Chapter 115

.::That Wednesday Morning Feeling::.

"Totoro, wake up."

Dabi's morning started with a harsh whack on his arm, making him jolt to consciousness and subsequently roll off the couch. He crashed onto the ground with a grunt, lying there for a second as he just pondered his life. Then he felt a foot nudge his side, making him growl. Not that it seemed to intimidate his assailant. "Seriously, get off the floor."

"I will, I will," he grumbled, sitting up to glower at Aiko. She loomed over him looking fairly unimpressed at his presence, arms crossed and glaring down at him judgmentally despite being dressed like... "Okay, what the actual hell are you wearing?" Because it looked like very muddy soldier fatigues, complete with a bulky camo vest littered with large rips and tears.

"I had a stake out in a forest last night," she replied crisply. "I told you I had a job last night when you texted me."

"Yeah, but I didn't think..." He trailed off, not sure what to say. It was weird to see her looking so roughed up. Even her hair looked messy and wild, sticking in all directions around the goggles resting atop her forehead. "Did you fight a bear or something?"

"No, it was monkeys," she said flatly, making him do a double take. "The idiots I was tracking were dumb enough to use the local wildlife as 'target practice' when they set up their base there. Turns out snow monkeys are very vicious, especially when an idiot leaves a knife where they can grab it and they realize 'sharp thing can hurt other animals!'" Her voice took on a faux-cheerful note as she grinned, mimicking the monkeys' probable excitement at the revelation, before scoffing and rolling her eyes. "But more importantly, did you seriously break in and sleep on the couch?"

Dabi shrugged as he got off the floor, suppressing a yawn. "You said you probably wouldn't be home last night, and I figured your place is free and has heating. Beats sleeping in some abandoned building without heating. And besides," he added nonchalantly, "it's not really breaking and entering when the door isn't locked."

Aiko gave him a very unimpressed look for that. "Unbelievable," she muttered, and turned to stalk to her room. "I'm going to change and try to clean up a bit. Go sit at the table or something."

"Got it," he agreed easily, ambling over to the kitchen table. He didn't bother offering to make breakfast or coffee or anything, pulling out his phone while he waited. Surprisingly it was eight thirty, so she'd been out even longer than he'd expected. He'd expected her to return at two or three in the morning, five at the latest. Made him wonder what exactly went down.

It took over half an hour before she emerged wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, looking fresh out of the shower. She strode past him to the counter to turn on the coffee machine, and once she finished setting it up she turned to face him and leaned against the counter. "So, any chance this is about your brother?" she asked and he frowned, eyes narrowing warily.

"How'd you know about that?" Because he definitely hadn't told her or Kuroe about it. Hell, he hadn't even talked to her since Shouto joined him; he'd called to ask for two secure phones before getting his brat of a brother. It was less out of distrust, and more because she was a walking trouble magnet he'd rather avoid if possible. Being with her just seemed like it would draw him into her personal sphere of chaos. "Don't tell me word's spreading around the underworld about him being on his own."

"No, I just got a lucky tip," she replied with a loose shrug. "As far as Karasu and Giran can tell, there's still no confirmation if Todoroki Shouto is even alive. You've done a good job at hiding him, congratulations." She lightly clapped and he rolled his eyes at the mock applause. "But seriously though, I did hear he was running around alone. And I don't know if you took him with you on the run, or just gave him the phone, or...?"

She trailed off questioningly, and he grunted. "No, the brat's been with me since he ran away," he confirmed gruffly. "It's been kinda weird to adjust to, but we've been doing fine. Some weird stuff happened recently though, so we did split ways for a bit." An understatement, and one he didn't want to get into since he was still owed an explanation himself. "But I'm not here about him. I'm here about Floaty."

"Floaty?" she repeated curiously, tilting her head. "Do you mean Uraraka-chan?"

"If she's got brown hair and pads on her fingers, then yeah," he snorted. "She was looking for that kid you insist is not your brother, so I pointed her to Nabu and heard she found you. Which, for the record, I did warn her looking for the Alliance was stupid. She still wanted to look for that Midoriya kid though, so I figured I'd go with the option that would take her directly there since they probably wouldn't kill her like some groups."

Aiko looked rather exasperated at his explanation. Whether by his logic, or Floaty's choices, hard to say. Probably both. "I'm starting to think teenagers are just prone to stupid decisions that endanger their lives," she finally muttered, and he snorted in amusement. Pot, meet kettle. "But whatever. What about her?"

"I ran into her yesterday. And you used some Quirk to censor her or something, right?"

"Taboo," Aiko replied lightly in way of confirmation. "It's to make sure she can't mention anything relating to me or the Alliance to outsiders."

"How's that work exactly?" Dabi asked, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Exactly like I just described. If you want more specifics, last I checked it makes it so people can't mention anything about whatever is made taboo. I can only block one topic per person at a time, so I chose to block the Alliance since that would cause the most problems for her to mention to police or other people. I'm still technically a part of it so I'm included, but it doesn't cover Izuku or Seiko since they're not members."

"Seiko? Who—" Dabi stopped short and frowned. "Wait, you mean that creepy brat that suddenly showed up last time we met and stared at us the whole time?"

"Unfortunately," Aiko replied dryly. "She never comes here, so. It's fine." Her tone made it sound very not fine, but he wasn't going to push it. He had more important matters to deal with.

"Anyways, back to what I was saying, so I ran into her again yesterday. And yeah, you need to remove that Quirk ASAP."

"Oh?" She crossed her arms, looking at him with a neutral expression but eyes glinting in challenge. "And why's that?"

Now, unlike Shouto, it should be noted Dabi knew how to lie, and was damn good at it. He'd had a whole night to think up a convoluted story, and then refine it into something that actually made sense and sounded plausible. He'd had time to think up three stories before falling asleep last night while waiting for her, each one with some reason to justify it without revealing the brats asked him.

And he used precisely none of them because it was totally unnecessary.

"Because if someone from the Alliance attacks her, she's totally screwed," he said bluntly, and she frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"She can't say any names, not even people she never met. Which is a big problem since I doubt you told everyone in the Alliance to leave her alone—and there are a lot of members. People all over the country, even if they don't hang out at the base. I mean, if you're counted as part of the Alliance by this Quirk, then what's the minimum requirements for membership?"

Aiko's frown grew, looking slightly unsettled. "I'm... not actually sure," she murmured. "I never thought to test that sort of thing."

"Yeah, well, there's part of the problem. For all you know, some guy in Okinawa could work with the Alliance once, just deliver a package or something, and is automatically counted by the Quirk. I doubt he'd know about any orders against hurting Floaty. Not that I expect you've told anyone about her to start with. And even if you did, I wouldn't put it past some people to attack her anyway just to challenge you or Shigaraki's authority or whatever."

Dabi didn't know much about the Alliance's members, but the dark scowl Aiko flashed at the last bit confirmed he was right on the mark. That just emboldened him to continue, "If someone from the Alliance attacks her, she can't exactly go to police and say 'help, I'm being followed by a guy with big claws' or whatever, either. Because apparently it's not just names, but any information about them."

And that was the main angle of his approach: remind her that being unable to talk about a villain was actually pretty fucking dangerous. Aiko's one rule was to keep kids out of the line of fire, and Floaty definitely counted as one. There was no need to use some crazy story to convince her to lift the Quirk.

Judging by the troubled look on her face, it was already working. The seeds of doubt had been planted, he just needed to push them. "Hell, what if she just runs into someone randomly, and can't say their name?" he continued. "That just tells her they're part of the Alliance. Pretty sure she already ran into something like that once."

"She did?" Aiko asked, and he nodded.

"Yeah. Yesterday she mentioned she couldn't even talk about Kaminari's... and I don't know what was supposed to come after that, because that's when she stopped because of the Quirk. I'm guessing some kid named Kaminari mentioned someone and she couldn't say their name. Which is a red flag to other people that something's going on, it's pretty damn noticeable when she can't talk about people she's never even met. Or type or write about them. Or even point to Nabu on a freaking map. Which, admittedly, that last one wouldn't come up too much, but—"

"Wait, she can't point to Nabu on a map?" Aiko interrupted, making him pause.

"According to her and Shouto? No."

He expected Aiko to ask where Shouto came into this, but she didn't. She just stared at him for a moment, looking alarmed and faintly disturbed, before her expression screwed up into a pensive frown. "...It wasn't done mutating," she muttered, and now he frowned.

"What?"

"I thought it was done, but..." She trailed off and shook her head, muttering under her breath in... some other language. She mumbled for about a minute straight, and he thought he caught snippets of English words, but couldn't be sure with how quiet it was. Finally she pushed away from the kitchen counter to stalk towards the living room, Dabi turning his head to watch her but not bothering to follow her.

"What are you doing now?" Dabi asked, watching curiously as she swiped her phone from the coffee table.

"Texting Uraraka to come here so I can remove it," Aiko replied bluntly. "Taboo wasn't that strong last time I checked it. It definitely couldn't block people from pointing to maps. I need to remove the effect and figure out what the hell it does now."

Okay, that wasn't how he expected to convince her, but he wasn't complaining. Success was success, no matter how he got there. "You're not gonna lock her up or anything in the meantime, are you?" he asked casually. Because that would probably make Shouto call off the deal. Though he kept that thought to himself and instead said, "Because she and Shouto-chan are apparently friends now, and I don't think he'd appreciate that."

That had Aiko pausing and snapping her head his way. "Wait, what? When did that happen?"

Ah, there was the surprise. "I gave her Shouto's number a couple weeks back, so she called him and they apparently hit it off," he explained with a shrug. "He's the one who explained she couldn't even point out Nabu on a map. Nothing like meeting up in person only to find out you can't talk about your ride from Nabu, which is what made them test the Quirk in the first place."

Only a partial lie since he didn't know the actual details of how they'd found it, but likely close to the truth. He sincerely doubted Aiko had a lie-detecting Quirk anyway. And he was right, because she just let her shoulders slump with a groan. "Dammit. And you mentioned another name a bit ago, too. So there's probably multiple kids aware she's under a censoring Quirk."

"Most likely yeah," Dabi replied with a shrug. "Dunno how much they've figured out, but I doubt Shouto would talk about any of this stuff at least. He knows how to keep his mouth shut when it matters." As he'd learned from the brat's stubborn refusal to answer any questions. "Hey, maybe we can introduce him to that not-brother of yours, too. Arrange play dates or whatever you do for sixteen year old brats."

He snorted and rolled his eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm, but he noticed Aiko's fingers stilled in their typing. "Probably not the best idea," she muttered after a moment, and his smirk faded.

"Are things really that messy with the Alliance?"

"Totoro, you have no idea." She tapped the screen a final time and frowned down at it. "At least I can start fixing this thing though."

Meanwhile, Ochako paused at Kuroe's breakfast table with a spoonful of cereal halfway to her mouth as her phone vibrated next to her bowl. She groggily glanced over, still a bit sleepy, but quickly snapped to attention as she saw Aiko's name. She set the spoon down and hastily scrambled to unlock her phone to read the text.

'Just learned Taboo is stronger than I thought. Come by so I can remove it.'

Just like that, Ochako's lingering grogginess faded as relief and excitement crashed over her. "Finally!" she exclaimed.

"What's up, Ocha-chan?" Ashido asked across the table as she ate her own breakfast, and Ochako grinned at her friend.

"I got a text! He did it!" Ochako beamed as she showed the screen to Ashido—or rather tried to. Her hand refused to move when she tried to turn the screen towards the other girl, making her smile quickly morph into a scowl. "I can't even show you the screen."

Ashido gave a muffled noise of sympathy, mouth currently occupied by cereal. "Oof. Rough."

Ochako hummed in agreement as she typed out a reply. 'Is today good?' She got a response almost right away, simply saying 'yes.' Seemed like Aiko didn't want to waste time, which suited her fine.

"Okay, can you buy me a train ticket?" she asked Ashido. "I'd buy it, but I can't select the destination." Todoroki had bought the tickets from Numazu to Nabu last time when they discovered that problem. At least she didn't have a problem leaving Nabu since she didn't need to select the departure point, but was still pretty annoying.

"Sure, no problem!" Ashido agreed, but then frowned. "Oh, but are you gonna go alone? Because I don't really have any super-good disguises right now, and Shouto is busy."

Ochako jolted at the name. "Wait, since when were you and Todoroki—oh wait, right." She stopped mid-question, abruptly remembering the conversation on FacePage last night about being on a first-name basis. Figures Ashido—no, Mina—would adjust to the change so fast. "Anyways, yeah, it's probably better I go alone. Dabi's probably still there, so it'd be risky for you guys to go there. Especially for Todoro—uh, Shou... uh..."

She trailed off, feeling a bit awkward at using Todoroki's first name. "Okay, it's kinda weird to call him by his given name because he never actually gave us permission," she admitted. Todoroki had spent all last night in the guest room, and hadn't joined the name conversation with Denki and Kyouka. He seemed to need space, which they were happy to give him, but it still meant he'd never agreed.

Mina's face fell a bit. "Oh yeah, I guess you're right," she muttered. "Come to think of it, I don't think Mido replied last night either."

"He didn't," Ochako confirmed. "I think he probably needs some space too." He had definitely seemed a bit lost about his counterpart. "I guess we should wait until Todoroki actually says it's okay?"

"I guess," Mina agreed with a nod. "But he didn't say anything when I called him that this morning before he left. Though I guess that does explain why he looked kinda surprised."

"Where is he, anyway?" Ochako asked curiously as she resumed eating her cereal.

"He volunteered to help guard Mic-sensei this morning."

Ochako paused as she took that in, and after a moment swallowed her food. "That is still so weird that's even a thing," she whispered, and Mina bobbed her head.

"I know, right!?"

A new day, a new guard. At least Hizashi assumed it was a new day from the konbini breakfast roll the kid brought. He ate it while eying the newcomer warily, wondering just what kind of face was under the white rabbit mask, with a single green leaf on each ear like ribbons. He was pretty sure it was a popular mascot character—Snowbell-chan, he thought? The cute little snow rabbit mascot from that one company that made a lot of cute little mascots?

Honestly, he didn't know if the cuteness was a relief or made it somehow worse. He was so used to seeing creepy masks at this point, the cute innocent snow bunny was almost too cute. Like, deceptively cute to hide an ominous underside. The fact he was watching Hizashi intently while Mime hand-fed him didn't really help with the creepy vibes.

When Mime finished hand-feeding him, he paused and turned to Snowbell to reply to some question. Hizashi could make out Snowbell's voice—masculine, and a bit on the quiet side—but not the words without his hearing aids. Snowbell then turned to the PDA and pushed it into Hizashi's line of sight, speaking again and causing text to appear on the screen.

"Hello. I'm Yuki."

Hizashii's eyebrows raised. An introduction, huh? Been a while since one of the kids actually introduced themselves, he'd mostly learned their names from listening in on their conversations. Effort like this required reward, and he flashed him a bright grin as he replied, "Nice to meet you Yuki-kun! I'm—oops." He cut himself off sheepishly as he noticed the kids all flinch, and tried to lower his voice. "Sorry, my hearing's not the best right now so I can't control my volume too well."

"It's okay," Yuki replied. "Sorry about your hearing aids. I have a question though, and you're the only person I can ask."

Hizashi perked up, as did Mime and the other kids guarding him. "What is it, little listener?" he asked, keeping his expression friendly and genial as he wondered what he wanted. The fact Yuki came to him over the others suggested it was something he didn't think they could help with, or at least didn't feel comfortable with talking to them. Could it be he was having doubts about whatever was going on? Did he want to test Hizashi to see if he could provide a better option, or get advice on dealing with villains?

"How do you know when a girl likes you?"

...Okay, that was NOT what he expected. "What?" he asked after a moment, wondering if the PDA transcribed his words correctly.

"How do you know when a girl likes you?" The exact same words appeared on the screen again, so apparently yes, it was accurate. Hizashi gawked at the screen before looking back at Yuki. The mask, as expected, made it impossible to read his expression. Behind him he could see the others seemed to be similarly stunned though, judging by how they all turned to face Yuki.

It only took a couple seconds to recover from his shock. "Well, that's a bit of a broad question," he said lightly. "What makes you ask?"

"Yesterday my friend said some stuff that made me wonder if she might have a crush on me."

"Like?"

"She told my brother we were dating." Hizashi's eyebrows shot up to his hairline as more text appeared. "She knew my birthday and my favorite food and color. And also my preferred style of architecture and decor. I don't know any of that about her, except maybe her favorite color, but she didn't need to think about saying any of that. And then this morning she called me by my given name. So does that mean we're dating now?"

...Hizashi didn't know Yuki, but he had a feeling the kid was skipping a lot of context. Especially with how he skipped right to asking if they were dating at the end. Behind him he could see Navi bending over and shaking, undoubtedly laughing. Even Mime had his hands over his mouth to presumably stifle snickering.

He had a feeling this would be a long and confusing conversation.

I did not go into this fic thinking I'd have Todoroki seriously pondering if Ashido is in love with him, but the misunderstandings continue! (Also with this, I've used every day of the week in a chapter title! I have no idea why I am happy about that, but I am. xD)

Snowbell is not a real character, but I got the idea from Sanrio, the company that made Hello Kitty and other cute mascot characters. It was the perfect solution for what mask he'd wear, because of COURSE Todoroki would choose the snow bunny! And turns out snow bunnies are a thing that they make in Japan with leaves for ears. 10/10, way cuter than snowmen, highly recommend looking them up and making some if it snows in your area.

Question for next time: what sort of cheap festival-esque masks could you see the other jumpers using?