Sorry for the delay, everyone. My hours at work changed on me suddenly, and now I don't get home on Friday's till pretty late. I'm probably going to have to shift my update schedule to Saturdays or Sundays. I hope that's not too big of an inconvenience.

Also, this chapter is kind of a downer. Sorry. Ha.

Chapter Fourteen

As it turned out, getting Kouda to begin sending messenger pigeons to Denki's location can't have been all that difficult, because within three days of his impromptu meetup with his old friends, the roof of his parents' house was suddenly pigeon central.

This left Denki both anxious and utterly baffled. Anxious because, obviously, if anyone took notice of him suddenly frolicking amidst flocks of birds on his rooftop, they'd either make the connection between him and his old friend from UA and begin to suspect that he had, in fact, been passing secret info along to the Heroes, or else think he'd absolutely lost his mind (the latter of which he couldn't exactly fault them on.) However, he was baffled because, even after spending so much time with Kouda in class, he still didn't exactly get how the laconic boy's Quirk even worked.

He knew he couldn't really talk to animals. As in, he couldn't enter into dialogue with them and discuss the weather or whatever. He could issue commands, and his Quirk allowed him to impress his will onto them, but he wasn't able to give them complicated orders. Like, he couldn't tell a dog to pick up a pencil and do his math homework. So how Kouda managed to get these pigeons to find Denki's house (somewhere Kouda had never even been) and wait specifically for him was anyone's guess. But it served as a somewhat bitter reminder that he'd only spent a year with his friends at UA and there was still a lot he didn't know about them. A lot that he could have learned, had his life gone in a different direction.

The pigeons typically came in a flock, usually sometime midafternoon, and one of them usually had a roll of paper tied to their legs, hidden beneath a band of cloth that served as camouflage for anyone close enough to get a good look at the bird's leg. The first time it happened, there was a message asking to confirm contact, which Denki replied to, but most days thereafter, even though the pigeons returned, the paper was blank. Presumably, they kept coming just in case Denki had word about Shigaraki or else had another message to send back, but the League had been away from Deika for some time and there wasn't much for Denki to say.

He kept the transceiver he'd been given from Jirou in his pocket at all times, however. Not so much as a precaution (because really, what was she going to do if he radioed in that he needed help? Fly over there?) but because having it on his person made him feel better. He found himself reaching his hand down to feel it through the fabric of his pocket multiple times throughout the day, as though Jirou and his friends were actually right there beside him, giving him strength.

Thankfully for him, his family, the people most inclined to think it odd that he was spending so much time on the roof with disease-ridden rats of the sky (his sister's words, not his), didn't actually pay any attention to his newest weird behavior. Granted, part of that was because he'd been so weird over the past year that they were probably numb to his peculiarities, but it was also because things between Denki and his mother had grown so tense that the two could hardly be in the same room with one another without the air growing so cold you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the start of a new ice age.

Despite Denki's apparent about-face regarding the war and his sudden willingness to be a model PLF member, his relationship with his mother hadn't improved at all. Part of this was because of their fight in the hospital a few weeks before and the things he'd said to her. But Denki was beginning to suspect that there was more to it now. Once he'd finally turned around and began carrying his weight, going out on raids and fighting Pros like a good little soldier, he'd almost immediately begun receiving praise from the other PLF members and their leaders. Denki had a powerful Quirk and had improved after all of his training at UA. He had talent and skill and it showed when he was on the battlefield.

And it seemed to Denki that his mother resented that.

She'd done her best. She'd volunteered to help out, to take to the front lines and do her part, long before Denki had even considered pulling his head out of his rear and taking a stand. And what had she gotten for it?

Hospitalized. Nearly killed. Endless mockery from their peers and neighbors.

Sometimes, when they passed each other in the house, his mother would pretend like he wasn't even there, like he was less than a ghost, like he'd never even existed at all. But sometimes, he'd catch her looking at him, and though she never said a word, the hurt and frustration and anger that displayed in her eyes from a lifetime of being told and shown that she just wasn't good enough bore down on top of him like the crushing weight of a tsunami, and he had to turn and leave the room before it suffocated him.

Part of him hated her for it. It wasn't his fault that the Quirk she was born with wasn't as useful as the one fate, random chance, and the complexities of DNA had given him. It wasn't his fault that the PLF decided your worth based upon your ability to contribute to their cause. It wasn't his fault that she'd decided to join forces with the wrong side of this war, and after all, she was the one who had pulled him into this alongside her. He wasn't to blame for the way she was feeling.

But at the same time, despite their strangled relationship at the present, he couldn't help but hurt alongside her. He hated the way that everyone else seemed to talk about her. He hated how the PLF and their broken, cancerous ideology had beaten her down and abandoned her. He hated that she was made to feel this way every day, and he hated most of all that his existence only seemed to make things worse for her.

She may be misguided, and she may be a criminal and a terrorist, but she was still his mother and he loved her.

And so, as the days went by, as raids came and went, as the war continued on and the death count from Shigaraki's crusade grew on both sides, these were the thoughts that plagued the mind of Denki Kaminari. Were his friends ok? Would his family survive? Would his chance ever come to redeem himself in the eyes of society and the people he loved and, most of all, himself? Would this nightmare ever truly end?

And then, one day, it happened.

There was no fanfare, no dramatic announcement, no desperate, heart-pounding chase like you might see in a movie. As he exited the PLF headquarters one day, by complete accident, he saw him.

Tomura Shigaraki.

He was there, in Deika.

Why, how, when, for how long - Denki didn't know. And he knew that he couldn't be the one to risk asking questions, not directly, not considering who he was and who he had been. The PLF in Deika may be trusting him more, but there was no way the League would ever see him as anything but a traitor.

Perhaps Shigaraki had been drawn back due to the rumored increase in Hero activity in the area. Perhaps he had some secret plans of his own design that peons like Denki would never be privy to. Perhaps there was no reason and this was just random chance.

Regardless, his moment had finally come. The job his friends and the Heroes had entrusted to him. He could end this, now. The fate of this war and the end of his suffering was right there, in his hands. He needed to act as swiftly as possible.

He raced back home, hoping no one noticed, hoping no one thought anything strange about it. He knew he should walk, knew he shouldn't draw attention to himself, but hope had blossomed right before his eyes like a brilliant, ephemeral light and he raced directly towards it like a moth, unwilling and incapable to focus on anything else.

He knew that if he paused, if he hesitated, if he tried to think, that doubts would creep back in. Fear would threaten to overtake him again, just like back in school. He couldn't let that happen again. Not now. Not while he had this second chance.

He threw the front door open, racing inside, heedless of the way the door banged loudly against the wall, not even bothering to remove his shoes in his haste. His sister was ought, he knew, and his father had been scheduled off inventorying ReDestro's stock of weapons, gear, and Quirk enhancers, so the house should be empty anyway. It was still afternoon - Kouda's pigeons were likely still on the roof. If he hurried, he could get the message out today, and then… and then…!

"Denki?"

He froze partway up the stairs, his stomach in his throat and his heart in his shoes.

Slowly, he turned around and did his best to work a believable smile on to his face.

His mother was standing in the hallway below, having exited the kitchen just after he'd raced past. The look on her face was equal parts concerned and uncomfortable. His dramatic entrance had clearly alarmed her, but it was evident that she was just as lost on how to talk to him now as he was with how to talk to her.

"H-hi, mom," he managed to croak out, struggling not to let his desperation to get out of this conversation show on his face. He needed to get up to the roof. He also didn't want to have this awkward talk right now. He wasn't in the right headspace.

There was an uncomfortable pause as Denki shifted his feet on the stairs and his mother wiped her hands with the rag she was holding. Neither would look each other in the eyes.

Finally, she managed a weak, "Is… is everything ok?"

"Oh, uh… yeah," he blathered, aware of how out-of-breath he sounded. "Um, I just… really needed… to poop?"

He could practically see Jirou rolling her eyes and Minetta trying and failing not to laugh.

His mother nodded, but from the expression on her face, she clearly wasn't actually listening to him. Her eyes were still glued to the wrag in her hands, which she was wringing with excessive force.

"Oh, that's… that's good," was all she managed, and Denki felt his grip tighten on the banister.

"Yeah… well, anyway, I'll talk to you later-"

"Denki, wait!"

He froze again, only one step higher than he had been before, and turned back to his mom, frustration now getting the better of him. He didn't have time for this! He needed to get that message out!

But the look on his mom's face had him pausing. Her brows were downcast, her lip quivering, and she had her shoulders scrunched inwards as though preparing for a blow.

Finally, she lifted her eyes, and their gazes met.

"...Are we going to be ok?" she whispered, and for a wild moment, Denki had no idea what they were talking about.

Were they going to be ok?

In his mind's eye, he saw the big moments from the last hectic year of his life replay in slow motion. UA in flames, Jirou on the hilltop, his mother in the hospital, his friends in the warehouse.

Shigaraki was here, in Deika. Denki was going to betray the PLF to the Pros, and even though he didn't know their exact plans, in all likelihood, Heroes were soon about to descend upon the city in all of their wrath. People were going to die soon. And once again, Denki was going to be the start of it.

Nothing was ever going to be ok again. He'd learned that the hard way when he left his home-away-from-home burning to the ground.

But if he didn't act now, then they'd miss their chance to stop Shigaraki. And if that psychopath won… no one would ever be ok again.

And so, with a smile that he knew was too sad to be believable, he looked down on his mother and said, "...Yeah, mom. We'll be ok."

She had almost died once. He'd nearly lost her to this stupid war. And the best way to help her would be to help his friends take the PLF and the League down. Even if it meant that he and his family were arrested in the process.

And even if he knew she'd never forgive him for it, this was the course he'd finally resolved himself to follow. Because being arrested was preferable to being dead.

When she didn't immediately respond, he turned once more to head up the stairs and found himself pausing for the third time as she whispered, softly, "I love you, Denki."

Her quiet words were heavy with implied apology.

His fingers were clenched painfully on the banister. The corners of his eyes stung.

She wouldn't feel that way for long.

Wordlessly, he left his mother behind and climbed the rest of the stairs.

A few minutes later, a flock of pigeons took off into the sky, vanishing into the bright blue afternoon.

The doorbell rang, sounding out loud and clear over the babble of human voices as Denki fought his way over towards the front door.

Honestly, he wasn't exactly sure how he'd wound up playing the doorman. Granted, it was his daughter's birthday party, but it also wasn't his house. Momo and Shouto were rich; couldn't they afford their own doorman? It seemed sort of odd for a guest to be doing this job.

Then again, no one had assigned it to him. He'd just sort of… taken over of his own volition. And if he were being honest, he knew why he was doing it. He just didn't want to say it out loud, in case he jinxed himself.

When he opened the door, he was unsurprised that none of the people waiting behind it were who he had been hoping to see. That didn't mean that he wasn't excited to see them, however.

"Kirishima!" he said, not having to force his excitement at all even though he'd literally just seen him the day before, "Mina! You both made it!"

"Birthday miracles," Kirishima joked, his roguish grin revealing familiar pointed teeth, and he bumped Denki on the shoulder as the blond stepped aside to let the family in.

Mina was still in her Hero outfit, which implied that she'd headed over right after getting off of patrol. She didn't have to do that; he would have understood if she'd decided to stay home and rest, and it's not like Aika would have really noticed. They were used to this sort of thing from their pseudo-extended family, seeing as most of them were Pros. Still, birthday parties like this served as a pretty good excuse to get together, so most of his friends tried to be there if they could, even the ones who didn't have kids of their own.

Kirishima and Mina did not fall into that category, however, and as the two parents began taking off their shoes, their five-year-old daughter shuffled in behind them, bouncing on her tiptoes as she looked around the house for a familiar face.

"What?" Denki asked, affecting a disappointed tone in his voice. "You too cool now to say hello to your favorite uncle?"

Mieko, who looked like the perfect fifty-fifty blend of her parents, snapped her eyes back to Denki and flashed him a guilty, jagged-toothed smile.

Now, Denki knew you weren't supposed to play favorites. But just like his kids each had a favorite aunt or uncle, Denki had a favorite niece, and that was easily Mieko. The girl was a born and bred trouble-maker, with a knack for getting herself into sticky situations and pulling everyone else in along with her.

Everything about her she'd gotten from her parents. She had her dad's reckless courage and her mom's boundless optimism, her father's smile and her mother's skin tone, and even her hair seemed to be a mix of the two - pink like her mom's, but jagged and wild like her dad's. Of course, the latter had more to do with how her Quirk actively got in the way of anyone ever hoping to style or trim it, but Denki thought the look worked for her. She was like a savage, wild, jungle girl. Though she may not appreciate that as much when she entered her teens.

"Sorry, Kaminari," Mieko said, scratching the back of her wild, untameable hair. "I was just looking for-"

"Mieko!" a voice shouted, and both she and Denki turned their heads towards the newcomer.

It was Rai, looking positively ecstatic to see his best friend.

The grin on Mieko's face went from polite and apologetic to mischievous and feral in the blink of an eye.

"Mieko Kirishima, don't you dare-!"

Mina's motherly attempts to reign in her daughter were valiant and ineffectual. Without hesitation, without even removing her shoes, Mieko darted past her parents, charging straight at Rai, and raised her hand.

Rai responded in kind, holding his hand up, palm out, a delighted expression on his face, and before anyone could stop them, the two kids exchanged an energetic high-five.

A small sonic boom (if small sonic booms could be said to exist) emanated outward from Rai's hand, effectively cutting off all other noise with a wave of pained hisses from the house's occupants as the walls and windows of the building rattled.

More surprising, however, was that Mieko's arm literally exploded, sending chunks of flesh splattering all over the walls and floor of the Todorokis' entryway.

From over in one of the side rooms, Denki could see the face of Shouto's older sister Fuyumi, who didn't know Mina and Kirishima as well as she knew Denki and Kyouka, and who hadn't spent much time around Mieko at all. From the look of abject horror on her face, it was obvious that she thought something gruesome and horrific had gone down in the entrance of her family home.

Everyone else who knew Mieko was staring down at her with a mixture of consternation and poorly-concealed amusement as the pink-haired she-devil rolled around on the ground, laughing uproariously, waving her stump of an arm through the air like a victory flag. Rai was laughing too, still on his feet but doubled-over, his hands balled up in his shirt and pressed against his stomach to keep himself upright.

Mina wasn't content to let the kids enjoy themselves, however. Mustering up all of her motherly authority, she marched over to her daughter and scowled down at her, arms akimbo in traditional disapproving mother style.

"Mieko Kirishima!" she hissed, trying to whisper and shout at the same time while her husband bowed and apologized profusely to the elder Rei Todoroki who had come over to see what all the fuss was about only to find the front of her house splattered in pink globs of human flesh. "What have I told you about using your Quirk in public?!"

"Aw, but moooom-!"

"No buts! Get off the floor right now and clean this up or I am taking you home!"

Mieko flopped onto her back, spread-eagled, and let out an exaggerated groan.

"Fiiiiine…"

All at once, the various wet chunks of her arm that had splattered all around the room suddenly began roiling as though they'd been heated to a boil, only to suddenly jerk back towards the girl as though pulled by a magnetic force. They stuck wetly to Mieko's body for a moment, splattered like gobs of paint, before being absorbed inside, and like a fast-forwarded video of a plant growing, Mieko's arm regrew itself out of her stump.

Mieko's Quirk was basically the exact inverse of her father's. Where Kirishima could make his skin and body incredibly hard, giving him a nigh impregnable defense, Mieko could make her body so soft that she melted - which, actually, basically gave her a pretty great defense too. The fact that her Quirk had gone the exact opposite direction of her father's was probably because of her mother's genes.

It was an incredibly useful Quirk, but it had also been a hassle for the parents because it had manifested when Mieko was still a toddler and she wasn't very good at controlling it. They'd spent the last several years terrified that she'd accidentally activate it while in the bathtub or while walking over a sewer drain and be sucked away.

Thankfully, that hadn't happened, Mieko had managed to learn to control it safely, and had grown into the absolute hellion that they all knew and loved.

Once her arm was back, Mieko hopped to her feet, flashed an apologetic smile at her mom, then seized Rai's hand and immediately ran away, screaming "Retreat!" at the top of her lungs.

With a look of longsuffering that seemed completely out of place on the face of the usually carefree Mina Ashido, the Acid Hero turned to join her husband in apologizing to Todoroki's mother, but the kindly older woman was having none of it.

"Sweetie, please," she said, smiling warmly, "I know how children are. Besides, it's not like it left a permanent mess. I'm just grateful none of your kids are likely to burn my house down."

It was clearly supposed to be a reference to her son Shouto and what it had been like raising a child with his incredibly destructive Quirk, but her eyes caught Denki's over his friends' shoulders and suddenly she went pale.

Denki quickly shook his head, letting her know it was fine. He knew she hadn't meant to sound so flippant about what had just happened to his in-laws, and considering the sheer amount of security their family compound had (and the number of Pros currently in the building), any idiot dumb enough to try something like that again today would end up in the back of a police car before anyone could even smell the smoke.

In a disturbing sort of way, he almost hoped they'd try it. Maybe then he could finally put this whole 'dad' situation behind him.

Denki followed the elder Rei and his two friends back into the kitchen where most of the adults had gathered. The reason for that was obvious; though Momo and Shouto's family had been hard at work preparing food for their guests, it was the large birthday cake Sato had brought over that had drawn the crowd. Sugarman always made it a point to bake a cake whenever a birthday came around, but when it was a party for one of the kids, he went all-out. Today's was no different; it was six layers tall, mostly chocolate, with multi-colored frosting and decorated with characters from a show Aika liked (he'd called and checked with Denki first).

Sato was there too, both to show off his prized creation and also to protect it from scavengers. Aika, as the birthday girl, would get the first slice, but he'd had to fend off Uraraka, Sero, Tetsutetsu, and even Denki himself, as all had tried to swipe a lick of the frosting.

Getting to see his friends all together like this was great, and was a large part of why he loved it whenever one of the kids' birthdays came up. However, since almost all of them were Pros, it was also true that many of them wound up having to work and missed the party. Denki, who wasn't a Pro, was one of the few who was always present at a birthday party, but some of these faces he hadn't actually seen in quite some time.

Tetsutetsu was a perfect example. It had been nearly eight months since he'd last seen Real Steel in person. True, he wasn't as close with the old Class 1-B has he was with 1-A, but Tetsutetsu had a son who was about Mieko's age and who was always there at a birthday party, so Denki would see him or his wife Kendo every now and then.

Uraraka was another surprise. She worked primarily from her husband Midoriya's office which was further north than Height's Alliance, and she herself hadn't been at a party for one of the kids in ages. Deku, for his part, almost never got to be there - as the country's number one, he was almost always away on some important mission or another, and in those cases, either one of their friends or Midoriya's mother would bring their kids along.

Deku wasn't the only missing face. Bakugou wasn't there either, or Tokoyami, or Shouto, or Ojiro, or Asui. About half of the class wasn't in attendance, which was a shame, but not unexpected.

However, there was one absence that was affecting him more than any other.

For what felt like the thousandth time in the past hour, Denki dug his phone out of his pocket and checked to see if his wife had responded to his messages.

Nothing.

He knew, when she'd told him and Aika that she'd requested to have tonight off, that it had been a longshot. Sure, if the day wound up being a normal day (and even Heroes had slow days), then she'd already be here. But the fact that she wasn't, the fact that she hadn't even responded to his messages, seemed to indicate that today was not, in fact, a normal day.

Something must have come up to keep her away. He could only hope and pray that whatever it was, they got it resolved quickly so she could be here before the party ended.

Aika's attitude the day before had alarmed him. Sure, he knew that she'd been having issues with her mother for a while now, and yes, the older she got, the worse it was likely to become, at least until she matured enough to begin to understand exactly what her mother dealt with every day. But she'd been so much colder yesterday than she ever had been before, and he was worried that if Kyouka didn't make it tonight…

He spent the next few minutes lingering in the kitchen with the other adults, chatting with his friends and continuously checking his phone, but after a while, his fidgeting over his wife's lack of appearance had him making up the excuse that he was going to check on the kids if only so he could find something to do to distract himself.

The kids were all inside (because the security detail had decided it would be easier to protect them in the building, but also because it was looking like it might just rain, which had provided an easy excuse) and had mostly gathered in what Momo called 'the Sitting Room', which was a thing apparently that rich people had. Denki found it difficult to understand what the purpose of a 'sitting' room even was. To sit? Isn't that what you did in the living room and… basically everywhere else?

The room, just like every other part of the Todoroki estate, gave off an air of high-class sophistication. The floors were a warm brown hardwood that sparkled like they'd been waxed recently. The furniture generally had a matching wood finish with soft white upholstery. They had yellow-gold lamps, bookshelves full of fancy-looking titles, and pictures of their extended family covered their walls. It was one of those rooms that was almost… too nice. The kind that made you feel like you were soiling it just by being in there. Or maybe that was just him.

And as though to laugh in the face of how clean and orderly the room normally looked, it was currently infested with loud, rambunctious children.

Denki spotted Rai almost immediately as he entered the room. His son was playing with the toys he'd brought over from their place, joined by Mieko and Tetsutetsu's son, the girl entertaining the boys by sucking Rai's action figures into her goopy body and spewing them out of her head like a rocket to the boys' tumultuous laughter.

Most of the kids in the room Denki only vaguely recognized as being some of Aika's classmates from school. He'd actually called their parents personally when Aika had asked to invite them, making sure they understood the situation and that, while security would be tight, if they didn't feel safe letting their kids come along, he'd make sure Aika understood. Some of the parents had backed down, but many of them didn't, probably because they knew Momo and Shouto (since most of them were also Heroes) and trusted that their estate would be safe. Regardless, he was grateful; the more friends she had around, the less likely she was to notice her mother's absence.

Or so he hoped.

The birthday girl herself was over in the back corner of the room, sitting on a couch with some friends from school, the younger Rei, as well as Uraraka and Midoriya's twins, Nana and Toshinori, six-year-olds with their mother's cheeks and their father's pathological awkwardness. They were cute kids, but quiet, usually, and neither had manifested their Quirks yet which made them feel self-conscious.

Also sitting on the couch was the girl who had volunteered to stay with the kids while the adults talked, Class 1-A's one-and-only surrogate little sister, Eri.

She was a teenager now, just about to graduate from high school, and had come along with Uraraka since she was on summer break now as well. Her red eyes met Denki's as he entered the room, her face lighting up with a familiar smile before she noticed the expression on his face.

Extracting herself from the conversation she was having with the kids (well, more like the conversation they were having that she was politely listening to), Eri made her way across the crowded room, trying not to push past any of the kids too roughly, and joined Denki by the doorway.

"So?" she asked, expression hopeful. "Is Jirou going to get here soon?"

Oddly, the memory of a middle-school Eri sitting on his couch while Jirou taught her how to play guitar for her school's culture festival flashed through his head. When had she gotten so old?

Denki did his best to smile.

"No word from her yet," he said, and Emi's expression fell. "But I don't think we can wait much longer. The kids are starting to go wild, and this isn't my place, after all. I don't want to put the Todoroki's out."

"I'm sure Aika will understand," Emi reassured bracingly, but Denki didn't reply. After his daughter's comments yesterday, he had his doubts.

But what else could he do? Such was the life of a Hero. Sometimes, you missed your daughter's birthday. Oftentimes, actually.

It would be ok. Eventually.

But as concerned as he was for Aika, he was even more concerned for Kyouka. She always took it so hard when she let her kids down. And after she'd promised Aika and everything…

If she was missing the party due to an incident with a villain, then he prayed for that villain's life.

He called Aika over as Eri returned to her spot on the couch, and as his daughter approached him, he could tell from the way the smile faded that she already knew what he was going to say.

She reacted basically just as he'd expected when he called her over and told her they were going to go ahead and get started; she'd nodded, told him it was ok, and then looked away. She had a tendency to bundle things up inside, not unlike her mother. He reached out and patted her head, not wanting to make a big show of apologizing right here in front of her friends in case it embarrassed her.

By all accounts, the party was still a success. The kids had a lot of fun, playing games, admiring Aika's gifts, devouring Sato's amazing cake with gusto. And through the whole thing, Aika was smiling and laughing like nothing was wrong. She played with her friends, hugged and thanked her aunts and uncles for her gifts, made sure to spend time with her grandparents. She didn't even get mad at Rai when he tripped and accidentally flung cake all over her. If anything, she was behaving perfectly. Maybe… too perfectly.

A few hours later, the party was over, and the guests began filling out the door. Eri, Mina, and Kirishima volunteered to stay behind and help clean even though Momo and the Elder Rei told them they didn't need to. Denki had a feeling Mina's insistence had something to do with the fact that Toshi, Uraraka's son, had mysteriously slipped and spilled an entire cup of soda on his pants. Smart money said that had Mieko's name written all over it.

Denki, at least, was grateful for their help. The party had left the place a bit of a mess, and he didn't want to ask Aika to help since she was the birthday girl, after all. With all of their hands working together, they got the Todoroki's place put back together in no time, and he got to spend a bit more time with his friends while the kids were occupied with Aika's presents, for once not causing any trouble.

However, by the time they left and the house was back to normal, Kyouka still hadn't shown up.

The sun had set, the Todoroki estate once again quiet and calm. It was around nine in the evening, the overcast sky now thick with the promise of a summer thunderstorm. Almost everyone had retired to their rooms except for Denki, who had been in the bathroom, helping Rai bathe and get ready for bed.

That was when, finally, he heard the front door open and close, and a familiar, exhausted voice called out, "Aika?"

Kyouka was back.

His first instinct was to hurry up and join them, worried about how this interaction between mother and daughter was going to go, but he also knew he didn't want Rai to see it if it was going to end in a fight (which at this rate, it very well might), so he hurriedly toweled his son dry, helped him slip into his pajamas, and tucked him into bed before heading off down the hall towards the room Aika had been given.

The Todoroki estate was dark now, but as he crept silently down the hall, his path was illuminated briefly by a violent flash of light from a distant window, followed by a low roll of thunder. At least Kyouka had made it home before the storm broke.

The door to his daughter's temporary room was ajar, illuminating the end of the hallway with the gentle lamplight that slipped out. Kyouka was already inside. Denki socked footsteps were soft on the carpeted floor, and he slowed to a stop just before the doorframe, leaning against the outer wall in the darkness with his forearm, listening.

"...Hun, I'm so sorry," Kyouka was saying, her voice muted with genuine sorrow. "I tried to be here - I really did, but… something came up, and-"

"It's fine," Aika cut in, her tone curt and sullen. "It's normal. I didn't think you were going to be here anyway."

There was a pause in which he heard his wife swallow.

"Aika," she tried again after a moment, "I really did try, but you know how hard it is when you're a Hero-"

Like his wife had stepped on a land-mine, Aika suddenly exploded.

"I don't care!" she shouted, and Denki blinked in surprise. "You always say that! You always say it's because you're a Hero, but that's just an excuse! Just go away!"

Aika actually shouting was unusual. It's not that she never had before, but she was generally the type who brooded. Letting her emotions out like this meant that maybe she'd taken this harder than Denki had expected.

Kyouka was clearly caught off-guard as well, but she tried to rally.

"I know you're upset, Aika, and I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry... but I just wanted to see you on your birthday-"

"I don't care!" Aika shouted again, displaying her eight-year-old lack of vocabulary or emotional maturity fully for the world to see. "It was fine when you were gone! Just go back and do your Hero stuff and leave me alone!"

There was another heavy pause here as Kyouka clearly struggled to find a response. Denki vacillated out in the hallway, trying to decide if he should step in or not. Chances were, he'd just make things worse. Aika would probably see his entrance as her father coming to reprimand her and just get even more angry and defensive.

Before he could make up his mind, Aika continued with a sudden, choked, "You being a Hero just makes everything worse! It's probably better that you weren't here anyway - otherwise, someone probably would have burned Yaoyorozu's house down, too!"

Something like dread flooded into Denki's gut as the mystery behind his daughter's strange behavior the day before suddenly became clear to him, as well as the bitter realization that he'd made a terrible mistake and his wife was about to pay for it.

Kyouka wasn't having that same revelation, however, and she responded to her daughter's strangled declaration with a confused, "W-what? Aika, what are you-?"

"Villains burned grandma and grandpa's house down!" Aika shouted, as though Kyouka somehow hadn't known that. Her newly eight-year-old voice was thick with anger and tears, and that made her words somehow all the more damning. "Rai almost died! He almost died and it's all your fault because you're a stupid Hero and those dumb Villains wanted to get you back! Why else would they attack us? Just go away already!"

"Aika…!"

"Go away! I hate you!"

To his surprise, and likely to Aika's as well, Kyouka did just that.

His wife stumbled out of the door and into the hallway with a look of hurt and confusion on her face, still in her Hero costume because she'd clearly rushed straight there. She closed the door behind her with a snap, and then, seemingly without even seeing her husband in the dark, she turned and walked away.

Denki watched her go, feeling that oh-so-familiar feeling of guilt welling up inside of him.

This… This was all his fault.

He should have told Aika the truth.

Another peal of thunder shook the house as the storm outside grew in intensity.