Dabi pulled on a pair of giant sunglasses. "Too tacky?"

"Bodyguard." Cassandra rolled her eyes from behind horn-rimmed glasses, "Try something, you know, body-guard-ish."

He pouted, "But you know how my eyes are! I need something that hides the skin if I want to go incognito!"

"Baseball cap and Sumi's help will work perfectly well." Nono added, looking down at them from her round glasses mock-severely. "And yes, Dabi, Sumi promised to remove the tattoo afterwards, even if he does think that the design alone would improve your looks considerably."

Dabi snorted, "Yeah, Inky can fuck off with his weird goth and tattoo aesthetic, I'm revenant resurrected for revenge, not one of those Yakuza fuckers with a ton of gunk in their skin. And, speaking of that, Inky should stop with the tattoos. Not only does it make us look like criminals, someone's going to wise up and arrest him for concealed carrying or for illegal Quirk-enhancements."

"I'll tell him when I get back." Nono said agreeably, "Now, does Cassandra's persona have any favorite sport's teams?"

"Nope." The younger woman shrugged, "So, bright red, right? Or something equally eye-searing."

"Fuck, Cass, you don't know what your asking for, mum's default for eye-searing is-" Dabi flinched violently at the neon green monstrosity Nono had pulled from the dark depths of hell-slash-the wardrobe, "that."

Cass cackled, "It's perfect!"

"You don't mean that!" He snapped, part genuine horror, part Quirk effect.

"Oh come on, Dabs, live a little!" Cass laughed and threw him a manila folder, "Read these. Also, I already have a codename ready for you if you want to do this permanently, "Super fire, rebellion against asshole dad, plus being a lawyer-guess what, you're Satan."

Dabi held up a finger, "Okay, that was a mess, let me reinterpret: By having a codename ready, you mean you've only thought of one, no paperwork's gone through yet. Phrases don't count with your Quirk, so we'll go past that. Then, Satan. Satan's not accurate-Lucifer. You want me to be called Lucifer?"

Cassandra gave him a thumbs up, "You can't tell me it isn't perfect for you. 'sides, see what you did? Why wouldn't I want a partner like you?"

Dabi flipped through the information on their covers, "Tough luck, 'cus this fire-slinging lawyer is most certainly not going to work with someone who literally calls him Incineration, Grand ThiefThief."

"Oh come on," 'Akisu' shot back, "Don't we know that they're going to be running background checks? Isn't it obvious that this is going to be a sign of good faith?"

"If we're trying to pretend to show good faith, why send you? We know that you use rhetorical questions to get around your Quirk, but they don't." Dabi grimaced, "Don't tell me that-"

"Yeah, I'm the best choice for a reason." Cassandra said grimly.

"How many have we lost?" Nono asked.

Cassandra held up three fingers.

"And how sure are we that a truth-teller's the cause?"

Eight. A pause. Five.

Eighty-five percent. Well. Shit. He scrubbed a hand over his face, "That's…"

"Yes." Cass agreed, "That's. If you want to back out-"

"What sort of person do you think I am, Cass?" He jammed the monstrosity on his head, "You're good, but primarily intel. You need a heavy hitter. I'm not leaving you hanging. 'sides, where else are you getting such a cool skill combo?"

By nightfall, the pair of them had been dressed in discreet armor, had their features disguised by Sumi's seal-tattoo nightmares, and slunk towards the agreed upon meeting point.

"We killed too kindly in Hyotan." The Serpent Sannin reflected, smoothing stress away from his partner's neck, "Had we kept some alive for interrogation, this situation could have been avoided."

"There would have been another crisis." Nono sighed, "And if Cassandra needed help, then Dabi would have definitely given it. At least its Yakuza. They have the weight of history and tradition behind them, and that influences their actions, and as shinobi, we have experience dealing with their kind."

"A truth teller as an opponent. It would be interesting, to see how the two quirks react, and I dare say that we shall have proof on whether humans are ruled by emotion or rationality."

"Both, Oro." Nono insisted, "Always both. That is what makes us human, not tools."

"As you say, dearest." Orochimaru grumbled cheerfully, "Though given the malleability of human memory, as well as Cassandra's extraordinarily powerful Quirk, I am quite certain that she will come out in favor. All of our children must grow their own scales, and not rely on our protection, and even if Cassandra finds herself in a sticky situation, Dabi's katon can match Itachi-kun's. They will hold out long enough for rescue, if their cover is blown."

"We can only hope." Nono allowed.

Her partner tut-tutted, "Stop worrying, there is no point, and I would rather not have attempt to relax your muscles turn Sisyphean."

She giggled lightly, "You are an apt demonstration of logic ruling emotion, if we must choose one over the other."

Orochimaru pressed down into a particularly stubborn knot, "But, as I have been repeatedly told, I am not precisely human. Seeing what the rest of our alleged species get up to, I doubt that any of us are at all."

"And that," Nono pointed out lightly, "Is an example of the opposite theory, which in turn indicates our consanguinity with all our manifold kin."

Luckily for the two infiltrators, Shōkyaku and Akisu, the man sent to meet them, Nemoto Shin, despite being a truth-teller of sorts, was indeed susceptible to Akisu's quirk.

"You'd be surprised at how easy it is for me to steal stuff if I tell people 'yeah, I'm not authorized' and then ask them for help." Akisu shrugged, "If that doesn't work, Yaku can just, y-know, go physical and burn the door down. 'course, I'm a professional, so we don't usually need anything that excessive, but its apparently healthy to remind myself that my quirk isn't always a curse."

Dabi coughed politely, because Sumi was a petty little man who had turned him into a pasty-skinned nerd that'd topple if someone sneezed at him wrong, ass. "Be careful, Aki'." He reminded, all academic's accent and quiet caution. Which was annoying.

"It is a true conundrum." Nemoto allowed, sounding something between embarrassed and flustered, "Intellectually, I am certain that I have been using my Quirk, but I simply can not… Sincerely speaking, this is a situation I have not encountered before, and while I understand it is no fault of your own, I genuinely feel uncomfortable interacting… yet I must admit that you are a unique personage…"

Akisu grinned, "No sweat. To be honest, it's a bit nice to meet a truth-teller. At least you're confident in your quirk, right? I'm a bit tired of thinking every sentence through, and Yaku might be the only one who around who understands sign. With you, you have to believe me even if you don't believe me, so I don't have to watch every word just to talk to someone, right?"

Oh hell. Akisu was going for the ingratiation route. Given how emotionally constipated everyone was around here (he wasn't, no matter what the two Saibaisho said), Nemoto might actually escalate all the way to romance, and that would just be embarrassing for everyone. Oh, Cass was discreetly signing "help" "romance" "target". Ugh, seriously, were they going for all the clichés? Or was Cass just having a craving for expensive food while wanting to be a spendthrift again?

He coughed politely, again, "If it would be helpful, I would be happy to translate."

Nemoto didn't manage to hide the flash of relief, also, his body language indicated a migraine forming. Or a stress headache. Some sort of pain of the brain at any rate. Poor guy. Of course, whatever sympathy points Eight Precepts lieutenant earned were lost the moment he opened his mouth, "It would be greatly appreciated, Shōkyaku-san. And I must admit, your appearance is incongruent with your personality."

He shrugged and smiled embarrassedly, because embarrassment seemed to be the dominant emotion here, "We don't do this often, and I've been told my dress sense is terrible quite a few times. I just chose something that does well enough as a disguise, even if I know that green hats are an euphemism for being cuckolded and your Quirk is making me overshare so tell me to stop if I make you uncomfortable and please don't take it the wrong way because I'm not actually being cuckolded because I don't have a significant other in the romantic sense and Aki and I are just friends and she deserves someone who can listen to her despite her quirk."

Nemoto-not nematode, remember that, put a pretty good show on about being unfazed, probably because he'd heard worse. But don't think Yaku hadn't noticed the extra glance or two Aki's way.

"I still do not regret Hyotan." Nono said, a cup of tea in hand and looking out into the distance in that faux-absent-minded way that was her watching for eavesdroppers. Of course, they had trapped their house enough that most eavesdroppers would find their eavesdropping become a literal dropping from eaves in an eyeblink, but it was a good habit to keep, and some Quirks were genuinely difficult to guard against. Cadaalada's, for instance. "I would not have left anyone in Hyotan longer than I had to, let alone Kabuto. But we did act rashly-once you sensed the chakra flare, we zeroed in on the location and mounted an assault, and we did not care for hiding our hands. You threw elemental transformations and shape transformations, and I was reckless with Hell Viewings. We were lucky the Organization had the ability and inclination to cover for us."

"We have argued to a full circle now, beloved Nono." Orochimaru laughed softly, still that bone-chilling rasp of scales on stone, "You now regret, despite it being you who dissuaded me from the same. Shall I repeat your argument back at you? The wood has been carved into the boat, the arrow has left the bow, we can not change what was done, so there is no point thinking so optimistically about might-have-beens. After all, if a change in conduct at Hyotan had transpired, all that would be changed now would be that we would simply experience a cousin of the current circumstances."

"And yet." The woman behind the Wandering Miko folded both hands around her cup, "Espionage is too delicate a selection of memories."

And both fell silent, remembering ROOT, and their own transgressions. It was because of that, after all, that Kabuto strove to keep up good cheer, now that he had jumped back into the shadowy netherworld of secrets and lies.

"It is less dangerous." Orochimaru offered, "Goodness is no weakness. Kindness is no failure. Circumstances have changed, and now the stakes are less high. Neither of them wear too deep a mask. They will not suffer the madness you and Kabuto did."

"Intellectually, I know." Nono agreed, "Yet my heart is not so easily changed. Too few can help, should we fail. And we are restrained, restricted as once we were not. I miss, at times the weight of reputation and the notoriety of allies we once had at our backs-even the mercurial, rarely-given protection of the Darkness of Shinobi." She laughed, tiredly, "Truly, I was named either too right, or too wrong. I am not at all carefree."

And they sat in silence, missing two and one and more, and waited for the dark spell to pass.