Most stories start with "If you told me I'd be here like this today, I wouldn't have believed you…" but this story won't start like that.
Because I don't care where I am going, what I'm going to do. I don't care where I came from. All I know is what is going on right in front of me, and I have no intention of thinking about what-ifs, what-was, and what-could-have-been.
This story isn't even about me, it's about us. Two interesting girls who found themselves in an interesting place, with interesting people. It isn't about where we came from, it isn't about what we've done. It isn't going to be about where we will go or what we will do. This story is only about here and now, and everything we are doing to hold onto here and now.
Tapping her gloved fingers on the bar counter, she gave a sigh and glanced around the almost empty building.
"You want some ice cream?" The girl across the room glanced up from her handheld game, her rainbow hair pouring from the shaved midnight black side of her head, tucked just by her ear.
"Where do you suppose we get ice cream?" She moved to get off the stool, leaving an empty glass behind.
"There's a mini-mart down the street, wouldn't be hard to just walk in and grab it. Clerk wont know... and if he does…." Kai grinned at her, snapping the game shut with a satisfying click as she crossed the room, her pure black eyeballs reflecting the room around her, causing Cal to question what kind of torture experimentation triggered the color as her own had turned completely white.
She closed her eyes, plopping back down in her stool, "Absolutely not. You know we're not allowed to leave."
Kai's hand smacked her on the back of her clothed shoulder, "Quit being his lapdog, Cal. He won't know."
"I wouldn't be so sure, Akaguro."
Kai gave an outward, unnecessarily loud groan at the dark voice from behind them, "Must you jump out of the darkness all the time, Hands?"
"Watch your mouth, Kai." Kurogiri materialized in front of her, giving what she could only assume was a disapproving look from behind the metal mask.
With a roll of her eyes, she glanced at her best friend only to find her gone. "Wha- Koia! Stop doing that!"
A bored voice spoke from the right side of her, "You don't look happy, are you taking me?"
"AND ME!" Kai gave the loud protest, turning to the right and around to glance at Cal and Tomura, who seemed to be locked in a heated staring contest.
"Absolutely not. Not with him there." Tomura gave a short glance at Kai, "And.. No. Just no. You're more trouble than you're worth sometimes."
She opened her mouth to protest, only to be cut off by Cal, "Why? What do you think he can do that I can't?" At his silence, she continued, "You NEED me. Why else would I be here?"
The staring contest heated the room when Tomura broke his eyes away, his raspy voice showing his momentary fury, "You want to test it? Fine, let's move. Kai, go train."
"Awww mannn!"
She watched as Kurogiri opened the black portal, Tomura slowly walking through like a thief climbing beyond windows in the night. Behind him, all his low ranked, disposable, lackies followed. With an impatiently held breath, she waited for the nomu to pass through as well before making her slow trek toward the black vortex. She passed through right before Kurogiri cut off, staying hidden back behind him and the crowd.
She could hear Tomura speak softly to himself through his frustration, the hand on his face muffling the specifics. Not moments later did a commotion erupt up ahead, and she didn't have to guess at who was behind it. Her theory proving correct when Tomura began to mutter to himself about Eraser Head again. With an antsy shuffle from one foot to the other, she reached up with her left hand to scratch at her right eye. How long was this going to take?
A cursory glance up ahead had her moving a few feet forward, "T- Boss. The kids are leaving."
Kurogiri moved before Tomura had a chance to respond, leaving her with the nomu and Hands. The thought caused her to look down at her gloved ones. Silently sliding off the smooth red gloves and pocketing them, she glimpsed back up to watch Kurogiri scatter the students among the dome. "Do not move a muscle, until I tell you to."
Her pupils stirred to the left, but she willed her face to remain impassive; her silence an unquestionable submission to the order.
It felt like an eternity before the number of flunkies started to dwindle, and finally that number fell just low enough for the object of their observation to turn towards them and freeze. Several silent moments went by before he spoke, "Is… It can't be."
"Oh," Tomura spoke softly, but loud enough to be heard this time, "But it is."
Aizawa took a step forward but otherwise made no moves, "Is it? Is it really you?"
His eyes hazed as he stared at the scene before him, the shortest of the two baring a striking resemblance to a familiar person, though a bit older than he remembered and with lighter eyes. But there was no mistaking it, he would recognize that cynical look anywhere even after 11 years.
Abruptly his mind warped and the scene in front of him swirled into something reminiscent. A young girl at the age of 6 looking up at him in a kitchen, a cookie in hand and a bizarrely mischievous gleam in her eye as he ruffled the top of her hair.
Hazy around the edges he could make out the scene flickering into something only hours later, his old neighborhood having a block party and his young neighbor going into the kitchen for a snack. She had not left the street but moments after another neighbor had arrived, somebody she did not get along with well despite her young age. He vaguely remembered the man holding conversation with some of the others before going into the house, an offer to prepare for the barbeque. Arbitrarily, he had wandered into the house after a small commotion: the man telling the girl something, but she had not taken it in stride. With free skin exposed in the hot summer she reached out to grab his arm, barely 5 fingertips touching his skin before he had shaken her away and turned back to his task of chopping up ribs.
The glare on her face dictated her childhood defiance, before that same mischievous gleam pulled across her face and the corner of her lip twitched up only slightly. And without a word she turned and left the kitchen, her eyes glancing up at him as she passed him through the doorway. When he looked back up, the man at the counter had stopped the chopping ministrations and was staring with a blank look straight ahead. Without warning, he looked back down and turn the slightly greasy knife on himself. Unable to react in time, Aizawa watched as the man fell to the floor, blood pooling around him, no chance of being resuscitated.
And that was the day the young girl had gotten her quirk, and the last time he ever saw her.
She felt no need to respond to a question Tomura already answered, not to mention he had not yet given her permission to speak. At her obvious silence, Aizawa took another step, one that was no longer friendly. "What are you doing with them? Where have you been all these years?!"
Her fingers twitched in agitation and a side look from Tomura in question was all the consent she needed to snap. "Like you don't know!"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen you in 11 years." Aizawa seemed to have calmed back, taking no more steps as he appraised her and the threat around her. Cautiously, he glanced down at her hands.
"No! No more lies!" The glass around the dome seemed to vibrate slightly before cracking, everyone in the immediate vicinity dropping stance to cover their ears. The pressure in the dome built quickly with her anger, but a hand came out to close only three fingers around her polyester covered wrist.
"Mind your manners, kitten. Do not forget that I am in this room too, and I do not feel the need to remind you that I don't enjoy being crushed by your anger."
The pressure in the room subsided alongside her ire, and she breathed out softly as he removed his fingers from her person. "Not a muscle." He had reminded her.
Not another word was spoken between the three until Tomura suddenly shot forward, and seconds passed in slow motion as he went strike-for-strike with Aizawa, revealing what he had learned from his observation. His hand landed on Aizawa's elbow, decaying away the cloth there.
She fought to keep her resentment at bay, basking in the slowly decaying flesh particles with admiration. Unfortunately, the man broke away before any further damage could be done and lackeys flanked him at all sides as the fight wore on. Tomura's verbal observation becoming a taunt she was well familiar with.
She gave a glance towards where she knew Kurogiri to be, only now noticing the nomu no longer beside her. An abrupt crunch drawing her back to the small massacre in front of her. The body bent into forms it shouldn't be, and a smile came to her only momentarily before Kurogiri went flying in her peripheral.
"Fuck." The word slipped out before approval, but she didn't notice. His sudden appearance beside Tomura seemed to cause the man such anxiety. She was hesitant to move towards him when she overheard his instinct to leave.
Reaching back for her gloves, his sudden move surprised her yet again as he headed for students on the sidelines. Barely reaching one before pausing, his eyeline drawing her back to Aizawa who's face was being smashed down again by the nomu.
Her eyes darted back to the sidelines for only a second before her body moved on its own accord. Instantly, she was in front of Tomura as dust clouded around them. Only when it settled did she look up from her hand that grabbed the wrist of the boy in front of her.
She could feel Tomura's fury from behind her, his killing intent telling her to move. She flickered away from him and back to the nomu's side, who had moved once again, as Tomura let out a deranged and irritated scream, clamping his hand down on the shortest boy's head. The boy she touched earlier just standing there blankly, watching his classmate start to crumble in front of him. Not a touch of emotion touched his eyes, no fear or heartache, just a sliver of recognition.
The explosion at the front gate caught everyone's attention before Tomura's hand clamped down on him as well. As All Might stepped out into their line of sight, the killing intent around Tomura faded and she let her shoulders relax. She wouldn't be disposed of, just yet.
Anger poured from every fiber of the large man's being as he suddenly rushed through lackeys, knocking them out with immense speed as he made his way toward Aizawa. Just before reaching his point of destination, she flickered again, reappearing beside Tomura.
All Might followed not a second after, snatching up the remaining two children from nearby. The rush of the movement knocking the hand from Tomura's face. With bated breath, she watched the hand knock against the dusted ground and Tomura start to whisper excitedly about government officials, heroes dying, and lack of speed before glancing back at her.
As the school kids scampered away, All Might rushed them. A whisper of 'nomu' bringing out another feeling of uselessness. Flickering behind All Might, she watched for a signal as the nomu blocked his track and his attack. A signal that would never come.
It was Kurogiri who acted next, warping the ground to keep the nomu from being thrusted through the concrete at All Might's next attack. As Kurogiri explained his next attack, she briefly wondered why it was she was with Tomura, why he had taken her, why he was training her, and why the hell he brought her.
The thoughts cut to an abrupt end when a blond boy suddenly saved the earlier boring boy's ass with an explosion. What a useful quirk.
He was followed up by two others, and she rolled her eyes at the amount of ego and testosterone that flooded her senses, wordlessly wishing Kai had been allowed to come along.
Beside her, Tomura whispered about kids these days and how they put the League of Villains to shame. Briefly, she agreed in silence. "Nomu."
Again, left to her own devices, she flickered around the battle area, her fingers twitching with the need to be put to work as the nomu and All Might battled it out.
Please, please, let me go.
She only stopped to listen to Tomura's speech about what is good and bad. What is admirable. What is violence. And what this world will be with no more All Might.
"Nomu, Kurogiri. Get him. I'll deal with the children. Kitten, stay-"
Nomu and All Might came blow for blow at each other, the sound waves canceling out the rest of his words from her ears as the nomu shot through the dome ceiling. Maybe she wouldn't survive this after all.
"Why is he still standing? Did that dumb bird lie?" Tomura's hands immediately went to his neck as his anxiety worked up. Kurogiri's words calming him almost instantly.
"Kitten. Go."
The moment Tomura's words lit up in her ears, she pounced. Appearing by All Might with her arm outstretched. She just needed one hand to touch, just one. And he had so much skin available.
Then that stupid plain boy again, the freckled one, came flying out of nowhere straight towards her. Flickering out of the way would lose her advantage on All Might, but she wasn't built for the brunt of physical attacks. In a moment of deliberating panic, she stayed rooted to the spot with her arm still reaching for the hulk of evil in front of her.
Eyes slightly widening, Tomura jutted his hand out through Kurogiri, who's gate appeared right before the boy's face. This was it; it would finally be done. Her longest three fingers barely grazing All Might's forearm when a pin-drop gunshot rang past her ear, drawing her arm back as her head flew towards Tomura. The sight of his bloodied hand draining the color from her face.
With a decision to be made, she flickered behind the new assailant, kicking him directly in the back to misdirect his next shot.
A sudden scream violated her ears, knocking her back down the staircase before another attack could be made. With the tingling sensation of blood in her ears she spun in fury, pressurizing the air in the immediate vicinity to counter the pain.
"Game over." Tomura whispered, only to be cut off by bullets piercing the air around him, drawing her attention straight back to him. As Kurogiri wrapped around him, she could hear her heartbeat in her head.
A sound of jet engines pulled her consideration to Thirteen, but with no exposed skin there was nothing she could do.
"Koia. Let's move!" She flickered back to Tomura's side as Kurogiri called and drew them back through the gate.
Training didn't last long, the punching bag in the dojo downstairs becoming couch stuffing after a thirty-minute workout. Left to her own devices, Kai flipped out her handheld one and made her way back up to the bar, only stopping by her quarters to shower and change into something less sweaty.
She watched little Yoshi fall from the sky by way of balloon on the small LED screen when the rapid sound of a warp gate almost knocked her off the bar counter where she sat cross legged. The open bag of sunflower seeds spilling out on the shiny bar top, some cascading into a spin precariously close to the edge.
"You lied." Tomura called to her as Cal tended to his wounded hand quickly and quietly; the three having reappeared in the middle of the bar floor.
Kai gave a loud huff as she resituated herself, "Birds don't lie, Hands."
A nearby monitor flickered to life as a blue screen came upon it, the voices of two men carrying through in conversation with Tomura.
"There was a child as fast as All Might," Tomura grumbled before turning his eyes to Cal, "If he didn't get in the way… we would have killed All Might… finally."
That caught her attention as she reached back into the bag for more sunflower seeds, popping a small few into her mouth. A child as fast as the devil himself? Seemed unlikely, but she wasn't going to voice that opinion.
A few more words came through the monitor as Cal finally finished wrapping his hand and watched him stand. He reached down with his good hand and tilted the girl's chin up with two fingers to look at him from her place on the floor.
"But it's not over. And next time, they will know to fear us."
Later, when it was just the two of them, she looked over as Cal rubbed down the bar counter with a bleach-soaked towel, "You disappointed him, again."
After receiving a dry look from the girl, she elaborated, "He would be here if you didn't, demanding you go to bed and other controlling nonsense."
A sigh was followed up by barely-there words, "I disobeyed him."
She quirked up an eyebrow at the pink-haired girl; it was a new development but not a shocking one. As obedient as the girl was to Hands, she had a hard time listening to anyone. "That's why shit went south?"
Her best friend shook her head, the piercings in her face luminous in the light and subconsciously causing Kai to reach up and adjust her own, "It was a failure from the start. He didn't even use me. I'm beginning to think he had no intention of killing All Might today."
Some time in silence passed as Kai considered their purpose here with Hands. Personally, she only stuck around for Cal, and the fact it gives her free reign to kill anyone and hideout from heroes afterwards. Sure, she felt some kind of appreciation for Hands getting her out of that facility, but she didn't hold the same loyalty that Cal did, and part of her wondered why that was.
"So… about that ice cream." She grinned.
Cal looked up with a small smile and pulled the stretchy tie out of her short hair, "Let's go. I think the market four blocks north is still 24/7."
With a gleeful pounce, she wrapped her arm around her best friend's elbow and led her towards the door, slipping through it with a quiet run down the stairs. At the bottom, she undid the deadbolt and peered her head out.
A careful glance down both sides of the street and around a side alley let her know they were in the clear from being caught, and she pulled Cal out behind her, locking up quickly and taking off in a short jog up the north alley, "Last one there pays!"
A scratchy giggle pulled from behind her as she slowed her jog to a soft trot. The fact that the two paid for nothing was a long-running joke between the girls.
"Wanna play "get help" or should we just do a busted soda can trick?" Cal questioned as she shoved her ungloved hands into her hoodie's pockets.
A quirked up pierced eyebrow was all she needed to convey a question. They typically just grabbed what they wanted and walked out.
Catching the look, Cal shrugged. "We're out of cigarettes, we need to get behind the counter."
A sudden blanch had her teeth pulling at her snakebites, "You smoke like a damn chimney!" Fucking hell, the girl couldn't go a cold look from Tomura without blowing through three packs in a day.
"What an astute observation."
The conversation carried into silence and sarcastic dirty jokes until they rounded the last corner of an alley, almost blinded as large florescent lights in different colors chased back the darkness.
As they slipped inside the automatic doors, Kai grabbed her friends elbow and pulled her away from the colder grocery section and down the back-right wall, headed for personal care aisles.
"I think I should change hair dye brands, the blue fades so much faster than the rest." She spoke, unsure if she was thinking aloud or talking to Cal, knowing she'd only get something half-helpful, half-insulting in return.
"Really, it's the green color you should be worried about. Why not just dye your head one color like a normal person with depression and PTSD?"
Yup, there it was.
"What do you mean the green is more worrisome? It's perfectly there!" She retorted, not willing to acknowledge the joking insult that bordered truth more than geology did.
"It's perfectly yellow is what it is."
More than hearing the humor in those words, she bit back her own playful insults as she bent over to check the blue – and green – dyes on the lower shelves. Aware that Cal would be paying more attention to her surroundings than whatever it was Kai was doing.
"You're really colorful."
A masculine voice broke through her thoughts from her left, and she glanced out the corner of her eye at him, not bothering to right herself after not liking what she saw. He apparently caught Cal's attention too as the girl's silent shoes came around the corner of the aisle in her peripheral.
"Nice deduction." She gave a lazy drawl as she looked back at the dyes in front of her, "Can you count to ten and say your ABCs too?"
At his confused but perhaps offended silence, she immediately stood straight and tossed her hair back to look at him over her shoulder as she handed two small tubs of dye to Cal, who pocketed them tranquilly, "Tell me, does the square peg fit in the round hole?"
"Yo-You little bitch!"
Seeing Cal arch up an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth twitching into a small smirk before it fully disappeared, the girl disappearing with it around the corner once again, she turned to face the man, briefly glancing down at the nametag on his shirt. Ah, so the little shit worked here?
"I'm sorry, did you say something, Riley? I think you might have tripped over some first-grader words that are a bit too big for you."
She wasn't expecting her insult to be as long-winded as it was and found herself immediately bored with the man. Not wanting to wait for him to get heated up, she took it into her own hands and focused in on him, using the earlier insult from his mouth to ball her ever-resting fury in the pit of her stomach. As much as she would enjoy just burning him alive, he wasn't worth that much effort.
The man's face flushed, both with body heat and anger. Behind him, an older man walking past with a tube of toothpaste was bumped into by a small girl with pink hair.
"Excuse me!" She heard the girl squeak, watching as she bent down to pick up the small box for him, one bare hand keeping her righted up on his forearm. She smiled as she handed it to him and bowed her head gently, stepping away and down towards the ice cream aisle.
When her gaze flickered back to the hot-head in front of her, she gave a shit eating grin.
A second later, the older man holding the toothpaste paused and turned slowly towards Riley with a blank look. When he reached out to grab the boy's shoulder and swing him around, a sudden fury filled look crossed his face and he reeled his fist back to smash into the boy's nose.
An immediate rebuttal was given, and Kai walked away calmly as the scuffle caught the attention of nearby cashiers, who rushed to break their coworker and customer apart.
Slipping through the now empty checkout aisles, she reached out to pick up a few cartons of Silvers, pocketing them as she walked. Outside the front of the store, she bumped into that same pink haired girl who smiled and held up a tub of ice cream and a box of ice cream cones in a bag, "I think ice cream is a good choice for such a hot night."
The two girls giggled as they slipped their arms together again and headed back down the ally.