Japan hasn’t found out how far the Shie Hassaikai reached.

It is, all in all, a good old-fashioned Namimori trial. People around the world will laugh at Japan for years to come, but that isn’t something the people of Namimori will ever care about.

No, what they care about is keeping the people who will come to annoy them, out.

NEW! {Admin 69} Mukuro just posted a new thread in Hidden Board ‘Akasha’: [Daily Log] XX/10/22XX <Self> <RSA> <Life 15>

Status: Hokkaidō still. Healthy. No other problems.

Reasons to stay alive: TnS, anger, revenge, destruction, Chrome, The Others, V10, maybe misplaced sense of family and love, you adopted a child, Tsunayoshi, you adopted another child, Eri, Mukurou, the Alliance, you adopted a Hero, you will feel pathetic if you die now

K: No trouble, yet to find M.M. V10: No trouble, yet to find Xanxus. A: No trouble. S10: No trouble. MF1: Some trouble, Byakuran is an idiot, Bluebell is also an idiot.

Past: All are well. Someone is catching up with the granddaughter, prepare to relocate them somewhere. Evaluate connections with Maher, one might be compromised.

Current: All is well. Aizan are safe.

Important to do: Running low on materials, buy plane tickets. Find somewhere safe to leave Tsunayoshi and Eri.

There was a trial today, it happened as expected. Baby Shigaraki seems to be looking into the Shie Hassaikai remnants, to monitor. There is a young inventors’ convention soon, want to crash, might find someone fun. The Heroes are annoying as always, have been trying to track us. Found Lancia, doesn’t remember, still easy to possess. Gave Malocchio to Tsunayoshi for safekeeping.

Memories of V10 getting fuzzy. Do something about it.

supernova

Reborn liked chaos. Reborn really liked Chaos. It was one of the few things that kept him alive and entertained for longer than a few hours. However, he liked the chaos he made, not the chaos that happened because of other people or special circumstances. And the chaos that he lived through at the end of his life was the worst kind of chaos.

The very day Byakuran died, the Arcobaleni decided to scatter, each one heading to whoever or whatever they considered ‘family’. Uni stayed with the Millefiore as Seconda, Mammon returned to the Varia, Fon went back to his sister and the Hibari. Verde gathered his disciples and they continued their efforts to neutralize any Flame-related technology. Colonello hadn’t been able to let go of Lal Mirch, but neither of them wanted to return to either the COMSUBIN or the CEDEF so they remained on the run. By then, Skull had been staying up late for years: his ‘awake’ cycle was meant to end eight years ago, around the time of the Representative Battles, so instead of watching everything go to hell he bade his farewells and went to hide deep inside the Vendicare for his couple of decades worth of sleep.

Reborn… Reborn stayed with Tsuna and the Tenth Generation. He had nowhere he could ‘return’ to, and nowhere he really found himself at ease except next to Tsuna, so that's where he remained.

He couldn’t stay too long, however. Soon after Byakuran died (so powerful, so young, a whole life wasted), Uni’s foresight explained to them how the Disease worked. Her predictions said that, as the Disease affected Flames, they would go down from the strongest Flame users to weaker ones, or at least those that didn’t fall to the purge. The Arcobaleni, as people who were the strongest Flame users in the world—arguably, as the Arcobaleno Candidates existed as well—, would be the first ones to die if they had the Disease.

He couldn’t expose Tsuna to such a thing.

He left, because there wasn’t much he could do. As he wandered Europe, he tried to keep up with news from the Mafia, to know what was happening. Everyone had the Disease. Verde passed away in the middle of a lightning storm that lasted for days and days, thick purple clouds darkening the area for even longer. Fon was unwilling to endanger his family, so death found him back in China where he was born, a wide chasm of destruction surrounded by mirages that kept people trapped for hours. Mammon was found dead after they tricked many, many hunters into getting lost inside an illusionary city, the whole thing collapsing into red the minute their heart gave up.

Uni got worse each day, but she stood strong. Her premonitions were fewer those days, almost all of them ending in an empty void of a destroyed world, but she remained, she fought back, she refused to give up. Tsunayoshi and Enma stood at her side and Reborn knew, then, that he could leave them be and they would be safe.

For now.

He watched in despair as his Flames turned soothing blue, as his body slowed down, as his hands trembled when he held his gun. He fought, he sniped down people, but he wouldn’t last long like this.

He didn’t last long. He got found out, targeted and chased all the way from Germany to his homeland in Italy, where he was ready to die taking out whoever aimed for him. He fought, yes, he fought for what felt like days, without backup, without help, just as he had done throughout his whole career.

Until he suddenly wasn’t alone anymore.

Colonello and Lal Mirch found him in Sardinia, where he was ready to give up his life for the sake of what little pride he had left. They saved him from the pain, from dying to another’s weapons, from dying alone. Sure, they ended up cornering themselves in Castelsardo, but at least they had a few days of rest before they were ready to try and get out of there, kicking and biting and screaming if they must.

They didn’t get to do that.

(Reborn regrets, to this very day and forever, that he could not speak to Tsuna one last time, that he was never brave enough to give Uni her grandmother’s last words. He regrets that he never apologized to Fon after their last fight through the phone, that he never gave in to Verde’s demands to be allowed to fix Reborn’s memories. He regrets that they never found a cure for Lal Mirch’s condition from before the Disease, that Mammon never trusted them enough to walk comfortably under the sunlight with them, that they never worked hard enough to help Skull with his immortality problem.

He regrets that he left Colonello alone, even if for just a short while.)

Ten years after they were finally freed from their curse, the three last Arcobaleni breathe their last. It was the end of the last people titled I Prescelti Sette, their names and Wills forsaken by the world, their memory tainted by catastrophe and pain.

Uni was never able to see the future again, after that.