Winds of Destiny: Rising
Chapter Seventeen: Misdirection
Hawks stood in his usual spot before the crescent-shaped conference table inside the Liberation Villa's largest meeting room. He'd been called down in the early morning after he'd gotten back from his karaoke date with Misaki to discuss the intel he'd gathered from her little black book.
"What is this? Code?" Spinner asked, staring down at the image on his laptop screen showing the pages of Misaki's schedule book that Hawks had flipped through while she'd been in the restroom.
"It's probably shorthand," Dabi's bored tone drawled.
"Exactly!" Hawks quipped, leaning back on his heels. "The first character is a threat assessment code. The Commission uses them to determine the level of hero that would be necessary for larger joint police task operations. The next set of numbers corresponds to the current hero rankings. Multiple numbers mean a team-up mission. The last set of numbers is a date and time, followed by a location if a meeting has been set."
"This number is a location?" Mr. Compress asked, tilting his head to the side in a quizzical gesture.
Hawks reached up to scratch at the side of his head and explained, "It's a precinct number. Most joint task meetings are conducted either at a hero agency or a police station."
"So, these circled hero numbers mean the meetings are being held at that agency?" Spinner asked, glancing up at Hawks questioningly.
"You catch on quick!" Hawks replied jovially.
"There's about a week's worth of scheduled operations in here. We'll be able to keep a closer eye on their movements with this. Exceptional work, Hawks!" Re-Destro commended him with a wide smile stretched across his face.
"About time," Skeptic huffed derisively. "We could have had this intel a week ago if you hadn't given up at the first sign of resistance."
Hawks held up his hands in front of himself in defense. "Hey! I'm not trying to run her off. If you're too persistent you'll end up being hated, you know?"
"You're not supposed to be trying to date her. The entire purpose of your meetings is to obtain intel on the Commission's higher-ranking operations," Skeptic groused, slamming his hands down on the table as he shot up from his seat.
Re-Destro held up a hand and waved him down, speaking in a level tone, "Now, Mr. Skeptic. Hawks is right. Women can be rather fickle creatures." He glanced over at the only female in their party. "No offense, Toga-san. We need her to like him so that she'll trust him enough to keep spilling pertinent details about hero operations. Have patience."
Skeptic flopped back down into his seat with a huff, crossing his arms and turning his head to glare off to the side.
Re-Destro turned to Hawks with a pleasant expression and said, "Please keep up the good work, Hawks. You're dismissed."
Hawks saluted them as he backed away before turning and exiting the room. He let out a small sigh of relief after the door had shut behind him. It appeared as though they'd fallen for the ruse. Unfortunately, that meant he'd have to keep meeting with Misaki at least once a week in order to obtain a new list of planned operations.
Hawks let out another, more despondent sigh, and shoved his hands into his pockets as he turned to wander off down the hall, his face a mask of stern concentration. No amount of introspection had helped him justify his actions last night. He had completely and undoubtedly screwed up. He'd known from the beginning that it was a bad idea to approach her. Subconsciously, he'd been fully aware of the dangers involved with "dating" the woman he was still head over heels in love with while being fully unable to confide in her about the extent of said feelings. But there was no turning back now. They were already in over their heads at this point. They had no choice but to continue their volatile game of cat and mouse as long as it took for Hawks to gather the necessary intel needed to take down the PLF once and for all.
After the way they'd parted at the karaoke bar, he wasn't sure how receptive she would be if he were to approach her again. Either she would pretend that nothing had happened between them and continue on with their established act, or she would tell the President about the kiss. If that was the case, it was very likely that the woman would pull the plug on any further involvement between the two of them during his assignment.
Hopefully, they didn't feel the need to resort to such drastic measures. Making any big changes to their rhetoric could end up having dire consequences, not only for him but for the overall objective as well. There was way too much riding on his ability to stay embedded with the Paranormal Liberation Front, ferrying intel back to the Commission so that they could have the best chance possible to prepare to combat them. He had faith that Misaki would be able to understand that and handle the situation in a way that was best for everyone – regardless of what that meant for their tenuous future dates…
Misaki stood outside the President's office with her tablet clutched in her hands. She drew in a deep, calming breath and slowly let it back out, breathing her nerves out with it. It wasn't the meeting that was flaring her anxiety. The President had displayed a knack for reading her veiled emotions. After what had happened at the karaoke bar, and the alarming realization she'd come to afterward, she was sure that the President would pick up on her uneasiness.
"Are you going in?" The man she'd hired as her replacement asked, looking over at her from his seat behind his desk.
She opened her mouth to reply but thought better of it. Snapping her jaw shut, she turned back toward the door and reached out to turn the handle, letting herself into the office. Both the President and Shadou were waiting for her in the seating area to the left. She shut the door behind her and made her way over to them, keeping her gaze trained firmly ahead of her and away from either one of them. They were both silent as she took her seat on the far edge of the couch and she finally raised her eyes to look at them.
They both silently stared at her for a moment before the President finally spoke. "You've successfully passed the first list of missions on to Hawks?"
Misaki nodded. "I found the book upside down in my bag. He must have skimmed it when I stepped out."
She'd ordered a couple of mixed drinks at the karaoke bar, half to help her loosen up and half as a ploy to make it seem like she was getting tipsy. About halfway through their time in the room, she'd left to use the restroom, leaving her bag behind in order to give Hawks an opportunity to be alone with the book. She hadn't thought the drinks had gotten to her that much, but considering the way her night had ended, perhaps cocktails were a bit too strong for her.
The President nodded with a pleased expression. "Hopefully, that's enough to keep them on the hook until we're able to get a clearer picture of the Liberation Front's agenda."
"Did he pass you any intel last night?" Shadou-san asked.
She reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and pulled out a handful of napkins, spreading them out across the coffee table. "I found these tucked inside a few of the pages of my book."
"What are they?" The President asked, looking down at the unintelligible scribbles across the seven small slips of paper.
"At first glance, they just look like random scribbles. But when you overlap them..." Misaki trailed off.
Picking up the remote from the coffee table, Misaki turned on the television and activated her mirroring app. A three-dimensional rendering of the napkins overlapping one another began to play on the screen. When they'd finished coming together, the drawings interlocked to reveal a hand-drawn schematic of the Liberation villa.
"He probably drew them in pieces like this to avoid suspicion," Misaki explained, overlaying the drawing with the building plans that had been on file electronically with the city. She had hacked into the database to acquire them instead of filing a requisition. If the Liberation Front had any members in the local government offices, which was more than likely the case, she didn't want to tip any of them off by requesting a copy of the building plans for the villa.
"What are these?" Shadou asked, pointing out the areas of the drawing that didn't match up to the blueprints.
Misaki zoomed in on the lower section of the schematic. "Underground passageways. They're not on any of the site plans for the area. Chances are they were added by the Liberation Front as escape tunnels."
"Let's hope the rest of the base locations are not quite as complex," the President mentioned concernedly. Turning her attention to Shadou, she asked, "How are the coordination efforts going?"
"Here," Shadou reached into the file that had been sitting next to him on the couch and handed both of them a sheet of paper. "An updated list of heroes we've been able to confirm have been contacted by Hawks."
"He's been busy..." Misaki muttered as she quickly read down through the three-column list of names on the page.
"This is a little over half of the numbers we'll need, including all of the students involved in the practical training program," Shadou explained appraisingly.
The President nodded. "We still have two months left to gather the remaining heroes."
Misaki frowned. "I don't think we can afford to wait that long."
Shadou turned his narrowed gaze to her, sternly replying, "The Liberation Front still has no idea we're onto them at this point. We should keep bolstering our numbers as much as we can until the opportune moment to strike presents itself."
Misaki shook her head and stated emphatically, "I don't disagree. But the Liberation Front isn't what I'm concerned about. The more time we give the doctor to do whatever it is he's doing with Shigaraki Tomura, the more our chances of victory continues to wane. If we allow them to complete their training, it might not matter how many heroes we send against them. We need to catch them off guard. Sooner rather than later."
The President crossed her arms and sighed. "We can't make a move on one without alerting the other. We need to hit them both simultaneously. Tsukauchi's subordinate is still collecting evidence at the hospital. Until we get the green light from Hawks, we can't move on the villa either. All we can focus on at this point is building our forces as quickly and quietly as possible."
Both of them nodded and rose from their seats to leave the office.
"Misaki." The President's voice calling out her name froze her in her tracks a moment later. She squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced, inwardly letting out a curse before composing herself and turning to face the woman.
"Yes?" She asked as calmly as she could.
"Is everything alright?" The woman asked, pinning her with a pointed stare.
She nodded. "Everything is fine, Madam President."
The woman continued to scrutinize her as she asked, "You'd tell me if anything troubling had happened?"
"Yes, of course," Misaki assured her, trying to keep her breathing and her heart rate under control so as not to give her nerves away.
The President held her gaze for a long moment before inclining her head, releasing her from the uncomfortable scrutiny. She bowed her head and turned toward the door, trying not to make it seem like she was running away as she hurriedly walked out of the room. She swiftly made her way down the hall to her own office, closing the door behind her before flopping down into her chair and dropping her head onto her desk with a heavy thud.
Somehow, she had managed to make it out of there without having another uncomfortable heart-to-heart with her boss about her feelings. The woman had been suspicious, but she hadn't pressed her. If she'd told her about what had happened last night, or about the possibility that she could be emotionally compromised, there was a high likelihood that the President would have pulled her off of the assignment. There was way too much at stake for her to let that happen.
Her biggest problem at the moment was figuring out how she was going to approach their "dates" from now on. She had sat down with a glass of wine and her notebook last night, listing out all of her feelings and how she'd been dealing, or not dealing, with them over the last four and a half months. Anger, confusion, pain, sadness, love. The confusion she'd felt regarding the reason he'd given her when he'd broken up with her, she'd shifted onto Hawks by rationalizing that he was just projecting his own insecurities onto their relationship. When everything was settled with his current assignment, she planned on having an honest talk with him about what he'd really meant by saying that their relationship, and her love for him, was based on a lie.
Her pain and sadness stemmed mostly from a sense of lingering nostalgia that seemed to cling to the most mundane places anymore. She'd gotten past dwelling on the obvious triggers, but when she was washing a particular coffee mug she'd seen him use more often than the others, or when she'd pull a tissue from a box to blow her nose, she'd feel it. Just the sound of fluttering wings from a bird taking off from her balcony caught her off guard sometimes. She could walk by a television ad featuring his sponsored products, or a stand marketing his merchandise with no problem, but the poultry section at the grocery store was practically taboo. The memories themselves weren't painful anymore, it was the sense of loss in her daily life that accompanied them that she had yet to get over.
The anger was a lot easier to identify. She was mad at Hawks for telling her that her feelings weren't real. She was mad at the President for manipulating them. She was mad at the Hero Public Safety Commission for putting them in that situation to begin with. And she was mad at herself for taking so long to recognize it. Hawks knew the game; he'd been neck deep in it for most of his life. He'd been against her joining the Commission from the very beginning. But he didn't tell her to be cautious of the President manipulating her, or the way the company treated its employees, because he knew how excited she was about the opportunity to do something meaningful with her life, and he believed in her to succeed. She'd just needed to start believing that herself.
Love… She'd thought about that one for a long time, trying to figure out how to quantify and rationalize that ambiguous emotion before she'd eventually just given up. She could probably break down and analyze all of the components that made up that feeling, but it didn't feel right to treat it like something to be dissected and examined. That would take all of the meaning out of it. What she did know was that she needed to stop trying to suppress it when they were together. Doing that was just asking for another karaoke bar incident. She needed to accept that they would probably end up getting close enough during their fake dates to be put in a situation where they'd have to kiss. They had to be prepared for it, it couldn't be an accident like last time. She wouldn't be able to handle that again.
Misaki let out a heavy sigh and sat back in her seat, bringing up a hand to cover her eyes. She needed to get her mind off of Hawks and the Liberation mess for a little while. Dropping her hand from her face, she reached out for her phone and sent a message to Eraser Head, asking if it would be alright for her to come and see Eri that afternoon. Aside from it being a welcomed distraction, she desperately needed the little girl's healing smile.
"Misaki, look!" Eri called out, holding up a baby rabbit in her hands for Misaki to see.
"Great job, Eri!" She replied animatedly, clasping her hands in front of her with a wide smile on her face.
Misaki walked over to her and laid her hand over the back of the baby rabbit, activating her quirk and Restoring it back to its adult state. She'd discovered early on in Eri's training that she was able to Restore what Eri had Rewound as long as she did so within the first few seconds of the Rewinding. After that, the effects became permanent. Eraser and a few other UA teachers had been working on training Eri to use her quirk for the past few weeks. At first, they'd just been working on figuring out how to help her tap into it, what it took for her to access and activate her quirk's emission ability. Once she'd been able to rewind a small lizard with a missing tail, they'd let her practice with other small animals and insects that were missing parts. Misaki had suggested working with the rabbits, to see if there was any difference between rewinding a whole instead of just one part.
"Can you Rewind it to the same point again?" She asked.
Eri nodded with a concentrated look on her face as she replied, "I'll try."
Misaki backed up to give her some space.
"She's coming along pretty well," she said as she walked over to stand next to Eraser who was leaning back against the wall on the other side of the room.
"It's hard to get a feel for a quirk like hers without using it. Since her body is storing the energy she needs in her horn, if she doesn't let it out periodically, it just keeps building up inside her until it eventually overflows," he somberly explained, never taking his eyes off of the child as she attempted to use her quirk to rewind the rabbit in her arms. "We've been working on training her ourselves, but when you're here, she seems a lot more relaxed."
Misaki turned her gaze downcast and guiltily replied, "Sorry. I was the one who offered to help but I haven't really been able to come by much anymore, since it's gotten so busy at work lately..."
Eraser briefly turned his attention to her as he assured her, "She works hard even when you're not here. I'm sure she wants you to be proud of the progress she's made when you are able to stop by. Even without being here in person, you're a big motivating presence for her. You're doing more than enough just being her friend."
She looked over at him with a small grateful smile before Eri's voice drew her attention back to her. "Misaki?"
She looked over to see Eri holding up the rabbit which appeared even younger now than it had been before.
"You're still having trouble with consistency, huh?" She asked as she walked over and knelt down in front of her.
Eri nodded solemnly.
Misaki reached over and Restored the rabbit to its adult state once more before assuring her, "Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. Wanna try again?"
Eri nodded again, more enthusiastically that time.
Misaki smiled and stood up, backing away a few paces before urging her, "Go ahead, give it a shot."
Eri looked down at the rabbit in her arms in deep concentration as her horn began to glow. The golden waves cascaded down over the rabbit and within seconds, it vanished. Eri gasped in shock as she turned her appalled face up toward Misaki.
"Hey, it's okay!" Misaki immediately assured her, reaching out to take her by the shoulders as Eraser used his quirk from behind her to cancel Eri's. "That's why we're doing this, so you can get a feeling for what's too much."
"Did I kill it?" She asked in a pitiful voice as fat tears began to fill the edges of her large eyes.
Misaki considered for a moment before she shook her head. "I don't think that's what your quirk does, Eri. It just changes something back to a previous state. When you use too much power, like you did just now, your quirk can change things back to a state before they even existed. I wouldn't really call that death. It's more like... Starting over. Hitting the reset button, so to speak."
Eri sniffed, reaching up to wipe her eyes on the back of her sleeve as she asked, "Does that mean it will come back?"
"Someday," Misaki replied with a whimsical look on her face. "Maybe it won't even be a rabbit then. Maybe a tree, or a butterfly." She reached out to swipe her thumb underneath one of the little girl's big, red eyes, smiling at her fondly as she said, "Maybe even a little girl."
"Really?" Eri asked, her tone and expression both skeptical.
Misaki smiled at her indulgently. "Very few things in this world are considered impossible anymore. It's all in how you think about it. So, what do you think it'll come back as?"
Eri thought for a moment before replying, "A chick?"
Misaki turned to glance at Eraser over her shoulder. "What about you, Aizawa-sensei?"
"Me?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her incredulously.
She tilted her head in Eri's direction and mouthed the words "play along".
"A kitten, I guess..." He trailed off as he reached up to scratch his cheek, turning his eyes away from them in mild embarrassment.
She shot him a knowing smile before turning back to Eri and explaining, "Energy is one of the few things in the universe that's considered constant. It cannot be created or destroyed. But it can change form. What you've just done is to give that rabbit an opportunity to become something completely different. You're pretty amazing, huh?"
Eri's expression was starstruck as she looked down at her hands and whispered, "Wow..."
Misaki stood and walked over to the play pin where two other rabbits were grazing on a bed of straw. She picked one up and turned toward Eri, asking, "Ready to try again?"
Eri nodded enthusiastically.
Misaki placed the new rabbit into her arms and said, "Let's try to make sure this one stays a rabbit this time, okay?"
"Okay," Eri replied with a small giggle before carrying the rabbit over to the chair she'd been sitting in to try again.
"I think you missed your calling," Eraser said as Misaki rejoined him.
"What's that?" She asked, tilting her head to the side in curiosity.
He slid his gaze over to her and said, "You should have become a teacher."
"Oh, no. I can handle one kid at a time. But twenty?" She shook her head. "I'll stick to my day job, thanks."
"You're a natural," he sincerely replied.
Misaki shrugged. "Well, it's not rocket science."
"It is for some people," he huffed.
Misaki fondly gazed across the room at Eri as she replied, "She makes it easy. Kids are a lot more perceptive than most adults think they are. Especially ones who've been through the kinds of things Eri has already at her age. I can relate."
She felt Eraser's gaze lingering on her from the side and she turned toward him after a moment to ask, "What?"
"Nothing," he said, shaking his head and turning his gaze back to Eri.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Mm, you have something face."
He looked over at her from the side with a dubious expression on his face.
"If you don't tell me I'm just gonna keep bugging you about it, so you might as well spill," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, leaning back against the wall next to him.
He reached up to scratch the side of his head as he said, "You seem different."
"How so?" She quipped, tilting her head to the side to blink up at him.
He grimaced. "More laid back, I guess. I don't really know how to describe it. Just different."
Misaki's eyes widened as she trailed off, "Oh, no…"
She covered her face with her hands and crouched down onto her haunches.
"Are you alright?" Eraser asked, somewhat alarmed at her sudden reaction.
"How come other people always notice these things before I do?" Her whiny voice drifted up from behind her hands in response.
First Ai, and now Eraser. The President had always told her that she was expressive with her emotions too. If it was obvious enough for a curmudgeon like Eraser to notice, there was no way Hawks wouldn't pick up on it. How was she supposed to pretend like nothing had happened between them if she was so easy to read? She groaned despondently into her hands.
"I didn't say it was a bad thing," he told her in a sympathetic tone of voice.
"It is a bad thing," she immediately disagreed without lifting her face from her hands.
"You want to talk about it?" He asked after a long moment.
"No," she grumbled.
After a couple of minutes of silent, self-deprecation, Misaki finally lifted her face from her hands. She sat back against the wall behind her and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her chin atop them as she asked, "Have you ever been in love, Aizawa-san?"
"Uh…" He uncomfortably trailed off.
"You don't have to answer that. It was rhetorical," she grumbled dejectedly.
"Really?" He asked, glancing down at her incredulously.
She sighed. "No, but you still don't have to answer."
He was silent for a moment before responding, "Probably not the way you're thinking of."
"Don't do it," she advised him in a cynical tone of voice. "It's a trap."
His voice sounded somewhat amused when he replied a moment later, "Noted."
~ Author's Note ~
Could these three be any more adorable?! Impossible. If Mommy Misaki turning precious Eri's frown upside down doesn't just make your day, I don't know what will! I will never not love writing interactions between those two. It warms my heart! 😭 But Eraser-! alksdjlakjs "Uh..." Of course he has no idea how to respond to the "L" word question! And there appears to be a future date on the horizon for our favorite pair of star-crossed love birds... 👀
We're picking up some steam heading into the war arc soon!
As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
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