on one hand, the mood for this chapter is the classic "the moon reflects my heart" by the immortal teresa teng. on the other some characters talk about blood and other things you may find disturbing. there is a segment or two you may wish to skip over if you dislike that sort of thing.

Word Count: 5,345

"Bakugou!"

Never had Momo ever been more grateful that she owned a towel than she did the moment she saw Captain Todoroki walking toward the riverbank mere moments after she began to dry herself.

"Bakugou!"

"Eh?" The man in question turned around from his perch upon the rock. He scowled with irritation, for the captain had just interrupted the King of the Rock speech he was reciting to Denki and Kirishima, both of whom were howling with laughter. "Whatchu want, hapa boy?"

Momo hurriedly turned away from the riverbanks, quickening her pace. Though her weeks at camp and baths that came with them led her to accidentally seeing very many manly bits on her way out, she still found herself preferring to spare what little innocence she had left.

"I need your opinion on something. Get dressed and go to the planning tent."

Bakugou scoffed. "Give me a minute. I'm a little busy right now."

Uraraka poked her head out of the tall grass nearby. "Yaomomo," she hissed, and Momo started. "You need to get out of here while they're not paying attention to you!"

"Right, right, of course," Momo said as she deftly picked her clothes up with her feet and kicked them up into her arms. Quickly she shoved her head into her undershirt as she waded through the grass, which was fortunate enough to be a legitimate shortcut to her tent. "I was just distracted."

Uraraka sat on her haunches, crossed her forelimbs, and gave the girl a Look as she walked by. "That's dangerous, you know. On the battlefield, something as quick as a glance could mean the difference between life and death. Don't think that the enemy won't take the chance to cut your neck if you present it to them so cleanly." She fell to all fours and cantered after Momo, who sighed as she wrung out her hair.

"Yes, I know, thank you," she said as she tied it back. "That's why I have to act fast enough, so that they don't even get the opportunity."

She had expected the dragon to at least agree with her, maybe note that she was learning, but instead, Uraraka clambered up to her shoulder and settled there. "You like him, huh."

That genuinely caught Momo off guard, but she didn't stop walking. She gave Uraraka a side-eye for a moment, but lifted her face to the stars right after. "Well, I think he's a great captain, certainly. He knows what he's doing, and he's civil."

"You know what I mean."

Momo pursed her lips, now facing her tent. "I know almost nothing about him," she argued, but Kyouka poked her head out of her own tent.

"We talking about Captain Todo?" she asked as she crawled out. "And also, that doesn't stop you from liking him. Heart wants what the heart wants."

"Speak for yourself." Momo crossed her arms and faced her friend. "Weren't you lamenting just last night just how pretty Denki's eyes are?"

"Hey, okay, fine, but at least I'm aware of what's going on with me. And also, you called the captain a pretty boy that one time, and I don't know if you're even aware of this, but you even look at Todoroki differently than everyone else."

"What? I do not! I would have noticed! And if I did, you would have made fun of me for it!"

"I am making fun of you now! I just never had the opportunity before because we were supposed to be standing at attention whenever it happened."

"I'm gonna side with Jirou on this one," Uraraka chimed in. "Dragon omniscience and all."

Momo felt her jaw drop in betrayal. "Okay, girls, let's at least have an even discussion about this—"

"What's there to discuss?" Kyouka lazily asked. "It's pretty obvious. If you want, we can go ask Denki if he's noticed. Goodness knows if that dumb rock sees what's up then it's all over."

"It's not for you to argue for your side," Momo hissed, her cheeks flushing. "It's so that I can maybe understand what's going on." She looked away with her lower lip jutting out ever so slightly.

There was the briefest of pauses, and after a second, Momo side-eyed Kyouka, who had a weirdly curious expression. "Momo, haven't you liked anyone before?"

Momo tugged at the hem of her tunic. "Well, um, could we… could we talk about this in your tent at least? It's kind of weird discussing it out here in the open."

Kyouka's eyes softened. "Yeah, of course," she said, crawling back inside and beckoning Momo to follow.

Momo sighed, savoring the precious few seconds alone and glancing up at the moon. It was nearly full again, marking just over a month since she left home. It was amazing, really, just how little time had actually passed; by this point, she felt like she'd known everyone at camp her whole life.

She crawled into Kyouka's tent, kicked off her sandals, and settled on a heap of laundry. "Hey, Kyo," she said quietly before the other girl could get anything in, "is it really possible to just like-like someone after knowing them for so little time?"

Kyouka let out a soft peal of laughter. "You really are new to all this. Well, you're the smart one, and I'm no love master, so what do you think?"

Uraraka hopped to the floor as Momo sat thinking, Deku the oft-forgotten lucky cricket leaping after her. "I mean you like Denki," Momo said.

Now it was Kyouka's turn to flush. "I feel like a dumbass when you say it so bluntly, but, uhh," she looked to the side and began mumbling, "yeah. I do. There you go, it's possible."

"But we hang out with him. We know stuff about him. It makes sense that you'd like him. Todoroki?" Momo stared at the tent ceiling. "He's an enigma. Why would I, y'know, like him?"

Kyouka gave Momo the most deadpan look in the world. "You also hang out with Denki every day, know as much about him as I do. You're not the one who likes him. We both hang out with Kirishima every day too, and we know about as much about him as we do Denki. Neither of us like him, not in that way anyway."

"If it's knowing him that's the problem, Yaomomo, you could always just talk to him," Uraraka pointed out. "He doesn't go out of his way to socialize, you know. I doubt anyone knows all that much about Todoroki."

The girls exchanged glances. "Talk to him?"

Oooh, now there was a thought.

"Couldn't sleep again, my dear?"

Futaba Yaoyorozu shook her head sadly. She leaned against the front porch railing as her husband approached from behind. "I'm just scared for Momo again. I know it hasn't been all that long, but I can't help but worry if she's been killed already."

Her husband joined her in leaning, staring up at the smattering of stars alongside her. "They should be at the tail end of their training by now. She'll still be safe," he said. "But even so, count the stars, Futaba. If one day we look up and find a new one up there, that would be her. Then, and only then, will we begin her memorial preparations."

Futaba sighed, staring at the distant, flickering pinpricks. "I hope we don't have to."

"Neither do I. If you prefer, we could wait for her dogtag to be sent home."

Futaba sank low to the ground and rested her chin on her arms. "I don't want to see her name all bloodied like that."

Her husband went silent for a moment, lost in his memories of his own soldier days. "Yes, well," he said slowly. "You get used to it."

Aizawa had advised him to keep quiet about his father's summons until a day or two before they had to leave, just in case it spooked the trainees to the point of distress, so Shoto did. It was an interesting two weeks, to say the least. Two weeks because honestly, fuck his old man; he didn't care to sacrifice his perfectly good platoon of soldiers just because they hadn't the time to fine-tune their training.

Shoto honestly regretted not weighing in on Bakugou's opinions more often before. The guy had some genuinely great points to be made when it came to intimidation factors and effective division of work. Shoto supposed he should have known from the start that Bakugou was excellent at intimidation, but the second thing had been unexpected.

Of course, Bakugou was also unable or unwilling to explain away those weird tugging feelings in Shoto's chest, simply snapping something about doling out dumb advice being Aizawa's job, but that wasn't actually concerning. Depending on the day, the tugging varied wildly, with it not even showing up sometimes. He hadn't yet figured out what triggered it, but it wasn't powerful enough to be a distraction or anything.

That's why it got weird the day everyone packed up, when he had been hanging out with the horses.

"Good horsie," he said as he fed his stallion a crab apple. "I hope you do okay when we get to battling later. I'd hate for you to go down just because you got spooked at the wrong time." He pet the horse's nose gently, and the enormous beast nuzzled his face curiously.

Shoto glanced up, and his guts did the weirdest thing when his heart leapt right into them once he saw the Yaoyorozu boy a few rows down, combing down his own horse. He guessed he must've been staring, because Yaoyorozu paused and gave him a diffident glance.

"Oh," he said, just barely loud enough for Shoto to catch, as he redirected his gaze to the floor, "good afternoon, Captain."

"Good afternoon, Yaoyorozu," Shoto replied. He flicked his eyes all around, taking in little pieces of their setting, for his erratic heartbeat put him on edge. "You're here alone." Kind of a dumb statement to make, considering they were the only two people in the stable at the moment.

Yaoyorozu mumbled something he couldn't catch as he halfheartedly finished his combing and let his arm drop down to his sid. Internally, Shoto sighed. "I can't hear you," he reproved, and Yaoyorozu dared look up again.

His gaze vacillated between his horse and Shoto a couple times before he took his horse's reins and led it over to Shoto. "Yeah," Yaoyorozu said once he stood in front of the captain. "Jirou's still busy and doesn't have time to get Kouda yet."

(If Shoto hadn't been so strangely terrible at making eye contact with Yaoyorozu at the moment, he might've noticed Yaoyorozu struggling with the same thing.) "Kouda?" he asked.

"Oh, that's what she named her horse," Yaoyorozu explained. He sent Shoto's horse a sidelong glance. "What's yours named?"

"Him?" Shoto blinked and also looked at his horse. "I've never given a name to my animals."

"You haven't?" Yaoyorozu cocked his head. "Why not?"

"Not allowed." Shoto's horse began nibbling on his hair.

"We could change that," Yaoyorozu brightly said. "Something like… Tokidoki!"

Shoto looked right at the other boy, his expression as deadpan as ever. "What."

Yaoyorozu's cheeks dusted pink as he deliberately avoided Shoto's gaze. "Sorry, it's just something I picked up here and there—"

"If we're naming my horse Tokidoki, yours needs to be named Sen'en."

Yaoyorozu stopped altogether and seemed to shy away. "Oh, umm… his name's already Iida," he admitted. "I was just joking anyway. I think Tamaki would be a good name for him, though, if you wanted to consider it."

Shoto gently pushed his horse's muzzle away from his hair, as the tugging had begun to hurt. "Tamaki, huh?" He looked at the stallion for a moment, patting his velvety nose as he considered the name. "It's a good name. Thank you, Yaoyo—"

He had turned to look at the other boy when thanking him, but somehow, he was already gone.

"—rozu."

Shoto glanced around the stables, but Yaoyorozu had already made his flawless escape.

His hand subconsciously rose up to his chest to feel his beating heart. Ah. The hollow ache is back.

"But first, General, what are we going to do? The Huns have us trapped in this valley, and we're losing troops like mad with their constant barrage of arrows. We've been unable to recover ground or supplies, and morale is running low."

"Do as we've always done: we face them head-on and declare that we are not afraid. And then we will push forward, no matter the cost."

"But sir, we've been shrinking in both manpower and supplies over the last week! They burned one of our supply carts last night, and I don't know how much longer our food and medicine will last."

"How many horses have been left without riders because of the casualties?"

"Three— three hundred, sir."

"And how many of those will we be needing moving forward?"

"N-none, sir."

"Wrong. We need all of them. You said we were running low on food, correct?"

"We have maybe three days' worth of provisions assuming we maintain our current numbers around ten thousand."

"Tch. Half our soldiers gone, and we have only three hundred horses to spare? Pitiful. Kill them off as needed starting in three days' time. Keep the blood. We may need it later."

"…General Endeavor, will you not join the troops down on the battlefield? The troops' morale must still be provided for, and I'm sure as great a general as you must be absolutely awe-inspiring in action."

"In a few days, perhaps. There are a few things I'd like to finalize before I wish to risk my life. By the way, send a letter to General Hawks and ask him to lead that ambush on Shigaraki's men soon. It seems Shoto will not be coming for this battle."

"Is that a good thing?"

"That doesn't matter. He hasn't enough troops to make a difference, and their rookie status simply makes them cannon fodder."

"I see."

"I suppose I'm glad he won't be killed this time around. He has fine potential. Now, you said earlier there has been a letter for me from home?"

Itsuka stared out the study room window, the brush pen wedged between her fingers drip-dropping ink sloooowly onto her paper. Calligraphy had never been her favorite, and all the literature it made her memorize was stupidly convoluted. Like, she got it, a century of human life was like a dream! How much more war propaganda was she going to have to swallow at this rate?

Well, it wasn't actually propaganda, just a song that had become heavily associated with war. Still, she'd rather copy poetry about grass at this point! After all, the flower was not a flower, the mist was not a mist. At least that wasn't weirdly depressing.

Itsuka sighed and glanced back down at her paper, doodling a little 花 in the corner. Flowers were fun, and they were happy, too. At least, in the summer they were. Most everything was in bloom then.

Not orchids, though, those sensitive little demons. Itsuka had no idea how anyone could ever keep an orchid alive, because she sure couldn't, but somehow, her neighbors the Yaoyorozus could. She saw it in their yard when she visited them a couple weeks ago; there were two or three in bloom, four or five buds still left. She didn't know if it had been Momo who kept them or if it had been her mother to thank, but they had been beautiful regardless. So elegant and refined.

Itsuka doodled another word on the side of her page.

蘭.

"Hey! Hey! Hey, Jirou!"

"What, Chargedolt?"

"I bet'cha Sero can go waaaay faster than Kouda."

"That's ridiculous, Denki. Kouda's just skittish," Kyouka said with a snort, rolling her eyes at Denki. "Besides, just look at your own horse! He's a mess!"

And it was true. Sero the horse was a terrible mess. His knees were so knobby, you'd never be able to tell if they'd been broken, and he had the strangest expression that made it look almost as if he was grinning at you. Which, for a horse, was a little weird. Plus, you'd think his mane was matted with the way it stuck up in spikes, but it just grew like that apparently.

"No he's noooot," Denki half sang, rubbing Sero's neck, "he's just got personality. Isn't that right, Cellophane~"

Kyouka half-assedly stifled her snickers. "Cellophane? What kind of nickname is that?"

"A perfectly reasonable one," Denki crisply replied as he trotted ahead. "Shows how much I love him that I gave him one, you know."

"Nicknames are not a gauge of how much you love something, Chargedolt." Kyouka rolled her eyes and dug her heels gently into Kouda's flank to catch up with him.

"Oh, well now that's a shame, considering how often you call me… what was it again? Chargedolt?" Denki leaned dangerously close to Kyouka's face, making her blush. "I mean—"

"Hey, hey, if you keep that up, you're going to fall out of your saddle, Denki." Momo cantered up from behind the two, and the blond boy nearly fell out of the saddle from shock anyway.

"Woah there, Haku, you almost killed me!" Denki complained as he sat properly again, but Kyouka sent her a grateful look. "Besides, in my defense, I was left unsupervised. Where were you up until now?"

Momo raised an eye at Kyouka, who said, "It's not my job to babysit him. We're in the army after all."

"Pffff, you weren't babysitting me, Jirou. We were both in on this."

"Oh god, that's worse." Kyouka barely contained a snort.

"Anyway, like I was saying, where were you, Haku? We haven't seen you since we crossed the river and Iida got spooked."

"Ah…" Momo began, and all three riders slowed down juuust a bit. "I just wanted a bit of time to myself. This morning was crazy, you know, so I just needed a little while to let myself process everything." She laughed. "Where's Kirishima, by the way?"

Kyouka waved her hand absently. "Oh, he's just up ahead bugging that bitch of a captain again, as he does. He might be hanging out with Tetsutetsu by now, though."

"Oh!" Denki practically jumped up in his seat. "That reminds me! I wanna go chat with Bakugou, too! I'm telling you guys, he's pretty chill when it comes down to it."

Momo looked at him blankly. "Why didn't you just do that earlier?"

"Ah, well." He waved her off in the same absent manner as Kyouka had just earlier. "I didn't want to leave Jirou out here alone. I thought I might keep him company."

Kyouka opened her mouth to sass him, but nothing came out, leaving her staring at him gape mouthed for all of a minute. At last, she turned away and declared, "You didn't have to do that, you know. I can do things myself."

"Oh, I know that," Denki easily replied. "I just wanted to." (Kyouka missed the grin he shot her.) "Catch ya laterrr~"

It was quiet between the girls for a few minutes after Denki galloped to the head of the caravan.

"That was nice of him," Momo remarked at last. "He has his merits."

"I never said he didn't."

"Then why do you act like he doesn't?"

At that exact moment, Kouda stepped into a ditch Kyouka didn't notice, and all the wind was knocked out of her. "Well, I—" she coughed twice as Momo waited patiently— "I mean…" She sighed the best she could.

She wasn't sure. She could blame it on force of habit, but she hadn't actually acted like this before around someone she liked. She was scared, maybe? Of scaring him off when he found out she was a girl, maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

"Because that's how I should act, isn't it?" She found the words fell from her mouth before she could stop them, and Momo gave her a strange look. "I mean, you're from a military family. I'm sure you've heard before, there's no place for romance on the battlefield."

Momo bit her lip, then looked down. "Yeah. Father, when he told his war stories sometimes, would sometimes remark that one must not have feelings on the battlefield," she said softly, and now it was Kyouka's turn to bite her lip.

"I mean, that doesn't stop people, I just—! I don't know, really," she confessed, but Momo didn't reply.

Kyouka changed the subject a few seconds later.

scratch scratch

"Hey… Kurogiri," Shigaraki said slowly as he watched the endless destruction going down on the battlefield.

"Yes, Shigaraki?" Kurogiri patiently replied.

raspy inhale "Are they done burning him?" raspy exhale.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know. He's not screaming like we expected. He may be, into a rag, but regardless, he's a strong one, all right. I'm simply surprised he came on board as quickly as he did."

cough cough sniffle. "We were promised he was a vindictive one."

Kurogiri walked up to Shigaraki and surveyed the land alongside him. "That we were. He will be a valuable addition to our arsenal."

creaky breath "And what of the girl? She has been growing impatient. She lusts for blood by the liters every day. It is beginning to frighten me."

Kurogiri hummed thoughtfully. "Indeed she does. Allow her to lead an ambush tomorrow; that shall satiate her."

Shigaraki slowly curled his lips into a shaky smile. "I can't wait."

Momo's butt hurt from sitting on a horse all day. Her legs ached from riding, and her arms ached from setting up her tent for the night, but it was all right since she got to at least wind down at the end of the day. Uraraka was already asleep, curled up by the pillow with Deku the oft-forgotten cricket.

Kyouka poked into the tent, as she was apt to do. "Heyyo," she said. "Kirishima and Denki were talking about their toenails when I walked in, so you can bet I got out of there as fast as I could."

"Now that's not something I've ever heard them talking about," Momo mused, scooting over to make room for her friend. "First time for everything I guess."

"Yeah, well, it was gross." Kyouka snorted, and there was a second of pleasant silence. "Sooo, what happened this morning that you had to think about?"

Momo blinked, opening her mouth to reply, but the memories overwhelmed her before she could sound like a reasonable person. "Oh, well, I stumbled upon the captain when I was getting Iida from the stables," she said, looking upwards as if the sky were there to gaze at.

"Really? Is that it?" Kyouka shot her a skeptical look.

"No, that's not actually it," Momo said. "I dunno. We just talked a bit, and it was fun. That's all."

Kyouka snapped, and her eyes suddenly acquired a most dangerous glint. "Oh yeah, huh! You've never actually sat down and talked to him before, have you?"

That pulled Momo back to reality, and she looked at her friend with alarm. "Kyouka, I'm serious! I've told you before; I can't do it, I can't go out and talk to him! You should have seen him when we were in the stables this afternoon, the sunlight just struck his hair and haloed him, and I swear that was my most useless moment of my life," she lamented. "I don't even know if he noticed me staring— I mean, he didn't say anything about it, but—"

"Oh, so there was something more than just chatting." Kyouka grinned. "This sounds interesting."

"We do not need to discuss it."

"I guess so, but you do want to get to know him better, don't you? C'mon, it's been two weeks since Uraraka brought it up, and you've done pretty close to jack shit."

"Wouldn't that be weird though? I mean, he's the captain and we've never really talked before and—"

"Momo. Oh my god. Calm down," Kyouka cut in, putting her hand on her best friend's shoulder. "I don't know what you're so worked up about. Hell yeah, you can do it. It's dark out, and he's by a fire, so you wouldn't even have to look at each other if you didn't want to! You could just stare at the flames! Besides, we both know you can kick ass pretty well at this point. I mean, you got that arrow down, right? You can talk to one measly pretty boy. Every relationship's gotta start somewhere."

"Usually, that would be the matchmaker's house."

Kyouka gave her a deadpan look.

Momo took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "You're right, Kyo."

"Damn right, I am. I'll stay back and keep watch over Uraraka, you just go have fun."

"What if—"

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" Kyouka unceremoniously shoved Momo out of the tent. "Just go!"

Shoto had long had a sense of morbid curiosity when it came to the fireplace. He knew better than anyone of the terrible power fire held, if his scar was any reminder. Yet, in every memory of her, his mother had been right there by the hearth, where the fire was quiet and good.

It hadn't been her fault. He figured this out long ago. She knew better than anyone else he could think of how to tame a flame. Yet, despite knowing this, Shoto couldn't help but still feel a little bit wary of an open fire.

"Hey." A familiar voice cut through his internal monologue, and Shoto glanced up to see Yaoyorozu standing just a meter or two away, his expression difficult to read in the firelight. "Would you… would you like some company, captain?"

Shoto blinked. He'd never considered having company when he brooded by the fire, but then again, he'd never had to consider it. Nobody ever came. "Sure," he said at last. Yaoyorozu crept over and sat close by him, but not near enough to say they were sitting together. Shoto redirected his gaze to the fire as it crackled and snapped, its flaming tongue diligently licking the log to black to white. He made no effort to start a conversation, for he had no idea what to say.

Fortunately, Yaoyorozu seemed to always have something. "Do you like the stars?"

Shoto paid him a glance, but he was already staring up at the sky. "I suppose," he replied, his gaze drifting upwards as well, "they can be nice, yes."

"You know, my father often told me that each new star you count represents a soldier fallen in battle."

"No, I didn't know."

"That's funny. I would have thought that you would have known about that, since you're from such a prominent military family and all. I mean, your father—"

A log popped and collapsed right then, perfectly in tune with the way Shoto's temper ticked. "Don't," he said in a low voice, and Yaoyorozu's gaze dropped down to give him a curious glance.

"I-I'm sorry—"

"He's a dick," Shoto cut in, surprising himself to silence.

"Oh," Yaoyorozu said in a small voice. (Was he scooting away? Was he scared of him now?)

Shoto let out a sigh and recollected himself. He stared at the fire, at the little glowing worms of pine needles twisting and writhing within it as they served their purpose. "He says I'm not doing enough. That I won't become as great a leader as he if I keep treating you all so mildly. And I guess— I can see why you might respect him. But he's not a good man."

The air was tense now, and Shoto tried to ignore how obviously Yaoyorozu was staring at him with eyes wider than the moon.

"I think you're a great captain."

Shoto paid him yet another glance to find his earnest face closer than he expected. Not uncomfortably so, he sat a respectable distance away, but still closer. "…Anyway, I've heard the stars myth before," he awkwardly said, breaking gaze yet again in favor of the fire. "I've simply never talked to you enough to hear it from you."

There was a pause, but it was much milder and didn't at all have any of the awkward tension of just a minute ago. It was nice.

"You know," Shoto said, breaking the silence. "You don't have to sit so far away, you know. It would be hard to talk if you did. Come closer."

Yaoyorozu looked at him with confusion for a fraction of a second, then obeyed with a small smile on his face. "No, I didn't know."

Shoto didn't quite get why that would be something to smile about, but he decided it didn't matter. For a while, all was quiet, and he found his gaze inexplicably drawn to the tiny sliver in the sky known as the moon. "What's your name, Yaoyorozu?" he asked.

Yaoyorozu shied away. "Oh, I'm sure you have it in your records—" he began.

"I want to hear it from you," Shoto said, feeling more insistent now. He didn't know what compelled him (perhaps it was knowing the boy knew of his father, perhaps it was his response), but he leaned into Yaoyorozu, easily and unblinkingly holding his gaze. "What is your name, Yaoyorozu?" He knew already, of course, the boy's name was Haku, but every word he said was true. He sincerely wished to hear it come from Haku himself.

"…Haku Yaoyorozu," Haku whispered, and there was an unidentifiable something reflected in his eyes by the dying firelight. Shoto backed off, and Haku awkwardly scoot back in.

The night did strange things to a person. Shoto, for example, after successfully getting Haku to give him his name, felt almost a little drunk off the conversation. "My name is Shoto," he said, side eyeing Haku. It was funny; even though it almost felt drunk, the decision to tell him his own name was entirely sober. Perhaps it was familiarity bias, or perhaps Haku simply had a trusting face. Maybe it had been that mysterious ache all along. Whatever it was, there was no stopping it now.

Haku stared back at him, dumbfounded. Shoto gave him his full attention and said, completely straight: "Call me Shoto. Please." No one called him that but Aizawa these days, he noticed.

Haku blinked once, twice. "All right… Shoto."

And now, when a warm, fuzzy feeling flooded his chest and his cheeks, Shoto realized he'd missed it.

.

.

.

…

.

.

.

(Nearby, in his tent, Aizawa rolled over on his bedroll, unable to sleep from the two chatting outside, but in all honesty, he didn't mind at all.)

Author's Note x. prepare yourself for the a/n: it's a long one.

So I'm sure a lot of you are wondering why it's called 'orchid in bloom'. Well, tbh, I spent a really long time trying to figure out what the title would be. I'd've gone along with the same naming scheme as mulan itself, except that it's named after the heroine and I wasn't really feeling it. So then I gave it more thought. I already knew mulan's name is written as 花木蘭, but coming up with something from momo's 八百方百 was kind of hard and I was like "asdfdasdf." so then I turned to flower language, as I'm apt to do. 蘭 is orchid, as appearing earlier in the chapter. Orchids symbolize grace and refined beauty. Sweet, that's what momo's going for in order to become the ideal housewife and get matched and bring honor to the fam n jade girl stuff.
Orchid on its own is a pretty okay title, but I added in the 'in bloom' part because what's she doing as she's off fighting in the war? Growing as a person and character. She's growing and discovering herself, growing into what she was always meant to be. (orchids can be pretty weird-looking flowers, you know.) so now she shall save the country with grace, all the while growing into something more refined and beautiful.

Also I'm sure at least some of you are familiar w/my nickname of tokidoki for todoroki (I picked it up from an upperclassman and I'm literally never letting go of this lol) and get why momo would joke name the horse that, but todoroki joke naming iida "senen" is a play on words in the same way that haku is a play on momo:
i thought that momo's last name was 千百萬, which is qian1 bai3 wan4 in chinese. (turned out to be 八百萬 but oh well) Since I already played w/百 to get 白 for haku, I played with 千 and 萬 this time around to get 錢婉, qian2 wan3, which means money and graceful (respectively), then plugged them individually into jisho to get their japanese pronunciations, which ended up as "sen'en", which coincidentally would more commonly be read as 千円: a thousand yen. I need to stop having access to other languages for my wordplay because literally no one else gets it lmao.

anyway whoops look who also decided to expand the story to include a bit more of the battles and stuff yeeee. i was gonna include one at the end of this but the chapter had already hit 5k, which is about where i put my upper limit at atm, so i think i'll give that the attention it deserves and make it next chapter. who're they gonna fight? hehehehe. y'all probably know already. the foreshadowing in shigaraki's segment was honestly closer to bricks in the face.

i have never before had or will likely ever again have an author's note this long here, but thanks for reading it if you read the whole thing lol. i feel like this chapter probably left a couple questions with you guys so if you have one, drop it in the reviews and i'll actually most likely respond for once lol. other than that, follow/fave if you're new, thank you so much for reading all of this, and i hope you have a greaaaaat daaaaaayyyyy~~~~