chapter 7
Restlessly, Tomura tapped the keys of his keyboard again and again, refreshed his browser and stared at his monitor. She had only used his card once? For the bus and that was it? He didn't understand. She could buy almost anything with the card he had given her. It had enough money on it to buy a house if she wanted to. He told her to use it, why had she only used it for the bus?
Tomura began to scratch his neck in aggravation. Why hadn't she bought anything? How was he supposed to keep track of her if she didn't use the card? He knew she had been hungry, he had heard her stomach growling over and over while they waited for her bus.
Unless...she had money. She did have money, he recalled the bills she had pulled out of her purse. Who had given her that? Why hadn't he thought to ask her where she had gotten that money from? Master had brought her here, hadn't he? That's what he told him when he got back to the bar after watching Sakura's bus crawl up the street.
She was his. Master pulled her from her world for him, to be with him, to support him after Master couldn't anymore. Tomura scratched and scratched, blood oozed from the wound, soaking into the collar of his shirt.
Tomura backtracked all of his steps that day. The surveillance camera at the Musutafu bar had picked up her unusual appearance, had caught his eye so he had watched her, saw how she had taken down that robber with ease, with such skill and...did she pick up some of the money from the robbery?
No, she hadn't. He would have noticed. He had watched her so carefully, eagerly as she healed that worthless shopkeeper and...no, she must have had the money on her before she chased after that thief.
Which meant...Tomura picked his keyboard up and threw it across the room. She had met someone before he had found her. Master told him he hadn't been able to teleport her directly into the bar. So she must have met someone before him.
Who? He had to find out.
Master agreed with him, after he told him what had transpired between them that afternoon, that it had gone well. That it was progress and that she would come around, she would seek him out because he was the only one that she knew, that he was the only one who was able and willing to provide her with the answers she desired but if she met someone earlier that day, before she had met him…
Tomura kicked his computer chair across his room, watched as it crashed into the wall and fell over onto its side.
"No, no, no, no. Master you were wrong, you were wrong. She's not alone. She didn't use the card I gave her. I can't track her now." Tomura spun back around to look at his monitor, the bus route for the Musutafu Public Transportation on his screen. '2:35 pm, Musutafu West, stop 8', flashed on his screen showing him where Sakura had gotten off the bus, and had scanned the card he had given her.
"She isn't alone." Tomura grabbed his sweatshirt, pulled the hood up over his head and left his room. He would go to Musutafu himself. He needed to see for himself. He would find her without the card. She couldn't be that hard to find could she? An old world kunoichi in the modern world?
"Tomura Shigaraki, where are you going?" Kurogiri asked the whitehaired man as he walked past him at the bar.
"Out." Shigaraki pushed the door to the bar open leaving Kurogiri behind.
"Let him leave." All For One's voice came out of the monitor at the end of the bar. "Let him see for himself who his competition is. It will be a good learning experience for him, Kurogiri."
Kurogiri nodded. He wasn't too sure he agreed with the Master, but it wasn't his place to voice his concerns. Master was probably right, the man was nearly always right. Wisdom tends to accumulate with age.
Fuyumi tapped gently on her youngest brother's bedroom door. "Shouto, dinner's ready. I set a place at the table for your friend." Fuyumi waited but nothing happened. No sound came from her brother's room. "Dad's not here." She added with a knowing sigh.
Shouto's door slid open revealing both himself and Sakura.
"Um." Fuyumi bowed politely to Sakura. "I'm Fuyumi Todoroki, Shouto's older sister. It's nice to meet you. Please, I hope you feel welcome in our home."
"Thank you very much." Sakura bowed as Shouto watched. "Thank you for welcoming me so unexpectedly. I apologize for…"
"Don't apologize." Shouto stopped Sakura, his hand on her arm. "Are you hungry? We didn't get to finish our takoyaki?"
"Well…" Sakura glanced at Fuyumi. She didn't want to impose.
"Please join us. I made more than enough for all of us." Fuyumi was polite enough not to add, 'When I saw Shouto dragging you into our house behind him.'.
"Okay. Thank you for thinking of me." Sakura nodded her thanks to Fuyumi who smiled brightly at her, her glasses twinkling in the hall lights.
Sakura and Shouto followed Fuyumi down the hall and into the kitchen where she had a small table set with plates, cups and food.
"It's nothing fancy but it's hot. I hope you like it um…" Fuyumi paused, inviting Sakura to introduce herself.
"Sakura, my name is Sakura Haruno. I'm sorry. With everything that happened since I met Shouto I forgot to introduce myself. Please excuse my rudeness." Sakura inclined her head with a smile.
Fuyumi was impressed. Shouto's friend held herself with the poise of someone much older and much more mature than she appeared to be. She was beginning to understand a little bit why Shouto had brought the girl home with him, had lied for her, and had wanted her to stay for dinner. The girl's presence alone spoke volumes about her brother's feelings toward the girl, whether he knew it or not.
"Where is he?" Shouto asked his sister as he filled Sakura's glass with juice, then his own.
Fuyumi knew who 'He' was. "Back at the agency. He only stopped in to grab something, files for one of the projects his agency is working on." She explained as she dished their rice out into bowls.
"Hn." Shouto picked up his chopsticks. "Itadakimasu."
Fuyumi's keen eyes saw Sakura bite her bottom lip and glance at her brother out of the corner of her eyes. What did that look mean, Fuyumi wondered.
"Itadakimasu." Sakura and Fuyumi said at the same time.
Taking up her chopsticks, Fuyumi broke a small piece of her fish from her plate and watched her brother and his friend. They sat side by side. They didn't look at one another. They didn't talk but there was something between them, she could tell. Silence suited Shouto and it seemed to suit his friend as well.
"So, do you go to school with Shouto?" Fuyumi asked Sakura once they had gotten halfway through their meal in complete silence.
"Um." Sakura glanced at Shouto.
"Yes." Shouto lied to his sister.
"Uh huh." Fuyumi wasn't fooled. When their father was home, Fuyumi was quiet and kept to herself, mostly hanging back in the shadows, trying to stay off her father's radar but that didn't mean she was weak or oblivious.
"Are you applying to UA like Shouto?" Fuyumi inquired.
"UA?" Sakura had heard that somewhere before. Where had she heard that...on the bus. Yes, that's right, those two boys had been talking about their school, they had called it UA.
Shouto dropped his chopsticks causing both women to turn their heads from one another to him. Of course, why hadn't he thought of it before. It was ingenious.
"Yes. She is. You said father is back at his agency?" Shouto rose from the table and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. "Please excuse me. Sakura, come with me." Shouto walked out of the kitchen without further explanation to either Sakura or his sister.
"Please excuse me. Thank you for dinner. It was very good. You're an excellent cook." Sakura bowed politely to Fuyumi before catching up to Shouto in the hallway.
"Shouto, what's wrong?" Sakura asked as Shouto lifted a small black rectangle to the side of his head.
"It's me." Shouto spoke into his phone. "I want you to recommend my friend to UA. I want her to be able to take the entrance exam with me next week."
Sakura didn't understand. It was obvious Shouto was referring to her but what was he talking about, entrance exam, UA?
"Shouto." Sakura tried to get his attention. Why was he talking into that small rectangle, who was he talking to? Was it a transmitter?
"Yes." Shouto spoke into the phone ignoring Sakura. "You owe me this. Do it, or I won't take the exam. Either she takes it with me, or I go to another hero school." Shouto waited.
Sakura didn't like the sound of this. He was making decisions for her by himself. What did he mean by this?
"Fine. I'm sure that won't be a problem for the Number Two Hero." Shouto gripped his phone tightly. "That's never stopped you before." Shouto didn't wait for his father's response before hanging up his phone.
"Shouto." Sakura was getting pissed and she wanted him to know it.
"I'll explain, but in my room. Please." Shouto's tone changed from the hard tone he had used when speaking into the rectangle to the softer, more casual one she had grown to expect from him.
She nodded. He was going to explain. She would let him explain. She could at least do that for him even if she didn't understand why he was making decisions without her, for her.
Shouto nodded toward his bed for her to sit down, pulling his desk chair out from his desk, and sitting across from her.
"In one week I will take the entrance exams for UA High School." He began. "I would like you to take them with me."
"High school? The school after Middle school? Why would I do that? I've already graduated from my academy." She didn't want to live here. She didn't want to settle down or establish any sort of permanence in this world. She wanted to, had to, get home to her village, to her world where she belonged, where things made sense, but she couldn't even begin to explain that to him.
He'd never understand. He'd never believe her.
"UA is the best school in the country, Sakura. UA can teach you everything there is to know about Japan and our laws, how to use your quirk properly without causing harm to others." He watched her face pinch and her lips thin. She didn't like what she was hearing.
"Do you know how to use your quirk? Really use it? How much training have you had? You said you graduated at the age of twelve, you must be good right?" He was getting excited. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense to him. She belonged at UA with him. She belonged here.
"What happened today in the park won't happen again." He pressed on. "UA will teach you, both of us, how to be strong, and how to become the best Heros we can be."
"Heroes?" Sakura licked her lips.
There was that word again. Was everyone here obsessed with heroes and villains? It was so bizarre. Her walk with Shouto had made her forget. She didn't belong here. Dinner had been familiar, even if it had been with people she had just met, it was nice. It was natural to eat with others, to talk, to 'Be'. She had almost felt normal for the first time she had gotten here.
She was getting distracted. Shouto was distracting her from getting back home.
"No Shouto." Sakura felt terrible but… "I can't."
"Sakura, just listen…" Shouto tried again. He was sure once she understood what UA was, she would want to go.
"No Shouto, you listen to me. Look, I'm grateful for your help, for talking to me and for, well our conversation before dinner. It was nice. It made me feel more comfortable and…" How could she say without saying? "I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble. I don't belong here though. You don't understand and I can't tell you, but this place, this city, this country...it isn't where I'm supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be here."
Sakura fell silent and waited. Shouto sat in his chair, his eyes on the floor. Again, his eyes on the space between. The divide. Was Musutafu not where she had wanted to end up? Had he met her just as she was passing through, on her way somewhere else? Japan was an island though, why else would she be here if she hadn't meant to end up at least somewhere in Japan.
She was contradicting herself. That didn't matter to him at the moment though. What mattered to him was that she thought she didn't belong here. That she might not want to belong here.
"You could though." He finally spoke after what felt like several lifetimes for both of them. "You could belong here."
He had no idea and she couldn't tell him. Sakura opened her mouth to tell him she needed to go when he spoke again.
"It doesn't matter." His eyes caught hers before she could look away. "Okay? You don't have to stay if you don't want to. I just thought...you seemed lost. You said you were lost and I know what that feels like."
Silence again.
"I didn't want you to feel like you were alone." He stood up. "Come on. I want to show you the garden. Let's get some fresh air."
Sakura nodded. A break. She understood, again, he was changing the subject, lightening their heavy words. She would have laughed if she didn't feel like crying.
"Okay." She rose from his bed and took the hand he was holding out to her. "I'd like to see your garden."
The cool night air hit Sakura's face, immediately refreshing her senses, and clearing her mind. Shouto led her down a narrow patchwork stone path to a small bench that was surrounded by tiny orange and white flowers with taller, larger and fuller blue flowers growing up in between the smaller ones.
Sakura leaned over on the bench, her other hand still in Shouto's and traced the delicate thin petals of the blue flowers with a fingertip.
"They're my mother's favorite flowers, the blue ones." His voice was low and quiet in the peaceful night air. "She used to come out here and sit alone sometimes. I think it brought her peace."
Sakura hadn't seen his mother at dinner. Fuyumi hadn't mentioned their mother, only their father. She remembered him saying his mother wouldn't be upset if he ate with her and spoiled his appetite. Fuyumi had made their dinner, not his mother. Sakura realized, his mother wasn't at home.
"I'm the only one that comes to sit here now." Shouto tilted his head back and looked up into the darkening sky.
It was getting late. Sakura knew she should go.
"Your mother, she is no longer with you?" She asked.
"No." Shouto looked back down at their linked hands. "I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't stop to think that you might already have a plan." He apologized.
"Plan?" She didn't have a plan. Was it that obvious?
"For why you're here." He looked at her.
Oh. That's right. He thought she was running away from something. He had asked her if she had come here with her parents. He thought she was a foreigner.
"I wouldn't say I have a plan but I don't belong in school, Shouto. I'm an adult and…" He interrupted her.
"You might be an adult where you come from Sakura." He still couldn't wrap his head around that concept. "...But here, you're not and no one will see you as an adult here."
Shigaraki did. That voice from the transmitter did, her rebellious side protested. She understood what he meant though. He was right and yet, he wasn't. It didn't matter what other people thought.
"I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but think about it. It doesn't hurt to take the test, even if you don't go, if you get accepted." He wanted to try one last time.
"Why do you want me to go to school with you?" Surely he knew they could still be friends even if she didn't go to this 'High school' of his.
"The best Heroes in the country teach at UA. If you're looking for something, even if it isn't hero related, they'll be able to help you there or at least tell you where else you can look." He waited. She didn't protest. She was listening. "They have their own Research and Development Department. They have resources at UA that no one else in Japan has access to. They have connections with other Hero schools all over the world."
Sakura bit her bottom lip. She hadn't known that, of course she hadn't known that but now that she did? Her curious mind got the better of her.
"Like teleportation quirks or dimensional quirks?" She asked him.
"Yes." Shouto purposefully kept his tone plain. He didn't want her to hear the hope in his voice. "One of the teachers there, Thirteen, their quirk is called 'Blackhole'. I'm sure they would be happy to answer any questions you might have if you were a student at UA."
Bait and trap. He could almost feel it in the air between them, just a little more...
He waited. Waited for his words to sink in. He could tell, she was listening, she was weighing out her options. She was considering it now whereas before she had been completely against it.
"I'm not sure what you were looking for when you came here Sakura, but you chose the right place. Musutafu has the largest library in Japan, it has UA and some of the best Heros that have ever lived. All Might is here. He was on the news six months ago." Shouto knew she was new to Japan but surely she knew who All Might was.
"Who's that?" She asked him.
Shouto opened and closed his mouth. "Well, he's Japan's Number One Hero. He's known all around the world."
"Oh." She knew she didn't know very much about this world, perhaps going to school would be beneficial to her. She could glean only so much from riding the bus, or walking up and down the streets here.
"I learned what a bus was today." She almost whispered. "I had to ask how to use a vending machine."
Shouto waited. She seemed to be working something out in her head. He wasn't even sure if she was speaking more to him or to herself.
"I don't even know how much the money you gave me is worth. That guy laughed at me." She told him. "I didn't even know which bus to take to get back to the park."
What guy? 'Get back to the park'? Where had she gone today, he wondered.
"How the hell am I supposed to…" She rolled her eyes at herself. Something she hadn't done since she was younger, sitting on the steps of the academy with Ino.
She couldn't do this on her own, not in a world she knew so little about. Shouto would help her, she was confident that he would if she asked but could she ask that of him? ...and he was a child here, his own resources were limited, thus limiting her and there was no way in hell she was going to ask Shigaraki for help.
"You might not even get in." Shouto interrupted her thoughts. "I have a recommendation but I still have to take the exam. I might not get in."
"What is the exam do you know?" A plan was forming in her head.
Shouto smiled on the inside but his face remained blank. She was thinking about it. He was winning her over.
"They test our quirks, our intelligence and other things they think the future Pros should have. There is a written exam as well as a practical." He explained.
Like the chunin exams. Sakura nodded, she was beginning to understand now. "How do they test your quirk?"
"I assume that is the practical exam." He watched her. She looked worried.
"You said one of your quirks is healing and the other is a damage type?" He asked her.
"Yeah." She didn't know how else to explain it. "Basically, but it has many different functions. It's incredibly versatile."
"How so?" He asked.
"Well, it isn't just like super strength. I can use it to protect myself for defense, or to jump high, run fast or make seals." She tried to explain the unexplainable to Shouto. "I can also break through walls, crumble mountains or kill."
"Seals?" He had never heard of seals before. Kill? Has she...has she killed someone before? No, it had been an accident in the park today. She said she hadn't meant to break Kimoji's wrist,that it had been a mistake. No, ridiculous, he told himself. Sakura wasn't a murderer.
"It's hard to explain." She rubbed the side of her head in frustration.
"Can you show me?" She was more interesting than he had originally thought and he wondered yet again, what country she was from where they had, did and taught such things as the things she spoke of.
Sakura didn't think there was any harm in showing him something simple. With much less reserve than was prudent she pulled a seal from her pouch.
Shouto looked down at the small rectangular piece of paper with strange writing on it.
"This is a seal." Sakura held the piece of paper up for him to see it better. "I use my uh, quirk to infuse it with my energy and…" Sakura pushed a little bit of her chakra into her herbal seal.
Shouto's eyes went wide as several small bags, a mortar and pestle, and a large box popped into existence where nothing had been just moments before.
"How did you, that was your quirk? What are, I mean…" Shouto blinked. "What is this stuff?" He reached out for a small vial of black liquid but Sakura stopped him with her hand.
"Don't touch that one. It's poison." She warned him.
"Poison?" Shouto looked back down at the black liquid in the glass vile. "Why do you have poison?"
"In case it's needed." She sealed her things back into the seal and slid it back into her pouch. "I don't use it unless I need to."
"It's not really something you can use in battle though is it?" Shouto chose not to ask her any more questions about her poison, for which she was grateful.
"Not that one but I have others. However, I'm more of a physical fighter. I don't typically rely on my seals when fighting, or my poisons. I tend to use and administer antidotes much more frequently. It helps if you know how to make the poisons, in order to make the correct antidote." She explained.
Sakura let go of his hand, stood up and stretched. 'It's getting late. I should go."
He had so many more questions he wanted to ask her. If he pushed her though, if he asked her too much too soon she might leave and never come back. He had been the one that had said she didn't have to answer him if she didn't want to. He couldn't go back on his word no matter how curious he was.
"You're right. I'll walk you home, or to wherever you're staying?" He offered.
"That's okay. I'll be fine. I'll see you um...well, I'm not sure where I'll be tomorrow." She hesitated. "I guess, I can meet you in the park after you get out of school, but the police…"
"Do you have a phone?" Shouto pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I'll give you my number."
Sakura looked down at the rectangle in his hand. "Phone?"