"Talk, now."
"No, too many ears everywhere. Two days from now, noon. You know where to meet me."
"The fuck does that-"
Click.
"...Mean."
It took a concentrated effort of breathing, listening to the ambient noises of nature, and putting my fist through a tree to calm down to a point where I wouldn't break my phone again. Pulling my fist from the hole I'd just created, I patted the tree as I walked past it, closing the gaping wound in the bark and bringing a bit more colour to its leaves.
The immediate, knee-jerk, paranoid impulses told me that it was a trap. The worst part was that I couldn't even dispute them. I didn't know Giran well enough to conclusively decide if I'd somehow pissed him off, and I understood his motivations even less. I had no clue, and I wouldn't be getting one until two days from now… once I figured out where to meet him.
Grumbling to myself, I wound my way through the trees, ignoring the backyard and the open kitchen door that beckoned to me in the breeze. Nobody inside deserved my fresh annoyance being dumped on them, nor the new plans that were swirling through my head.
If Giran wanted to make an enemy out of me, he'd have a very short time to regret that decision. If Giran didn't want to make an enemy out of me, but had to anyway? That was just another layer of complexity that I didn't want or need to deal with.
My idle musing and wandering carried me around the side of the house, only stopping when I bumped into something that had been lying in wait around a corner. Despite barely feeling the impact, it was enough for me to focus back on reality.
The playset didn't offer any excuses for hitting me. If I was being generous I could have said that it blended into the background slightly, a mostly green structure with patches of pink and black running along the sides. Running a hand over the surface of it gently, I watched as it readjusted itself slightly, parts that had been drooping under its own weight straightening out. The green, though still dull in comparison to what I'd seen in the past, seemed ever so slightly more vibrant as I walked along the playset and towards the fence that had been connected to the side of it.
If only everything in life could be so easy.
I sighed, scratching the back of my neck absently with my free hand. Maybe I'd gotten too used to being able to fix any problem with a single touch. The fingers trailing along the plastic landed on the wooden fence, paint that had been chipped away by exposure righting itself and splinters sinking back below the surface.
The crackling of Overhaul retreated back into my body. The space it took up felt suspiciously like a void. Ignoring the counterproductive urge to knock the fence over with a kick, I turned around, eraching inwards for my bike to carry me back into the solitude that made perfect sense.
I caught myself before I could take a single step. Otherwise, that kick would have flown right into the face of the little girl that had been standing directly behind me.
"Uh…" Bright red eyes stared up at me from underneath a curtain of white hair. I tilted my head to the side, wondering just how deep in my own head I had to have been for her to sneak up on me, and after a moment, her own head tilted to the side in a perfect approximation of what I had done.
A muffled snort reached my ears. Glancing up briefly, I watched as Gentle hid his mouth behind his hand, his eyes darting between us and his shoulders shaking slightly. Alright then.
All my zero experience with children came to the forefront. Shoving my hands so deep in my pockets that my shoulders hunched ever so slightly downwards, I shifted my gaze back down to Eri, my expression even more blank than usual.
"Sup?" I grunted, accompanied with a sharp nod.
Nailed it.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Gentle shaking his head, the hand that had been covering his mouth now resting over his eyes. It didn't help me feel any less stupid that Eri was still scrutinising me, gaze wide and unnerving in a way that only children could really accomplish.
After a moment, she's apparently found what she was looking for. Her hands disappeared into the pockets of the shorts she was wearing, pulling her shoulders down into a slouch that wasn't natural for any six year old. Her expression fell flat, probably trying for a blank stare. but only managing to make her look like she'd rolled out of bed and then had to pull her face off the floor.
"Sup?" The word came out low, like she'd been trying to chew it up before spitting it out, and it was accompanied by an exaggerated nod.
I was suddenly, inexplicably glad that I killed Chisaki. For a brief moment, this child and I understood each other perfectly. Bad posture, eyes squinting so close that it was difficult to see, and Gentle doing his best to muffle his laughter in the background. It didn't even come to an end when she abruptly ducked her head and rushed past me; I too would have gladly disengaged from interacting with a random person if the alternative was a swingset.
Unfortunately, just as that swingset called to her, so too did the road call out to me. With a heart slightly lighter, yet still uncomfortable sitting in my chest, I meandered past Gentle with nary a word, my hands sinking impossibly lower into my pockets.
I would need to figure out how to find Giran. I would need to figure out how to find Momo. I would need to figure out how to find help, if that was even possible.
The next couple of days were looking rougher than the initial forecast.
"I owe you an apology."
I froze, one foot still in the air. Gentle wasn't looking at me when I glanced over my shoulder, his focus on Eri as she kicked wildly to build up some momentum for the swing. Part of me wondered why he wasn't over there, pushing her into motion, though that part was quelled when her foot caught on a pocket of elasticated air and she shot forward with a gleeful shout.
"You are a planner, Mineta. Much like myself. We scheme; we build machinations in the background that never truly stop." With a wave of his hand, something shot towards my face. I didn't react as it bounced off the air close enough to feel the breeze against my eyes, following an elaborate path of invisible trampolines until it had circled the yard and landed back in his hand. It was a rock, utterly innocuous, no bigger than any other piece of gravel he could have picked up off the ground. "That's part of the reason why I agreed to help you in the first place, I saw some of myself in your soul when we first spoke."
The piece of gravel flew towards my face again. This time, my hand jolted up before it could bounce away, my fingers closing around it and squeezing. Once I relaxed them, the only thing falling away from my palm was a fine powder.
"Get to the point, Danjuro."
For whatever reason, he smiled. It wasn't sad, or mocking, or even conniving; simply small and shot partly over his shoulder, his eyes still on his adopted daughter even with his head tilted slightly back.
"I wanted to see what you would do, in a moment that you hadn't planned for."
The last of the dust in my hand stopped, caught up in the control of Overhaul. With a bit of effort and a few strands of hair drifting across the ground, I soon had another stone in my palm; a fully formed, perfect replica of the one that I had crumbled.
With a lazy flick that anyone else would have called dangerous, I launched the small rock back at Gentle. Just as I had done, his hand came up to grab it out of the air, allowing it to twirl around his fingers a few times before it disappeared, likely up his sleeve.
"And how do you know I didn't just lie?"
"I don't." A shriek of laughter had us both turning back towards the swingset. Eri was slightly higher than I would have assumed safe, but with Gentle not making any effort to stop her, I didn't either. "But I'm willing to give you some of the trust that Jin has shown thus far."
Part of me wanted to snort at that. Twice was a perfect example to not follow a large majority of the time. I couldn't have asked for a better friend, but I didn't even know if him trusting me was a good thing.
And he wasn't even the main concern.
"And Manami?"
For the first time, Gentle flinched slightly. His face had smoothed out a moment later, but it was far too late to cover the reaction up.
"Ah, well…"
"That bad, huh?"
He shook his head, taking a short sip from the cup in his hand. I glanced down at it, looked back up and the swingset, and then immediately had to look at his hand again. The fuck? How!?
"Need I remind you that the first time she attempted to speak to you in person, it was within the same room that you were holding the corpse of a man you ordered dead?" The day wasn't even particularly cold, but that didn't stop some steam escaping Gentle's mouth after he took another sip and then let out a long sigh. "My darling is sharp as a whip, but asking her to divorce her emotions from anything in her life is an exercise in futility."
For a moment, I was back at the kitchen table, listening to La Brava berating me for not sweeping Setsuna into my arms and kissing her senseless the moment I got the opportunity. Even if the mental image would have been pleasant to imagine, the tone she'd taken during it would likely follow me into my nightmares for years to come.
"I suppose s-"
The only warning we got was a low groan echoing out across the landscape. Perplexed, Gentle and I glanced at each other, identical baffled expressions on our faces. His teacup came to rest on a patch of air by his side. Mine balanced atop a few strands of hair, half empty… wait, when the fuck did I get a teacup?
Any musings I might have launched into were interrupted by a metallic creaking, followed immediately by one of the only sounds in the world that could trigger anyone's instincts.
A child screaming.
Maybe it was the product of sudden adrenaline or any other cocktail of chemicals in the brain that responded to panic, but as Gentle and I both turned back to the swingset, it almost felt like the world was moving in slow motion. The swings, rickety and something I'd been planning on fixing before I got distracted, was collapsing in on itself.
Not a big issue, if there hadn't been someone currently playing on them.
We moved.
Gentle, somehow, was faster. He leapt forward like the ground had thrown him, thrusting one hand out. Eri, clutching the chains of the seat like a lifeline, let out a tiny "oomph" as she hit the cushion of air, those same chains luckily pooling around her instead of on top of her.
Unfortunately, that left the rest of the swingset coming down atop her head.
Fortunately, I wasn't too far behind.
The first strands of hair I sent out snapped around the top of the swingset, halting the biggest piece in its tracks. Smaller pieces, already fractured by the chain reaction of damage, began to fall as well, none getting more than halfway towards the ground before a purple rope of keratin had grabbed it.
In the span of a few heartbeats, the swingset resembled a work of modern art more so than any piece of play equipment. With Eri having been carried clear on a pocket of air, I allowed Overhaul to flow across my hair, melting across the different layers of metal and pulling them back together into a configuration that hopefully wouldn't fracture at the first opportunity.
It looked better now. Shinier. The chains connecting all the seats were welded on rather than curled around in a crude knot. The seats were straight, hanging perpendicular to the ground. Overall, not bad for a few seconds of work I really should have done before now.
I looked over at Gentle. Gentle looked at me, before shifting his gaze down to the girl in his arms. Eri locked eyes with him, before twisting her neck to stare at me. I won the contest when she broke off a few seconds later, swivelling back around and hooking her arms around Gentle's neck and squeezing him into a hug.
"Can I go again?"
For a moment, I wondered if I had somehow been the only one to hear her. It took a few seconds before Gentle's shoulders started shaking, his soft laughter muffled into her hair.
With a kiss to her forehead, he let her down, crouching down to give her time to break the hug. I glanced off to the side awkwardly while she did, and I didn't notice her approaching me until there were small, thin arms wrapped around my legs. A tiny head, along with the dull jab of a single horn, buried into the side of my thigh. Even through both our clothing I could feel the layers of bandages running up and down her arms.
Help, I mouthed to Gentle.
His response was to pull out his phone and aim it at us. The near muted click of a camera lens clicked out a moment later.
Motherfucker.
The hug lasted longer than I was expecting. Between Eri hiding her face and me awkwardly patting her on the head, there was no sign of her letting go. Not until I caught sight of a red mark on her shin, barely visible with how she'd turned her body towards mine. My eyes were sharp, though, my awful sight fixed enough by Quirk fuckery to notice the chain-shaped bruise rising from her skin.
So she had been hurt, and was toughing it out. Without pausing to give it much thought, I did what was becoming a habit when I noticed an injury on someone in my general vicinity.
I reached out, and used Overhaul.
The second it started, Eri tensed. The grip on my leg went from tight to painful, even with all the layers of muscle fibre I'd condensed over the months. I let it run for half a breath, just long enough to realise what I'd done, before abruptly cutting it off with a choked gasp.
I expected her to run, maybe scream. Cry, or curl up into a ball with the reminder of what that Quirk had done to her for years. Instead, as I unsteadily held my breath, all she did was slowly pull away, one hand detaching from my pants to run along her opposite arm where I'd felt the bandages seconds before.
For being damn near two decades her senior, I couldn't for the life of me figure out the look she was shooting at me at that moment. It was like she was seeing me for the first time, which was actually somewhat true now that I thought about it, but she wasn't scared. There was no trepidation, just slight caution and maybe some confusion.
I could relate, kids were definitely confusing.
The snapping of a camera lens for a second time seemed to bring her back to reality. With a tiny smile aimed at me, she scampered around my leg, heading back towards the swingset that had nearly resulted in disaster.
With another sigh, I sent out a strand of hair through the ground to ensure that it wouldn't fall again, even as I turned and started walking away.
Gentle shot me a grin as I passed him, so unlike his usual controlled expressions that I stopped and stared for a second. It didn't seem to phase him when I raised an unimpressed eyebrow, nor when I meandered past him towards the road.
Two steps later, and I had stopped.
"What did you mean earlier, assassination attempts?"
I heard Gentle hum. I didn't have to turn around to know that he wasn't looking at me, either.
"Assuming they're not a direct result of something you've done-"
"Oi."
"Heh, quite." Another rock bounced around my head. I watched it disappear above my eyesight and heard it impact the ground somewhere to my left. "Unfortunately it's been kept well under wraps, even from the brilliance of my partner in crime. There's been little more than whispers in the usual circles she infiltrates and they're shut down too quickly to be of any real use."
I sighed, my hands drifting into my pockets. The case of my phone cracked ominously as I grabbed it with just enough pressure to be uncomfortable.
"So my best bet for information is Giran. Again. Right when he decided to start being a shady fuck."
There was a short bark of laughter. One that I wish I could have joined in on.
"He's an information broker. He's always been, as you put it, a 'shady fuck'."
Oddly enough, that did little to make me feel better. Just as I had before this conversation had started, I reached inwards, grasping at the metallic shell of my bike and bringing it outwards.
Before I could flick the engine on, Gentle cleared his throat.
"I have one last question, if you'll indulge me."
I paused, playing idly with the accelerator. He took that as the permission it was to go forth.
"Did they have to die?"
Did they? I'd agonised over that question myself, once upon a time. Did they have to die, I'd wondered, as I watched Chisaki disappear before my eyes and become me. Did they have to die, I pondered, as I brought the latest of Muscular's victims back to life, spared them the punishment that came with the crime of simply being the wrong people trying to save lives.
Did they have to die?
The answer felt pretty obvious to me.
"Yes. They did."
The house was silent, except for the muted creaking as Eri once again kicked off the ground and swung through the air. I probably would have killed again to know exactly what Gentle was thinking, in that moment.
"We'll help you with the heiress, so long as you promise that no harm will come to her."
It was my turn to laugh while he remained silent. Even with his effort, it seemed like we were barely any closer to understanding each other.
"There's no point in harming her when she'll be an amazing hero in the future." With the last of my bike beneath me, I flicked the ignition. "Who knows? Maybe she'll end up saving our lives."
The last thing I heard before embracing the blessed solitude of the road was Gentle's contemplative hum. Perhaps he thought I wouldn't have been able to understand him over the vibrations of the engine as it carried me away.
"Or perhaps, we'll end up saving hers."