December 24 - Day 12
Chitose stepped off the bus, immediately taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh of relief. So far as good. She's been out of the apartment and walking for quite some time now and still not feeling a single tinge of pain from her thighs, or anywhere rather. One part of her wanted to thank her unique anatomy for rapidly healing it, while another part is just highly annoyed since said mutant anatomy is basically the same reason why the wounds are swollen and painful in the first place.
But still, on the bright side, her leg injuries (as well as the one on the back of her head) are very much covered from view anyways, and that's what mostly matters as to her.
"How are your legs?" came Izuku's question as she started to walk out of the general area of the bus stop. There were quite the number of people, but most of them moved out of her way on their own. As per usual she got the usual odd stares, with some parents pulling their children close to them, but overall nothing out of the ordinary for her.
"I told you I'm fine. One the pain is gone once, the pain is just gone, and that's it," she replied after managing to finally get out of the small crowd, keeping one hand securely grasping her Memory Purse slung over her shoulder all the time. "This is, like, the sixth time you asked me that," she added, adjusting her face mask and sunglasses (a new pair Izuku gave her).
"I'm just concerned and all."
"Nah I'll be just fine," Chitose said, one hand going over towards Izuku and giving him two taps on the shoulder, before gesturing towards the establishment in front of them. It was a restaurant, a rather large one compared to the usual, designed with a futuristic theme in mind and, like very much every other building nearby, is adorned with various Christmas decorations. But the thing that stood out most from the rest is the name of the restaurant itself – Luke's Lunchbox, in full English. "So is this the place you're talking about? Luke's Lunchbox?" she asked. While the name sounded familiar to her, she somehow can't piece together if ever she ate here before.
"Yea- wait… can you repeat that again?"
"What? Luke's Lunchbox?"
Izuku's eyes – the only thing visible in his covered everything, visibly widened as if in amazement. "Woah… you can pronounce it perfectly... You can not only type in full English but you can also speak in full English…"
"Uh… yes? Why?"
Izuku gestured towards the restaurant, setting Chitose's attention to it. "You go say that while the waiter is taking our orders."
"Why?"
"It's something! You don't want me spoiling the fun, right?" Izuku chuckled to himself before turning back to look at the restaurant. "So it appears to me you really have no idea of this place huh?" he added, his voice with a very light yet noticeable joking tone.
"No, not really. Or maybe I ate here before but I just forgot about it. But seriously no I can't remember anything about this place."
"Good, or else the surprise would be ruined… Anyways, Kizuki I have to tell you in advance, their dishes are out of this world!" Izuku exclaimed, doing a chef's kiss gesture afterwards. "I say that every Japanese person should have a go at Luke's Lunchbox at least once in their lifetime, the food here is really just… out of this world."
Chitose is not sure whether Izuku is joking or he's trying to tell something with another meaning. But despite his eyes being the only visible thing on his face, she could tell he's smiling underneath. "I'm guessing there's a joke here or something?" she asked, her face stifling a giggle. "So do they serve pizza here?"
"They serve all kinds of out stuff here, let's go!"
"Okay – Wait!" Chitose abruptly called out, suddenly feeling an urge to look down and inspect her jacket.
"What is it?"
"I don't know but uh… I just had a sudden thought that I forgot to change out of my singed jacket and take a bath and that I'm still smelling of oranges..."
"Imagining things huh? Maybe you're just hungry!" Izuku shrugged before turning around in an exaggerated manner. But before he can start walking towards the restaurant, he suddenly turned around again and asked, "by the way can you taste now? The food here's really good and it would be a shame if you could only experience half of it."
"Well since it's been over an hour since I last ate the remaining oranges you bought and I can already slightly taste those, there's a high chance my taste buds have already regained function, maybe just mostly, but better than not tasting anything at all am I right?"
"Let's hope they're all fine now, let's go!" The young man took one exaggerated step forward, but not before asking one more time if Chitose's legs are fine, and if ever she has any food allergies or anything similar. And upon receiving a simple 'yes' and 'no' respectively, he then proceeded onwards.
Chitose, on the other hand, just followed along, making sure she's keeping a secure grasp onto her Memory Purse every few seconds. She'll be contacting Skeptic later on in the afternoon and it would be massively embarrassing if she suddenly starts forgetting things mid-conversation.
After about a minute of walking, the two eventually reached the restaurant and entered. As expected, with the date being December 24 and all, the entire establishment is crowded, with entire families and all their relatives occupying entire rows of tables.
"Man… ground floor's all filled up… Welp, as much as I don't like it, there's always the second floor," Izuku said as he rolled his eyes, lightly gesturing towards the entire filled restaurant.
"What's wrong with second floors? Aren't they better than ground floors because of the view?"
"Kizuki, that's the problem, everyone thinks the view is better and that means all the seats near the windows are all taken," the young man grumbled as the two of them made their way towards the stairs that leads to the second floor. And as what expected, the seats near the huge glass windows are indeed already taken. "See? Window seats taken, this is what I'm talking about…"
"Hey don't be mad at least there are actual vacant seats here and less annoying and noisy kids running about!"
Izuku grumbled one last time about window seats before proceeding forward, eventually picking out a nearby table.
"This place is not bad on the decor department, huh?" Chitose muttered to herself upon taking a seat, noticing all the futuristic science fiction-inspired decorations about, which stood out in a very nice way against the greens and reds of the Christmas decorations hung around them. "I should go take a mental note of this place-" she abruptly stopped after hearing Izuku's phone ring. It was a little too on the loud side and got the attention of the nearby people, but overall nothing too serious. "Who is it? Is it your mother?" she asked after seeing Izuku's eyes widen upon seeing the screen of his phone.
But instead of the answer Chitose's expecting, the young man mouthed 'ALL MIGHT' in response.
"All Might-?" she raised an eyebrow. But before she can ask a question, Izuku suddenly held up a hand, silencing her. He then hurriedly stood up and quickly excused himself to the restroom, his expression looking a little too excitable.
And with that, Chitose is left alone in the table. And since there's neither a waiter nor a waitress nearby to take any orders yet (which is a very good thing in itself considering she doesn't really know what Izuku orders in this place), she instead just leaned back and observed her surroundings. Compared to the overall mess on the ground floor, the second floor is relatively empty and with much less noise (much to her relief), and as with tradition that started from over a hundred years ago, almost every single occupied table has a chicken bucket placed on it. But so far nothing out of the ordinary-
"SIR YES SIR!" came the loud voice of Izuku from the restroom. It definitely got a surprised reaction out of her, and most of the people on the second floor. Everyone stared at the restroom for about a minute afterwards, but Izuku did not yell anything any further, and everyone returned to whatever they're doing.
Leaning back against the seat once more, Chitose's eyes eventually settled on a nearby television hooked up on the wall, currently set on the news. There was a brief mention of the Deika City Terror attack, and how it's speculated to be orchestrated by the League of Villains (as exactly what High-5 said), but overall it's not as serious anymore and just sounded more like a passing mention. In fact her apparent death is not even reported anymore.
"What if it's deliberate on Re-Destro's part to 'kill me off' and make me younger so I can snoop around more effectively?" she whispered to herself as she thought more on the subject. But she knew that can't be right, the grand plan doesn't even have anything remotely close to having her snoop around and discover secrets behind the heroes' curtains as the Liberation War proceeds. All the plan ever stated is that the high-ranking members (her included) would just hole themselves up at the Gunga Mountain Headquarters after the Revival Party and oversee the war. So what could be the real reason she's 'killed off'?
Skeptic seems to know something… the way he planned to send in a speedboat instead of an aircraft might be a reference to what's really going on, but how come he just won't say anything? But then again is it really Skeptic or just an impersonator? But that HAS to be him because his network is heavily defended by multiple complicated security systems and protocols, both physical and Metapower-related, so it HAS to be him!
But why is there a Nomu? Why is there no speedboat? Where is everyone?
Chitose was about to wonder some more when a rather loud sound of a door opening caught her attention, alongside the rest of the people on the second floor. A few seconds later, in comes Izuku walking into view in an exaggerated triumphant manner.
And then he tripped, but stood up so fast it's like he never even tripped in the first place. The act got a lot of stares and giggles from nearby people, yet he didn't even care at all and just continued walking. He eventually reached his table and immediately sat on the opposite side of Chitose, his expression (or what's visible of it) still high and mighty.
"So uh… is it really All Might?"
Izuku slowly nodded and then gradually lowered his head to face her. "I'm a secret agent now," he said as he placed his mittened hands onto the table. "All Might, the Number One, gave me my first task… And uh…"
"You look a little dizzy."
"That's because the camera kept moving around during the video call! Sometimes it's pointing towards All Might, and then it would move again when Mr. Yagi is talking, and then back again! Why can't the two of them just stand next to each other and place the phone a bit farther away-? But anyways! I have a mission to do."
"Oh yeah? What's that?" Chitose asked, placing both hands on the table as well and stifling a laugh. She knew a joke is about to come up and-
"All Might told me since it would be rude to just ask you to come over to UA again, considering everything that's happened and all, so instead he just gave me some questions I'm going to ask you about. They said it has something to do with helping you out on your 'Young Again' dilemma," Izuku said, mumbling something incomprehensible afterwards.
"Huh?" Contrary to what Chitose is expecting, Izuku did not throw a joke. But on the other hand, it made her think. Questions? What does asking her had to do with the whole 'Getting Younger' issue? Is he going to ask a lot of things about Hokkaido again?
"Hmm I can see you're speechless. I can understand, I'm hungry too, why don't we get something to eat, yeah?" Izuku, still acting like he's on a sugar rush, slid over to the other side of the elongated seat he's on and took off a rectangular object on the end of the table. Apparently it's a cover and there's a comically large red button underneath, and he pressed that.
"What's that?" Chitose asked, slightly wondering why the cover and the button is seemingly designed to look like a nuclear launch button, just without the radiation symbol on top of it.
"Lunch."
Before Chitose could ask more about it, a segment of a nearby wall opened and out came a moderately-sized wheeled robot, about half the height of an adult human, and headed towards their table. Upon getting closer, Chitose could see a name tag on the robot's 'chest' – which is just a simple digital screen, and on it displayed the words Artoo-D3.
It's spherical robotic 'head' then slightly lifted up and spat out two menu cards for the two of them.
Chitose could hear a light snicker from Izuku but chose to ignore it, she's more curious about the odd foodstuffs displayed on the menu cover. Taking one quick glance onto the strange robotic waiter, she took her menu card and immediately turned a page, and she's immediately greeted by – in the most literal sense, out of this world food. Literally every single dish on the menu looked bizarre, strange, and overall hard to decipher – like everything came from a galaxy far far away.
But still, she felt something odd about them. It might just be the lighting or the way the dishes are portrayed, but Chitose found her mouth watering at the sight of them. It doesn't matter whether the food looks like it came from the depths of hell or a simple bright pink cookie, everything looked strangely delicious.
'I swear this menu's got to have a Metapower attached to it that's making everything look delicious…' she thought to herself as she continued to inspect the outlandish foodstuffs displayed. "Okay I think uh… I'll just have the uh… I'll have the Manager's Choice," Chitose said as she put the menu card down and slid it back towards the robot, which just ignored it. Almost immediately Izuku peeked from behind his menu card and started mouthing 'Luke's Lunchbox' to her.
"Er… Luke's Lunch…box…?" she awkwardly said, slowly turning her head to face the Artoo-D3 service robot beside her. In response, the robot turned its spherical head towards her and its digital name tag immediately displayed a smiley face. It also emitted a few robotic cheerful-sounding beeps, but other than that, nothing else.
"I'll have the Bantha Katsudon, plus a few of these and a few of these and this…" Izuku mumbled while leaning towards the robot, that's now facing him instead. He also kept snickering every few seconds. And with the ordering done, the wheeled robot once again emitted a few beeps before driving away.
"So where's my reward for saying Luke's Lunchbox perfectly?"
"Actually I don't really know. Word is you get a reward for it but oh well…" Izuku shrugged while giggling to himself. "Okay so about All Might's questions-"
"You know you look really adorable when you giggle-" Chitose abruptly stopped, realizing too late that her tongue just slipped. "Uh… that was a mistake… I uh… meant something else…" she stuttered, immediately looking away and pointing towards the first thing she saw, which is an 'Employees Only' door.
'Out of all the thigns I could say… it just have to be that… dammit…'
"Hey don't worry about that, Kizuki, I can handle a few compliments!" Izuku said before jokingly grumbling he would rather be described as 'Badass' or 'Cool' instead.
Chitose slowly turned back, instinctively raising up her hands and cupping her face to hide the full-blown blush she's having. "Uh… you can?" she awkwardly muttered, stuttering along the way. 'Stupid adorable roommate checking all the boxes… dammit… I really need to get back to my old age now…' she thought to herself as she slowly put her hands down. She then took one deep breath and sighed, it may not remove the heat entirely, but it definitely pushed the blush away and that's what matters more. "So what is it about – wait why did the robot not get our menu?"
"They only take it back after they served us our orders. I think it's deliberate on them in case you want to order some more."
"Oh… so anyways what's with All Might's questions?" she asked. And in a flash her nervousness from her tongue slipping earlier is immediately replaced with slight nervousness regarding All Might. While she's pretty much sure that nothing is wrong, there's just that innate feeling of fear when a villain like her is about to receive questions from the literal Number One of the country. She mentally braced herself for the impending questions. If ever the first question hinted slightly at the MLA she would-
"How long can you hold your breath?" Izuku asked, holding up his phone and staring at the screen.
Chitose blanked out. "What…?" That question is definitely not what she's expecting. "Can you repeat the question again?"
"How long can you hold your breath?"
"Uh…" her voice trailed off as a hand automatically went up to scratch the side of her head. "I don't really know…?"
Izuku did a swift nod. "Question two, do you see in blue and white?"
'Mine Vision…' a thought popped into Chitose's head. Is All Might talking about that? She eventually just brushed it off as her special vision is an innate ability to her and there's no way All Might even knew it existed. "No."
"Have you ever been shocked? As in hit by high voltages of electricity?"
Chitose shook her head. Her only experience of being electrified are with weak defibrillators. Never before she took an an entire lightning bolt to the face.
"Next question, do you know your real parents?"
Chitose shook her head again, her confusion now at an all-time high. "Uh… are those just jokes?" she asked, noticing that Izuku too has a confused look as he stared at the screen of his phone. "What are those questions?"
"Actually… those are AM's questions… check it out… there are also Hokkaido questions here…" Izuku said as he leaned forward and reached out to face the phone towards the young woman in front of him.
Chitose leaned in as well to inspect. Just as what Izuku said, the questions are indeed just seemingly random things that are not even connected to each other. "I'm not joking with these questions, there are really the stuff AM and Mr. Yagi sent me…" Izuku said as he slowly pulled back his phone and went back to his seat. "How could these questions even be related to solving the 'Suddenly Young' mystery? Nothing here is even connected to each other!" he added as he continued staring down the screen.
"That's what I'm wondering too." Chitose was about o continue when she heard a few soft beeps coming from the button Izuku pressed earlier to summon the waiter robot. After a short while, the sound of mechanical whirring is heard from the direction of the stairs that lead to the first floor, and soon came a sizeable metal chunk (or what looks like it) going up to the second floor by way of upside-down monorail-like tracks attached to the ceiling (which she only now noticed). Upon reaching their table, the chunk of metal lowered itself via a long mechanical arm, ultimately revealing it to be just a metal tray containing the food they ordered. Once lowered at the right height of the table, another set of mechanical arms deployed from underneath the tray to push the food onto it. Afterwards, it picked up the menu cards and then packed itself up, before going back up the ceiling and sliding off back downstairs via upside-down monorail.
"Well that… was very… sophisticated…" Chitose commented, her voice trailing off at how utterly amazing the service is. She then turned her attention to the food the robotic arm gave her. It looks like conventional grilled steak, but with fully attached tentacles on one side (as if it's really part of the meat), and upon poking it a few times with her chopsticks, the insides feel like it has beanbags full of sand inside of it. Curious, she took a knife and carefully sliced it in half, and out came numerous caviar-like balls. As disgusting as it may look, she found her mouth beginning to water.
Raising one eyebrow and swiftly removing her face mask and stuffing it in her purse, Chitose sliced off a small portion of the 'meat' and then stabbed it with her chopsticks. She then raised it up, the caviar-like spheres heavily sticking in the interior part of the steak, and took a whiff of it. It smelled … it smelled like something else she can't properly piece together. And after one last look, she took a bite out of it.
It tasted like conventional roast steak, with the 'caviar' tasting like barbecue sauce. But just after a few seconds of chewing, the taste eventually turned sweet – but still in line with the barbecue taste and strangely not out of place. As for the texture, it was certainly… inexplicably strange yet marvelous.
"What kind of alien crap did I just eat?" she asked in a joking tone, before her voice slowly trailed off, getting the joke. "You deliberately planned all of this, didn't you?"
"Hey don't blame me! I'm just trying to get on your good side so I can be spared if ever you finally decide to bring in your mothership and take over the entire planet! I don't like the idea of getting probed!" Izuku jokingly backed off and raised both mittened hands in surrender. "We penguins do NOT like getting probed. Spare us please? Spare Mom too will ya?"
"I swear I'm gonna probe you first." Chitose did a light giggle afterwards. "I'll send the first invasion fleet straight towards Antarctica."
"Oh yeah? So this means war huh? I swear if you lost you're the one going to receive a whole lot of probing!"
…
…
"… You know what let's stop talking about probing each other…"
"… Good idea…"
"…Sooo uh… what do you got there?" Chitose asked, looking over to whatever Izuku ordered. "Is that… a chicken drumstick with two feet? How in the world did they even get that?" she added upon seeing a particular foodstuff on one of Izuku's ordered dishes. And just like her tentacle-steak filled with 'sand beanbags', the two-feet chicken drumstick looked as if it's very real and not artificial. "Just seriously, how?"
"You out here wondering where did I get a four-footed chicken while at the same time being a blue person with strange alien anatomy…" Izuku snickered to himself upon stabbing said drumstick with a fork and splitting it in two with the help of a knife. "Quirks do a lot of wonderful things you know?"
"Is that even legal…? Mutating the animals I mean?"
"Well actually, this resto underwent heavy criticism back in its earlier days as The Red Planet café, with a whole lot of animal activists protesting against this mutant meat – saying the owner is mutating the animals and making them suffer. As it turned out, the animals were in fact being mutated, but only within seconds before slaughter so it doesn't really make much of a difference, although I still feel a little off about it," Izuku said before taking one bite off of the drumstick, and then muttering something about he should also feel really bad for the mutated animals if only they weren't so delicious. He took a drink afterwards before continuing, "the only issue this resto ever got is its illegal Quirk use for mutating the animals. But luckily the owner won the case, although he must now follow the rules. If he wants to continue using his Quirk to mutate animals for his business, then he must have a hero license, and so he went to school and got one, and here we are. Quite the story huh?"
"Don't you think it's a little too absurd and strict that only certified heroes are allowed to openly use Meta Abilities? The power is a little too centralized, don't you think?"
"Yeah, but it is what it is. If the system ain't broke, don't fix it. I dunno what High-5 is up to with her League Blog shenanigans and hero-bashing - whether they're true or not, but it is what it is," Izuku said with a shrug, taking another bite out of his food afterwards.
"Say…" Chitose paused a bit, "do you think this hero system should be scrapped?" She felt a little awkward asking it, but easily managed to just brush it off. "Do you think everything would be better if people are just allowed to use their Meta Abilities? A world without this hero-system?"
"That's a very odd choice of topic-switch there but uh… No, not really. You see, heroes are basically just glorified policemen, why in the world would everything be better without policemen? Wouldn't that mean crime would just become rampant?"
"But people are now allowed to defend themselves."
"While yes you make a good point that bullied people are not allowed to defend themselves in this system Quirk-wise but seriously, why would removing the police force be a good thing? The Hero System may be far from perfect but it's definitely better than nothing," Izuku's voice trailed off, his face soon replaced with a smirk. "You out there removing the heroes so you can conquer the planet easier huh? Nice try."
"Dammit! Stupid giant penguins ruining everything!" Chitose tried to stifle a laugh afterwards but still managed to let a few chuckles slip. At least Izuku finally gave out his opinion on the matter. She doesn't know why, but she felt a light tinge of accomplishment for some unknown reason.
"I told ya, everything's better with a few jokes thrown in here and there! Oh and by the way you haven't really looked at my drawings yet so I brought my sketchbook- wait…" Izuku stopped halfway of getting his sketchbook from one of his sweater pockets, his expression quickly turning blank. He then quickly composed himself. "I just remembered something… so you said something about people freely using their Quirks, or Meta Abilities as you call them, to defend themselves… And that homework you did for me is also about Free Quirk Use… and then you asked me to tell you about my opinions on free Quirk Use…" Izuku's voice trailed off.
Chitose froze, one part of her suddenly feeling slightly nervous, while another is just confused as what Izuku is going for considering his facial expression slowly turned into an exaggerated look of curiosity.
"You also mentioned something back at Takoba about 'Joining an unruly club'…" Izuku's voice trailed off, before gradually turning to face the young woman in front of him. "By any chance, is that 'club' a Free Quirk Use club?" he asked, his look of curiosity slowly fading away into an odd look of concern.
Chitose gulped down, her nervousness rising. "I-uh…" she stammered. While there's no threat of her being figured out by Izuku, considering the Meta Liberation Army stayed well-hidden over the decades, not to mention they're not the only 'Free Quirk Use' organization in Japan – in fact there are hundreds of them out there, each one brought to existence by the country's strict Metapower Laws, but seeing those organizations are generally frowned upon…
"It must be a pretty big one, with you being an executive and all…" the young man continued, lowering his voice towards the end. "So is the club you're talking about a Free Quirk Use club?"
Chitose paused for a bit, feelings of abandonment beginning to rise. As much as she knew she should not be worrying about anything, but her heavily insecure young self's mind just can't keep itself from succumbing to the thoughts. She opened her lips, about to say no but instead what came out is just a weak yes.There's not much sense lying out of it when Izuku already figured it out anyways.
"But how could that be?" the young man asked, one eyebrow raised. "You won't even tell me what your Quirk does, not to mention you said you never even liked it! And on top of all that you didn't even change your name to mean anything Chemistry-like like any other person these days. Normally, people part of a Free Quirk Use group make their Quirks their entire lives, openly talking about them and always making it the center of everything. Now it may not be the case for all Free Quirk Use advocates, but you're doing the literal opposite of a Free Quirk Use believer."
"It's because uh… uh…" Chitose's voice trailed off.
"So you just joined them to feel important? Just like you said back in Takoba?" Izuku asked, concern easily audible through his voice. It took a short while of silence from the young woman in front of him before he eventually continued. "I understand. You ran off from a young age, and then piled on by bad luck after bad luck after bad luck. You told me you literally even 'worked' as a human punching bag once. When a person's been beaten up by outside circumstances like that, it only makes sense they join anything that's nice to them just to feel a sense of purpose… Even though you don't really like them seeing as you're not the typical Free Quirk Use person."
"Midoriya…" Chitose took a deep breath. "Back at Takoba that was my insecure young self talking. That was her opinion on the organization I'm part in. The older me has fully since accepted them as part of my family. And I'm very important to them. I've been there for over two decades now," she added.
"I don't know Kizuki… you literally teared up with a simple hug. Is that your young self again or something? I find it a bit too tough to believe you're blaming everything on your younger self when you're supposedly like a mix between your young and old self, just a little skewed over your old self or… I hope you're catching my point here because uh… it's hard to explain properly." Izuku placed his mittened hands on the table. "It's just really concerning..."
"That's just how my family works, Midoriya. We just don't do any hugging there. But still, I'm fine with it and I like it there."
"And yet you don't act like a typical Free Quirk Use person. Something tells me you don't really like them. It's like you don't really feel appreciated there..."
"Yes I do," Chitose replied. "It may not be all the time but I can understand. All the people there are pretty busy. Not everyone gets hugs after all."
"Yeah I know… It's just uh… it's… you're just making me concerned that's all…" Izuku's voice trailed off. "Now if you don't mind me asking, when is the last time that family of yours did something for you?"
The young woman raised a confused eyebrow. "What kind of question is that? Our group leader is the one who helped out recommending me to Shoowaysha in the first place!" she said in a confident manner. "Without him, I wouldn't even be an executive right now."
"Recommended at Shoowaysha? Aren't you already an executive now? What year is that?"
"About twenty years ago, why?"
A light twitch occurred in Izuku's barely-visible right eyebrow. "Is there anything more recent?"
In response, Chitose raised her left arm and pointed it towards Izuku's direction. "They gave me this cool wristwatch," she said, referring to her Curious Flattener in its wristwatch form. "It's not the best but it's pretty great. They gave me this 8 years ago."
"Are there… anything from uh… like last month ago?"
Chitose slowly leaned back to think, one part of her wondering about Izuku's strange question. "No… not really…" she eventually muttered after being unable to think of anything. She was about to nod and add a simple 'I can't really think of anything' when she suddenly remembered something. "They wished me a Merry Christmas last year."
"But it's already Christmas this year. How about your birthday? Did you even get any greetings or something?"
"No."
"Not even greetings…?" Izuku shook his head as he sliced off a chunk of his steak. "You're a very lonely person. That family doesn't even look like real family at all. I sure do hope you're not just being used as a tool."
"Why do I have to have grand birthday parties anyway?" Chitose asked, slightly annoyed by the remark. "Plus it's not supposed to be everyday they'll walk up to me and say 'Hey Kizuki you're very important to us'."
"I'm not saying it should happen everyday. I'm just saying that with family you should at least get to feel appreciated definitely more than once a year, among other things and uh… dammit…" Izuku's voice trailed off, his expression utterly flabbergasted and his mittened fingers fidgeting amongst themselves, as if finding it really hard to explain what he really meant. It took a while before he perked up again. "Look at the history of this restaurant," he continued, "this thing survived because people defended the owner at court. I know customers and friends may not be real family but you get the idea." Izuku then started looking around frantically, eventually pointing towards somewhere behind Chitose after a few seconds. "Look over there, that photo hung up on the wall."
"What about it?" she asked upon seeing the only big photo hung up on the wall in the general direction Izuku is pointing at.
"That's Admiral Timothy Agbar from the US. His crew brought him here, even though they're from the other side of the world even, simply for his birthday because they think it's going to be fun bringing their alien-looking boss to an alien-themed restaurant. They even went ahead and invited his parents in secret. And as you can see, that's one very glad admiral." Izuku stuttered a bit on his words. "Yeah they're not really that family, but notice how they treat him as an important part of the team. The crew did this for him because he's special," he stuttered again on his words but eventually they came out as normal, "yeah I'm being cringe again but I hope you get the idea. You crying from a simple hug is-"
"Midoriya, that's my old self, okay? She's very insecure about anything – and by anything I mean literally anything," she said, gaze still centered on the photo of the birthday party, inspecting some minor details on it. But as she continued to look on, some part of her slowly welled up with an enormous amount of envy and jealousy. She never did receive that level of appreciation from the MLA itself despite all her contributions to it for over two decades of her being there. At most all she ever gets is a simple remark from Re-Destro for a job well done, and nothing else.
…
A brief memory of Geten doing a mocking salute of her before falling down in Deika City suddenly flashed in her mind.
'Geten deliberately let you fall so everyone can laugh at you as you lay unconscious in the middle of the road! Just like back then in college!' a random thought appeared inside her head, the same one she thought of back in Takoba Beach two nights ago.
'And your Curious Flattener is utter crap! You KNOW it! You've interviewed heroes with far more impressive and effective support equipment that they got for far cheaper! Why did Re-Destro give you such an expensive but useless piece of junk? It's because it's WHAT THEY THINK OF YOU!' and another memory flashed again.
'Face it. You're not important to them, nor to anybody. You're a disposable tool. Stop fooling yourself. You and your dangerous Quirk never belonged anywhere…' A third memory resurfaced. But before a fourth memory can appear, she countered it by remembering all the times she felt herself matter within the Army, specifically all the times Re-Destro sent kind words her way.
…
They may not be that much, and nothing the MLA ever did for her in two decades ever went to the level like the US Admiral's level of appreciation, but it worked. She got the negative thoughts away, and all that happened to her is that her eyes got a bit watery. And before Izuku could say something, she spoke first. "I just got something in my eye, it's nothing."
Izuku slowly nodded. "I'm just concerned and all… with your transaction-mindset and everything… but I sure do hope that group of yours treats you well. Surely there's no more Nomu around?" he asked, although his voice sounded unsure of what he said.
"No more, the first one was just a fluke. The League must have hi-jacked the comms systems. Plus AM's technically's just nearby so that can't happen anymore. Notice how there haven't been any crime here in Musutafu ever since yesterday? I'm perfectly safe this time, don't worry."
Izuku slowly nodded as he took a mouthful of his steak. "You're making me nervous."
"I'm going to repeat it again. That's just my young self talking and being insecure, okay? I'm completely fine as my adult self. I may haven't received any physical gifts nor any hugs from my family for over two decades now but I'm completely fine and I like it there." Chitose paused a bit. "I'm just acting a little too odd at times because my memories are merging together and it's kinda complicated."
"Okay okay… I hope you're just fine…" Izuku's voice trailed off as he took another mouthful. But just after a short while, he suddenly stood up, walked over, and sat beside Chitose on the other side of the table, phone at hand. "Okay let me go send your brief answers to All Might for a bit aaaand done!"
"What are you doing here on my side?"
"You got all sad and I'm still very much concerned about that group of yours so I have decided that, for me to NOT feel guilty and worried when you inevitably leave, I'll just go cheer you up because," Izuku paused and then took in a deep breath, looking as if he's about to blurt out something extremely cringeworthy, "your smile is precious to me Kizuki!"
"Izuku that's cringe," the young woman said in response, giggling a little.
"Well yeah I literally just copied a line that's always said in my Mom's favorite drama series. Of course it's gonna be cringe! But hey look who's blushing!"
"No I'm not, blush- crap." Chitose immediately raised both her hands and felt her cheeks. She is, in fact, blushing. "Dammit…" she grumbled and immediately looked away. "My young self has a massive weakness for compliments apparently…" she added, deliberately not mentioning that Izuku's overall appearance alone IS her young self's greatest weakness. 'Times like these I can't wait to grow back up…'
"So anyways, with me being super special and I can make girls blush and all-"
"Midoriya I'm not a girl I'm an adult woman. An executive even."
Izuku blanked out a bit, and then lightly shook his head. "Darn I keep forgetting about that. You seriously just look and act like someone in her twenties," he muttered as he pulled over some of his food from the other side of the table closer to him. "It's really throwing me off."
"That's because my age went back to my twenties. Of course I'm going to act like I'm someone in my twenties!"
"Now I feel kinda awkward about it."
"Nah don't mind it. Just assume I'm just someone at your age."
"Okay that sits fine with me!" Izuku nodded. Meanwhile, Chitose is about to make a joke about the deliberate blue drink Izuku apparently ordered when the young man hastily tapped her multiple times on the back and gestured to look behind her. As it turned out, it's the dome-headed service bot that took their order earlier. This time it's wearing a neat little top hat, and out in front of it, being carried by metallic arm extensions, is a small white plate with an equally small white bowl on top of it.
The robot strolled over to them and greeted them with rapid beeps, before handing out the item it's carrying. It then emitted out multiple beeps once more before moving off.
Chitose stared at the bowl. Within it is a flour-like powder neatly arranged in a circle. "What's this?"
"The prize for saying Luke's Lunchbox in proper english! It's got to be it!" Izuku exclaimed as he stared down the nondescript bowl while rapidly tapping Chitose's back. "I heard people say stuff about this stuff!"
"What do we do with it? Could I just eat it as is?"
"No, you pour water onto it… that's what I heard about it though… let's see…" Izuku's voice trailed off as he took a nearby (still-untouched) glass of water and a (also still-untouched) spoon. Using the spoon to scoop out a little water from the glass, he carefully poured a few drops onto the powder. And as expected, for him at least, the viscous fluid created by the mixture of water and the powder rapidly ballooned up, ending into something looking like a fluffy muffin of sorts.
"Woah…" Chitose's voice trailed off, witnessing the event. "I swear this restaurant is really something…"
"See? Even the restaurant thinks you're special, unlike that group of yours-"
"Midoriya, I'm fine, okay? Enough about that."
"I know… just concerned and all…" he replied in response, before suddenly shifting the topic towards the particular alien pastry in front of them, wasting no time in talking about all the ingredients used in it, or so what people theorized…
Chitose on the other hand just drifted off, mind suddenly filled with thoughts about her overall treatment from the MLA over the years…
Slowly, amidst Izuku's muttering, she turned her head to once again look at the framed photo of that one US Admiral's birthday party hung up on the wall. It was definitely a big surprise fit for an important person like him, and to his side are his parents, and all around him are his crew all seemingly wearing costumes. In all regards, she has a similar rank to him in the Liberation Army, but how come she never got a single treatment like that? Re-Destro gets appreciated (obviously), even Trumpet and Geten gets appreciated, the rest of the high-ranking members get appreciated, she doesn't know about Skeptic, but how come not her? How come it's never her? Is that the reason why Skeptic is not taking her seriously, because she's not important?
Chitose shook off the thoughts, feeling the insecurities of her young self attempting to take over again. All of those are obviously not true. She's an important aspect of the Liberation Army, and that's that. And the only reason she can't remember anything the MLA did to appreciate her is because she just forgot about them, that's it. She definitely just forgot about them, no need to worry anymore.
'Calm down Kizuki, you're very much appreciated there. You just forgot those moments…'
But still, the brief mental image of Geten's mocking salute once again flashed in her mind.
Lunchtime went well. Almost a little too well as for Chitose's expectations. She didn't get a random allergy, her legs didn't sting, her taste buds are back to full function, and the food is utterly delicious despite none being garlic-flavored (not that she's complaining), and best of all the insecure thoughts didn't come back anymore after taking her eyes off of a particular framed photo. Now if only Izuku stopped cracking alien jokes avery few seconds it would be a lot better, and they would have finished a whole lot earlier, but instead much time is wasted by nonsensical and worthless giggling.
..
But it was sure fun as heck. Chitose would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it. While yes much time is wasted, but in the end it was all worth it.
"Hey this is actually pretty good!" Chitose exclaimed as she adjusted her face mask and sunglasses, very impressed at a particular drawing off of Izuku's sketchbook. It's a rough sketch of a penguin wearing a trench coat lighting up a cigarette. "So you do have a knack for drawing huh?" she added, still holding onto a bright pink milkshake (or so she thinks is a milkshake), as the two of them walked out of the restaurant. "We really just spent two hours just hanging around a restaurant huh?"
"Because like I said, your smile is precious to me! And I'm glad you did a lot of smiling!" Izuku said, with the same dramatic effect he did earlier. "But seriously I need more corny lines. That one's quickly getting old. I gotta watch more of Mom's drama movies."
Chitose shook her head. The line, did, in fact, got old rather quick. But as she was shaking her head, she noticed a poster just right at the entrance/exit of a small parking lot right next to the restaurant. Apparently, there's a Couple's Discount event going on. Raising one eyebrow, she immediately turned to look back at the entrance. Upon a brief observation, it appears that it's advertised to anyone even remotely resembling a couple entering the restaurant (with quite a lot of mistakes with brothers and sisters, relatives, friends, and other similar things).
But somehow not for them-
"Oh they have a Couples Discount, huh? 50% too, that's a lot!" Izuku giggled to himself as he raised up a small take-out pizza box he ordered for emphasis, "hey how come we didn't get hounded? That's not fair!" he joked. "We dated once in Takoba remember?"
"Midoriya that doesn't count," she said with a joking eye-roll before gesturing towards the young man to keep walking. "Besides, I look more like someone's nanny than someone's life partner. Trust me, I heard that pretty frequently back in the day. But that's a long time ago and I don't really think that much on it anyways…" her voice trailed off and she sighed, talking about it ironically just made her remember those times. "Let's go," Chitose muttered as she walked on. "Oh and- wait, you said we're going to give that pizza to your mother first before we go to Cybersleuths, correct?"
"Yes, why?"
"Is there a nearby bookstore there?"
"Yeah. It's only a small one though, why?"
"I have to buy something," Chitose immediately replied right after Izuku finished talking. If she's going to be rescued, then she sure has to have a copy of the Meta Liberation War. Is it needed, considering she could just pass off her entire 'adventure' as she's just lost? Maybe, but something is just telling her to get one, just in case Re-Destro decides to be part of the rescue team. "It's just a simple book, nothing much."
"Hmm… okay then," Izuku replied before gesturing to her to walk faster as the bus they need to catch already just so happens to be arriving to the nearby bus stop within the next minute.
The bus ride is a fairly short one. Chitose felt a single light sting on her legs, but it was faint and faded almost immediately just after it appeared so she didn't think too much on it.
And eventually, they reached their destination.
"Where's your Mom working at?" Chitose asked upon getting off the bus, immediately noticing there is nothing within her immediate vicinity that remotely looked like a factory of sorts. Is Inko even working in a factory? Or does the factory just doesn't look like a factory-?
"It's still some walking distance away from here. By the way the bookstore's just right there across the street, do you see it?" Izuku pointed towards a particular building on the other side of the road that stands out from the rest of the buildings nearby it. "So uh, I'll just meet you up there? I'll just deliver this pizza real quick."
"Hmmm that sounds good enough to me," Chitose said after a quick nod. "I'll just wait for you outside the bookstore if you somehow got a little late."
Izuku nodded in response and proceeded to walk away.
Turning around, Chitose set her attention on the road and began crossing it. It's quite a very wide street, with multiple lanes even. She would have gotten to the other side sooner than she expected if it weren't for the traffic coincidentally intensifying by the time there's one more lane left to cross. All in all a simple road-crossing still ended up taking over five minutes.
But still, she eventually reached the bookstore. It was a fairly large bookstore, quite the contrary as to what Izuku said about it earlier-
'Face it. You're not important to them...' that one same thought she had in Takoba re-flashed inside her mind again, making her suddenly stop. She inctinctively raised an eyebrow, finding it very odd. There's nothing around her that could have triggered it, nor a particular event happened that could have led to it, so why did it suddenly appear?
She backed off a few steps, mind suddenly going blank.
A negative thought was about to enter her head when she heard light calls of her made-up name of 'Chisato', making her turn her attention to it. And there they are, Izuku and Inko from across the street, waving to her.
A small smile involuntarily crept up her face as she looked at them, immediately noticing the mother waving much more enthusiastically than her son. While Izuku already knew most of her story, Inko doesn't – and it should just stay that way. The less people knowing some clues to her true identity, the better.
But what stood out of the small gestures from the two of them is that it once again brought her indescribable heartwarming feelings. Is it because she's getting appreciated despite currently not doing anything in return? She mentally recalled all the events that happened so far that triggered such feelings, and her suspicion might have some semblance of truth in them. She's only been with the Midoriyas for around a week and she felt much more appreciated here than her entire two decades of being with the MLA. She contributed to the cause a lot, but never received anything equal in return.
…
Conflicted in her thoughts, Chitose eventually just waved back to the two across the street in return. But still, her mind continued to drift about, specifically the sheer difference of the appreciation she's receiving here compared to the army. She tried to counter the thoughts by reminding herself that she just forgot about most of the appreciation she received in the army as a consequence of suddenly being younger, but deep down she knew it's not true, she can still fully remember huge chunks of her time as Curious – and she can remember she doesn't really get any appreciation-
'Dammit!' she yelled in her thoughts, shaking her head, very much annoyed at herself. 'Stupid insecurities making me think nonsensical thoughts!'
Chitose took one deep breath and let out a sigh. 'There is absolutely nothing wrong with my treatment at the MLA. My younger self is just messing things up…'
…
Notes:
I find it really odd that Curious's death had absolutely ZERO effect on the MLA at all...
