- December 17 - [Day 5]-

Chitose stared at her empty bank account for a short while before remembering something. "Oh! I almost forgot!" she said, but not too loud as to attract the attention of other people currently using the other ATM machine on the other side of the bank. "Remember just a few years back?"

Izuku chuckled, his green eyes setting on the zeroes on the ATM screen. "Yeah, made big news back then."

Chitose nodded in response. There was once a widespread event just around 4 years ago involving huge amounts of cardless ATMs displaying zero bank due to faulty programming. It caused quite a bit of panic amongst the population, as well as gave her ideas for articles for weeks on end.

Since then, almost all malfunctioning cardless ATMs have been recalled and re-installed back, and the problems basically disappeared. Chitose looked back on her bank balance again. This could just be one of the machines that were not recalled.

But if memory serves, a simple restart easily fixes the issue. Doing that, Chitose re-entered her account information, as well as the verification code of her bank account.

Yet the result is still the same.

"Huh?" she said in utter confusion, one hand going up to scratch the back of her head. "Still zero?"

"Maybe you just have to do it a third time?" Midoriya softly spoke beside her. "Although I don't remember these things failing a second time, do they?"

"Yeah… a second time should have fixed this. This seriously shouldn't still be zero. My Mom left several mil- I mean a lot of money here."

"Okay, then try it a third time perhaps?"

Chitose nodded, and repeated the process a third time. Much to her shock and confusion, the bank balance is still zero. She tried a fourth and fifth time, and her bank balance still won't move at zero. Panic began to well up inside her. What if the bank itself is watching as someone is repeatedly accessing a specific account on one of its ATMs? What if they're keeping track? She decided against trying a sixth time. She already avoided being caught and sent to jail just a few moments earlier, she doesn't need more stupid decisions.

Her eyes scanned the screen of the ATM, looking for something she could use to the very least investigate what's going on without further re-entering account information. Her gaze eventually landed on a question mark icon on the top left corner. Pressing that and reading around, she soon found herself on the log of all her withdrawals and deposits.

"What does it say?" Izuku asked, peeking into the screen. "I don't understand a thing what's going on in there."

Chitose slowly pulled her now-shaking hands back, eyes wide at what she saw at the topmost part of the list.

Her entire bank balance. All several millions of it. All suddenly at zero. What's stranger is that the withdrawal somehow got through the bank's own maximum daily withdraw limit, without the bank even knowing. Panic welling up even further, Chitose repeated the withdrawal process a sixth time to check for errors once again, neverminding if she's being tracked. It still ended with the exact same result. "Oh no…" she said, her voice shaking.

Looking around, numerous thoughts began racing inside her head. It can't be a Meta Ability-related crime because banks nowadays always have it their number one priority to defend people's bank accounts from such powers by utilizing counter-Quirks. Ironically, the 'best' way to steal a person's bank account nowadays is going through the old-fashioned route of hacking.

More thoughts came pouring in. As far as she can tell, the only other person who knew her bank account details is Skeptic, as he's the one in charge of defending the bank accounts of all high-ranking members against other hackers.

Whoever the person who did this must've have been better than their own resident hacker.

Her brows furrowed as even more thoughts joined in, making her mindscape a total mess of ideas aimlessly flying around. Why is her bank account gone? What happened? Is this connected to her suddenly getting younger? What is even connected to anything?! She can't just tell the bank what happened because of obvious reasons, so what to do now?!

The ideas swirled even moreso until a sudden headache exploded in her head, making her reel back in pain.

"Kizuki! Are you-?!" Izuku rushed on and held onto her shoulders in an attempt to stabilize her before she completely fell, but his short stature meant that he could only hold on for a few seconds and had to guide the taller girl back to the metal bench he's sitting on earlier if she is not to topple over him. The entire scene got them a few stares, but that's about it.

"Dammit!" Kizuki whispered loudly at her misfortune. Luckily, there's not a single hero on patrol on their particular road section at that time or else he or they would have taken her to the nearest hospital instead. 'My account's gone, I really need to get back to the army to have this investigated!' she thought as she brought up a hand to her unusually warm forehead.

"Maybe it's just a fluke, I'm sure there are other cardless ATMs around here. If you want we could take another bus to the next nearest bank?"

Chitose suddenly perked up, and immediately stood. Once again, just like what happened earlier, it took her a good while before she could manage to steady herself. "Good," she said, ending her word with a loud sigh, "let's go."

"Can you even walk?" Izuku asked loudly, concern evident in his voice. "I mean the next bank's not really that far away from here but-"

"No, I need to push on."

Izuku looked at her directly for a few seconds, lips slightly moving as if he wanted to say something but backed out at the very last moment and instead gestured for her to follow him as he walked away.

After another short trip via bus, they arrived at another bank. This time, there is no cardless ATM, forcing the two to move to yet another bank.

"Kizuki uh… this is the last bank that I know of and uh… the last remaining cash I have on me right now is just enough for us to get home," Izuku said as he slid one hand into his pant pocket. "And now you're looking way worse than back when we started…"

"Nonsense!" Chitose waved him off and went straight towards the one cardless ATM located just outside the bank. She then repeated the exact same steps as before, but the end result is that her account balance is still, in fact, zero.

Izuku stared at the screen of the machine, specifically at the pile of zeroes at the topmost part. He took a quick glance at the taller girl and noticed her just frozen in shock. "Umm… uh… I-uh…" he stammered, but as soon as he got an idea of what to say, the young woman quickly brought up her right hand and immediately began pressing buttons on the machine, until a whole new slew of data appeared onscreen, in which her eyes immediately locked onto the first few.

"December 12, 9:03 am…" Chitose whispered as she took one step back from the machine. "December 12, 9:03 am…" she repeated again, mind immediately going over to recall the particular event that happened at that particular time.

December 12 was the day of the Revival Party, and 9:00 am was the exact time she and Trumpet went down the elevator on their way to meet up with the League of Villains. Literally within minutes, someone already hacked into her bank account and stole all of her hard-earned cash, and managed to do so successfully without no one noticing.

Even worse is that she can't alert the authorities of the larceny that occured or else she would have to explain how she accessed the account of her 'dead mother' despite 'dead mother' clearly has 'single' written on her bank account.

Thoughts continued to swirl around Chitose's head, ramping up her headache and causing her to prop herself up with her arms planted onto the sides of the machine. "No… this can't be real…" she muttered in the midst of panting, trying to think of anything to hopefully fix whatever's going on.

"Kizuki, we really need to go home-"

"No, I have to-"

"We've done everything we can for today. I don't know any other banks. And now you're looking like two seconds away from passing out, we really should go home now. If you want we can just continue this whole investigation-thing tomorrow, okay?"

Chitose, her face expressing a combination of annoyance and frustration, stared back at Izuku for a brief while. On one hand, she needs to have cash in hand to not become too much of a burden as she continued her search for the Liberation Army. But on the other, she knew she won't be able to keep standing for long. While her immune system is certainly far better than a regular person, but like all immune systems, it requires adequate rest in order to function properly.

'But the army-' Chitose shook her head. She was about to say something about trying again one last time but decided not to. With her head down in defeat, she took a few steps away from the machine.

"I know you're going through a lot right now but-"

"Nah, I'm fine. Let's go hom-" Chitose was cut off by Izuku suddenly pulling the back of her shirt as she was one step away from colliding on a lamp post. "Uh, that was intentional," she added, but in reality she can barely see anything just meters in front of her, let alone make out the shape of a lamp post right in her way.

"No you're not fine, you need to rest," Izuku said, placing a hand on the taller girl's shoulder as he guided her towards the nearest bus stop, making sure she's not about to slam to another lamp post. "So you say you have to eat garlic-heavy foodstuffs, right?"

"Uh-huh?"

"How about a Smoked Salmon Garlic Pizza?" Izuku said, accompanying his words with a double-tap on the young woman's shoulder as he eyed a signpost from a particular pizza parlor located just behind some buildings from their location.

"I thought you're out of money?" Chitose asked, lightly slouching forward before correcting herself once again.

"Look, I would really want to help you figure out everything but your methods are kinda… I dunno… crude? Indecisive? I guess?" Izuku shrugged and let out a sigh afterwards, leaning forward in defeat as he kept a hand on Kizuki's shoulder. "Your methods are… self-destructive – that's the word I'm looking for."

Chitose, as much as she wanted to continue her investigation by any means necessary, couldn't help but agree to what Izuku said. She was about to retaliate to justify what she just did but in the end decided against it. Lashing out to Midoriya would just mean he could ruin her chances on getting on his good side.

At the end of the day, her methods are, in fact, very self-destructive. Right now if it weren't for Izuku's guidance, she would have smacked into several lamp posts already (or passed out on the street). She admitted her defeat with a loud sigh. "Maybe you're right," she muttered, making the young man beside her lightly nod in response.

After a few minutes of being guided, she finally reached the pizza parlor and entered. Right off the bat, she could hear sound of Christmas music over her muffled ears, as well as see hues of red and green adorning the walls and windows.

The two eventually sat on the nearest available seat nearest to the door.

"I didn't expect the place will have this many people," Izuku muttered, making Chitose look around to observe. While her vision may still be on the blurry side, she could now at least make out images of people around them, and the place is, in fact, crowded. It appears that taking the stress off of the missing bank balance actually does something. "Do you celebrate Christmas, Kizuki?" Izuku asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"No, not really. How about you?" she asked, wobbling in her seat a bit, trying to maintain her posture.

"I don't know if you noticed but we don't have a single Christmas decoration in the apartment. We figured out it's just a waste of money – but we do Christmas shopping on every 25th so there's that."

A waitress arrived just before Chitose could speak, and she quickly left almost immediately after Izuku ordered a medium-sized Smoked Salmon Garlic Pizza and some drinks. "They're really busy huh?" Izuku muttered after seeing the waitress almost bump into several customers in a hurry. He then turned towards the tall girl in front of him, "I got the medium sized one so Mom wouldn't feel left out. What's your opinions on pizza anyway?"

Chitose was suddenly at a loss for words. While she could clearly remember that she used to like pizza all throughout her college years, she eventually grew to dislike it as she neared her late twenties. Now that she's suddenly younger, even as far as having strange memories from exactly the same time, would she like pizza now? "Uh… Midoriya… uh… If ever, let's say, I didn't really like pizza?"

"Hmmm? Well I brought you here for two things. One, to get your head clear enough to make reasonable decisions, and two, because you said you had to eat garlic stuff. But if you don't like it, then more for me I guess?"

Their food eventually arrived, and Izuku paid for it before the waitress left.

Chitose glanced over the pizza in front of her, getting the mental image drilled into her brain. Her older self would have been disgusted by it after seeing the unhealthy oils oozing out from the fried crust, while her younger self would have eaten two slices by now. She continued staring for a few moments, carefully analyzing whichever of her two selves would become more dominant in the face of such food.

"What are you waiting for?" Izuku asked as he took a slice for himself.

Chitose kept silent and instead slowly removed her face mask, instantly being able to get a whiff of garlic despite her illness. While it certainly smells great, what she noticed is that her mouth is now slightly watering.

'More proof that I seriously DID get younger… somehow…' she thought to herself after picking up a slice, not minding the oils spilling over her fingers. She took a bite, making sure to include a reasonably-sized chunk of smoked salmon in, and it was-

Her eyes suddenly widened. "The safe!" she said just loud enough for Izuku to hear, despite in the middle of chewing. "The safe!" she repeated after hastily swallowing the still mostly-unchewed bite of pizza.

"Safe what?"

Chitose suddenly froze, her expression slowly returning back to neutral. "I- I mean my Mom keeps safes in every single one of her mansions. There's no way those have been taken – IF the account is hacked, that is."

"Your Mom has multiple mansions?" Izuku asked, before hastily apologizing for the absurd thought "Sorry. I just can't comprehend that the person in front of me right now probably has a gazillion mansions-" he stopped and apologized again for thinking he sounded too rude. "What I'm saying is that there's this gap that normally exists between you and the common folk like us and uh… You know what I'll just stop. Soooo what is it about the safes? More reason to get you quickly to your mansion I presume?"

Chitose simply nodded in response, as an answer to both Izuku's question and his strange fascination with people from the upper class. While she was certainly very far from the country's top earning people, even among the women, it's understandable from Izuku's perspective to be somewhat amazed by someone who buys mansions like one collects action figures. "Yes, more reasons to get the mansion ASAP." She said with another nod. "What if you get me there, and then I'll just pay you back?" she asked and then took another slice of pizza, in which she took a huge bite on with utter disregard on what she looked like.

Izuku paused for a good while, face slowly looking confused and worried. "Yeah but… isn't just getting into Yamate Hills expensive these days? Aren't even the bus fares at that area in Yokohama like, 7 times more expensive than normal? And don't even get me started on the transport expenses just to get to Kanagawa in the first place…"

"You're wrong on one thing. Bus fares are only 6 times more expensive."

"That's still too expensive. Plus there's the entrance fee…"

"5 Million Yen per person!" Chitose said with a nod, followed closely by a loud exasperated whisper from Izuku repeating the entrance fee. "They just recently ramped it up to five since adding a few more mansions and upping the maintenance and security staff. If you can get me there, I'll pay-"

"Wait-wait-wait-wait… Miss Kizuki…" Izuku quickly placed down the pizza slice he's holding onto, glancing around and with visible sweat forming on his forehead. "Come on! You couldn't mean that! What if the safe is empty too?"

Chitose stopped, her smile slowly fading away. As absurd as Izuku would think safes could be hacked (Even though it's not at all farfetched considering the existence of Meta Abilities), she shouldn't really be expecting too much from a poor family to have enough cash to get her to her expensive destination. "S-sorry…" she apologized, slouching backwards in defeat. "But I really need to get there."

"Who knows?" Izuku wiped off some sweat off of his forehead. "Maybe your bank balance'll be fine tomorrow? These things happen okay? Why don't you just ask the bank about it anyways?" he added, taking the knife on the left side of the plate and slicing off half of the food. "You're looking even worse than earlier, I do suppose you want to head home now?"

"I can't ask the bank. There are some documents I don't have on me right now. Rich folk do things differently," Chitose said, making up entire excuse and hoping Izuku will not question anything anymore, which the young man luckily just nodded in response. Sighing in relief, she then rolled up the entire pizza slice on her right hand before biting off half of it. "Yeah we need to go home, Phase 2's about to arrive anyway."

"What's phase two?"

"My immune system works two ways. If ever I get a fever," Chitose said, raising a hand in emphasis, "a few hours later my body temperature would drop. If I'm lucky, after that whatever illness I got is gone, If not then the cycle repeats all over again."

Izuku nodded, eyes wide in curiosity. "Interesting… what do you mean by 'body temperature' dropping, specifically?"

"Long story short, I become cold-blooded. Doctors don't know why or how that is, but I'm still alive so I guess my immune system's just working as intended?"

"You should've said that earlier…"

…

The bus trip home took longer than expected, as not one but two villain attacks in quick succession happened along the way, with one of them effectively blocking the route altogether after raising the road. What was just a fifteen-to-thirty minute trip effectively became two hours.

Furthermore, after they arrived at their bus stop, there's an awful amount of people blocking the way, exactly because the multiple villain attacks made the buses arrive more later than usual. Chitose once again got some stares, but mostly just because of her dazed appearance and looking seconds away from passing out, as well some people wondering about her height.

The two had to lightly push their way onwards before they managed to get out of the crowd, at which the pizza box Izuku's carrying is now clearly dented.

"There's been an escalating number of villain attacks ever since that Kamino incident," Izuku said with a clearly annoyed voice as he began walking away. "Yeah All Might's not as good as before but there are heroes patrolling literally everywhere! Don't these villains have anything better to do?! Doing crime in broad daylight, seriously?!"

Chitose raised a curious eyebrow on Izuku's sudden outburst, but couldn't help but agree. Even she is weirded out by the sudden strange behavior of villains following the Kamino Incident, where more and more said troublemakers are somehow suddenly fine with doing crime in broad daylight and even in streets where heroes are known to frequently patrol. She remembered trying to investigate the phenomenon, yet quickly abandoned it as it was also around the time when Re-Destro issued the newest Meta Liberation War edition and she had to market the thing all over again, but the thought never left her head.

It was certainly very strange, as if the heroes poisoned the metaphorical water hole where a sizeable amount of villains drink. But what's even stranger is that just one week later after the Kamino Incident, there came a massive crackdown on all illegal activities throughout Japan, taking down even those that have been hidden for decades, all in one fell swoop. Almost nothing was saved, even the MLA's black market underground business took a massive hit. Chitose remembered thinking about whether the heroes might have known the location beforehand and just won't do anything about it until the time. She was about to further think about it when Izuku suddenly spoke.

"Miss Kizuki, you've been in our home for at least one night now, and we already had one heck of an 'adventure' earlier… What's your name anyways?"

Chitose blanked out. Of all the scenarios she played in her head, she never once thought about what fake name she could temporarily use.

'Crap' her voice played over and over and over again inside her head, thinking of something she can't possibly forget. She's going to use this name from now on, might as well go with-

"Chit- I mean Chisato," Chitose said as she extended a hand towards Izuku, "Chisato Kizuki."

Izuku did an awkward nod and shook her hand. "That's a pretty odd name," he said, wondering what the young woman's name has got to do with her odd appearance, especially with the known "Naming Yourself After you Quirk" fad Japan in known for.

"I don't have a Quirk to base my name on, so I got stuck with the one I was born with, unlike you Midoriya," Chitose did a nod as well, imitating what Izuku did just earlier but deliberately slightly exaggerating it to make it obvious she was talking about his green hair and eyes. "I'm quite surprised I'm not even named 'Blue' or something," she added, shrugging. In reality, she just never really questioned anything about why her name is as it is, and never really bothered to change it.

"In case you don't know, there's this office in Tokyo where you could change your name and have it approved within 1 and a half days. I forgot the name of the office but last time I heard they're fastest in the country when it comes to official name-changing. I think they even go through your entire Quirk registry too."

Chitose nodded despite Izuku getting some facts wrong. The specific building he's talking about is in Kyoto, and not Tokyo, and the name change only becomes official after a week, not the 1 and a half days rumor that's currently going around, as long as there are no more errors and similarities to other people's names. She should know, for it's one of the MLA's recruitment-

"By the way, you're not gonna go ask me to go out again with you, right? As you can see we don't really have a lot of cash here," Izuku suddenly spoke as the two neared the apartment. "Pretty sure you can delay your 'Bank Balance' mystery a bit more? I'm sure it's just fine. The zero is probably just some error. Rich folk always get things fixed with enough time."

"I do hope so…"

Izuku nodded, yet has a visible look of worry in his face, in which Chitose took note amidst her rising headache. If she's going to stay with them and make their apartment her main base of operations, she had to be at her best behavior and whatever bugging Midoriya right now should be addressed. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Nah I'm fine."

"Are you annoyed because you're thinking I'm planning to freeload on you and your mother? Are you annoyed that I just technically wasted your money?" Chitose asked. While the apartment the Midoriyas are currently occupying doesn't look too bad, she very well knew how normal people always needed to put money on the top of their priority list. "I could do freelance content writing. My- I mean Shoowaysha always has offers on their website."

"Do you have a computer?"

"No? Do you?" Chitose asked, her head automatically tilting slightly as her eyes go heavy. "Since I can't really go to Internet cafes yet-"

Izuku sighed. "Kizuki, I'm not just going to allow you use my computer."

"What if I get supervised?" Chitose continued. "In case you don't know. That Shoowaysha freelance offers I talked about? They give cash bonuses on anyone who can write the most articles with the least amount of errors. I don't mean to brag but I can crank out articles pretty fast. I can even type with my eyes closed!"

"Uh-huh? How much is that offer you're talking about?" Izuku turned to face her, a bit wide-eyed.

"They currently have this 'Go big or go home' offer that pays out around 50000 Yen if you can make 6 articles with 5 or less errors within a relatively short timeframe. My Mom used to 'compete' with those things, regularly beating everyone with a wide margin."

"Does she get awarded? Like cash prizes or something?"

"No. She just does it for fun. I noticed she seemed happy doing them, and maybe I can follow her footsteps and maybe beat her score. Too bad Shoowaysha's not publicizing the scores," Chitose muttered something incomprehensible as the two approached the doorsteps of the apartment. "Probably because they know all too damn well Chitose Kizuki's always going to get the top spot despite not even being part of the game," she added proudly, although pretended to be annoyed.

"That's good to hear. Just let me think about it. You should rest first," Izuku said with a smile, gesturing towards the entrance. "By the way people inside are already up and about at this time of the day so uh… just tell them you're a co-worker if they ask who are you, okay?"

"You already work?"

Izuku nodded. "I've been working part-time ever since I turned 12."

Chitose nodded, before following Izuku into the building. Right off the bat she instantly noticed some people in the hallway who greeted the young man in front of her. She herself got a few looks here and there, but a little bit of pretending to be a co-worker did the trick very well.

She went up the stairs, noticing that every step seemed like it was ten times harder than the last. But despite all that, she managed to reach the room, albeit being a panting mess. It took Izuku a good few seconds to realize what's happening and lightly pushed her into the wall to stabilize herself. "You know you should've asked for help," he said, hurriedly walking away to place the pizza box onto the dining table, and walking back.

"Me, help? No I don't need help unless it's getting to the mansion-" Chitose didn't get to finish her sentence as her head suddenly became light, causing her to lose balance and fall down. Izuku wasn't fast enough to catch her, and as a result, she hit her head hard onto the wooden floor. Despite the bleeding, she barely felt the impact, in fact she barely felt anything as her senses all dulled out in quick succession as she fell.

Was it because she over-exerted herself? Was it because of the Garlic Pizza? Was it because of the stairs? Her mind continued to swirl. "What the hell…?" she muttered weakly as Izuku tried to pull her up.

"I told you we should've gotten home earlier. That bus ride must've taken a toll on you."

'No. Pretty sure that's not the bus ride…' Chitose thought as she pushed herself to the limits just to try and stand up, taking off much of the burden from the much shorter person trying to pull her up. Izuku hurriedly brought her towards the sofa where she slept last night.

"What the heck is that weird thumping noise?" Izuku suddenly asked, immediately looking around the room trying to pinpoint the exact location of the soft erratic rhythm he is hearing. It took him a while before he noticed that the strange sound is coming directly from within the young woman's chest. Raising an eyebrow on the matter, he tapped her head. "Is that your heartbeat or something?"

"Uh…" Chitose tried her best to lift her head despite both her mind and vision swirling with images beyond comprehension. "Yeah…?"

Izuku shrugged and walked away, scratching the side of his head in utter confusion how can a heartbeat be that loud. "First there's that blue skin and black eyes, then the strange illness cycle, and the garlic thing, and now the heartbeat… I hope you're not planning to abduct me or anything! Being probed is not really my thing!" he chuckled to himself afterwards. "You know what now that I think of it, I wonder what's it like to live in a planet within the Andromeda Galaxy? What's life with two or three suns and extreme climates?" Izuku muttered more about space life and various other alien jokes before he returned, now carrying two glasses of water, in which he gave place one on the table in front of the sofa Chitose's on. "So what does Stardust taste like? You've been to Mars? Is it true there are demons there?" he asked couple more questions afterwards, barely holding a laugh.

Chitose could only force out a smile as she adjusted herself on the sofa, not even facing Izuku. Her mind continued to swirl for a while before briefly clearing, in which it wasted no time on automatically filling itself with thoughts on how stupid she is for letting her emotions get the better of her instead of just waiting until she's better.

But still…

With great effort, she turned her head towards the boy, who's still talking about a certain brand of telescope. "Thank you," she said softly with the best smile she could muster. "I'll repay you soon. I promise."

Izuku suddenly stopped, eyes wide at her sudden remark. "Don't mention it. Always glad to help someone in need."

Chitose responded with a light nod before her senses gave way and she lost consciousness.

…

She was awoken by the sound of a door closing, followed closely by mutterings from Inko Midoriya about coming home early to check on their visitor.

"Mom," it was Izuku's voice, who sounded like he was in the middle of eating something. "Are we really going to keep her here?" it was just a whisper, yet a relatively loud one, enough for Chitose to hear from the sofa. "You're not really planning to keep her here for long, right? We don't really need more mouths to feed."

…

'Crap…'