Morning sunlight streamed in from between the curtains, lighting up the bedroom and drawing Chisaki out of her pleasant slumber. She groaned and curled up tighter on the bed where she lay. A hand shot out to scramble for an edge of blanket and heaved it over her head. It was only a moment later, however, that she turned over and pulled the blanket away with a frustrated huff.
She couldn't fall back asleep. But she didn't want to move, so she just lay there looking up at the ceiling and letting her eyes trace lazy patterns in the cracked plaster.
It wasn't long until she became aware of the clink of pans and plates coming from the kitchen.
Her mom must have been home.
She should probably get up…
Slowly, very slowly, she rolled out of bed.
Chisaki planted her feet on the floor and stumbled groggily out into the living room. After a moment she plopped herself down at the breakfast table and stifled a yawn.
"Good morning honey." Inko said as she slid a plate onto the table in front of her. It was piled high with scrambled eggs and toast.
"M-morning." She managed out before another yawn interrupted her.
"Late night?" Her mother asked as she took a seat opposite her daughter. Chisaki saw that she was smiling as she slid into view.
"Hmmm… must have been." Chisaki said, cocking her head. "I'm just so…" She stifled another yawn, "so tired." She said as she slumped over the table and reached for a fork.
Those eggs were looking soooo good. She shovelled a mouthful of delicious carbs into her mouth. It was a pure fluffy, savory, heaven.
"Well it must have been quite the night. You didn't even bother to change out of your school clothes." Inko said with a light laugh as she leaned towards her daughter, with one arm across the table and the other propped up on an elbow as she nibbled on some toast.
Chisaki took another bite of eggs and looked down to find that she was still dressed in her rumpled school uniform. Weird.
She shrugged it off and kept eating.
What had she done last night? Why hadn't she changed into her PJs?
Her mind was just so fuzzy.
Was I doing something with the league? She thought curiously as she leaned over the table and kept shoveling more food into her mouth. Her face screwed up in concentration, as her mind tried to force its way past the haze.
She had gone to the bar and met up with the league… then… then-
Her eyes flew wide open in realization and her stomach flipped in a wave of revulsion.
Her stomach lurched and something launched itself up her throat. She slammed her fork down onto the table, barreled out of her chair, and ran into the bathroom.
Not a second later, she was throwing up into the white porcelain toilet bowl.
After a few minutes of heaving, her stomach had finished emptying its contents. Her head was beginning to spin and she slumped onto the cold tile floor.
Exactly what had she done yesterday? What had she witnessed?
The league… Kurogiri, Giran, Shigaraki… they'd killed those people.
She stared at the blue tile of the bathroom floor, her eyes wide and frenzied.
Her mind replayed the way those villains had splattered onto the floor of the warehouse. The sheer terror on their faces just before they hit the ground… it was seared into her mind.
Her stomach flipped again and she lurched back to the toilet, just to dry heave into the nasty mess that was already there. Then the smell hit her and her stomach repeated its torment.
She flinched when a hand began rubbing circles on her back.
She looked over her shoulder to see her mother leaning down next to her, her face taught in worry.
"How are you doing honey?" Her voice was laced with such genuine concern that Chisaki's breath hitched in her throat. "Are you okay?"
"I…" She stared into her mother's big green eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"I…" She couldn't tell her.
"I…" She had to come up with an excuse.
"I... -I think that I'm having my period!" She blurted out in desperation.
For a second Inko just looked at her and blinked, stunned. Then her face relaxed into a smile of relief.
"Right… well we can deal with that, can't we? You know where the pads are, right?" She said as she rocked back on her heels and got up. "I'll leave you to get settled. I'm going to go get you some pain medicine before the cramps start."
"Th- thanks mom." Chisaki said, as she rubbed her arm self-consciously.
"No problem." Inko said with a sympathetic smile, before shutting the door behind her.
As soon as she was gone, Chisaki felt herself relax.
Her lungs let out a sigh and she leaned her head against the wall behind her. Her eyes fell unfocused on the cupboard opposite her and she stared off into space. Chisaki sat in this daze for a few minutes before a thought roused her from her stupor.
She couldn't sit like this all morning. Her mom was going to get suspicious if she took too long. Chisaki took a deep breath and slowly hefted herself up onto her feet.
She leaned onto the sink for support and looked up. Her hollow eyes bore back at her in the mirror. There were huge circles under her once bright eyes and her skin looked blotchy and red, not to mention that her lips were cracked and bleeding and her hair was stuck to her face with vomit and sweat.
She groaned and covered her face with her hands.
Get! Yourself! Together! She demanded.
Yes that was fucking horribleand… you can't take back what you've said and done… but life is going to move on. You can't wallow and sit here forever… Mom will worry and you'll just dig yourself a hole that you can't climb out of.
She took a deep breath and straightened in determination. For a moment, she just looked at her reflection. The girl there was small and looked to be severely ill, but she wasn't scared. She refused to be scared.
Everything is going to turn out okay! She reassured herself, breaking into a reassuring smile.
It has too…
A minute later she wandered out of the bathroom. Her mother immediately urged her to take the pain medicine, and she did, if anything to keep up appearances. Afterwards she hurried into the shower so that she could wash the sick off of her before she had to leave for school.
An hour later, she was walking out the door and waving her mother goodbye in an oddly typical fashion.
As she walked through the streets and retraced her normal route to school, a thought struck her.
With everything that had happened in the past twenty four hours, everything seemed too normal.
Since yesterday, she had been made an accomplice to murder and yet no one was saying a thing.
She was just another face in the crowd. People passed by her with little more than a glance, while she nervously trudged her way by them. She was gripped by relief at the lack of attention but also intense fear and trepidation. She couldn't help but picture that any second someone would turn around and look at her and know .
But no one was giving her weird looks. No one was even really seeing her.
It was unnerving.
She'd let the league murder six people, and done nothing but vomit in a corner… She was just as guilty as them.
There should have been some flag waving above her that marked her as a criminal.
It was this thought that compelled her to search the TV screens as she passed the shops, looking for even a glance at the morning news coverage, hoping and fearing for any reference to their deaths. Nothing.
She scrolled through the news feed on her phone. Still nothing.
It was almost as if their murders had never occured.
She was certain that six dead bodies should have solicited questions, but she could find no visible trace that they had even lived, much less died.
Her mind worked, drawing more questions as she stared blankly at her phone.
If this murder hadn't been made public, then what else hadn't? What if murders like these were commonplace in the criminal underworld? Did they just go unnoticed then? Would the police even find the bodies?
How could the brutal end of a life be so easily overlooked?
It was wrong -so, so wrong.
She felt her stomach churn in disgust, but she couldn't really pursue that thought. The school had just come into view. She needed to pull herself together. The people here would be looking at her much more closely than these strangers on the street.
Chisaki suddenly remembered that she was still holding her phone in her hand, and swung her backpack off her shoulder so that she could bury it in the deepest pocket of her backpack. She didn't want to risk Kachaan seeing it.
Last time he'd thrashed the previous one so bad that her mom had had to buy her a new one. Chisaki had lied at the time, saying that it had fallen into the road when a car was passing. Her mom had looked so sad and so worried, but she'd replaced the phone. As more and more things ended up broken or irreparably burnt and torn, Chisaki had returned to her mom with more lies. As this continued her mother's smiles became more and more strained.
At first Chisaki had thought that her mother was catching onto the lies, that she might have realized that something was wrong.
But then she'd stumbled upon her mother pouring over her bank statements late at night, when she thought that Chisaki was asleep. It was the money.
Kachaan's bullshit was taking its toll financially.
For everything Kachaan broke, burnt, or drilled a hole into, there was an extra expense that her mother couldn't afford. So, Chisaki had thought that if she could minimize the damage by keeping the important things out of his reach, then her mother wouldn't have to worry as much.
Chisaki plopped into her desk, as she thought this, already exhausted by her mess of a morning.
Immediately a familiar voice grated out from behind her.
"Deku! What the fuck do you think that you're doing here?"
She twisted around in her chair to see Bakugo marching up behind her.
"K-kachaan?"
"Shut it you piece of shit! Who gave you the right to ignore me? Huh?"
He towered over her, seething and setting off explosions in his palms.
She flinched away. "U-um. I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't know? -Don't Know!" He seethed. "You really are a useless piece of shit, Deku!" He slammed his hand on her desk, making her jump. "You walked away from me! What the fuck do you not know?"
The memory hit her. She'd been so concerned with going to see the league that she'd completely brushed him off. Back then this had been an issue for tomorrow, but now… Fuck. He was pissed off and she had no way to escape.
"Yeah you little shit, you did. Now you're going to learn what happens when you ignore me."
"B-Bakugo, the teacher's coming." One of his lackies called over from the doorway.
Katsuki tongue clicked in annoyance, eyes darting back to Chisaki and glaring as if it were her fault that the teacher had arrived to spoil his vengeance.
"Fine!" Bakugo spat out, lips drawing into a sneer. "We'll finish this after school - and, don't run away this time, Deku… or it'll be worse tomorrow."
He then turned on his heel and walked to his seat at the back of the room.
Even though he had put a physical distance between them, Chisaki could still feel his glare burning into her back and goosebumps rising on her skin.
A weight settled in her stomach as the teacher walked in to start class.
She only had a few hours left to live. Come the end of the school day, Bakugou would undoubtedly release on her the worst beating of her life. She swallowed over the growing lump in her throat as she stiffly pulled out a notebook and pencil. This was not how she had seen her day turning out when she'd woken up this morning.
The day passed at such an excruciatingly fast speed, that Chisaki felt like she had been given mental whiplash. Classes had been a terrifying blurr of sounds and incoherent words on pages. Then the final bell rang.
Everyone got up to leave and, though she hadn't even thought to escape them, Chisaki felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder. She looked up to find one of Bakugo's lackeys leering down at her. The other one stood by the door, grinning at her, reassuring her that there was no escape.
Both of them walked her out to the side of the building.
Bakugo was leaning against the wall when they got there, his arms crossed in front of him. As soon as he saw her turn the corner, he grinned.
It was absolutely terrifying.
"Hey there Deku ." He said as he pushed off of the wall and slowly sauntered over to her. Chisaki was acutely aware of the rage simmering in his eyes as he approached. "I have somewhere to be, so I'll make this quick."
In a blur of motion he landed a quick punch to her gut. Her breath hitched in her throat and she doubled over in pain, tears filling her eyes.
"Does that hurt?" He sneered. "Yeah, well it should. You're nothing, Deku." He landed a kick to her leg and it almost buckled under the force. "Powerless!" Now it was a shove to the floor. "Weak!" He kicked her in the side, and she curled up around the spot, gasping in pain. "You will do as I say Deku. I'm stronger. Better! -You? You're NOTHING!" He hissed. "Understood?"
She gave a weak nod, eyes squeezed shut and leaking tears.
"Good." He said.
He sounded satisfied enough, but Chisaki knew that this wasn't over.
Two new pairs of feet began to kick at her viciously, as if she were an oversized soccer ball.
She clenched her jaw to keep herself from screaming out in pain, and tightened her coil of lymbs to shield her head.
This wasn't Bakugo anymore. He was done.
He'd said his piece and now his lackeys were simply driving it home.
It was repulsive, cowardly. But that was just how things were between them. She'd always been the punching bag, the doormat, and now she'd stepped out of line.
Everything about this situation was wrong, but Chisaki couldn't fight back, couldn't say a word.
If she could spare any other person this pain then she would.
Her mind flashed to the events of the night before. Those men dying in terror.
Their pain had been worse than this. So she had to hold on so that she could stop them next time. She'd save them. She had to.
A few more minutes continued in striking pain, before Bakugo seemed to think that his point had been made well enough and he called off his lackeys.
"Thats enough you two."
The blows paused. Chisaki twitched, easing her eyes open to see Katsuki glaring down at her.
"Just remember which of us is going to be a hero, Deku!" He snarled.
Chisaki just bit her lip and curled back into her ball.
"Lets go you two." She heard Katsuki say.
"We're just going to leave her here?" One of the lackeys said.
"Yes!"
"Fine." The same one said with a huff.
"Piece of shit." The other said smugly, landing another kick to her back.
"What the hell did I just tell you, you idiot?" Katsuki roared. "I said that we're done!"
"S-sorry Bakugo!" He stammered in a panic.
"Get over here, you little shit!"
"Y-yes!"
There was a crunch of grass and gravel as the footsteps receded.
Even after she was sure that they were gone, Chisaki just lay there on the floor, eyes closed. Her whole body ached and she just wanted to lay there and cry, but she knew that she couldn't. She had to get home before the bruises started to show or people would start to ask questions.
With a groan she leaned against the wall and pulled herself to her feet. When she straightened, she hissed in pain. Her whole torso felt like it was on fire and that distant ache became a fierce burn. Those were definitely going to be some nasty bruises in the morning.
She rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath. She just needed to get home and then, once she was safely tucked out of sight, she could properly assess the damages.
For once she was grateful that her mom wasn't around today. It had been years since she'd gotten hurt this bad and she didn't want her mom to see her like this. Before she'd been able to excuse it as kids just fooling around, but now they were supposed to have outgrown that.
Chisaki began to look around for her bag. At some point they must have taken it from her because she found it on the floor a few feet away. Thankfully they seemed to have left it alone and everything inside was virtually untouched.
She hauled it onto her back with a groan and began to treck her way home.
By the time Chisaki had made it into her apartment, she was so exhausted that she was tempted to just collapse onto the couch and not move again; but first she had to drag herself to the bathroom to get the first aid kit.
She flicked on the TV and set it onto the news channel as she plopped down onto the cushions.
She liked it as background noise. It was a nice distraction from her pain. It reminded her that she wasn't the only one hurting, that there were people out there that still needed help.
She dragged her shirt off over her head as a newscaster's unnervingly chipper voice trilled at her. Her fingers tested the skin along her ribs gingerly, her whole body tensing when she hit a particularly excruciating spot. She really hoped that nothing was broken. She wasn't sure how she'd explain something like that.
On the TV the announcer was rambling about some recent villain activity. As Chisaki watched the news and continued to assess her condition, her mind was left to drift. Eventually it settled on her hazy memories of last night. After that gut wrenching massacre, she'd gone back to the bar and had some discussion with Sensei and Shigaraki. They'd mentioned some monsters Sensei was making. —Weird, but okay.
Then Shigaraki had proposed some sort of game, and she'd agreed.
Why had she agreed? She pushed her mind to remember.
He'd called it a test. They were both going to lead a group in some kind of pincer attack during some raid… she'd never done anything like that before. Hell, she'd never been in a propper fight before. She didn't even have a way to protect herself; she wasn't trained and a useless, quirkless, fool who was prone to overanalyzing literally everything. And, god, she only had two months. What the hell was she supposed to do?
She sighed and slumped in on herself, almost as quickly straightening in pain. Her back had screamed with fire.
Well, now she was sure that she was positively fucked! Not only was she useless and quirkless, now she'd gotten herself beat up so badly that she couldn't even sit how she wanted to!
Why had she agreed to this again? She'd wanted to prove herself, right? Yeah, well failing wasn't going to do that for her!
She sighed and began assessing her back.
If she wanted to have even a hope of surviving against Shigaraki, she was going to need to think of a plan and start training as soon as possible. —A hiss of pain rattled from her lips. She'd twisted into a particularly unfortunate position, in an attempt to get a look at her back, and it sent a jolt of pain through her muscles.— Right. She'd start her training as soon as these bruises healed.
They wrapped around her stomach, sides, and back in a mosaic of blue and purple splotches that throbbed incessantly. Chisaki didn't doubt that there'd be green in there by tomorrow morning.
All she could do for now was pat the bruises with disinfectant, particularly where the skin had broken, and dab at them with warm water.
After a while of tending to her wounds in quiet apathy for herself, the voice on the TV caught her attention.
She looked up to see a clip of All Might playing in a loop on screen while a reporter sang his praises. Apparently he'd saved a woman from a fifteen story fall in a crowded mall.
How gallant. She thought sarcastically with a roll of her eyes. An effort truly worthy of the title of the protector of peace.
It was incidents like these that made the heroes look particularly gaudy and self interested.
After all, if they reacted only for the highly publicized threats, then who were they truly serving but themselves?
Chisaki was sure that that was true, and yet…
She wanted so badly to see All Might as the crippled little man who was clinging desperately to his hero-dom, but she couldn't help but be awestruck at the sight of All Might on screen.
Such a reliable image of power. Those broad shoulders that almost begged you to rely on them. A smile that quelled your worries no matter how much you wanted to feel otherwise.
It made her heart ache, as if that had been dealt a worse blow than Katsuki's lackeys could ever hope to deliver.
She thought that she'd gotten over her love of All Might, and perhaps she had because this wasn't love. It was something else, something closer to admiration, but at once a little darker than that.
She could learn a lot from the number one hero —after all he'd charmed a nation if not the world— but she didn't want to be him. She couldn't stand for something so fake. Definitely not when someone like Kachaan was professed as an ideal hero. Somehow this cruel future hero was far worse than the villains who had treated her with far more humanity. After all, what kind of "guardian of the innocent" went out of their way to beat up and terrorized childhood friends? No she wasn't a hero. Not like that.
If she didn't want to be a hero like All Might, then who did she want to be? A villain like Sensei?
That was definitely closer, but she didn't want to end up a reckless killer like Shigaraki.
While Chisaki could understand why he did what he did, and she might have gone as far as to call it necessary, that just wasn't her. She wasn't a murderer. That just wasn't what she wanted for herself in the end.
She could easily see herself working alongside Shigaraki. Afterall, he did seem to have the makings of a good leader somewhere in him, even if he could be a little narrow minded and immature at times.
She just wanted to hold onto her morals a little more tightly.
Chisaki suddenly became aware of herself and her blank gaze, at the jarring sound of her phone ringing on the couch next to her.
It was "BartenderBoy".
Chisaki immediately slid her thumb across the screen and held the phone to her ear.
"Hey, Kurogiri. Whats up?"
"Chisaki. Good afternoon. I wanted to inform you that Sensei has found a quirk for you."
A quirk? When had they discussed a-
Last night. They'd only mentioned it briefly, and she'd been more excited by the fact that All for One even existed so the impossible comment hadn't even registered, but she was getting a quirk.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She was getting a quirk .
She, Chisaki Midoriya, the quirkless nobody was getting a QUIRK!
"R-right." She stumbled out with a smile, trying to keep her voice even. "What do I need to do?"
"Can you come in today?"
She had been about to respond with a resounding 'Yes!', when her heart sank. She looked down at her bruised body.
She couldn't appear before Sensei, not like this, not today.
"I-I'm sorry, I can't make it this afternoon. Would it be alright if I visited tomorrow?"
There was a pause.
Chisaki's stomach knotted in worry.
Fuck. Had she really just fucked up her only opportunity to have a quirk?
Kurogiri's voice sounded like thunder in her ears.
"Yes. That should be fine." He said evenly. "Tomorrow at four then?"
"Yes, Sir." She said, smiling in relief. "I will be there."
"Then, I will see you then. Have a good night Chisaki."
"Goodnight Kurogiri."
He hung up.
She leaned into the back of the sofa, head lolling back to stare at the ceiling, smiling from ear to ear.
It was going to happen. She was going to have a quirk, one that Sensei had chosen for her no less!
She would have been jumping up and down in joy if the mear motion of sitting up hadn't made her cringe in pain. So Chisaki just sat there and smiled wistfully. It sounded too good to be true, like some dream that she would wake up from any moment.
"Me… a quirk." She let out in wonder, as if testing the impossible words. She laughed at the thought, excitement coursing through her veins and driving her smile so wide that her cheeks hurt. "Tomorrow..."
She'd have a quirk by tomorrow night. She couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to have a quirk. Would it feel different? Would it make her stronger? What would she do if she looked different?
Chisaki just squealed and kicked her feet in excitement. She immediately regretted it, doubling over in pain –yet, it seemed duller now, suddenly more bearable. She let out a breathy laugh as she straightened.
"Oof, that was dumb. Definitely not doing that again." She whispered to herself, smiling sheepishly as she rolled to her feet. She pulled her arms above her head in a careful stretch, her eyes on the droning news broadcast with its dumb heroes and even dumber praises.
Tomorrow would be a new day.
Things would change.
