The news is playing in the background, though Inko is hardly paying attention. The anchors' droning voices provide the illusion of company as they talk about Best Jeanist's latest rescue. It seems like the young man is rising through the ranks rather quickly, and with such an unexpected quirk, too! She thinks that Izuku would be interested in hearing about things like that, so she always keeps hero news on so that they'll have safe topics to talk about when he gets back home. Sometimes, she even takes notes for him!
The smell of steamed rice and baked fish fills the small kitchen, wafting out to fill the rest of the apartment with its familiar scent. She smiles, soft and comfortable, and piles her plate with enough for a late lunch. Her coffee mug sits empty on the dining table, a dark brown ring staining the wood beneath it. She tuts when she sees it, disappointed in herself for not remembering to use a coaster again.
She is almost halfway through her meal when the news suddenly changes its tone, the jarring little jingle that heralds breaking news breaking through the quiet comfort that had filled the air around her. She freezes, breath caught in her chest and chopsticks halfway to her mouth, eyes trained unblinkingly on the grim-faced news anchor.
The man speaks of Naruhata, of an explosive attack that has leveled buildings and left many hospitalized. Some dead. A new villain with the face of a young girl and bubblegum-pop pink hair, using a quirk Inko knows for a fact she doesn't have. She stares, heart pounding, stomach churning, and all she can think as she watches another child forced into villainy on the news is, please, not again. Not her, too.
Inko's hand trembles as she punches in Kazuho's number. The sound of it ringing seems endless, buzzing on and on and on before it finally goes to voicemail. Kazuho's peppy voice asking her to leave a message makes her heart twist painfully inside her chest. Inko curses and hangs up without saying anything else, already scrolling through her contacts for Knuckleduster's name.
The deafening drone of the ringing tone fills her ear and the sight of the destruction playing out on the tv fills her mind. There is a thunderous roar starting in her ears, and when Kazuho's school picture appears on the screen, Inko feels her heart break for what feels like the thousandth time since the day Izuku was taken. Knuckleduster doesn't pick up. The automated message asks her to leave a voicemail. Her voice shakes as she mindlessly obeys the prompt, the beep in her ear spurring her mouth into movement.
"I just saw the news," she spits out in a rush, words half-garbled and voice pitched higher than usual. The older man will probably mock her for it, once he gets around to checking his messages. "I need you to call me back the moment you get this. You have to tell me what's going on."
The second she's done, she hangs up and dials Koichi. The phone rings five times, and she's preparing herself to leave another message, when he finally picks up.
"Inko," Koichi greets without preamble or his usual cheer. His voice is hoarse like he had been shouting right before answering her call. Somewhere in the background, she can hear more voices. They sound young and male and most certainly not like Kazuho's.
"I saw the news," Inko says, responding in kind. "Are you alright? How is Kazuho?"
There's a long, long silence on the other end. Inko's hands are shaking, and her heart feels like it's squeezing in her chest. After a moment, Koichi blows out a long breath, and it sounds like the weight of the world has settled itself upon his shoulders since the last time they'd spoken. He's bearing it like it weighs nothing at all.
"We're working on a plan to get her back," Koichi tells her, and his voice is level and confident. He has never sounded more like the hero he wants so badly to be than now. It calms the tight, horrible thing that has lived and grown inside her chest for the last six years. Inko allows his words to wash over her, eyes sliding shut as she takes in her own deep, calming breath.
"Okay," she whispers, and when her eyes open again they shine with her own kind of steady determination. She's lost one child already, and she refuses to sit quietly on the sidelines as another mother loses her baby as well. "What can I do to help?"
.
In the end, the answer turns out to be, "not much."
As plans are wont to do, the whole thing goes to shit in a truly spectacular fashion almost immediately. Soga and Koichi have been coordinating and scheming and training, and by the time whatever it is that's controlling Kazuho launches another attack, they're as ready as they can be. Likewise, by the time Inko's mostly empty train has pulled into Naruhata's station, there is nothing for her to do but stand at the sidelines and watch.
It is amazing to see how much Koichi has grown and how his abilities have developed over the short amount of time she has known him. Pride nestles itself in her chest, right alongside the overwhelming worry as she watches him give his all in the fight to rescue Kazuho. Inko has a role, too, of course. Soga had called her as she was riding in on the train, his voice loud and harsh and full of ill-disguised worry. He had given her one task, and she intends to fulfill it to the best of her ability.
Run interference. Keep the heroes off our backs as much as you can. We can't let them get to that little pink brat before we do.
Well, she's never been particularly good at making a nuisance out of herself, but this does seem like as good a time as any to start practicing. When she arrives at the scene of the attack, Inko follows in the streets below Kazuho and refuses to be evacuated. She sidesteps the heroes' helpful hands, brushes off their concerned orders to leave, straightens her back and yells back that she is a citizen and has as much of a right to be here as any of them do. As long as she's not using her quirk to try to fight the "villains" she is not technically breaking any laws by being here, and they all know it.
She is a civilian, and she has her phone out to record, and that grants her a certain level of safety from heroes who may otherwise use their quirks irresponsibly. It keeps them from doing anything lethal or too over the top, and so that small amount of safety is afforded to the girl laughing until she cries high above her head, too. Inko plants herself firmly in the streets, refusing to be moved as explosions rock the world around her. The heroes circle the scene like vultures and the bees glisten like stars high above them all.
"Leave!" Endeavor snarls at her the second he arrives at the site of the attack, flames licking up his form and tarmac melting beneath his feet. "You're doing nothing but impeding justice."
But Inko has seen how he deals out his justice. The ashes left in his wake have been the subject of debate and controversy for years. Inko refuses to stand quietly aside and let Kazuho and Koichi become another unfortunate example for talk show hosts to interview him about once this is all over. So she stands her ground, unobtrusively using her quirk to float the earth closer to herself, essentially making it impossible for anyone to move her by force for as long as she can keep it up. She balls her fists and refuses to be cowed even when the flaming hero twice her size curses her and screams his rage mere centimeters from her face.
The flames of his stupid beard leave burns on her cheeks. His spittle is frothing and sizzles against her skin as he yells. Inko smiles in return, serene and unmovable.
Endeavor's hellfire, out in the open air of the street, is a balmy day at the beach compared to the four times her couch has caught fire. The heat from his quirk is mild, compared to the blue flames she's had to deal with before. He wants so badly to frighten her, but he never will. She smiles sweetly and waits for his sidekicks to herd him away, safe in the knowledge that a man like Endeavor will be too aware of the news cameras trained on him to do anything too serious against an unarmed civilian.
Since she is a non-combatant civilian, Endeavor isn't legally allowed to lay hands on her in order to get her to leave. He's forced to wait for the police to arrive so they can forcibly escort her from the scene, but they won't be here for a while yet and he makes his displeasure about that known. Inko frowns and turns her gaze back to Kazuho.
Her heart sinks as she faces the awful fact that another child she cares for has been corrupted and forced into villainy. The girl with the soft, sweet voice is still here, but she has been changed, laughing like bells as the city explodes around her. She is the source of the destruction, and she seems to be reveling in that fact.
And Inko knows exactly who she is; a sad, lonely mother without a child. Not once in her life has she raised a fist towards anyone, forever flinching away first from any violence or malice. She is no hero, and she has no real power. If she did, she would have had Izuku back in her arms by now.
But she also knows who Kazuho is. Their meetings have been so brief, yet the girl had always worn her every thought and feeling so plainly upon her cheek. Inko saw the girl, hardly older than Izuku, try her hardest to do so much. It was obvious how much she wanted to make people smile, and Inko knew with certainty that Kazuho would never willingly cause harm like this, so Inko would do whatever she could to help.
She takes a deep breath, forcing her mind to quiet even as the last bits of the evacuating crowds surge and rush around her. They jostle her and nearly knock her to the ground, pausing only long enough to shoot her wide eyed looks at her refusal to join them in fleeing. She ignores them, just like she has been, and stays stubbornly where she is.
She watches the fight, keeping eyes honed by years of careful watch over children with powers far too destructive and far too strong for someone as weak as her to handle trained on the battle raging all around her. It's been almost a decade since she last flinched at an explosion or allowed the heat of a fire to make her shy away. As the world falls into chaos and flames all around her, as Endeavor himself stalks around her and roars at her defiance, she stays calm as she breathes in the smell of gunpowder and burning hair. She has only minutes before the proper authorities arrive to have her removed in handcuffs, but in the meantime, the heroes cannot lay a hand on her. Which means that they can't get near Kazuho, either. That's all that matters, and while she waits to be removed, she does what she can.
Her quirk is not powerful. It's helpful in her daily life, letting her float small objects like the tv remote or a box of tissues a little bit closer on days when she can't find enough willpower to get up off the sofa. She can't affect anything as large as a person, so she focuses on what she can move. She keeps her eyes on the boots on Kazuho's feet, and on the hem of her clothes, and the tips of her hair. She keeps the image of the waistband of Koichi's pants, and the sleeves of his All Might hoodie, and the kneepads he wears fresh in her mind. She listens for the song and the distinctive humming and the crackle in the air that she knows from experience occurs just before the world is rocked by an explosion. When Koichi is falling just a little too fast, or glides too close to the buzzing insects, or when Kazuho lifts a hand to direct them to cause more mayhem and bloodshed, Inko lets out a slow breath, narrows her eyes, and pulls.
And it's not much; her interference hardly amounts to anything at all.
It's not much, but it is enough.
.
When all is said and done, Inko stands in a hospital gown outside Kazuho's hospital room, watching through the little window on the door as the child's chest falls and rises with the pumping of the ventilator. Inko breathes in time with it, smelling smoke and burned flesh despite the sterile cleanliness of the hospital. She wonders absently if the smell is clinging to her hair or if it's just been burned into the tender skin of her nostrils. Somewhere in this hospital are the victims of Kazuho's attack. Inko imagines she can still hear the slight echo of their screams of pain from somewhere within the critical care wing's depths.
She turns away from the window and starts to walk. Where to, she isn't sure. The police have instructed her not to leave the hospital. It was implied that she may end up being arrested for her stunt today. It was apparently an obstruction of the heroes' job, as well as toeing the line of vigilantism. The thought makes her smile, just a little. She thinks in another life, Izuku would have been proud of her.
No one had said that she had to stay in her hospital room, though, and she knows that if she doesn't move right now, then she'd have to start picking at the burns across her hands and legs and cheeks, and that maybe she'll also have to start screaming. If she does that, she knows she'll just wind up screaming and screaming and screaming until there's no air left. So instead, she forces herself to move.
The hospital floor is cold enough that the chill seeps through the fuzzy slippers the hospital provided. The rubber bottoms make an annoying squeaking sound with every step she takes, but she doesn't mind too much. It's at least better than the constant whoosh-click of Kazuho's ventilator.
A nurse hurries past her, slowing just long enough to make eye contact and gauge her level of distress. Inko forces a smile in return and the nurse nods before rushing on to her next destination. Inko lets the smile drop from her face and continues her aimless wandering.
The hallway she's found herself in ends at a door. It's dark wood, no windows, and that makes it stand out against the endless white walls. It is unlocked, and when Inko slips inside she finds a small chapel. A single stained glass window lets in the late afternoon light, reflecting off her skin and staining the white of her hospital gown with a kaleidoscope of rainbows. Inko's never been very religious, but the chapel is quiet, and the three small pews are deserted. She steps further in, making her way up to the small raised section towards the front of the room, tracing her fingertips over the pulpit and wondering who would hold their sermons here.
There's a potted plant tucked away in the corner. Inko gravitates towards it, breathing in the strangely dusty smell of the room as she examines the wilted leaves. They're still green, but yellow-brown death has begun to creep at their edges. She wishes that she had some water to give it.
One of the leaves breaks off when she brushes one gentle finger across its soft surface.
The silence of the small room is suddenly broken by the sound of her ragged, shuddering breaths. The force of her sobs is so sudden that it takes her completely by surprise. With a sense of distant befuddlement, and absolutely no control over her body's sudden executive decision to have a breakdown, Inko sinks to her knees, curled tight as the gut-wrenching sobs are pulled from her. Thoughts of Kazuho and Koichi run through her mind, and the way that the young girl had screamed when the bullet tore through her body plays on repeat in her ears. The screams of people as they fled the scene of the attack, the smell of burning hair and blistered flesh following in their wake, haunt her. She shudders, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself, rocking back and forth. Some hysterical little voice in her head whispers, ah, that explains the crying. It's almost funny.
Endeavor had wanted her dead, more so than the villains did. Whatever forces had been controlling her young friend hadn't cared about her; all they'd wanted was for her to be another casualty. Endeavor, though…. The way he had looked at her as she faced him, defiant and unwilling to let him bully her out of the way, had made it obvious that he wanted nothing more than to let his hellfire tear through the streets and eat her alive. There had been something personal in the way he had glared at her. A hatred more pure than what someone like him would usually direct towards a nuisance civilian. If not for the news cameras and the sidekicks holding him back, she has the strangest feeling that she wouldn't have walked away from the encounter with only a few minor burns.
And oh, why is that thought making her cry even more?
"Useless," she hisses, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Her hands find purchase in her hair, fisting tight, nails digging into the skin of her scalp. The pain does nothing to ground her, nothing at all to make her feel any less like her body is waging its own war against her mind.
She had been nothing but a liability out there, hadn't she? She'd noticed how Koichi had kept checking over his shoulder to make sure she was out of harm's way. It had cost him valuable seconds, extending the fight and leading to nothing but more harm. Why had he asked her to come?
Was it because she had pushed the issue? If she hadn't called him first, would he have thought of her at all? Koichi was too kind, and he was sometimes stupid, and the fact that he hadn't told her to fuck off and let the heroes handle things was proof of both.
She's no hero. She has no training and none of the legendary willpower that made it so even those with the weakest of quirks could find themselves holding a hero license, if they dreamed big enough and worked hard enough. She's nothing but a lonely, divorced woman in her thirties. Nothing more than the heartbroken mother of a missing boy. She shies away from violence, and almost never raises her voice. She always cries too easily.
She hadn't been present, the day her son was stolen from her, and now she knows for sure that even if she had been there, it would have made no difference. There is nothing special about her, and this incident is just further proof that she's absolutely useless in the moments when it really matters.
When the sobs have subsided, Inko unfurls from her ball and is startled to find that she's no longer alone in the hospital chapel. She's too tired to yelp at the sudden company, but the newcomer looks awkward all the same, like he hadn't intended to intrude but didn't know how to get her attention before. There are deep bags beneath his eyes – which she is sure matches the exhaustion on her own face – and he doesn't meet her gaze as he offers her a tissue.
Inko grimaces, but is too tired to be embarrassed by the act of blowing her nose in front of a pro hero.
"Thank you," she murmurs as she searches the room for a trash can to throw away the wet tissue. There isn't one, and the hero wordlessly hands her another tissue to wrap the dirty one in before she stuffs both into the small pocket on her hospital gown. He grunts his response and slouches back into the pew, long legs splayed in the aisle and blocking her from an easy escape.
Reluctantly, unwilling to meet his eye, Inko settles herself into the pew in front of his. It is hard and uncomfortable, the wood and the thin, understuffed maroon cushions not at all kind to her battered body. She clears her throat and plucks at a loose thread on her gown, trying to work up the courage to begin this conversation.
"So," she says, and then stops, hoping he'll carry the conversation on his own from there. Eraserhead's eyebrows raise and the look he levels in her direction is wholly unimpressed.
"So?" he returns, slumping even further into the pew. It creaks out a warning at his shifting weight, and Inko has the sudden image of him slumping just a little more and sliding off the seat and onto the floor. She turns away, hoping the messy fall of her long hair will hide the nearly manic way her face twitches with the desire to smile.
"Are you here to arrest me?" she asks instead, eyes tracing the abstract pattern in the stained glass window. The light had grown dimmer during her crying stint. They should probably turn on the overhead light if they're going to be in the chapel much longer.
The hero scoffs, and his voice drips with derision as he drawls, "Nobody's going to arrest you. What gave you that idea?"
"It was implied." Inko shrugs, trying to hide the relief that floods her system at his words. "The police and heroes weren't too happy with the way I acted during the attack."
"Yeah, what you did was incredibly stupid." His voice is harsh, the words delivered so sharply that she can hear his teeth click together to punctuate his sentence. Inko takes a deep breath, steeling herself.
"I don't regret it," she tells him, and it's only half a lie.
"I know," he says.
When she turns back to face him, she's surprised to find that a manic smile of his own has broken like a smog-choked dawn across his face. She finds herself grinning back.
"If you're not here to arrest me, then—"
"Just coincidence," he says with a shrug. "Midnight is interviewing the family and asked me to come since I have a…history with the people involved. I'm gathering some evidence and helping out where needed."
"That's an odd way of saying they're your friends," Inko says with a snort. Eraserhead shrugs again, not meeting her eye. He scratches his cheek, and the sound of his nails rubbing over the stubble on his face makes her cringe.
"You did good out there today."
She scoffs, feeling her cheeks heat up and her heart sink with shame.
"I hardly did anything."
"Don't sell yourself short. Not many civilians would've done what you did. It was stupid, but your heart was in the right place. Get a hero license before you do it next time, though. It'll save everyone some trouble once you're done causing problems, and you'll have to file your own paperwork instead of having it hoisted off on innocent bystanders like me."
Inko barked a laugh, so caught off guard that she couldn't hold herself back. She shook her head, and managed to choke out, "I'm the furthest thing from a hero!"
"Maybe so," he said, and for the first time, his dark eyes met her own. His gaze was serious, and Inko felt frozen by the intensity of that look. He runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. "But hero or not, you're the kind of person who's going to find a way to help, just like you did this time. If you're going to be stupid, you might as well be holding a permit for it."
Inko doesn't know what to say to that.
.
The news of what happened in Naruhata is broadcasted across Japan, once again drawing attention to the recent surge of villainous activity in the area. Tatsui watches from his overstuffed couch, still dressed in his All Might pajamas and spooning soggy cereal into his mouth. It's the extra sugary stuff that his mom had always told him would be the death of him, back when she was still alive. She's almost proven correct, when he suddenly remembers where he's seen the face of the security guard from the shitty little flower shop and chokes on his mouthful of Endeavor-O's.
Hiiiiiii. Happy Monday!
Sorry this chapter is late. Long story short, work has been really rough the last few months, then I lost my grandma, and then a big storm knocked out the power in my house for a week and my house almost caught fire twice bc the electric company wouldn't come out to disconnect the downed power lines from my house, and then there was a funeral to go to out of state, and then I got covid and have been miserably sick for the last couple weeks. Plus I'm planning a trip with my wife to the Philippines next month and it's my first time traveling outside the country AND my first time meeting her family, so! I am very stressed about it!
But anyways, all that aside I hope you liked the chapter and also I make no promises about when the next chapter will come out. Please leave reviews, because in the midst of my lack of motivation they kept me going. 3
As always, a very special shoutout to Shaegal. Without her constant encouragement (and light bullying) this story would probably have been abandoned a while back.
See you next chapter!