-December 19 - [Day 7] -

"Come on…" Chitose muttered to herself, tapping her right foot in impatience as she waited for a response from the phone she's holding onto. She's been trying to contact the MLA for two days now and still all of her attempts end in failure. It doesn't matter how many times she calls them, she somehow can't connect with any of her possible contacts at all.

She looked around, hoping none of the nearby people are noticing that she's within this particular phone booth for around 30 minutes now. Seeing that none are really giving her any attention at all, she quickly turned her focus back to the number pad of the payphone and hovered her hand over it, blue fingers already within seconds of pressing a series of buttons when she stopped herself as an idea suddenly popped into her head.

She thought about trying a different contact number, something that would automatically connect her line (Through Meta Ability-assisted means) to a highly-secure and untrackable network. It was an online system devised by some high-ranking Liberation executives as an alternative in case they couldn't make it to important meetings in person. While she very well knew of the system, she never trusted it – especially in its supposed 'untrackableness' (Even though no one's been caught yet). A line being secure is simply impossible in a world of Meta Abilities.

Her gaze went back to the number pad on the payphone, her fingers twitching and ready to press the right combination. She stared at it for a whole minute before eventually giving up. The risks are just too high. And now that she's somehow younger with literally no explanation, the person responsible for it could be watching her right now, waiting for her to input the code so he or she could have it jotted down to be used later against the cause.

Sighing in defeat, Chitose put the phone back.

She suddenly heard a knock on the glass panels to her right. It was Inko Midoriya, saying something about her being in the phone booth for around 30 minutes now. Chitose nodded in response and quickly exited, thinking she can just call again later. But as she did so, a sudden nerve-wracking thought wrapped around her mind, telling her that something bad must have happened to the Liberation Army which explains the lack of contact even after 8 whole days have passed, as well as the odd string of events surrounding the date of December 12.

She shook her head lightly, clearing off the thoughts. 'Nothing bad happened. The MLA is fine. My bank account will return back to normal soon.'

"Still no signal? Still can't contact anyone?" Inko asked as she approached.

"Yeah..." Chitose responded with a light shrug. "Is there some kind of signal jamming over here?" she added with a joking tone to lighten up the mood.

"Nope. Maybe whoever you're trying to contact is just hiding? Don't worry, I'm sure you'll eventually get them. Maybe some telecommunications lines are just being repaired somewhere?" Inko said with a warm smile, as well as giving the taller young woman a pat on the back seeing how she looked slightly nervous.

Chitose couldn't help but smile back, greatly appreciating the small gesture from the older woman. For the past two days, ever since she completed the 'Shoowaysha Essay challenge' in which she just sent the entire cash prize of 50000 Yen straight into Izuku's bank account without pocketing any, Inko has been nothing but extra kind to her, even going as far as offering her own bedroom for her to use while she sleeps in the living room.

But as much as Chitose wanted to sleep in an actual bedroom for once, she knew that taking advantage of Inko's generosity would not be the correct choice if she really wanted to stay with them for a while, especially since the son obviously won't tolerate it.

"I sure do hope you can improve his Quirk. I really want to see old Izuku back," Inko muttered as she gestured for Chitose to follow her.

'She's really attached to her son…' Chitose thought, slightly envious. "Well I'll see what I can do," she said, her green eyes immediately moving straight to gaze upon the so-called 'training grounds' Izuku picked.

Takoba Beach. A Musutafu tourist attraction turned landfill, filled with mountains of garbage of all shapes and sizes, some washed in from the sea, and some just casually 'contributed' in by the locals. But despite the unsavory description, the view of the sunrise is spectacular. Chitose wondered if the place is ever going to get cleaned up.

Meanwhile just down on the beach is Izuku, running around wearing a red tracksuit that's clearly two sizes higher than what fits him. She found it silly, but also oddly adorable at the same time. "He really shouldn't have worn that," she said, stifling a laugh, seeing the green-haired young man seemingly very serious with his jogging.

"Look who's talking!"

A small frown appeared on Chitose's face upon Inko's response. She knew very well how many times Inko told her it's very awkward to wear an elegant long-sleeved dress to where they're going, but she still chose to go with it.

"You really like long-sleeved dresses, do you?" the mother asked again as the two walked down the stairs and straight onto the sandy beach. "Is it a rich folk thing or?"

"I just like to keep everything covered."

"Izuku said you have numerous scars on your arms, where did you get those?"

"I had a very rough childhood. I prefer not to talk about it," Chitose replied. Despite somewhat just looking like a normal human with odd colors, she was still lumped into the hated 'Mutant' class as a child (aided by her unsightly appearance and strange internal anatomy) and it brought her nothing but trouble. Her destructive Meta Ability didn't help her suddenly going younger, the scars became prominent again.

The two eventually got close enough to Izuku for him to notice and start walking towards them.

Chitose wondered if ever the young man is really serious about the training. Back at home, whenever his mother is on the scene, he would act all excited. But the moment she's not, he goes back to being indifferent and normal. Not once he seemed eager to talk to her regarding Meta Ability improvement over the past two days.

It seems like he doesn't believe his powers could ever improve.

"Now, you two do your thing and I'll just sit back and watch, okay?" Inko said before happily skipping away to sit on some worn-down refrigerator just some distance away from them.

But before Chitose could speak, Izuku immediately sprinted towards his mother – who's now holding up a smartphone angled like she was about to take a video. By the time he reached her he wasted no time in complaining about how he shouldn't be recorded because he would just be made fun of once it's posted in social media.

As for the blue-skinned young woman, she couldn't help but agree with what Izuku said that Inko simply shouldn't be recording them. She has seen herself in photos and other similar media, and there she looks way worse. She's already at the bottom of the attractiveness totem pole, seeing she can get even worse just makes her uneasy. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had always wondered if her general unsightliness is also the same reason as to why she was quickly shifted from live interviewer/reporter to offscreen journalist in just a span of two days after successfully landing the job.

After a short while, Izuku came running back, instantly throwing out a question upon arriving. "So in a scale of one to ten, how effective is this training regimen's going to be?" he asked as he caught his breath.

"Well honestly I don't really know yet. The last time someone did a research on Conjoined Quirks was over 60 years ago. That's like 3 generations! With Quirks being a genetic anomaly that can somehow be transferred from progenitor to offspring, with a randomized chance of mutation, who knows if that Conjoined Quirks of yours is entirely different from the rest?"

Izuku raised an eyebrow at her explanation. "Hmmm… what are the chances my Conjoined Quirks are unique?"

Chitose shrugged. "That's why I'm here, now show me what you can do."

Izuku simply shrugged in response as well before turning around and immediately extending his right hand towards a pile of garbage. With a jellyfish-like motion from his fingers, a small tin can from the pile slowly began levitating towards him.

Chitose lightly nodded. She had seen how it worked before. "A motion-based Meta Ability I see? I don't see those very often."

"Motion-what?" Izuku suddenly turned around, stopping his hand movements. The tin can he was levitating suddenly fell onto the beach sand.

"Do you have to do the jellyfish thing with your fingers for the Attract Quirk to work?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Interesting…" Chitose instinctively held up her hand to her chin, her other free arm supporting it. She then ordered Izuku to pull other tin cans from the same pile, and once again the same jellyfish-like motion is used. Based off of her observations, she deduced that Attract is definitely a Motion-Based Meta Ability, or powers that are heavily influenced by their users' hand and body movements. It's quite common among those with Elemental Meta Abilities, and it's quite rare anywhere else, although not really that much unheard of. Gesturing over to Izuku, Chitose explained her findings.

"Think of it like Endeavor using different hand movements to create different attacks, or maybe Best Jeanist doing the most intricate finger gestures to make the wildest fiber moves," she said, finishing her sentence with pursed lips, quickly checking into her mental database to correct herself in case she got something wrong. Thankfully she got nothing wrong.

"You mean if I act like a hero… I get better powers…? Well to be fair I haven't tried that before… so uh…" Izuku's voice trailed off as he slowly turned around to face the pile of garbage again. "Okay so all I need to do is pull like a hero so…"

Izuku lightly leaned forward and extended his hand towards his target. But instead of small jellyfish-like movements from his fingers, he made one big pulling move.

A small tin can from the pile lightly launched itself towards them a meter from its original position.

"Try it again, with a little more oomph," Chitose said, crossing her arms and tilting her head. But before she can instruct Izuku to really go all out with the effort, knowing how Motion-Based Meta Abilities normally work, she heard Inko cheer for them from the sidelines, once again holding her phone like she was taking a video all this time. Naturally, her son went sprinting back demanding his mother stop the recording at once.

Chitose just watched the two of them, once again with light envy welling up inside her. She never had a stable family, much less an actual actual social life. She spent so much time and effort for the army and it's now too late to make one.

But now that she's younger-

The young woman shook her head. Liberation could be almost upon them, the time for thinking about family is definitely not right now.

"Phew! She said she's totally not going to take a video!" Izuku came running back to her, sarcasm almost dripping from his words. He then turned around and loudly complained towards his mother some more. It took a good few minutes but nothing too long.

"Motion-Based Meta Ability," Chitose suddenly said, immediately getting Izuku's attention after he calmed down. Cross-armed, she then gestured over to the tin can launched from the pile earlier. "Your mom told me you used to make hero analysis books back when you were younger and pretend like you're making trading cards, how come you never once thought about copying other heroes' moves?"

"Well actually Kizuki uh…" Izuku slowly turned to face her, scratching the back of his head. "Those aren't really analysis stuff. I just uh… made my own trading cards..."

"Looks like your mother has a very high opinion of your work."

"Yeah…" Izuku sighed in response. "So about this Attract Quirk, are you saying I could have just acted like a superhero this whole time and I could've done more things with it?" He was immediately met with a nod from the tall young woman in front of him, which resulted in his mouth slowly dropping in embarrassment as he looked at his hands.

"Hey don't feel bad, at least you have a Meta Ability," Chitose said in an attempt to cheer Izuku up. "And at least it's actually something that can be used in day-to-day life without being seen by the authorities," she added, emphasizing the advantages of weaker Meta Abilities over stronger and more destructive ones.

"But what if you have a Quirk too, and you just don't know it? What if you can breathe in space? Or survive in the deepest trenches? What if you have the ability to siphon water out of specific cactus species? What if that whole alien anatomy thing is your entire Quirk? Right now you can already probably attach a speaker on your chest and go 'Heartbeat Soundblast' on your enemies like Kyoka Jiro from Class A does."

Chitose shrugged. She never really cared to know who the Class A students are anyways. "Can we just go back on track? We're here to train, not talk about Class A." She then did a quick glance on Inko, who's still sitting on a worn-down refrigerator in a distance with a huge smile on her face holding her phone in such an angle like she's once again recording the two of them. Chitose doesn't like being video-taped, but at least the son is for once not trying to get his mother to kick her out of the house in the meantime.

"Okay…" Izuku nodded. "Going back on track… So with that Motion-Based Quirk lecture you just told me earlier… So now I need to emulate people with Motion Quirks like Endeavor and Shoto eh?" he said, his voice trailing off as he makes light hand movements akin to that of shooting out a fireball out of his palm. "I've seen what they do with their hands, sometimes they use it like they're about to grab something. Sometimes they use it like they're about to slap something, and sometimes they do smooth hand movements and whatnot. But also sometimes they use both hands. But what if…"

Izuku continued to mutter to himself about all the hand movements he can do to hopefully increase the pulling capabilities of his Attract Quirk.

It went on and on and Chitose wondered if ever he planned on stopping. She took a glance at Inko, who immediately shrugged at her with a light giggle. She remembered something the mother said to her about wanting to see her son actually happy for once, maybe she's accomplishing what the mother wants? Or maybe she's just finding her son randomly having long muttering sessions funny?

"Uh… Midoriya?" Chitose asked with a blank expression, stopping Izuku from his muttering.

"-Yes?"

"Those tin cans aren't going to pull themselves you know?"

Izuku responded to her with a simple nod and then executed a dramatic pulling motion directed towards the tin can that was lightly launched earlier.

It was pulled with a slightly stronger force than usual.

"Well you can't really improve that much in a day. At least you now have the general idea that you can do more than just jellyfishing your hand movements!"


-December 20 - [Day 8]-

"How can it still be no signal? Where is everybody?!" Chitose loudly whispered to herself as she mashed the buttons of the payphone to call the next person in mind. "They can't just shut down all communication systems and leave me with no one to call! This is absurd!"

'But what if I'm transported into another world where the MLA doesn't exist…? Which is why I'm suddenly younger?'

Chitose shook her head, clearing off the nonsensical thoughts. There's literally no way she's suddenly transported into a world without the MLA, that's just plain stupid.

"I'm slowly losing my mind here…" she muttered under her breath as she slowly ran a palm down her face. Her frustrated expression stayed as is as she waited for the phone to connect to the person whose contact number she just entered.

No Signal.

Chitose hurriedly placed the phone back on its rack, her frustration causing her to place it a bit harder than she wanted to. With a sigh of defeat, she walked out of the booth and proceeded to Izuku's training grounds, or so what his mother calls a specific area on Takoba beach littered with all the tin cans her son pulled yesterday.

It was an hour and a half after sunrise, a bit later than what she preferred. But at least Izuku's chosen venue is deserted and hidden enough that the Anti-Quirk police, that would normally start patrolling around this time, won't see him.

Once again, Izuku was there trying to pull rusty tin cans with his Quirk, but this time with way more enthusiasm compared to yesterday. Now there's already a sizeable pile of garbage at his feet and he still won't stop, even though the only 'advancement' he technically achieved yesterday is slightly increase the speed of the pulling with the use of added hand movements. It couldn't even count as a minor advancement, which is in line of how weak Conjoined Quirks really are.

Taking her first steps onto the beach sand that day, she turned her head to where Inko is, and noticed that the mother is once again holding her phone in the exact same manner as yesterday, and most likely once again recording another video. Whether the mother posted it on social media yesterday or not, Chitose doesn't know.

She hoped not.

"Hey Kizuki!"

Chitose almost jumped up in surprise and raised her right hand out of instinct before realizing it's only Izuku. "What?" she asked, fixing her posture almost immediately.

"I tried using two hands but the tin cans still get pulled to me in the exact same speed as a one-handed pull, any idea how to fix that?" Izuku asked, at the same time pulling a metal pipe from a garbage pile just nearby using both hands, but just launching one rusty object a meter from its original location at the exact same speed as what he managed to do yesterday.

"Well that was certainly interesting… " Chitose then gestured for the young man to follow her away from the pile of garbage nearby them and towards a bigger pile just near the shore. "Normally, using two hands amplify the effect of the hand gestures…"

'It must be related to Conjoined Quirks being far weaker than normal…'she thought as Izuku once again pulled something out of a pile after being instructed to, this time a simple plastic bag lodged in between two rocks. As she continued to think, Izuku started pulling some more random objects with two hands like he's enjoying himself, but still the objects barely sped faster than before.

"Midoriya, I suggest you tone down with the pulling. You'll just tire yourself."

Izuku shrugged. "Sorry. I just never expected a simple hand movement would already make a massive difference, you know? All my life I thought this stupid Combo-Conjoined-Whatever Quirk will not get any better, and would you look at that! I already got an improvement in my first day of training! In a trash heap no less! Who knows what could happen next!"

Chitose couldn't help but smile and give him a pat on the head. Even though Izuku's Quirk is beyond horrible to her standards, as well as the MLA's, his positivity is just too infectious. And just taking a discreet glance on Inko, she noticed the mother giving her a thumbs-up gesture.

'Damn, for once in my life I'm actually feeling like a family member…' she thought to herself, a few awkward chuckles escaping her lips.

"What's so funny?"

"You know Midoriya, you should keep that positive disposition up. Just sayin'." Chitose said with a nod after taking off the hand resting on Izuku's head. "So what's the problem again?"

"Using two hands still won't power-up my Quirk."

"Honestly that's certainly something I haven't encountered before… normally using two hands is always better than one…" Chitose's voice trailed off. As far as she knows, all Hand-Based Meta Abilities effectively double their power when using both hands. Even for her Landmine, using two hands will obviously result in two explosives being placed instead of one, effectively doubling her overall firepower.

But with Izuku's case, it just doesn't work.

"Can you pull some stuff for a while? Let me observe a bit."

With the order, Izuku nodded and went on to pull some small-sized trash to his location. But just after pulling a few, Izuku decided to combine the jellyfish finger gesture to his so-called 'superhero' pulling…

And that resulted in a metal pipe being launched towards him with almost double the speed from before.

Izuku froze after that. Inko, on the other hand, almost dropped her phone.

As for Chitose, while the speed increase is definitely noticeable, the overall strength of the Meta Ability is still far below than that of standard telekinesis powers. But still, it's enough to throw Izuku in a frenzy-like state of happiness as he ran back to his mother.

An old memory suddenly rushed into the young woman's mind upon witnessing the scene, especially the first time Landmine actually got used. Comparing that event to the one she's seeing right now, the difference is vast. Instead of a celebration, all she got is a savage beating from her foster mother.

'I wonder how much would change if only my Meta Ability is a whole lot different…' she thought to herself as she discreetly stared at the mother-son duo almost dancing in glee just some distance away. She stayed where she is, silently and awkwardly waiting for the two to finish, which didn't take that long.

"Thank you, Kizuki!" Izuku immediately said upon running back to her.

"Isn't the combination thing your idea?"

"Yeah but look at the sequence of events that led to this. You showed Quirk expertise to my Mom, and then she suggested I go train with you. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have discovered how easy it is to train my Quirk in the first place!"

"Well I guess it's partly my fault too?" Chitose joked. "Okay, now that we know you can combine hand movements with the pulling motion, try pulling with two arms."

Izuku didn't even respond and instead immediately pulled a tin can from another pile. But despite the logical suggestion, using both hands with added finger movements still didn't result in any speed increase at all.

"By the way why are you just launching stuff towards you? Shouldn't you be pulling them in? You know? Attract?" Chitose couldn't help but ask. Ever since yesterday all Izuku just does is pulling movements, resulting in an object lightly being yanked one meter from its original position towards him, and not really doing any actual levitation like what Chitose first witnessed Attract can do. "Go try another pull, but keep doing the jellyfish movements in, don't just make it a one-time thing."

"That's exactly what I'm about to do," Izuku said, confidence clear in his voice. With another pulling gesture, a small cardboard box was yanked out of a pile with the same boosted speed as earlier, but once it went one and a half meters of increased speed, it quickly slowed down to the Attract Meta Ability's default pulling speed. It was overall unimpressive, but still a noticeable level up from earlier.

An idea popped into Chitose's head. "Hey Midoriya, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"My Hero name should be Jojo Jellyfish and I should name this move Ultimate Jellyfish Fingers?"

"Wha- no!" Chitose chuckled afterwards. "Pull an object, and then do a little tug of war with it. Use two arms with jellyfish fingers in alternation."

"Ohhh… I really thought you're gonna tell me to name this move Ultimate Jellyfish Fingers… Bummer…" Izuku then nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. With one extended arm, he made a pulling motion combined with curling fingers while focused towards a specific tin can lying just some distance away. And like earlier, it went significantly faster, but before it slowed down, he extended his other arm and made another pulling motion again, making the object retain its increased speed. And he repeated it again, and again…

Until he smacked himself in the face with the tin can he's pulling, fully unexpecting the speed it's going to come in.

The sound of a phone hitting sand is heard from Inko's mother is once again frozen in shock at her son's 'sudden' development.

Chitose couldn't help but nod in approval, a bit proud of herself. While there is definitely a noticeable increase in pulling speed, Izuku's Attract requires too much arm movements just to match up with a similar Meta Ability from a person without Conjoined Quirks. By the time the young man smacked himself with the tin can he pulled, he was visibly tired from all the effort he just exerted.

On the other hand, she could be wrong. Maybe Izuku's Conjoined Quirk is just weak as of now because there is still a technique they just haven't discovered yet that could significantly lessen the effort required?

Chitose nodded to herself again as she crossed her arms. The 'training' only just started yesterday, it's still too early to judge whether there could be more techniques to be used or the Meta Ability will just stay in its current weak state. Her attention then went to the calming waves of the ocean just a few meters to her right, partly wondering if she should have bought a small notebook to keep track of things.

'I wonder how's the Liberation Army's doing…?'

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the noise of the two Midoriyas. If there were any people in this trash heap of a beach, they would have ben staring at them right now.

The so-called celebration lasted a little too long to her liking, but eventually finished.

"Hey Kizuki! Why the long face?" It was Inko, walking towards her and waving.

Chitose blanked out for a bit, a whole string of thoughts suddenly entering and exiting her mind as to what she could say for an answer. "I'm just kinda envious of uh… I don't have any Meta Abilities of my own," she said, partly relieved that she can think of something just in time. As an excuse, it worked quite well enough. Meta Abilities in Japan is a huge part of a person's character, even going to the point that entire laws had to be made to be able to change one's name and surname to suit it, and everyone can understand what's it like to have none.

"Do you want a hug?"

"Er-"

"Do you want Izuku to give you a hug-?"

"Mom…" Izuku said, sporting a bored expression, as he walked towards them holding a rusty tin can. "Just look at the height difference…"

Chitose almost slouched forwards on the sheer awkwardness of Inko's suggestion. The top of Izuku's head can barely reach her shoulders and a hug would inadvertently mean his head would be nestled between her-

"Sorry! Carry on!" The mother said out loud, throwing her hands up, before slowly walking away back to the broken-down refrigerator.

"Well technically you can bend down to hug shorter people," Izuku said, shrugging while stretching his arms and jogging around afterwards. "I gotta say this is quite the achievement, no? In a span of two days no less! My arms are kinda tired though…"

"That's the drawback of Motion-Based Quirks. They have the potential to be extremely versatile as much as they're tiring to use. While we don't know how versatile your Meta Ability is yet, at least we now have the general idea of what it does."

"Define versatile."

Chitose raised an eyebrow on the strange question. "Just look at Endeavor. He can blow fire, shoot a fireball, shoot a cluster of fireballs, generate a flaming shield, create flame tornadoes, and there's also that fiery tendril-thing-attack he did when he fought that weird flying Nomu just a couple of months ago." Chitose paused a bit before nodding. "That's just how Motion-Based Quirks work, you can mold them into almost anything within a certain boundary. The skill comes from how how long you can sustain your ability without getting tired. Normally it's just training to increase stamina, but the other half is learning easier moves for the exact same effect."

"Woah… You should be a professor at UA. Why don't you apply to them after your black eye wears off?" Izuku suggested, almost wide-eyed in amazement. "I know it's vacation time but the last time I've been there they're hiring for faculty staff."

"Hiring you say?" Chitose tilted her head as she began pacing around. But before she can speak Izuku asked again.

"Do you think that my Quirk could ever match the standard telekinesis Quirk?"

"You're already showing progress within 2 days, and we haven't even tackled your Fire Breathing abilities yet! Make no mistake, we're still going with the Conjoined Quirks are weak thing, but the rate you're going at is definitely impressive."

Izuku was stunned for a moment, before hastily walking back to his mother to explain that he might have a hidden potential on his power. It was rather childish act a young man in his 19s would do, but Chitose had seen middle-aged men and women in the MLA act even more childish once they discovered their Meta Abilities are capable of doing more.

And she herself would be lying if she said she didn't cry tears of joy once she reached a point where her once-pathetic Landmines are now capable of stacking on top of each other, allowing for theoretically infinite firepower. Although the entire celebration was cut short by Re-Destro telling her she shouldn't push onwards or else her Meta Ability might reach a much more dangerous and unstable form as time went on.

-[o]-

The day proceeded, and it didn't take long before Izuku eventually got really tired of swinging his arms around.

"Aren't you part of a supermarket staff or something?" Chitose asked Izuku as the two walked back towards the latter's mother, who's once again holding her phone up in a recording stance. "Wouldn't painful joints significantly lessen productivity?" she added.

"Don't worry about it. I'll just go Plus Ultra like heroes do."

"You're not even a hero yet."

"Emphasis on yet. I'm not a hero yet. Remember those words, Chisato-" Izuku abruptly stopped as if he didn't mean to call the far taller young woman by her first name. "Er… sorry…"

Chitose blanked out a bit, taking a while to remember her made-up first name. "Don't worry about it. I have a whole lot of experience in western countries anyways, and over there they have absolutely no problems calling people by their first names. Unless you insist otherwise, just call me Chisato," she said, accompanying her words with the warmest smile she could muster. Izuku's reaction is a bit odd, making Chitose wonder if her smile just ended up looking eerie when combined with her overall unattractiveness.

Inko, on the other hand, immediately said, "Hi Chisato!" from some distance away.

Chitose gave her a nod in return, before hurriedly excusing herself towards the nearby payphone as usual.

And exactly like her payphone trips before, there's still no signal. No matter how many times she tried, she just can't get any contact with the MLA at all. She stayed at the payphone for almost half an hour going at it over and over again, getting more and more frustrated at her lack of progress. If it weren't for the Midoriyas checking up on her, she would have stayed longer.

With a defeated sigh, Chitose placed the phone on the rack.

"Don't worry, you'll eventually reach them," Inko said, patting the tall young woman on the back and gesturing for her to move on. "Payphones are just unreliable," she added with a light chuckle.

Chitose did a slight nod in response, despite fully knowing the issue lies far beyond payphones being unreliable. In fact her experience with them had been the opposite. The only problem is that she can't contact the people she needs to contact.

Deliberately walking slow enough to end up behind the Midoriyas as they went towards the bus stop at the end of the street they're in, Chitose scanned her surroundings, hoping for maybe another payphone or anything similar she could use to-

She caught sight of a tall building just east of their location. By the looks of it, it seemed like a highschool of sorts. While obviously there are no students walking about nearby since all schools are now officially ordered to have their students go on their Christmas Vacation just a couple of days ago, what she's looking for is not a particular student, but rather a specific building that normally pops up around such educational institutions.

It didn't take long until she found what she's looking for.

Just located right in front of the school itself is an Internet-Manga café, going by the name of Cybersleuths. It's relatively large compared to other Internet cafes she had seen, and based on the words plastered on its walls it even doubles as a hotel.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. If payphones won't work, then it's time for the big guns.


Note:

As for anyone curious on why Curious is always treated as ugly in this fic:

...

I based it off of Horikoshi drawing her quite different (and significantly uglier) as compared to his usual female characters, who all share similar design templates. This is probably intentional so no one would get attached to a one-shot throwaway character like her.

This means that Curious is the only named female character who's canonically ugly. In fact she's so ugly for TV that she's not even the one reporting Toga's crimes during the small TV scenes during their fight XD