I sat between Kirishima and Koda as we worked with Sero and Todoroki on the effects for the concert. The band team was practicing in the living room. Yet again, Katsuki was scolded by Jiro for improvising too much with beginners.
"Let's go see what the dance team says about this," Sero looked up from his computer. He had rendered our idea of the stage setup.
Kirishima leaned back in his chair. "I don't know if we have enough people for this."
"Maybe we can incorporate someone from the dance team to help? If not, I have better control over separating my body now." I mused, letting my hand phase to dust and back. We all rose from the table and went outside to chat with Mina and the rest of the dance team.
"Dance team, new idea!" Kirishima took off running down the steps and across the walk, crouching down. "It's Eri! No way, we were never actually introduced, were we."
The small silver-haired child peaked around Kirishima, ran through the dance team and slammed into me, wrapping her arms around my bare legs. I froze, lifting my arms up slightly. Why was Eri hugging me? I slowly looked around the class, Aizawa staring at me with a small smile. She pulled back and stared up at me, mesmerized. "How can I touch you?" Eri let go and poked at my exposed skin.
"Oh! I can turn that off and on," I gave her an awkward smile and extended my arms in front of myself, "try it now." Eri poked my arm, and her hand went right through me. Her eyes lit up as she moved her hands through my arms. She didn't, or couldn't, smile. Overhaul had left a deep-seated scar on her.
Mirio beamed and made his way to us, "Eri made you something." He handed a rolled paper to Eri once she was done with exploring my quirk. Eri unrolled the paper and presented it to me. I was shocked. She had drawn me.
"You drew this for me?" I knelt in front of her. She nodded, handing me the drawing. "Thank you, Eri."
"You're so strong, Polaris." She balled her hands into fists and pumped her small arms.
"Hey, I was strong too – right?" Mirio teased.
"How about we take a break? We've gotta get Makoto ready for her headshots." Mina cut in before anyone could answer Mirio.
"Oh!" Mirio put his arm around my shoulders. "You entered the beauty pageant? Nejire's excited about it, too! It's going to be impossible to decide who to vote for."
Mina clapped her hands together before pulling me away from Mirio, "okay, I'm stealing her back now. Let's go grab the dress and Momo." She turned with her hands on my shoulders and pushed us back into the dorm. "Man Makoto – stop making all the boys fall for you!" We jumped as the top hat crashed. Katsuki glared at us, a broken drumstick in his hand.
"Bakugo!" Jiro snapped, "be careful with my drums." Mina snickered.
Kaminari groaned, "you were doing so well, too."
"Shut it, Pikachu!" Katsuki snapped at him.
"We're stealing Momo," Mina called out. "It's time to get Makoto photo ready!"
Jiro took her bass off, setting it in its stand. "A break sounds like a good idea. Let's make some lunch and rest up." Mina, Momo, and I went up to my room to grab the bag of supplies we had made up.
Mina giggled, covering her mouth with a hand. "I'm so sorry, Makoto – but Bakugo was so jealous! He really likes you." I turned on my heel in surprise. She just said that out loud with Momo here.
Momo took a moment, staring between Mina and me until she gasped. Her face lit up. "Do you like Bakugo? That's a little… odd, but cute."
Mina jumped on the spot, pulling on Momo's sleeve. "No, no, no. Yaomomo – they're dating." I froze, my face flushing. I was not embarrassed about dating Katsuki. I was embarrassed that Mina would so casually tell someone else! I grabbed the pillow off my bed and threw it at Mina. "What was that for?"
My mind ran a mile a minute. "I don't know. I'm sorry. But why? It wasn't yours to tell. Katsuki and I didn't want to tell anyone yet. But you knew because you saw me coming out of his room last night. We weren't doing anything like you and Kirishima. He's my first boyfriend, and I don't know what to do, and this is all so," I covered my mouth with both of my hands to stop my flustered rambling. I turned and ran into the bathroom, locking myself in. I pressed myself against the door, my respiratory rate increasing as I took in quick, shallow breaths. Not now. I could not have a panic attack now!
Mina knocked on the door. "Makoto – I'm sorry. I'm just so excited for you two. I mean, Shoji and Kiri knew! I shouldn't have assumed, though. Forgive me?" I held my chest. I could not respond as my breaths quickened.
"We'll let you tell the others when you two are ready. Mina and I both promise we won't say anything." Momo jiggled the knob. "Anyway, we gotta get you to your headshots." I wheezed, grasping onto the porcelain sink. I felt faint. My legs were numb. I gripped the cold surface as hard as I could and stared at my chest in the mirror, focusing on watching my chest rise and fall. Come on. Slow it down.
After a few moments, there was another knock at my door. "Hey." I looked at my reflection in the mirror. It was Katsuki. "Raccoon Eyes and Ponytail told me what happened."
I was hyperventilating now. I sloppily opened my bathroom door. Katsuki was the only one in my room. His lips tightened into a line as he looked me over. I was a mess. He took my hands and placed them on his chest, breathing slowly and exaggeratedly. I closed my eyes, my hands gripping onto his shirt. In time, my breathing slowed as I concentrated on his breaths. I let out a slow sigh before my legs gave out. Katsuki held my hands, hunched over, as I sat on the floor of my bathroom. "Sorry."
He pulled me back onto my feet. "Stop fucking apologizing already." I went to apologize again but bit my lip to stop. We exited my room; Mina and Mom stood in the hall with the duffle bag and dress. "Let's get this shit over with."
"Are you joining us, boyfriend?" Mina smirked, hooking her arm with mine. "Sorry! I just get to tease you two in private for now." She smiled, poking my cheek.
"Of course I am, Raccoon Eyes," Katsuki scoffed as he followed us.
[B&M]
I rolled over in my bed and opened an eye to see the time on my alarm clock on my desk. A man with long, unkept black hair sat on top of my desk. Bright blue, half-hooded eyes watched me boredly. "Morning." I woke up fully and raised myself up on one arm, transforming my other into atoms. He smiled, his cigarette-stained teeth showing. "I see Redemption taught you something useful."
There was no way he could be here. He was supposed to be dead. "Why are you here?" Sirius lazily stood up and stepped off the desk, his heavy combat boots thumping onto the floor. Dang it – no one was below me.
"Gee – what a great family reunion we have here," he sneered, cracking his head to the side. His long black trench coat grazed the floor. His hair had grown down to his collarbone, his face sunken. His white t-shirt was dirtied from age, and his jeans were shredded.
"Where're the others?" I slowly lifted the blanket off myself and moved my feet to the floor to fight if needed. How the hell am I supposed to fight against Sirius?
He shrugged, lifting his arms up, "hell, should I know what your mother and sister are up to."
I bit my lip, confusion boiling on my face. "You don't know?" If my family were all villains – he should know.
His smile grew. It was creepy and unfit for his face, just like Aizawa's. "Those two are the crazy bitches in our messed up little family. Kaguya and I haven't spoken in years. I've followed you around to ensure you didn't do anything stupid."
"You've been following me," my jaw tightened. How had I not noticed?
He laughed. "Of course. I had to make sure you didn't do anything stupid." He shrugged. "Like when you tried to go through Kurogiri's portal while atomized or when your mother attacked you during All Might's fight with All For One."
"What?" I let my arm rematerialize. My mother was the one that attacked me. That wasn't Akari, after all.
He crossed his arms, "didn't Redemption warn you not to put yourself in the position where your atoms could be split." I nodded, licking my lips. He ran a hand over his face. "Man. Why did you have to turn out to be like me? Anyway, if you want to talk more – I'll be at my agency." Sirius gave a lazy wave with his right hand before he dissipated from his head downward. Agency? Sirius, a villain, was never part of any agency. I jumped out of bed with my phone, grabbed a black hoodie, and rushed from my room. The only agency he could have any possible connection to was Redemption Rising Hero Company. Redemption must have known that Sirius was alive this whole time. That was why he chose me for the internship and why he still trained me. I needed answers. I impatiently waited for the elevator to rise one floor to descend one floor. I grabbed my shoes from the pile at the entryway and burst out the front door and down the wooden patio steps, dissipating my legs at the knees.
"Where do you think you're going at this hour?" I froze. Aizawa stood, leaning against his vehicle at the front of the house.
"I'm going to Redemption's." I swallowed hard.
Aizawa lifted himself off his bumper. "How ironically convenient. I'm heading there, too. Want a ride?" He got into the driver's seat without waiting for a response. What was happening? I reformed my lower legs and padded barefoot across the walk to his car. I opened the door and sat down in the passenger seat, shutting the door behind me. I buckled myself in and quickly slipped my shoes on as we peeled away from the curb.
We drove along the evening streets in silence. No other vehicles were on the road this late at night except for some cabs. Aizawa had been waiting outside – like he expected me to. "You knew."
"Knew what?" He turned to eye me lazily for a moment before turning his attention back to the road. I sighed as we continued down the highway in silence. After a half hour of driving, Aizawa parked his vehicle in front of the large building; the lights were dimly lit in the main living space – but with the tinting on the window, we could not see in. Aizawa and I exited his vehicle. He took the steps two at a time and strode on in. I placed a hand over my eyes and let out a steady breath. I would finally get answers to what was going on. I entered after Aizawa, closing the door behind me. I watched as my teacher and Sirius high-fived each other lazily in greeting. "I'll give you four time to chat." I watched as he backtracked past me and opened the door to the basement. The heavy door slammed shut behind him as he descended the stairs. I returned my attention to the living space. Sirius sat on the sofa directly facing me, elbows resting on his knees. He had changed into ripped dark wash jeans and a rock band shirt. He had pulled half of his hair up into a small bun. Redemption sat on the sofa to the right of Sirius, with Pheonix seated between the two men.
I crossed my arms over my chest, "what's going on?"
Redemption rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, remember when you asked to have some combat training?" My brows rose into my bangs for a moment. Bringing in my villain father to teach me how to fight was his answer.
"It's time we explained everything," Sirius motioned with two fingers for me to sit on the empty sofa. I raised my chin but did not move. He rolled his eyes and sighed.
Redemption laughed, "told you she takes after you."
"Your 'agency'?" I kept my arms crossed, my jaw tight. Sirius reached into his rear pocket and took out his wallet. He pulled out a card with the 'hero' logo on the back and turned it to face me, his fingers on the edges. This did not make sense. His photo was there with his hero name listed as Sirius.
"I run the agency, but as an underground hero with the hero commission, I can't exactly be the face of it. So, this idiot is." He motioned with his head to his friend, who continued to smile before realizing the comment and snapping back. My jaw loosened.
I pointed toward Sirius with the arm that was folded on top, "but you've killed heroes. How can you be a hero?" He put his hero card back in his wallet and placed it on the coffee table in front of him.
He sighed. "Sit down first." I reluctantly sat on the sofa across from Redemption and Pheonix and beside Sirius. "I was scouted by the hero commission in middle school because of my quirk. Space Dust, as you know, is a very versatile quirk that stands out as the best at gathering intel. But what's the best way to gather the information you need? To be part of the group. So, I pretended to be a villain. I only killed people who killed egregiously themselves that the commission asked to be disposed of. It's easier for society to think a hero fell in battle to a villain rather than for the government to explain why they're sending a hero to Tartarus." He spoke the last sentence through gritted teeth.
"Why do that if you didn't want to?" I let my hands rest in my lap and pulled my legs up onto the sofa beside me.
He leaned back into the sofa. "I thought I was doing my own hero work."
"And then you fell in love," Redemption cut in.
"Ryuu," Sirius snapped, glaring at his friend. He just smiled back in return. Sirius sighed. "Fine. I met your mom after she graduated from UA and began working as a hero herself. Due to her quirk, we were paired up to hand off intelligence, and she could go after the villains I couldn't. It was obvious something was off when she used her quirk – but I didn't notice at the time since I loved her so much. It wasn't until after we had you and your sister that the symptoms got worse – and your sister inherited the same drawback to their quirk."
"They do?" I spurted. Sirius nodded. I had never noticed any repercussions to Akari's quirk usage.
"Their quirk, Light Speed, puts too much strain on the action potential in their brains. The more they use their quirks, the more damage occurs. You've noticed how Akari's personality changed." I froze, running over the moments in my mind. Akari attacked me with Light Spears at the Sports Festival. Akari attacking me in the halls of UA. Akari instigating the bullies and media in her favour. Akari leaving to join the League. Sirius spoke again, "I noticed those same things with Kaguya – she had a mental breakdown when All For One was injured by All Might." I stared at the wall past his head. That meant that all of Akari's recent actions weren't fully her. Her brain was physically no longer the same as when we were kids.
"C-can that be healed?" I wanted my sister back. Sirius shook his head. "And us?"
Sirius stuck his lip out to the side before speaking again. "Our drawback was why I continued with the hero commission after you were born. Your Grandfather didn't tell you everything about it at my request. I wanted to be the one to tell you one day. Yes, our cells can't keep up with the strain of energy consumption we put on our bodies to use our quirk - long-term damage occurs to our organs the more we use our quirk. Cells can only multiply so many times before they die after all." He lifted the hem of the shirt for a moment. His abdomen was littered with scars. Each scar was placed over various organs: kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, intestine. "My first organ to fail was my heart. Yours are your lungs. When you need a transplant, there will be new lungs for you. That was part of the deal I made with the hero commission." I stopped breathing for a moment as the edges of my vision darkened. That was what was happening? My organs were failing. I could expect all these symptoms to get progressively worse until I could no longer breathe and then have it all occur again and again throughout my body.
I pointed to the basement, "does Eraser know about all of this?"
"Course," Sirius looked back to me. "Needed a friend to keep tabs on you at UA and make sure you didn't accidentally off yourself."
"Wait," I set my feet back on the ground. "Something stopped me from going through Kurogiri's portal – was that you?"
Sirius let out a chuckle. "After your little boyfriend? Yeah. Did Ryuu not burn it into you to never split your atoms? Half of you would have stayed at the camp and other at the League's hideout."
"I needed to save him," I frowned. "I would have been fine."
"Unlikely." Sirius broke his hand down and flicked me in the forehead. I froze, taken aback by the movement.
"W-w-wait," Redemption sat up on the sofa. "Did Kai just say, boyfriend? Why have you not told me, your godfather, that you have a boyfriend? Who is the lucky bastard, and why have I not met them yet?"
I went to answer, but Sirius spoke instead. "It's the blonde boom-boom boy." I stared at him – what did my father just call Katsuki? My father…
"Oh!" Redemption laughed. "The one you rescued."
I lifted my hands up for a moment before resting them on my knees. "Back on track. Mom attacked me while we rescued Katsuki – did you intervene?" Sirius nodded. "Akari was never in Kamino, was she?"
He shook his head. "That was all Kaguya."
I swallowed. "Whose Yui?" Redemption and Sirius looked at each other. "Grandmother mentioned her in her letter."
Sirius leaned back into the sofa, crossing his legs. "Yui was Kaguya's sister. Your mother killed her when they were kids. I don't know the full story – but it appears to be her first mental break. That was why I had asked that your grandfather train you separately from your sister – just in case history repeated itself."
"Why did you leave me with them instead of taking me with you?" I shouted at him, shoulders rising. "I could have been here, living with you and learning from you instead of being treated like trash."
Sirius swallowed, staring at me. "I thought it would be better for you if you believed that I was dead."
"Didn't work out very well, now, did it?" My lips pulled into a tight line.
The corner of his mouth turned downward. "Any option I would have picked for you would have its own repercussions. Look at everything you've done without me in your life."
"What could have happened if you had been there, though," I asked pointedly. Tears started to swell in the corner of my eyes.
"I was," Sirius smiled. "You said your first word to me – 'da da'. During one of All Might's fights, you took your first steps towards the TV. The first day you used your quirk, you ran to your grandfather because you thought your hand had disappeared. On your first day of school, you sat in the corner and read while your sister played with the others. The first day when you cried when a cicada landed on you. I was there when you went out job hunting for the first time and the first cup of coffee you failed to make. I was there when you and Akari took the UA entrance exam and for your first day of school. I watched you save Midnight and Cementoss from her stupidity and through your internship here. I watched you transform my technique into something new to pass the provisional licensing exam. I was there for all of it.
"I wasn't there with you - but I was there." Sirius sat up again, reaching over to grasp my knee. His large hand covered my knee. Dozens of scars adorned his skin. Were those from before he created his ultimate defence? "Our family's just a little fucked up."
"Just a little?" I scrunched my nose.
He laughed, "well – it is when your grandmother looks better than her son." He eyed Phoenix.
She smiled, giving us two thumbs up. "My quirk keeps me youthful after all – I did die at nineteen the first time." I quickly looked between the two. The only trait we seemed to share was our face shape – Sirius did not even have that. "I'll tell you the whole story when we go out shopping tomorrow. I can finally spoil you and put you in some half-decent clothes." She clapped her hands together a few times before clasping them.
I gazed over the three of them as they chatted openly. Redemption had been friends with my father all his life – he had met Phoenix all the way back then. They both knew about me – about all of this. Sirius smiled and laughed while Phoenix leaned over and gave him a slap to his ribs. Sirius cringed. Now, they were bringing me into their little 'fucked up family'.
"Let's head to the basement – I want to show you something." My father stood, motioning with a lazy hand to follow. He stepped through the closed door under the stairs. Redemption opened the door, and we followed him down the flight of wooden steps. He pulled open a door at the end of the staircase, quickly moving out of the doorway before shoving me through. "Welcome home, Makoto!" Sirius stood in the center of a large stone room – surrounded by dozens of other heroes or vigilantes I had yet to meet. They all cheered, sloshing around their cans of beer or soda. A few welcomed me, slapping me on my back or shaking my hand. I was introduced to them all – but their names whirled in my mind. There were so many!
Pheonix handed me a can; I thanked her and took a sip, forcing it down. It was very bitter. I turned the can around so I could see the label. "You gave my student beer?" Aizawa lifted the can out of my hand with the tips of her fingers on the rim.
"I gave my granddaughter a beer," she stressed. "You're no fun, Eraser."
He raised three fingers, keeping his thumb and pinky on the rim. "Three days. I expect to see you in class on Wednesday." He tilted his head back, drank the beer, and sauntered to speak with a few others.
A/N::
I have tried to embed this link into the text - but for those that wish to view Makoto: insta gram /p/CNyk9tspuD7/ or under the username MurderComplication.
I did create her a white back with an image maker. I am, unfortunately, horrible at art so this will have to do for now. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and Makoto!