The television was buzzing with activity by the time I came back downstairs, fully dressed and somewhat ready to face whatever the world had for me. That resolve was tested almost immediately as I stepped into the living room, and damn near tripped over the severed head that someone had just left lying in the doorway.
If I hadn't stopped the moment I felt my bare foot brush up against some stray hair, I probably would have kicked Setsuna right in the face. The crossed eyes and poked out tongue couldn't quite hide the fanged grin that she was clearly struggling against, or the quiet shuffling of her disconnected body as it lay nearly, shaking with suppressed laughter.
To be in two separate places and yet still have completely connected senses, and to be able to do that multiple times over…What an interesting Quirk. Where was the biological standpoint for something like that?
I almost wanted to try it out for myself. Almost.
Instead, I just took a moment to blink, make sure there was no blood in the carpet that I would have to clean, and then took a large step to clear Setsuna's head and come to a stop beside her body.
Eri had parked herself on the couch. Her giggles weren't quite muffled by the unfamiliar cartoon she was watching, and she wasn't the least bit subtle in staring from the corner of her eye. Had they planned this in the minute or so that I had been gone?
"Eri, don't leave your toys lying around." Scooping her up around the midsection, I carried Setsuna's body over to the couch, dumping it upside down albeit very carefully, next to where her charge was sitting. The muffled giggling from Eri turned into full snorting laughter as Setsuna's head shot off the ground, her face steadily reddening from the blood rushing through her body towards where it should have been.
"Oi!"
The look I sent her in response was dry enough to run the risk of water restrictions. Taking a seat on the other side of Eri, I pretended not to notice as Setsuna's head floated right in front of my face, her exaggerated pout drawing another peal of delighted laughter from the child between our bodies. Apparently she was at that stage of development where decapitation was the funniest shit imaginable.
Weren't we all, Eri, weren't we all.
After a moment, it became apparent that even Setsuna could get bored of something. With a sigh and a mutter of how fun I absolutely wasn't, her head disappeared from my view, swooping back over the couch to reattach itself to the rest of her.
There was no point hiding the smirk on my face when her altered centre of gravity pitched her right over the edge of the couch. Eri had probably missed the significance of how calculated I'd been when moving the body, but if the assessing glare I was getting was any indication, Setsuna apparently hadn't.
What did she expect? I had experience in moving bodies. And was now realising that I didn't actually know if that sentence was worse with or without the context that I had for it.
"So what are we watching?" I'd never really cared much for TV, even before I began a crusade across anime Japan and sacrificed a lot of free time for batshit insane undertakings.
"Hero Hero!"
I waited a moment for clarification, before realising that I probably wouldn't be getting any useful context from the six year old. Setsuna had managed to climb back onto the couch, and she responded about as well as I would have expected to the raised eyebrow I shot her over Eri's head.
"It's Hero Hero."
Somehow, this was the culmination of my actions in this life. Watching cartoons on a TV that was too big to even be practical, alongside a child that I'd accidentally saved and a young woman I'd accidentally put in mortal danger.
With the way the characters were drawn, it was tough to tell if the main hero of the show was supposed to be a preteen or a toddler. His obnoxiously yellow uniform and ridiculously huge head kinda reminded me of Mineta in a way, the original one that I'd usurped. He was joined in his adventure by Hero Heart, with a blindingly pink suit and the power to make all of their interactions feel just very awkward with forced romantic tension. And for some reason the third member of their team was a snake. Not even a snake themed hero, it was just a stupidly huge garden snake wearing a mask.
Hero Hero's arch nemesis, the aptly named Villain Villain, had unveiled a machine that would make all the mothers and fathers of the world hate each other. Mine hadn't needed a machine, that had just happened naturally over the course of a decade of marriage, but if he wanted to help the process along then more power to him I guess. Eri had gasped when the master plan was unveiled and cried out in shock when Hero Heart was captured by Villain Villain to be his bride, so it probably worked well enough on the target audience. Really, I was just wondering how they managed to get the snake to have more chemistry with every character on screen than all the others combined. Fucker hadn't even been named yet.
I managed to keep my attention on the screen for all of twenty minutes, dredging up never before witnessed scraps of my willpower to see the episode through to the end. By minute two I'd noticed Setsuna pulling out her phone, before sending the hand holding it and one of her eyeballs floating off into the kitchen. By minute five I was struggling to keep my eyes open. The episode was only halfway over by the time it was revealed that Villain Villain was actually Hero Hero's long lost twin brother, which nearly sent Eri into shock and almost made me feel even the slightest bit of emotion outside of the crushing boredom.
By minute eighteen, something had to give, and that something was my attention span. My phone was in my hand before I really even bothered to think about it, scrolling along and doing absolutely nothing to hide the fact that I wasn't paying attention.
Another message from Mirko, which I'd gotten at some point after I'd muted my phone in my bedroom. This one had a picture attached, which I wisely decided against opening while there was a child sitting next to me. A text from Twice, complaining about how bored he was. I opened that one up and stabbed out a quick 'Hero Hero', sending it off and wondering if he would understand what I was trying to tell him.
Normally I wasn't one for browsing the news, but with the cries of Hero Heart in the background as Hero Hero was hit with the beam and for some reason started to hate her, I decided that I would make an exception. U.A was beginning the first round of their recommendation exams tomorrow, good to know. The rank 145th hero had been found dead in an alley, never heard of him. The Yaoyorozu family had been victims in an attack on their home alongside unnamed guests? Shit, sounds serious, hopefully they were alright.
"So, what are-"
"Shhhhhhh!" Even with both hands, Eri still wasn't able to cover all of my mouth, though she did her damnedest. She wasn't even looking in my direction, her eyes still glued to the TV with a wide intensity that I'd rarely seen before from any person. Call me an elitist, but I didn't think it really did anything to deserve it.
Bemused, I removed both of Eri's hands from my face, wincing slightly at how sweaty they were. Setsuna's phone took that moment to start ringing in the kitchen, playing a song I didn't recognise. It was in English, interestingly enough, and the way she sprung up off the couch and ran towards it probably meant that it was important.
A quick Overhaul removed the grimy feeling from my lips. Apparently watching the snake have to solo Hero Hero in order to get to Villain Villain was far too intense for me to understand the gravity of the situation. The snake would obviously win, it had big teeth and, like, venom.
Setsuna was talking now, her voice a low murmur even with the periodic dramatic silence of the scene. My eyes had returned to my phone, but my ears were perked up in that direction, straining to pick up anything specific from the kitchen.
"How are…" The snake sprung off the ground on the tip of its tail, whipping through the air to catch Hero Hero in the chest. "Not going to…"Villain Villain's finger hovered over the button as he cackled menacingly, not at all prepared for Hero Heart to leap up and kiss him, the fuck? "Call them back later! What are…" Hero Hero stopped in his tracks, betrayal clear on his face even through the twisted hatred. "He won't agree…" The snake's tail coiled around Hero Hero's chest, twisting around and hurling him through the air. "So this is it, then?"
The remote for the machine shattered under Hero Hero's boot, in tandem with the deep sigh that Setsuna heaved in the kitchen.
"Fuck."
Utterly oblivious to whatever was happening, Eri let out a loud cheer as Villain Villain was defeated, throwing her arms into the air and dancing in her seat. The display earned her a pat on the head as I pushed myself off the couch, pausing just long enough to check what would be playing next.
Another episode of whatever the hell this was. Awesome, that would keep her occupied.
"If you need anything, just call out, alright? I'm going to the kitchen."
Eri beamed, straightening out her spine so she could nuzzle into my hand like a cat. "Okay!"
Adorable little shithead.
Leaving Eri alone in the living room perhaps wasn't the model of good babysitting, but I had questions. Questions that needed answers if I wanted to figure out what the hell I'd be doing in the near future. The doors and windows were all closed and locked. Eri would know better than to open them for someone she didn't know, and there was little chance that she would be sneakier than me in the event that she did.
All logic and reasoning should have implied that she would be fine, but something I didn't know was telling me otherwise.
I hadn't gone this far just so I could be told 'no'. No, quite the opposite, in fact.
I found Setsuna in the kitchen as expected; her phone in hand, her hip leaning against the table, and her eyes staring off into the distance. She didn't notice me for the first few seconds, standing just inside the doorway, angled out of Eri's view. She straightened the moment she noticed that I was standing there, her phone disappearing into her back pocket with ease and speed that must have been practised for it to be pulled off that swiftly.
"Just can't get enough of me, huh?" No matter how many sharp teeth were included in that grin, there was no hiding the fact that it wasn't reaching her eyes. It was hard not to notice when you were paying attention to her, because when Setsuna smiled, she smiled with her whole body. Eyes lit up in glee, shoulders relaxed, posture open and inviting; none of that was present now.
I mirrored her, arms crossed and back against the wall. Overhaul buzzed under my feet and across my scalp; nothing too close around the house except for some animals. Nothing metallic where they shouldn't be. With the exception of Eri in the other room, enraptured by the fictional adventures of a strangely named hero, we were alone.
"Twice doesn't usually take this long to respond." It was a reminder, completely lacking in subtlety, that her father hadn't been alone. That she wasn't alone in whatever any of this was.
"They're working right now." The fracturing smile dropped. I'd seen through it, there was no point and she knew it. The resultant expression was… odd. Accusatory. Uncertain. Lost.
"He better not work too hard." Pushing off the wall, I sent out a strand of hair to snag a glass from the draining rack, grabbing a second one after a moment of thought. Courtesy of Gentle, there was some iced tea in the fridge, which I quickly partitioned into roughly equal amounts. "I have something for him to measure when he gets back."
The sudden snort and coughing fit that Setsuna launched into caught me so off guard that I almost dropped the glasses. Placing them both on the table, I studied her for a moment as she collapsed into a seat and bent towards the ground, the coughs giving way to sporadic barks of laughter.
Then what I said clicked. I shook my head, taking a sip of my tea and doing my best to not start laughing at my own poor phrasing. Even with Overhaul, getting liquids out of sinuses was a massive hassle.
It took a minute, but eventually she managed to calm herself. Part of me worried about how hard her shoulders were still shaking as she grabbed her tea, though that was assuaged when she downed the whole thing in one go. If I tried that same thing I probably would have choked.
A few deep breaths later, and she was calm. Another few seconds after that, and I decided that it was time I got some proper answers. Distantly, I heard a door swing open slowly. Was Eri looking for something else to watch or play with?
"Tell me what I can do to help."
Direct. To the point. Impossible to misconstrue or misunderstand. I caught her gaze and held it, a slow sip of my tea accompanying the thoughts that I could see swirling through her mind.
And yet, nothing would ever be simple. I already knew we'd both come to the same conclusion, the same roadblock, the same barrier on the road. We also both knew that she was the only one who could actually say it.
"I… I don't know."
We didn't have the information. We didn't know the players. Where was her place in this world, really? How far had my own impact reverberated beyond my intentions? How deep did the damage run?
I pushed myself out of my seat with a sigh, draining the rest of my glass and curling a lock of hair around the one she'd abandoned in front of her. A sudden, harsh gust of wind rattled the window and I glanced out of it, not really seeing the sea of trees beyond. Sudden winds weren't uncommon in the area, but that had been especially abrupt. Odd.
"Guess we'll just have to figure it out along the way, th-"
"MINMIN!"
The glasses wobbled precariously as I dropped them onto the table, vaulting directly over both it and Setsuna. There was panic swimming through Eri's voice as the echoes of her shout faded, Overhaul tugging at me with a desperation I hadn't felt in months. There had been nothing but animals around, maybe she'd just seen a spider? Did she even hate spiders?
Not quite as quick as my condensed muscles, Setsuna was nevertheless behind me by a few steps as I burst into the living room. Eri was right where I'd left her, in the middle of the couch with the remote set on the cushion beside her. Her gaze had left the TV, however, and was firmly settled on someone that was standing on the opposite side of the room, illuminated by light streaming in through the open front door behind him.
Or rather, it was probably more accurate to call him a something.
In a heartbeat, I was between them, cutting off his view of the girls. He'd seen them already, I knew he had, but it still made me feel better as I rose to my full height, glaring down at the small intruder and his guileless, inhuman smile.
Idiot. I was an absolute idiot. Here I was using Overhaul to look around for any humans in the area, when one of the people I needed to worry about the most was one of the animals I'd been dismissing.
"Minmin?" The principal and dean of U.A University tilted his head, as though he needed the time to consider the name. It didn't fool me for a second; not when the only reason he would have been here is if he knew damn well who I was.
I sent out another pulse of Overhaul, stretching it from the immediate area around the house to instead check all the way out to the edges of the property. I could have gone further, but if there was a warrant involved, then there would be no point if they couldn't.
Four humans on the outskirts near the orchard, three smaller people gathered around one large one that exuded power, none of which I recognised. His backup if things went poorly, I assumed. This was too soon. There weren't supposed to be other people here. Fuck.
"Well, it is nice to have confirmation." Nezu tilted his head to the side, sniffing at the air quietly. He lit up, looking for all the world like he hadn't just strolled into the house of a very dangerous man. "Ah, I smell tea, fantastic!"
He gestured towards my kitchen. Setsuna and Eri were no longer in the room, I noticed, keeping the echolocation pulses of Overhaul constant. Even if this wasn't the confrontation I'd expected, they were my responsibility, and I would keep them away from anything that decided to try taking them away.
"Shall we discuss business over some tea, Minoru Mineta?"
He clasped his hands behind his back before I could reach out to shake one. Smart man, even if I wasn't one to offer.
My smile, unlike his, didn't make the effort to be polite. He didn't seem to mind all that much.
"Yes. Lets."
Another pulse of Overhaul slammed the front door shut, all locks and latches falling into place.
Not that it would do much good, if what I had seen in that last moment actually was yellow hair.