Chapter Text
“Otome?”
She turned to look at him, turned away from the window. He’d asked her to visit him at his office, at his agency. He hadn’t told her why, had only told her that he needed to discuss something with her. Despite the vague nature of the request, Otome had followed through with meeting up with him.
“There’s something I need to show you,” Sir Nighteye’s voice was soft when he spoke, his eyes trained on her, compassion sparking in them.
Otome lifted her chin, swallowing the dread she felt.
He had been around since she’d been a child. He and her father were good friends – after all, how else would you treat the man who saved your life? – and she had come to think of him as something like an uncle. She had grown up under the watchful gazes of several Pro Heroes, had grown used to them following along when she and the others played. When they spoke and trained and went out somewhere. When Eiichi had graduated from UA and she had chosen to follow the same path as him – but in the hero course. Her brother had been in the Support course, was one of the best.
He and his fiancé would do amazing things together.
They were due to get married, soon.
Sir Nighteye led her into his office, gesturing for her to sit down in the chair set up across his desk. He sat after she did, taking a deep breath and sighing as he leaned into his chair. “A lot has happened,” he began, his voice still soft. “Years of happenings.” He laid his hands on his desk, flat and firmly pressed into the wood. She could still see the nervous trembling, the worry in his eyes putting her on edge. “Otome…I would never keep anything from you.”
“I know,” Otome nodded. “I know. You don’t like keeping information from people unless absolutely necessary.”
“Precisely,” Sir Nighteye nodded. “And now, you are eighteen. We have…We have almost reached a point, Otome. A repeated moment.” He turned his head to the computer he had on his desk, open but angled away from both of them. “A moment in history that the repetition of…It brings me worry. And fear.” He lifted a hand, picking something up from next to the computer. “Eraserhead tried to give this to you, once before.”
She watched as he held it out.
A different timeline’s version of her ID holder.
Created by the man who was soon to be her brother-by-law. He’d designed it in the support course, deciding that a genetics-based lock was a better approach than a simple password. With the ability to read biological age as well as genetics, he had put it through testing a thousand times until it had come back perfect. Someone with a shapeshifting Quirk couldn’t trick it. Someone like little Himiko, the daughter of two of Otome’s teachers, couldn’t get into one that wasn’t hers.
She knew perfectly well what was being handed to her.
This time, however, she took it.
She needed to, now.
“There is no video for you,” Sir Nighteye spoke up again. “There has been a video for almost every single person brought into this attempt to change the world. There has been a letter written to all of them. You received a letter. Your future self did not, it appears, think you needed a video.”
“That is okay,” Otome pressed her lips together, looking at the ID holder. She pulled hers out of her pocket, setting them on the desk together. Hers looked new and clean, freshly issued. The one Sir Nighteye had given her was older. Stained. There was a dark patch on it, something she immediately recognized as blood staining the material. “This was pulled from her…Me…On the night she died.”
“Yes.”
Otome looked up, meeting his eyes. “There’s questions I have that I know you cannot answer, Sir.”
“I suspect there always will be,” Sir Nighteye’s jaw clenched. “I wish I had the answers for you. I wish I could let you speak to yourself, ask her what everything meant. I wish she’d had a better life, a better world.”
“This one has to be better,” Otome remembered the letter. She remembered the quote in it, about believing in a better world. “I just hope it will be.” She put her hands on both ID holders, closing her eyes for a minute as she let her emotions settle. She hadn’t been in his office, much, since she’d graduated from school, finished her internship, and moved forward in opening her own agency. She was trying to, at least. It was harder than expected, with roadblocks thrown up by the HPSC. Something about potentially unmoderated Quirks, unregulated power.
A visiting hero, someone she had grown close to, was helping her now.
A woman named Munira Waruhi.
She had transferred to Japan from the Middle East, wanting to travel the world and work as a hero in a few countries before she settled down permanently. They had been working together for almost seven months, now, and had known each other for a year and a half. When Otome had mentioned wanting to build her own agency, Munira had immediately offered to help her. She still didn’t know why, exactly, though she suspected it had something to do with how Munira had confessed to liking her immediately. The way Munira looked at her, like she wanted to help make Otome’s life happy.
The way Munira had asked to take her to dinner, that night.
With a soft sigh, Otome opened her eyes again. “The future is always on its way,” she looked up at Sir Nighteye. “Beckoning and demanding.”
“And we can do nothing but meet it,” he smiled, the expression tight around the edges. “Otome, if you think you are in danger, if you even for a moment think you are at risk of death because of something happening – Please, contact us. Any of us. We have been working for the last fourteen years to ensure that your future self’s work is not made useless. Endeavor and I started this work together, he was the one there to hear the necessity of things with me.” He reached across the desk, his fingers pressing into the wood next to her hand. “If you think you are in danger, come to any of us. All Might, any of the others, even Inko. Rei, as well.”
Nodding, Otome took a deep breath.
Something had happened in her future. She’d always known that. No one had ever wanted to tell her what had happened, probably trying to keep the timeline intact, but she knew that much.
She knew her future had died trying to change the past.
Protecting one of her best friends.
Tenko was an amazing hero, these days. He’d gotten a much finer control of his Quirk, focusing on becoming a rescue hero at UA. He and Hana were often sent on patrols together, on missions together, to act as a balance for each other.
Kai and Hari had done much the same. They worked in sync, together, and they made a perfect duo.
“I will,” Otome promised. “I always will. I grew up trusting you,” she smiled, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t think there’s anything that would keep me from trusting you.”
“Good,” Sir Nighteye nodded. His smile softened at the edges, turning into a better version of itself.
Otome slid both ID holders into her pockets, standing up and bowing to her teacher, her mentor, the man who had helped to train her once she had left school. He had been a part of her family, growing up, and she trusted him with just about anything. “I have a date, tonight,” she told him, her cheeks flushing as she pushed away the mask of professionalism. Right now, past the worry about her future, he was her family. “With a woman named Munira.”
“Munira?” Sir Nighteye’s face did something interesting, a series of twitches and changes that told her he knew something but could not say it. “May I ask about her family name?”
“Waruhi,” Otome watched his expression twitch again, his smile growing as he looked away. “I take it you know of her?”
“Well,” he shrugged, humming quietly. “Perhaps there is something I know of her. Something I cannot share with you, my apologies for that.” She wanted to laugh at the way he covered his mouth with a hand, the gleam of amusement in his eyes. “…You were nineteen, by the way. When everything began.” He looked up at her again, a somber expression sliding into place. “When I watched a version of you die.”
“I’m eighteen now,” Otome took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “The world changes.”
“As it does,” Sir Nighteye nodded. “Otome?”
“Yes?”
“Enjoy your date, tonight.”
“Yes Sir,” she laughed, bowed again, then waved as she spun on her toes and walked out of his office.
Something was coming, still, but she had a feeling that things were going to be alright.
~
She waves her hands and brings light into the world, Otome thought.
Otome watched as Munira spoke about her family, about where she had grown up. She spoke with her hands, gestured and emphasized, and conducted like the music in her head was flowing all around her. Her Quirk was creating hard light constructs, specializing in shields and building structures to protect, support, and rescue. When they had first met and started working together, Otome had watched her throw up a shield with an amazingly strong movement of her arm. Munira was beautiful, not just in the way she appeared to the world but in the way her light seemed to seep through her edges. Bright and brilliant, Otome smiled as she listened to Munira describing her family’s cats, entrancing and amazing in so many ways.
“But I am talking too much,” Munira’s cheeks flushed.
“No, you’re not,” Otome leaned on her hand, meeting her eyes. “I could listen to you for hours.”
Meeting Munira had felt like finding a missing piece. Not something that completed her, she was complete on her own, but something that paired well. Before, she had been a single sock, alone and unpaired. Munira was the other sock. A pair, belonging together, that made them all the better for it. “May I ask what you are thinking?” Munira smiled. “Because you seem to be trying to memorize me.”
Otome blushed, looking down. “I was thinking that this feels right,” she whispered. “That…That I am enjoying this evening.” She pressed her hands together, smiling. “Maybe I am trying to memorize you. Keep the memory of you forever.”
Munira giggled, her hand pressing over her mouth for a moment. “Time ticks away, eventually.”
“And I’ll hold onto this for all of it that I have,” Otome knew they had gotten serious quickly. This was their third month together, but there was something about Munira that drew her in. From the first moment she had met the other Hero, tall and strong, she had been drawn in. Munira’s darker skin was contrasted by her almost-white hair, with a touch of gold in the strands. Her eyes were a brown-gold color with flecks of orange in them, deep and unyielding when she was on duty and facing a villain, warm and soft now that she was at the table with Otome.
With a small but happy sigh, Munira reached across the table, offering her hand.
Otome took it, tangling their fingers together.
“If I tell you that I feel the same,” Munira’s gaze was locked onto her water, glancing up for a moment before looking away again. “Would it be strange?”
“Like we were meant to be here,” Otome whispered.
“Like we have always been heading towards this,” Munira nodded. “I have only known you a year and a half, but in that time, I have wanted to know you further. You turn nineteen, next year. Your whole life will be your own and you will be amazing,” she looked up again, her eyes wide, her cheeks practically burning. “And I wish to see everything you can and will do.”
Munira felt familiar.
In so many ways, Munira felt familiar.
She felt like when Otome got home from a patrol and her brothers were waiting for her, her parents in the kitchen, all of them happy to see her. She felt like when Otome had managed to use her Quirks together, on purpose, for the first time. She felt stable, warm, and comforting. Comfortable.
The Hero Starlight.
She waved her hands and brought forth light.
Light in the world, light in the darkness, and light in Otome’s heart. Even if they did not stay together, she wanted to see how a life with Munira Waruhi would turn out.
“Let’s see everything together,” Otome suggested, a smile she couldn’t control on her face. “Because I want to see what you do in this world.”
Munira brought her hand up, smiling as well, and pressed a kiss to Otome’s knuckles.
~
She had been little, when things had changed.
She’d woken up to her dad talking to a man she hadn’t known at the time. Sir Nighteye had been there, one morning, helping make breakfast while Eiichi had a fit at the table. Their dad had held them both, she’d held Eiichi’s hand, and everything had seemed to slow down around them. The world had narrowed down to the three of them, holding tight together until the ground stopped shaking beneath them.
It had been almost a decade before she’d found out that Sir Nighteye had come to warn her dad of his own possible death that day.
Otome took a deep breath as she stared at the letter her other self had written to her. The words she had been left by a version of her so desperate to save everyone that she had thrown herself back through time. There were dozens of other letters, hours of video, and things that had been stuffed into the pockets of a utility belt once upon a time. Todoroki-san had come out the other side of his letter a changed man, from what she knew. Touya talked about it a lot, if she asked him. His dad had been a nightmare in a lot of ways and then he’d changed.
For the better.
Shouto smiled, even when he sometimes didn’t catch a joke or a sarcastic line. Touya would either die or kill to protect his family, Otome knew, and anyone he considered important to him. Kai and Hari were inseparable, even now that Kai had mostly calmed down his panic about germs.
He still had nightmares about infections sometimes, but he worked as a rescue hero. He found solace in the fact that he could heal someone, in the idea that he could make sure the infection never touched them in the first place. With a hero name of Metacarpus, Otome watched as he did his best to heal everyone he could. Hari followed behind him and provided backup and support by making sure the environment wouldn’t kill Kai – the hero Chronostasis. Neither the villains nor the rubble that occurred would touch Kai if Hari had anything to say about it. Otome had patrolled with them often enough to know that.
She had grown up with these people.
She had watched the younger ones grow up, too.
Izuku and Shouto and Katsuki – she had watched them get bigger and stronger and better. Himiko was on track to become a rescue hero, inspired by her dad and Chizome. The lessons she’d been given by seeing them, that a blood-based Quirk wasn’t evil, had taken deep roots.
Something deeper had been settled, too, by the fact that her siblings had been placed with her in her new home. Two dads and four kids, bright and happy and smiling. Neito, brought home, had grown up with his twin sister. Both of them smiled so often. The other siblings had been removed from their home, Himiko’s little siblings, and sent to live with her and her twin. With new parents, all four of them seemed to thrive.
Sitting up on her bed, Otome sighed.
She was building her own agency. She was young for it, but it needed to be done. The time would come, soon enough, to look for interns. Sidekicks. Assistants and secretaries and everything. All of the kids she’d watched grow up were about to start their education as soon-to-be heroes.
Her brothers had played parts in their lives. She’d watched over all of the youngest, sometimes. Shouta and Hizashi and all the others had watched over her and Tenko and all of her age group.
The future was bright, Otome decided as she stood up.
The desperation her future self had felt would, hopefully, have no place in it.