Word Count: 4,703

"Haku!" Jirou immediately yelled, running up to him far faster than Shoto could have feasibly expected from anyone who had spent several groveling hours in a battle. "Haku," he repeated breathlessly, nearly collapsing right alongside the captain, and for a few moments, that was all either of them could do: breathe.

"Jirou," Shoto began, but the boy turned to stare at him so abruptly, he forgot what he was going to say. (Though, something told him he wouldn't have gotten a word in anyway.)

"Captain, please, let me take him to the medical station," Jirou blurted out, "I'm sure there are many others in far worse condition than Haku, and I've taken care of him before, I can do it, so please, Captain—"

"No," Shoto cut him off, tightening his grip on the unconscious soldier in his arms. "I can do it." And maybe he'd check up on the other casualties while there, but for the moment, all he wanted was to save just this one.

The world was still bleary and dancing with stars when Momo opened her eyes again. She blinked several times, still struggling to observe her surroundings as her vision faded back in a little more each time.

The tent flap rustled open, and she whipped her head in its direction, her mind still too muddled to consider what it would mean. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as the rest of her mind finally sharpened into perfect focus, all the while only vaguely aware of the chill that stung her almost everywhere.

"So it's true."

Momo's hand fell to her lap. Vision recovered, she looked up at the person who had just spoken, and her stomach flipped down into her gut when she saw the captain staring at her coldly. She glanced around.

What happened to her? The last she remembered was firing the cannon at the mountain, then struggling to breathe for a moment as someone swept her off her feet. Then, her memories cut out, and for all she knew, she could have been brought to…

Wait, was this the medical tent?

Her heart leapt up to her throat, her hands instinctively pulled the thin blanket up to her chest to hide the bindings given to her (she should have known something like this could have happened and worn her own anyway!), but it was already much too late. He had already seen her for who she was. He already knew.

She sent him a pleading look anyway, hoping that perhaps the long hours spent of them opening up to one another by the light of the moon would somehow, in some way, repair some of the trust she knew she had just betrayed. "Shoto, please. I can explain."

He stared back at her, his expression unreadable and making her feel very, very small. "Then explain, woman."

Momo recoiled slightly, hurt by both the way he looked at her and his choice of words. "My name is Momo Yaoyorozu. I joined to save my father. He's old, far too old to fight in a war, so I…" She trailed off, faltering at the seeming indifference coming from Captain Todoroki. She hung her head in shame, her face burning with shame and embarrassment. "I didn't mean for it to go this far."

There was pause enough for the lump growing in her throat to feel as if it were choking her. She would not cry. She would not cry.

"I see," he said.

"It was the only way," she choked out. "Please. Believe me."

"This is high treason. The punishment is death."

A single tear slipped out unbidden. "I understand," she whispered as her gut twisted.

He extended a hand out to her, making her throat tighten with emotion. She took it, and immediately he yanked her to her feet and pushed her outside. She stumbled for a moment, the sharp rocks cutting into her feet, and she clutched the threadbare blanket like a lifeline against the sudden stares and sharp wind. Now everyone knew, but still, for a second, she dared look up and saw Shoto send Aizawa a questioning glance.

The older man said, "If you think it's right." Next to him, Hawks merely shrugged with indifference.

Shoto looked back at her, and she shivered under his steely gaze. A hand went to his waist and the blade that rested there.

"Captain?" a soldier, Tetsutetsu by the sound of it, called out, uncertain.

But the captain made no move to draw his sword or even move. "Because you won the battle for us and saved all our lives today, I'll spare yours. A life for our lives. You will put on your clothes, and you will ride home immediately under the excuse that you can no longer fight due to your injuries. I don't want to see you back here ever again. Understood?"

There was another pause as Momo struggled to process her pardon.

"Do you understand, soldier?"

"I understand," she said, keenly aware and wholly overwhelmed by all the eyes trained on her.

"Captain."

"Captain," she belatedly added. "I understand, captain."

Todoroki grunted and pushed her back into the tent, into privacy. Momo was simply left in a daze.

Her uniform was laid, neatly folded, next to the bloodied mat, most likely thanks to Kyouka. Uraraka wriggled out from the folds of her clothes and looked up at Momo. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help when you got hurt. What happened just now, that was so lucky," she said, pulling Deku out with her.

There was a distinct pause as Momo turned to stare at the entrance, disbelieving weightlessness overwhelming her. "Yeah," she said at last. "It was."

Uraraka looked at her with concern but said nothing.

Kyouka knew the second she saw Captain Todoroki walk into that tent that Momo was in trouble. She knew Momo's charade was up, and for all the trouble she knew her best friend would be in, she blamed herself. She should have insisted, should have caught the captain and pried Momo out of his hands to care for her herself before he left her in the dust.

But instead, she had been left staring at him leave as she stayed collapsed on the ground, too weak to even save her best friend, her kindred spirit, from certain doom.

She tasted the bitter bile as it stung the back of her tongue, watched as the captain yanked Momo out of the tent to show the world who she really was, but she also saw that look he sent the old man Aizawa, that look of confusion. A request for guidance. And when none was offered, he spared Momo.

However…

Kyouka bit her lip as she paused rolling up her sleeping mat for a moment. Did she truly dare go after Momo on her own? After returning Uraraka and that cricket, she had no one left in the army who knew of her secret. It would be a dangerous journey, especially since sneaking out was already losing her time.

In the end, it was not even she who made the decision.

The tent flap opened with a sharp snap, and Kyouka's stomach leapt into her throat as she turned to see Kirishima walk in, his expression set in stony determination.

"We're coming with you," he said, and in his tone there was no room for negotiation.

"What?" Kyouka said anyway; her voice shot up an octave from nerves— the first it had happened in all her time in the army— but it hardly mattered anymore.

"We're coming with you," he repeated in the exact same fashion as before.

"We?" Kyouka dubiously asked, already certain of the direction this was going. (But she pretended she didn't and finished packing her bedroll anyway.)

"Denki is coming too," Kirishima declared, and when Kyouka opened her mouth to object, he continued: "No arguments. We both scraped together what we need, and we're leaving with you the second you're finished."

Kyouka closed her mouth, painfully aware of the sharp click her teeth made when she did so. Well, that answered her question, did it not? It almost made her want to laugh and cry at the same time, how perfect this situation would be had the one person she so desperately wanted to avoid was locked in to come along.

No arguments.

It was her fault Momo had been exposed to all of the army. If she had just insisted— as she should have as her best friend— if she hadn't been so naïve so as to think this wouldn't have happened, then none of this would have happened. Momo simply would have been hailed a hero for taking out the final, massive enemy wave standing between them and the emperor, and maybe, just maybe, they could have finished their business in the army and gone home to their regular lives with no one the wiser. But instead—

Kyouka slung the last of her luggage over her shoulder, just hard enough to hurt when it hit a neck muscle and distract her from her own toxic thought process.

"All right," she said, and she marched right on outside to meet Denki tending to all of their horses. She ignored him as she loaded up Kouda and took back his reins, but that became hard to do when he decided to march up to her and take up her entire field of vision.

He flicked her between the eyes. "You okay there, dude? Your eyebrows are starting to look like ol' Bakugou's—"

"—like they're making out, I get it," she sourly snapped, furrowing her brows further and shooting Kirishima a baleful glare for bringing him along. "I just." She sighed.

"…Feel a little overwhelmed right now?" Kirishima offered, replying to her glare with a "it's good for you so deal with it" look. "Yeah, I get you."

Denki immediately backed out of her sight. "Yeah, I mean, who could have known that Haku was a girl the whole entire time?" he asked in earnest, and his genuinity physically pained Kyouka.

She and Kirishima shared a look, and in that moment, she knew he suspected her as well.

Kyouka grit her teeth, leapt onto her horse, and began to cantor away.

She couldn't take it. She didn't have time to deal with this bullshit; she was worried about Momo. Her best friend, so horribly betrayed by the one she loved, sent home in shame instead of given the honorable death in battle.

Now, it was up to her to set everything right, to bring Momo back and to make that stupid blockhead of a captain Todoroki just see the fact that she was a WAR HERO and deserved better than how he had treated her? (And maybe she would have also told him how Momo saw him had she not already known what it was like to be on the receiving end of that kind of reveal.)

"Woah, woah, woah," Denki called as he and Kirishima ran after her, their horses in tow. "What's going on here, Jirou? Why are you so—"

"I knew what was going on the entire time, Chargedolt," Jirou snapped as her horse stumbled over a rock. "Her name is Momo, and she's lucky that that— that— that bitch of a captain Todoroki didn't execute her on the spot. So now I'm going after her because what happened to her back there was bullshit, and she deserves better than to be sent home in the cold."

Heavens knew Momo loved that dumbass captain, but by the gods, did he seriously? Have to do that to her? Screw the fact that she wasn't a he; was he really so shallow that he couldn't honor one perfect exception to the rules? If saving the emperor by destroying the last of the enemy leaders wasn't reason enough to break those shitty rules, then by all means fuck them.

Denki leapt onto his horse and cut her off with his own, forcing her to look at him. "So then… what's all this about? You're being awfully dramatic about all this. Don't tell me you—"

"NO, FUZZBRAIN!" Kyouka yelled, for once glad for the sting of the mountain wind excusing the tears she struggled to rein in. Was he really going to say all this to her? As if he was looking for her to break his heart? What kind of idiot… Maybe insulting him the way Bakugou did would drive home his stupidity. "It's because I'm a girl, too."

"That doesn't rule anything out," Kirishima oh-so helpfully chimed in, earning himself a glare from Kyo. Was his impulse control seriously that poor? Whatever, she didn't have the time or care to think about it.

"Trust me when I say I don't swing toward her that way," she grunted, irritated. "Besides, we all know I wouldn't have a chance with her anyway; we knew the second even fucking Denki figured out her crush on the captain. If she's going to get kicked out and sent home just because somebody found out she's not got something down there, then I'm going to make it my job to see that she at least gets the recognition deserves."

She could feel his confused, almost hollow, gaze on her as he asked, in the scratchiest, hollowest of voices, "But why?"

She wanted to scream, to tear her hair out. Idiot, idiot, idiot. What an idiot. She even more so for even liking him idiot idiot idiot. "Heavens above, Denki," she said, her voice too broken, too tearful to shout at him, "Haven't you ever heard of sworn sisters? Of kindred spirits?"

"No," he admitted, catching up and riding beside her, "I've never heard of any of those before. But that's a fair point all the same." He backed up and let her begin moving again, then fell in step with her. "So, uh… what's your name?" he asked as Kirishima finally mounted his horse and trotted to catch up with the two of them.

Kyouka sniffled and wiped her nose, already turning red and raw from the cold. "Kyouka. Kyouka Jirou."

Denki squinted up at the clouds, through the tiny, stinging shards of sleet starting to fall from above, and he smiled. "That's a pretty name… Kyouka," he said, half to himself it seemed.

"Oh, piss off," Kyouka muttered, making it a point not to look at him.

The three fell silent.

"Well, since it seems like half our friend group has secretly been comprised of girls," Kirishima cheerfully said after a spell, again apparently totally devoid of delicacy (and also strangely unfazed), "does anyone else happen to have any other reveals, revelations, and/or announcements?" When no one replied (Kyouka simply stewed in her anger, and it seemed Denki didn't want to disturb that), he said, "Okay then, it looks like I'll have to break the ice then. I'm gay, y'all."

"We know that, Kiri," Kyouka snapped, frankly more mad that he took her own confession so easily in stride. "We've seen the way you watch Bakugou, wax on about him and his manliness when we have nothing better to do, the way you follow him and bother him every chance you've gotten. We know."

"Well, it's still nice to say it out loud," the redhead meekly replied. "For all I've told you guys, I could have been bisexual. Or pansexual. Or something else that is not straight."

Kyouka huffed and flicked Kouda's reins to get ahead.

It was going to be a loooong trip.

"All right, all right, all RIGHT!" Present Mic cheered as he entered Emperor Nezu's room to read Aizawa's latest report, dated back to just over a week ago. "The time has come to update his imperial maaaaajesty on the whereabouts and goings-on of the, uh…"

Nezu smiled and shook his head good-naturedly as he watched Mic peek back at the wax seal of the scroll so he could remember who it was this time. He didn't blame Mic, no, not a mite, since there was always a lot going on that it would be impossible to remember everything.

"Todoroki kid, and his assistant captain that you picked out, Bakugou!"

"Oh, yes, them," Nezu said fondly. "I quite wonder what they're up to. Do tell, my dear Mic."

"Well!" Mic dramatically unfurled the scroll and scanned the first few lines. "Everyone here sucks, get me out of this dump, we met a dumb birdbrain the other day… Oh, he must be talking about General Hawks here. Uh, heading out to the mountains soon under the assumption that Shigaraki's men are waiting in the pass for us there. That sounds relevant."

"Indeed it does," agreed Nezu. "If they're staking out in the mountains, then that means we may come into direct danger soon."

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Mic breezily, flipping through the rest of the letter. "Says here that— with the help of Hawks and his men, of course— they won a battle against… one of the other Todoroki sons? Man, this is making me curious about their family drama; there's like zero context for that statement."

"That doesn't mean we should grow complacent," Nezu chided. "Anything else?"

"Hmm… Endeavor's youngest and his co-captain both received promotions. Blah, blah, blah, more of Shouta being negative…"

Nezu nodded along, listening with but half an ear. He was uncharacteristically silent for the rest of his report, for in his head the cogs were already turning, preparing for the possibility of the worst.

"…You're sure Kurogiri and Shigaraki are camped out at the mountain pass?"

Dabi snorted. "Of course I'm sure. It's part of the shortest route back to the emperor's palace from here. If they know our location, and if they think we think they're going to go straight for the heart of the nation now that the armies are scattered— we are the closest to the capital, after all— then the most logical place for them to be would be there. The plan would be to ambush you, and once they were done destroying everything, they could march on over to the emperor's doorstep and have at him."

The other men at the table stared at Dabi as he leaned back with his arms folded across his chest. A beat of silence passed, and Dabi's self-satisfied half-smirk rapidly melted away for a scowl.

"What?" he snapped, waving an arm at them in indignance. "I was told stuff in my time as a commander. I have a brain. You guys think it's wild that I can figure some stuff out?"

"I'd have thought not," cat-kid muttered. "Figured you roasted half your smarts away with your face, if you had that much in the first place."

"Katsuki," Aizawa warned, and the kid quieted down. Huh. So that was his name. Too bad for him that cat-kid was too much fun.

"Anyway," Hawks chimed in, "That seems pretty legit, and even if it's wrong, we can take the time to report back in person, maybe add some more security to the imperial palace for a while. I say take the mountain pass."

"I guess," cat-kid grumbled.

"I'm just here to make sure none of you burn the camp to the ground," Aizawa grunted, "but remember, we're not taking shots in the dark as to what the enemy is thinking. As absurdly straightforward this may seem to us, that's only because we have the bigger picture. They don't know we know, and if it's advice you want, I'm telling you to capitalize on that." He mirrored Dabi's pose, leaning back and crossing his arms.

Then, all eyes were on Shoto.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "General Hawks is right, and I trust Dabi. We should go through the pass."

Dabi nodded with everyone else, secretly feeling a little smidge of smug pride in the fact that his little brother trusted him. Not that he was lying to everyone or trying to trick them into walking into their dooms, no! He liked to consider himself a neutral party in this war, just doing as he pleased to get the ends he desired regardless of the means. He might not have had every scrap of information to offer them, but he figured it was enough to be useful.

"All right then," Hawks said, sounding quite pleased with the brevity of the meeting. "We spend the rest of the day packing, spend the night under the stars, and move out at dawn. If everything goes all right, we should be there by dusk."

"Cool," Dabi said, parroting what the other man said the night before, but he did genuinely mean it. To some degree, anyway. The full moon was nearing, so if they fought after sundown, it wouldn't be impossible to see in the barren, rocky mountain pass. Assuming they weren't seen first, it could turn out to be an interesting fight.

The other men took a little longer to come around.

"Very well," Aizawa said, sounding almost a little bored, a little skeptical as he got up at left. He didn't wait to see anyone's reactions, effectively declaring the meeting over.

Wordlessly, Shoto excused himself, plodding out the door with cat-kid close behind. Dabi sprang up, ready to follow his brother, but Hawks stared at him.

"What?" the former said with a scowl.

"Nothing," Hawks replied, though his suspicious blandness suggested something otherwise. "Just, y'know. Maybe cut the kid some slack one of these days. He seems sensitive."

Dabi cocked an eyebrow. "Which one?" he asked, and he genuinely meant it. He was fairly sure their father beat anything resembling an emotion out of Shoto since he was a kid, and cat-kid only ever seemed angry.

Hawks shrugged. "Both. But, like, just in case something happens that affects him, we should back off."

"What makes you say that?"

"My inner good and cool uncle," Hawks tittered with half a laugh, crossing his arms.

Dabi resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah, okay," he grunted, walking out the door with Hawks's words already half-evaporated from his mind.

Evening tea is always nice, Itsuka thought as she sipped tea with Camie out on the pavilion.

"You know, somethin' just doesn't seem right about Momo these days," Camie commented, completely out of the blue, as she set down her teacup.

Itsuka took it in stride, having harbored the same thoughts for quite some time now but never finding an appropriate opportunity to express them. "Yeah, I don't think I've seen her in months."

"And she loves tea, remember?" Camie said, propping her chin up on her elbow. She furrowed her brow just slightly as she stared at the setting sun, seemingly lost in thought. "I never thought I'd see a day when she'd miss out on an invitation to tea with the two of us."

"But what else could have happened to her other than what her parents tell us?" Itsuka countered. "Nothing, unless she was taken away to be a ghost bride."

"Maybe she went to war," Camie said without missing a beat, only half joking.

"That's absurd," Itsuka replied, and she took a slight sip of tea. "She'd have been caught by now, I'm sure of it."

"Guess that means she's gone forever then, huh?"

Itsuka swallowed her tiny mouthful of tea and put her cup down delicately. She hadn't considered that, honestly. "Nah, she'll be back. She just has to study more, that's all," she said at last, and, before Camie could continue on with this conspiracy: "So, have you met your fiancé yet?"

He couldn't say he had exactly known that Jirou was a girl, exactly. But from her expression, the way she opened her mouth as if to say something, when he told her about Denki's crush on her, a seed of suspicion had already been planted. So when she told them just now this secret, the same one that had apparently gotten Momo kicked out, he hadn't been surprised.

Maybe that was why she was mad at the both of them now. Denki for, well, liking her, it seemed; himself for acting like her confession was something to be brushed off when it so obviously was not.

So now, they gave her all the space they could afford, knowing she needed it. He wasn't sure what else to do but to tag along with her no matter how hard she tried to lose them in these mountains. He dared not even speak to Denki, her still-simmering temper hiking the tension to a point neither boy dared to snap.

Something poked Kirishima in the side, and he turned to see Denki pointing ahead, mouthing, "I'm gonna try to talk to her."

Kirishima stared at him. Was he for serious?

Maybe he was emboldened by their newfound discovery and thought he could approach Kyouka again under the lens of his crush. Maybe, maybe.

Kiri bit his tongue to keep himself from saying anything. He dearly wished to, but at the same time, maybe it was best to get that first explosive interaction over with before it putrefied into something truly sour.

It's good for them.

That was his last thought before his mind turned completely blank, autopiloting as he stared at the ground and let Riot follow her own heart for a while. (Ideally, her heart would also be following his friends, but he wasn't thinking anymore.)

However, time without any markers of his passing may as well have never happened at all. It seemed as if the instant he fully zoned out, Kyouka was glaring daggers in his direction. If looks could kill, he wouldn't have even been conscious for it. He blinked a few times, just to make sure he had both feet in the real world again, then glanced upwards to find the sky replaced by the roof of a cave. (Had he really come all this way without thinking?)

He flicked his eyes back to his friends— to Denki, who sat opposite of him from a fire pit, and to Kyouka, nowhere near said fire, and whose death stare dissipated with a blink as she looked away. The dusk had turned to twilight, it seemed, and still nothing had been resolved.

Kirishima bit his tongue and hoped that his friends would make up soon. (He shot a Look at Kyouka again.) They were stubborn, but it was good for them. Even though he had contributed to the mess himself.

But for now, their little corner of the world was stone silent.

Oh, how quickly the seasons changed. How crisp and sharp the night air was! It stung at Shigaraki's lungs, made his breath creak and crackle without even trying. It felt like hardly any time had passed since the fateful night he crossed the Great Wall.

The pale moonlight shone down on the remains of most of his forces, buried in the rockslide thanks to that one soldier. Shigaraki stared at it disinterestedly, clutching the rolled up final instructions given to him by his master.

The loss of Kurogiri was a shame, true, but he was ultimately replaceable, as were all the other soldiers who perished today. In the end, the smaller the army, the easier to move and infiltrate it became.

kraklkraklkrakl went Shigaraki's joints as he cracked them, a nervous habit of his.

If all was as his master taught him (as it should be), then one man should be the stealthiest of them all.

Author's Note xvii. yay i'm only a week late this time! ヽ(^◇^*)/ a lot of this was kinda-prewritten, and i say "kinda" because yeah i had something written out and ready to be copy-pasted into the story, but then stuff happened and the story was modified (with the extra battles n stuff) and it no longer 1. reflected my current writing style and ability or 2. fit perfectly anymore. so i just took a skeleton of it and organically implanted it best i could. (and by "a lot" of this i just mean the momo and kyouka segments lol) the flashback segment from dabi's perspective was actually cut from last chapter because i couldn't find a good place to end it and have it make sense, so i set it aside and mmm i think this was a good thing.

i fixed a cabinet when i was working in the back rooms yesterday! ideally, this cancels out how i got my finger stuck in a dropper bottle on monday because i, the fool and a half that i am, thought that transporting them by sticking them on my fingertips was a brilliant idea that could in no way go wrong. (it was actually hilarious tho)

also, did any of you catch how the "and..." pays out this chapter? it's part of a quote from lisa see's china dolls: "there are only three things that cannot be hidden for long: the sun, the moon, and the truth." that's the source of the last two chapter titles as well! ! ! i've always wanted to write something where the chapter titles are sometimes part of the narrative as well.

so yeah! that's about all this time. thank you for reading, follow/fave if you're new and interested, leave a review (regardless of how old the chapter is, i'd still love it~) if that's what you're into, and as always, have a greaaaat daaaayyy~~

phew, long a/n.