Chapter 6

The fact that she hadn't answered him disturbed Katsuki. A contrasting scene unfolded before him which was cause for his struggle to suppress a ridiculous laughter. The woman with the ability to control gravity was clinging to the edge of the cart, her fingers changing colors as the fear of the several hundred-feet drop cycled through her eyes, "I thought we were going to try flying." Laughter edged on his voice more than he expected to allow, she shot him a look. She was likely intent on his murder at this rate.

"Get us out of here."

The contrast was ridiculous. She wasn't afraid of him, the guy who could shoot fire from his pores, but she was afraid of the metallic carnival ride where even if she fell between the two of them they could fly. "Sure," He jiggled the lock, her hand slamming around his wrist.

"Don't." She hissed. He had only reached for the lock to see her reaction, the adrenaline rushing through his wrist was begging him, daring him, to bust open that lock and drag her out: watch facial expressions he had never seen before, the wind tussling in her hair, listen to her screams bubble into laughter as they fell.

His eyes were betraying the amount of self-control he had established as they scrutinized the pier; analyzing the likelihood that someone would call the cops, that anyone from the hero organization would report them for misuse of their own powers, or endangering the locals.

Fuck it.

His hands moved with a burst of irrationality that he knew he wouldn't be able to explain to himself in the future, he undid the lock pushing the door open in the process, "Ka- no!" Her gasping voice unable to escape its cage as he wrapped his arms around her waist leaning back with enough force causing the two of them to fall. Uraraka tightened her grip around him, "Stupid!" She shouted shutting her eyes.

"If you don't look we really will hit that concrete." His voluminous laughter echoed into the sky; the rush of sea breeze flying through his hair. Uraraka slid her eyes open widening as she glanced at ocean illuminating stars dancing a crossed the water. Something he hadn't seen on her face in a while painted its way onto her face, her eyes glittered as the monopolized the ocean view.

Katsuki let his shoes feel the pressure of the boardwalk before letting Uraraka go, "You're crazy." She laughed, tears running from her eyes as she struggled to hide the smile that was fighting its way into the open.

Katsuki felt an annoyance swell inside him, he could hear the likely irate employee charging towards them their heavy footsteps vibrating against the boardwalk, "Hey! You!" he turned to shout back at the employee.

Uraraka's hand wrapping around his wrist, "Run!" Her shout laced with laughter as she dragged him down the boardwalk weaving in-between the few people that were managing to be awake at this time. She glanced over her shoulder, passed him, a goofy smile radiating on her face.

"We should be getting back." She sighed glancing towards the hotel, he could almost make out which room was hers by the damage he had done to the railing. He glanced in-between the hotel and her fading smile.

He took charge of her hold around his wrist, "Not yet. Nobody's going to miss us in their sleep." He let his eyes scavenge through the huts on the edge, the gluttons for money, and that's what they were going to get tonight. They were going to get every single penny and speck of dirt out of his pockets tonight. This woman was the reason he wasn't sitting in jail right now and she was the catalyst for his search to gather evidence on Kirishima's innocence. He was going to make sure this woman kept her smile until she fell asleep.

It wasn't until the sun was on the verge of rising and they found it impossible to wipe the smiles off of their faces that they trailed up the hotel room stairs, to find Deku at the top floor.

"Where have you two been?" Deku snapped, leaning against the wall in-between the hotel rooms.

"We were out." Katsuki replied, he didn't deserve that tone, especially from Deku.

"Uraraka, where were you?" Deku's voice lightened, but still carried its uncharacteristically heavy tone.

"I-"

"I want to-"
Katsuki found that he was surprised at his own actions. He was sure he had weeded the bad habits out of his personality, but apparently not, considering the fact that he was staring at his own hand wrapped around Deku's collar, "She ain't your family and she ain't your girlfriend, she doesn't have to check in with you."

He watched as darkness made laps in Deku's eyes, Deku clamping an arm around his wrist, "No, she's not. I'm asking where you both were. I came up here to a broken lock, what seems to be a fight, and both of you missing." Katsuki blinked noticing the dark circles underneath Deku's eyes and the tapping of a folder against his side. Katsuki felt his mouth opening, readying a retort out of instinct, Deku sending a glare, growing brave enough to cut him off, "We're a team, and teams communicate." Deku hissed shoved a folder in his hands before trudging down the hallway, shutting his hotel room door with more force than appropriate for five o'clock in the morning.

Katsuki let his hand relax on the paperwork, if Deku was still up to give this information to him there had to be a reason. "You can stay in my room, I'll sleep on the couch." Uraraka nodded hurriedly grabbing her things from the room with the burnt lock. She settled into the room rapidly, likely also thrown off by Deku's behavior. Katsuki moved into the room, glancing between his bed, the couch, the bar, and the folder that he held in his hand. He settled into a chair at the bar. Uraraka padding around behind him. "I said I'll sleep on the couch."

"It's okay, besides Deku's already mad enough at us as it is." She muttered.

"He can't expect you to sleep in a room with a burnt lock." Katsuki found himself talking on auto-pilot as he shuffled through the paperwork that Deku had deemed worthy enough to wake either of them up at three or four o'clock in the morning for.

"I know he'd rather I'd talk to him first."

"Don't worry about him." The words were supposed to be more reassuring than forceful, but he knew his own personality well. Right now what was important was these papers sitting on the table. A puzzle of nonsense. After several more minutes of attempting to figure out what nonsense Deku had brought him he finally spotted something of remote interest. He plucked the pictures out of the pile. Deku shouldn't have legally been able to get a hole of this information. Katsuki suppressed the need to burn Deku's door down for the paperwork in his hands: the information the jail kept on Kirishima.

He ran his hand over the paperwork, this wasn't a copy. It was embossed. He turned back to the mass of papers laid out a crossed the bar. Articles and lists of gangs that had been involved with Kirishima's sidekick before he had found him. The kid had become clean. Katsuki found himself searching for answers he wasn't sure he would find. He knew what he wanted to see, had come to the conclusion that Deku had given him something. All of those years of analysis and writing those stupid notebooks there was no way this mass of paperwork was a harmless bunch of nonsense.

Tapping his foot against the bar he was sure he had read each piece of paperwork twice, front and back. He wasn't finding anything. The likelihood that Deku was finally plotting his revenge from all of those years of abuse rising in the back of his head. He had known Deku for some time and while Deku was capable of that, he was sure that Deku wouldn't go through with it. It had been years since they had really violently fought, Deku had managed to learn to protect himself and not break himself, they had been standing on equal footing. If Deku wanted to dispute something with him, he knew how to do it. This paperwork couldn't have been sabotage, there was something here. He had read them until he had gone cross-eyed.

"Kaachan? Have you been here the whole night?" A soft whisper came from over his shoulder, he glanced towards Uraraka her hair askew and seeming to contain more exhaustion than before she went to sleep.

"Not long, what time is it?"

"Nearly seven-thirty."

He ran a hand into his hair, ripping several knots apart, before attempting to heat the muscles in the back of his neck hoping that they wouldn't cramp. Uraraka reached over his shoulder scooping up paperwork, "Is this our next case?" Their organizations had been putting them together frequently, Uraraka had mentioned it to her organization, more of a public show then anything. To reinforce the point she had made.

She scanned the document over as he did his best not to snatch the documents back, stuff them all into the folder again, and shred them. He watched as her eyes gazed over towards where his photo stood next to his bed then back towards the article.

"What?" He snapped.
"Did that kid have a brother?"

"No, he was an only child. He had lost most of his family to gang violence."

"This guy in the background," Uraraka set the photo on the bar again, pointing towards the alley in the background near the drug deal that was being busted, the teen watching over the deal, "I would hypothesize that's what he would look like if he was any older."

He glanced down towards the photo, the kid had been in a gang before deciding to follow Kirishima and become a hero. "Couldn't be, the photo's date is way after the kid passed."

"I wonder why Deku would give this to you." She muttered, moving to the kitchen sink as she begun to brew caffeinated beverages and scavenge in the hotel's fridge. "Invite him over. I'm sure by now he'll be ready to talk to us." She suggested as he continued to move through the pictures. He wasn't ready to talk to Deku and having this paperwork was only reinforcing that feeling.

Katsuki flipped through several more photos, he had seen them dozens and dozen of times, half of these photos and documentations were information that he had piled and collected in drawers back in his own room at home. Unless. Deku thought he was missing something. He set the pictures next to each other, staring at the information until he could feel it burn into his eyes. The man who had stood in the alleyway appearing repeatedly in any pictures the following month after Kirishima was sentenced to imprisonment. Katsuki knew what it meant. He knew he was in denial. That boy was alive.

Rage that refused to quell blazed inside his chest.