Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pain.

Or silence.

Those are the only options. Only options are oxymorons.

Morons.

Morons. Moron.

Hey, you moron. Who said that?

Oh, right. She did. But to who?

Oh, right. Jin.

She shouldn’t have said that. Why did she say that? His feelings were probably hurt.

That hurts. Ow. Pain. Pain.

“Stop, that hurts!”

“Hold her down.”

Stop. Stop.

“Stop! Stop!”

Which way gets them to listen? She can’t remember.

Pain. Pain.

Silence.

Silence.

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Sometimes the silence is met with a scream. She’s pretty sure it’s not hers. Pretty sure. They told her the room is soundproof, which would explain all the silence, but then why the screams?

Poof, then they’re gone. Like it never even happened.

Silence.

At least it isn’t pain.

The lights shut off and she sighs in the comfort of darkness. There’s never any pain in the dark. The only light comes from the crack beneath the door, her own little nightlight. She falls asleep easily.

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She wakes to darkness. That’s strange. She never falls asleep and wakes up to darkness. Usually, she wakes up when the lights flash on and a tray of food slides in from a hatch in the door.

There’s no light and there’s no food.

Well, she isn’t hungry anyway. At least the darkness can keep her company. There’s never any pain in the dark. Just silence.

Well, now she’s hungry.

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But the food never comes. And the lights never turn on.

That’s just fine.

Fine.

Fine. Fine.

Fine, I’ll go get the kid. Who said that?

No, really, who said that? It wasn’t her. It wasn’t Jin. It was…

No, try again. Who was the kid?

The kid. The kid. Kid. Kid.

Kid.

He’s my kid brother. What, you don’t see the resemblance? Dabi.

No, that was later.

Or maybe before.

It was different. Different kid.

Kid.

Fine, I’ll go get the kid. But if he explodes my face, I’ll kill him.

Explodes. Explosion kid. God, she hated that kid. He exploded Spinner’s face.

Spinner! It was Spinner.

But he was fine, no permanent damage.

What’s your damage?

God, she hated that kid. Spinner never even got to kill him, how lame.

She’s still hungry.

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The lights finally come on, stunning her out of sleep, but forcing her eyes to squint as they readjust. Pain. But it’s different. How long has she been in the dark?

Pain. She’s still hungry, but that’s manageable compared to what she’s already been through.

Then, something new happens. Her door pops open. She squints at it, waiting for them to come back and bring the same old pain with them.

But they never come.

The door just sits, open.

Well.

When a door is open, you go through it.

That’s right, Jin.

So she goes through it.

It’s been years since she saw the outside of her cell. The ceilings are tall, stretching up so far she can’t see where they end. The halls stretch nearly as long in either direction, dozens of cells on each side with doors open just like hers. People shuffle out of them, people she’s never seen before and people she might recognize if she hadn’t been stuck in a box for almost ten years.

Or has it been ten? Has it been a whole decade? Is she twenty-seven now?

The other prisoners look at her as she looks at them, then they look past her. None of these people are Jin. Or Dabi. Or Spinner.

Or that explosion kid, but of course, he wouldn’t be here. He’s a hero. Heroes never go to prison. Even when they really deserve it.

She turns to face the other end of the hall just as bodies start shuffling by, heading towards the final open door. Right, that’s the way she was brought in however long ago. As the prisoners around her free themselves, she takes one last look at the cell she’s been stuck in all this time and says a final goodbye, fuck you.

Then, she prepares to meet it again in the event that they just throw her right back in.

Finally, she follows the crowd.

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She wakes up in a new room – and tucked into a bed, which is pillowy and soft, unlike the sheet of cardboard they called a futon in prison. The first thing she notices is how this room isn’t shrouded in silence, but instead with… birds. To her left, there’s a window, and wow, it’s been so long since she’s seen outside…

The view overlooks a parking lot, with a rainbow of cars and motorbikes parked between thinly painted yellow lines. It’s been so long since she’s seen so much color. The lot is lined with rows of greenery – trees, shrubs, grass – god, she wants to touch the grass, wants to feel it between her toes, wants to look for one of those singing birds in a tree and hug it and love it and suck it’s blood—

No! No, Himiko, that’s bad, that’s very bad!

God, shut up, shut up! So she wants to suck a little blood, what’s the big deal?

Why do you have to be so creepy?

Shut up! Shut up!

“Shut up! Shut up! Please just shut up!” She knows those are her screams now, and those are her tears wetting her cheeks and chin and the collar of her shirt – when did she change into this shirt? – and god, it all makes sense now, why her room isn’t filled with silence.

The only other option is pain.

And she feels it, deep in her chest, something hurts very bad there. It’s different than the pain they brought to her before, that was always somewhere on her skin – always prodding with needles and tweezers – what were they expecting to find? What were they collecting from her? Was it like how she collected blood from the people she loved?

No, it didn’t make sense that they loved her. If they loved her, they would have at least talked to her. She was always ignored, always left in silence.

This pain is worse, like her heart’s been run over by a train and her lungs can’t seem to get quite enough oxygen, and she can do nothing but drown in her tears while the birds keep singing outside her window.

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Himiko doesn’t remember falling asleep for the second time. She blinks awake in the same old new room. The birds have quieted, so she turns toward the window again and sees that the sun is setting, leaving swaths of brilliant pinks and purples in its wake. The sight makes her gasp, even though the sky has never left her amazed like this in all her life, it’s just been so long since she’s seen it.

She watches as it fades to the color of an eggplant mixed with a bit of the ocean, then grows darker and darker until it finally settles on black.

Now bored, Himiko turns to examine the rest of her room, finally realizing she’s actually quite lost.

It’s cleaner than her cell was, with tiled floors instead of concrete and peach-tinted walls instead of grimy, rusty metal. There’s a pane of black glass on the wall opposite her, which is suspicious, and a lamp in the corner of her room casts much softer light than her cell’s overhead, but it’s still light, so she instinctually expects pain.

But pain never comes. Not even that ache she felt in her chest before.

She feels just on the side of nothing, with a little bit of – oh, yes, she feels that. A long clear tube is taped to her right hand, and she has enough sense to assume there’s a needle just under her skin there. Whatever’s flowing through her veins at the moment is probably to blame for this state of numbness and confusion, but she’ll take it for now. Back in the prison hallway just outside her cell, she prepared for this. Well, not for this specifically, but for something worse than this. She prepared to go back to the way things were: silence, pain, silence, pain, silence, screams, blah blah blah.

So, yeah, she’ll take this.

Take this! And that! Ha ha!

Why are you so good at this?

What?

“What?” But no one is around to hear her.

The light never goes out, but it’s dim enough that when she closes her eyes, she doesn’t feel the need to open them again.

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“Toga Himiko.”

It’s been so long since someone’s said her full name. She blinks, surprised by the light – or rather, how the light didn’t wake her up first. Then she turns to the direction the voice came from.

A man in a black jumpsuit and a patch over one eye stands just inside the doorway, hands in his pants pockets, and a pile of scarves that remind her of bandages around his neck. He frowns at her – or maybe just doesn’t have a different way of holding his face – through a curtain of black hair. She’s seen him before, the name is just on the tip of her tongue…

Oh, right.

“Eraser Head,” she rasps, her throat scratchier than she was expecting.

Eraser pads over to her and hands her a glass of water from her side table. It takes Himiko a moment to remember how to hold it, but he remains steady and patient until her grip on the glass with both hands is firm. She drinks, suddenly feeling unbearably parched.

“What do you remember?” Eraser asks once she’s finished. Himiko wonders if this is some kind of trick. Heroes are always pulling crap like that. If she tells a lie, she’s punished, if she tells the truth, she’s punished. They just want to watch her mess up.

Well, she’s gotten used to the silence, so much so that she’s learned how to speak its language.

They stare at each other for a few long moments. When it's obvious she won’t be answering his question, he sighs and pulls up a chair.

“There’s been a war,” he says, leaning back with his arms crossed as he stares her down. Himiko wants to roll her eyes, because, yeah, that war is what got her locked up in the first place. She’s well aware of how her side lost and his side won. She should have guessed this was all just an elaborate way to rub it in her face.

He continues, “Four months ago, a new government was finally established, as well as a new path for you. Under our old government, your fate was decided the moment they found you guilty. No takesies backsies.”

No takesies backsies.

Himiko said those words once.

For some reason, she glances to the floor, and when her eyes spot his prosthetic, she remembers why.

Her heart rate picks up slightly. Is he going to get her back for the leg? She wasn’t even the one who pulled the trigger, that was—

Tomura.

If Eraser senses her nerves, he doesn’t let on. “We’re calling it the RQRP, which stands for Rehabilitation and Quirk Re-education Program. All former prisoners under the old government qualify,” he says. “That means you.”

Himiko finds herself growing even more bored by the second. It doesn’t matter what they call it, she’s still being held here against her will.

…

“Am I still being held here against my will?” she asks in a far less scratchy voice.

“For the time being, yes.”

She rolls her eyes then and stares out the window. “Then I don’t give a shit about what you’re saying.”

“Well, I’m gonna keep talking anyway,” he says. Himiko groans. “You’re currently at level one, Potential, which is where everyone starts. It is what it sounds like: you have potential for rehabilitation. You can graduate from this level to the second level when you meet the requirement.”

Himiko ignores him and tries to listen for the birds again. She really wants to suck one’s blood right now, but the want is still very dull in the back of her mind – she shoots a glare at the IV lodged in her arm, realizing Eraser’s hair is flat and his eyes aren’t getting all red. She’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop at this point. Soon enough, she’ll piss off the heroes or the government or whothefuckever, and they’ll try whipping her into shape, and when that proves to be useless, they’ll just throw her in yet another box and toss the key. Again.

There’s never a different ending to this kind of story, not unless she dies first.

…

Now there’s an idea.

Eraser is still going on, “That one requirement is this: you just have to talk. Not to me, necessarily – unless you really want to – but to a therapist. We have a few to choose from, so you can pick your favorite—“

Himiko isn’t listening. She takes her empty glass and with as much force as she can muster through the haze of calming drugs, shatters it on the edge of her bedside table. Then, faster than even Eraser Head can manage, she clumsily brings the jagged edge to her wrist and drags a clean slice through her flesh.

Crimson pulses to the surface instantly, and the sight of blood is so familiar and beautiful that she can’t help but bring the gash to her mouth and lap at the stream. She pays no mind to the rest of the world around her, falling into a state of pure bliss at her first taste of blood in ages. Her cheeks flush pleasantly, and a swirl of excitement twists in her gut.

In the first few weeks of her imprisonment, she had only her own body to drink from. Her canines could easily puncture just about any piece of herself she could reach, and when she felt particularly lonely, she just helped herself. Didn’t take long for them to knock her out and file her teeth down to pitiful, normal nubs, all completely smooth and level. Biting into herself from then on caused worse pain than even they could bring to her, so she gave up trying.

Himiko revels in the taste for as long as she can manage to keep her eyes open, but her ears are ringing and someone is shouting as her vision darkens almost immediately.

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“That was a first.”

Himiko groans and looks down at herself, now completely strapped into her bed, wrist bandaged but still stinging underneath. She doesn’t bother looking at Eraser, just stares out the window again.

“Your psychological assessment didn’t include suicidal ideation, so forgive us for overlooking that possibility,” he says. “Don’t worry, you can’t fall to a lower level, so you’re still at Potential.”

Himiko scoffs. “You people are always putting everyone into little categories, as if a single word or quirk or action can define an entire person.” She doesn’t know where that came from, but she finds that she means every word.

“If actions don’t define a person, then what does?” he asks in his annoying monotone.

She ignores him again, watching the trees and thinking only of winged creatures.

“I’ll leave if you want,” Eraser says after a minute. Or two. “Just say the word.”

Himiko only continues to look out the window.

He sighs. There are sounds of shuffling, then footsteps, and when Himiko glances out of the corner of her vision, she watches Eraser open the door, then turn to her before stepping out.

“If you need something, press the button there next to your hand. I’ll be back tomorrow morning again,” he informs her. “Unless you want to use your words and tell me that you’d like someone else.”

Himiko clenches her jaw and glares down at her lap. Only options are oxymorons.

Eraser waits for a moment, then takes another step out, before she finally says, “Someone else.”

She lifts her gaze to meet his. He nods once, then lets the door fall shut. She watches his form disappear from the little window cutout.

Alone once again.

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The next morning, she wakes before anyone enters her room. Still strapped down, she can’t shift much to adjust more comfortably. Her eyes fall on the little wired remote next to her hand with a giant red button in the center, the words PRESS FOR HELP stamped underneath it. Something about it turns her stomach. She doesn’t press it but instead uses the limited mobility of her hands to shove the thing further away from her.

She doesn’t need help.

The sun takes its time rising from the horizon out her window, so she just waits and watches. Regardless of how the rest of this day goes, she wants to be sure she has an entire catalog of beautiful skies to remember when she’s locked up again.

It doesn’t take long for a knock at the door to snap her back to the present.

She says nothing to invite them in, but it opens anyway to reveal a woman. Her hair is the color of chestnuts and there’s a pink tint to her cheeks that instantly flares Himiko’s thirst. The drugs are still doing their job, so it’s just a small craving, but its more present than it’s been in a long time, even more than the thought of cute little birds.

Then again, this woman reminds Himiko of a cute little bird herself, with pink puckered lips and wide eyes. She’s dressed in a smartly tailored maroon blazer and skin-tight trousers, her collared button-up is dusty pink with slippers to match. There’s a little satchel swinging from one shoulder and she carries a clipboard in the other hand.

“Good morning, Toga,” the woman says, her voice a sweet song to Himiko’s ears. She quietly presses the door closed after herself, then helps herself to the chair Eraser Head left out. “My name is Ochaco Uraraka, and I’m the head therapist at the RQRP. How are you feeling today?”

Himiko is so taken with the woman that she almost answers. Uraraka seems genuine and harmless enough, but she’s still one of them. Himiko just stares at her, finding this view to be preferable even to the window.

Uraraka blinks back at her for a beat, then scribbles on her clipboard. She clears her throat and tries again, “I know Eraser Head already filled you in on some of the details, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them. I am here to help you, Toga.”

Himiko considers this. She did have a few questions – can I suck your blood among the top five, but she figures that won’t get her anywhere – and asking questions didn’t mean she had to answer any, which seems safe enough.

“Why did you send Eraser in first?”

They had to know what she did to him, and his presence was just a reminder of how badly she fucked up. When you slight a hero, the heroes slight you back. Sure, he didn’t shoot her with a quirk-stealing bullet (again, that was Tomura) or cut her leg off or beat her face to a pulp, but he mocked her. So she wanted to hear it right from the horse’s mouth – assuming this beautiful horse would tell the truth, anyway.

“Eraser Head is our first option for Potentials,” Uraraka answers easily. “His ability to erase quirks is a safeguard just in case anyone is triggered when hearing the news about the war, our new government, or where you’ve ended up. He volunteered for the position, actually. He said it could help him work on his people skills.” Uraraka chuckled at the prospect, but Himiko didn’t find anything funny. “We’re still working out the kinks. You’re among our first generation of Potentials, so there’s bound to be—”

“Stop calling me that,” Himiko interrupts, her frown deepening. “Potential.” The word leaves a bad taste in her mouth. Uraraka looks slightly surprised, but not offended.

“Okay,” she agrees with a nod of her head. “Can I ask why?”

“It’s demeaning.”

Uraraka’s eyes widen at that, her cheeks flushing a little more. “Okay, understood. I won’t use it again.”

Himiko considers the phrasing of her next question. She doesn’t want to seem too eager to find out information, just in case they catch on and take away what she wants again. “It took you ten whole years to establish a new government or whatever. Are you people dumb or something?”

Uraraka’s eyebrows furrow slightly. “What do you mean?”

Himiko wants to laugh. This hero’s not used to being insulted, it seems.

“I mean that is a crazy long time to get going on an entire country’s government,” she says. “You guys are either stupid and incompetent or just stupid.”

“I’m sorry, I think you’ve misunderstood,” Uraraka starts. Himiko frowns. “The new government was established in two months, um, four months ago from today, actually. The RQRP is just a social program, but it was also established at the same time. The—”

“But the war happened before you guys locked me up,” Himiko insists, clenching her fists at her sides. Why are they trying to rewrite history? Is this some kind of joke? Is this her re-education? “Don’t lie to me, I may have gone a little nutty in solitary confinement, but I remember things just fine!” Uraraka doesn’t need to know that last bit is a slight over-exaggeration.

The woman holds her hands up in surrender. “My apologies, Toga, I misunderstood your question. You’re right, the war that you fought in happened eight years ago. There was another war, a… slightly larger one in terms of what was accomplished. The government that put you away for your crimes was severely flawed, and I know you are no stranger to that fact. During your time in prison, there was supposed to be an election for parliament, but there was already so much public opposition to—”

Himiko groans and throws her head back onto the pillow of her inclined mattress. “Nope, I don’t care.” She lets her head roll to the side, facing the window again. If she has to hear another word about politicians and heroes, she just might lose it, even under their drug cocktail. Uraraka has fallen silent, and when Himiko turns to face her again, she waits patiently with her hands folded atop her clipboard.

“What do you write on there?” Himiko squints to make out the characters, but still can’t see from that distance.

Uraraka flips it around, revealing simple lined notebook paper, presumably today’s date in the corner – which catches Himiko’s eye – and half the page already filled with her neat script. “Just notes from our sessions. I keep separate pages for other patients—”

“Is that really what day it is?” Himiko furrows her brows, then glances out the window again. It does sort of look like spring, but knowing for sure what month it is for the first time in nearly a decade settles in her chest strangely, though not uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry that they didn’t let you keep track of time in Tartarus, that was a… very inhumane place,” Uraraka says. Himiko can’t help the glare that settles on her own expression, unsettled by the apology. “We kept you under for a while longer because of your wounds—“

“What wounds?”

Uraraka’s expression then gives nothing away. She’s good at this, Himiko will give her that. The last therapist she talked to as a teenager couldn’t hide his disgust if his life depended on it – which it did, in the end.

“Do you remember much of your time in prison?”

Himiko scowls. “Don’t do that, don’t answer my questions with questions. If I’m asking, then I want to know the truth.”

Uraraka nods. “Apologies. Well then, the truth is that the doctors- well, they weren’t doctors by any official means, but that was their title. They performed experiments on prisoners in Tartarus. You might remember being given substances or having samples taken from your body?”

Pain.

Pain. Of course, that’s where the pain came from, that’s why it always came back. Experiments? What a joke.

Except it isn’t funny at all.

“Toga,” Uraraka brings Himiko’s attention back to her. Their eyes meet. “I also want to clarify, you did not go nutty in solitary confinement. You were being drugged into confusion and complacency.”

Now that gets under her skin.

Himiko thrashes against her current restraints, gesturing as much as she can with her punctured hand. “So what do you call this, huh? Rehabilitation and re-education? That’s complete fucking dog shit!”

Uraraka keeps her cool. “These are only temporary measures, Toga, we’re here to help you—“

Himiko spits on her shoes.

The therapist is stunned into a moment of silence as she stares at the glob of saliva, then flicks her gaze back up to Himiko’s. “I understand how it looks. I’ll never understand how it feels, but I know for a fact that these conditions you’re in now are far better than the ones we found you in.”

Low bar, Himiko thinks as she rips her eyes away from those wide brown irises and back to the window. She’s done talking, and she sure as hell is done listening.

The two women sit in silence for a few long moments.

“All you have to do is say the word, Toga,” Uraraka says. “And I’ll leave.”

Himiko sneers at the window and says nothing. Eraser tried that already, and she won’t give in again. She’ll leave either way, she can’t stay here forever.

Less than five minutes later, Himiko is proven right. Uraraka gathers her things and makes for the door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she says.

Then the door swings shut.

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Just as promised, Uraraka enters the following morning, this time bearing more than just her clipboard; a full yardstick ruler and a handful of brightly colored markers poke out from one of her fists.

“Good morning, Toga,” the therapist greets with a smile as she sets her bag down on the chair instead of sitting in it.

Himiko says nothing, but Uraraka doesn’t skip a beat. She pops open the cap of one marker – electric blue – and places the yardstick against the black window. She starts measuring, marking, and drawing a series of lines until a grid appears. Himiko watches, growing increasingly puzzled until Uraraka pops open another color – hot pink – and abandons the stick to write the name of the month up top and numbers in the corners of each box.

“This way,” Uraraka says as she clicks the cap back onto her last color – highlighter yellow – and steps aside to reveal a color-coded calendar. “You’ll always know what day it is, how much time has passed, and what to expect ahead.”

For a split second, Himiko’s heart catches in her throat at the sight. It’s been so long, longer than even her time in prison, since she was granted a sense of normalcy in their society. Something as benign as marking the passage of time, as if there’s ever something worth remembering or something worth looking forward to, is a little piece of humanity Himiko never thought to cradle in her hands like a fragile creature. She’d never been taught to value simplicity.

She had fun with the League as a teenager. Their ideas allowed her to dream for the first time in her life, allowed her the space to breathe as a girl with a morbid quirk that couldn’t help her own nature and had no one else to turn to. But the ideas were massive, world-ending, catastrophe-bringing pieces to a grand puzzle that could flip society as they knew it on its head so that they might stand over the rubble and laugh. It was never simple, and it was never easy.

Drawing an X over the days that have passed is easy.

Each morning, Himiko wakes to the sound of birds outside her window, she notes that her thirst is still subdued and her body is still bound to the bed, and then Uraraka comes in with a smile on her face, electric blue marker in hand, and she crosses off the previous day before starting their session. Himiko gives in and asks a few questions, but answers none, so Uraraka chats for long enough that the sun moves an inch across the sky before she leaves again. Despite this lack of progress, Himiko never asks for another therapist, too angry and yet not angry enough to bother. At the very least, Uraraka isn’t pushy, nor does she remind Himiko of what she did (or didn’t do) to be locked up in the first place, so she figures this is as good as it gets.

Through her sparse questioning, Himiko finds out that she was in Tartarus for exactly eight years, five months, and twenty-three days. On the first of that month is when the door to her cell was unlocked – a day on the calendar marked with little yellow letters that say Released from Tartarus underneath the blue X – and that she was kept under anesthesia for an extra six days after to allow enough time to recover from her injuries, apparently with the help of several healing quirks. How many healing quirks were available, Himiko had no idea, but her skin didn’t sting anywhere she couldn’t easily see.

Every other day after Uraraka draws the calendar, Himiko is greeted with a set of three women who introduce themselves as “Pinky” – because she’s pink, Himiko assumes; “Froppy” – clearly a frog; and “Nejire Chan” – who can’t stop asking questions if her life depended on it. Himiko refuses to add the Chan to the woman’s name, though she doesn’t refer to any of the three women, regardless. She actually hates them right away on principle, but they unshackle her and help her all the way to the connecting bathroom so that she can take a shower for an allotted fifteen minutes while one changes the bed sheets and they talk among themselves. Sometimes she’s invited into the conversation, but she never gives any reply, so they always move on quickly enough.

Himiko is woozy even after being unplugged from her IV, so she uses the handlebars in the shower to hold herself up while water turned to the hottest setting runs down her body. Her unwrapped self-inflicted wound is nothing but a pink scar spanning half the length of her forearm now, which is surprising to say the least, but healing quirks are healing quirks. Sometimes she manages to throw some soap into the mix, but most of the time, she really can’t be bothered. After she’s done, the three women return to help her dry off and comb through her blonde hair while Himiko stares into a mirror.

The first time she saw herself, Himiko was stunned into complacency, no drugs required. Her hair was several inches longer and shaggier than she last remembered it, the color of her irises had dimmed significantly, and bordered with tired, dark skin that showed just how much shit she’d been put through. When she thought the women weren’t paying attention, Himiko inched the seam of her lips open to reveal her bared teeth. Just like she assumed, they’d been flattened.

“You have a beautiful smile, Toga,” Froppy said, and Himiko snapped her mouth shut when she realized the women had been watching her. She flicked her gaze up to the frog girl’s reflection, then tilted her head in consideration. Froppy is cute, too, in a different way than Uraraka, but just like every other little creature she’s ever met. Her green hair is tied into a neat little bow at the back of her head, and her eyes are wide, wider than Uraraka’s, which gives Himiko the sense that she’s an observational person. That must be a very useful skill in her line of work, watching for a patient’s every move and motivation. It’s a skill as much as it is a personality trait, and Himiko’s thirst suddenly flared almost unbearably strong for a taste of that little frog girl’s blood, just to see what kind of things she could do with it.

Himiko lunged before she actively thought about doing it, twisting around and stumbling out of her chair towards Froppy with a speed she didn’t realize she was still capable of. Before she could get her hands on the woman, she was immobilized in a warm burst of energy, suspended mid-motion by a spiral of light that emanated from Nejire’s outstretched hands. Half a second later, Pinky pulled Froppy out of Himiko’s direct line of sight as she was carried back to her bed in the spiral.

The women worked quickly to hook her back up to her IV while she was still hanging there desperate for a drop of Froppy’s blood but unable to voice as much because of that stupid quirk, all three mumbling about the time limit they must have exceeded on accident; and interestingly enough, apologizing to Himiko for their oversight. Despite still being held immobile, Himiko could breathe and blink, and apparently, cry. She’s not sure what started it, the thirst or the staticity – surely not the surface-level apologies these strange women were pestering her with – but soon enough, her vision was blurry with tears that couldn’t fall.

A minute later, she was fully strapped down, hooked up, and crying her eyes out while the three women frowned at her bedside. Himiko couldn’t look at them, didn’t know exactly what kinds of expressions they held on their faces, but she was sure they wanted to scold and shame her for the evil thing she almost did to Froppy. They said none of it, only mumbling to each other words Himiko couldn’t focus on.

She must have fallen asleep quickly after, because the next moment, she was blinking awake again to Uraraka X-ing out the previous day’s box.

When her therapist turned around, she didn’t berate Himiko like she was expecting, nor did she explain just how bad, evil, and fucked-up Himiko was for her actions. She just gave a little close-lipped smile, then said, “Today is a new day, Toga. What would you like to do with it?”

Himiko had never been asked such a question before.

She still had nothing to say, and not just because she didn’t want to, but also because Uraraka left her completely without words.

That day, they started feeding her real food instead of the nutritional crap through her IV. Her torso and legs were still strapped in, but they freed her hands long enough to let her handle some chopsticks, which she was a little out of practice with since Tartarus neglected to hand out utensils of any kind. The very act of chewing and swallowing a pretty decent meal brought Himiko back to feeling a little more human, but she still ignored the small talk.

If she’s being honest, Uraraka is far too easy to ignore. She spends days doing nothing but coming in with her little clipboard and pen, asking about how Himiko is feeling and if she’d like to discuss her childhood and whatever other crap shrinks say. As distance from her attempt to attack a staff member grows, and she becomes certain they’re not going to throw her back into prison for it, Himiko immediately settles back into her voluntary silence. If this program really intends to get her talking, they should be using three times the straps, twice the manpower, and some better manipulation tactics. Yet, at the end of the hour, even if Himiko says no more than two words, Uraraka simply scribbles, stands, promises to see Himiko the next morning unless she speaks up to request a new therapist, and then takes her leave. Other than when her meals are delivered or she’s wrangled up for a shower, Himiko is left alone. The call button is always near, but she hardly even glances at the thing.

Her team of cleaning women act as if nothing happened between them, which Himiko finds relief in. Even Froppy still smiles when their gazes meet, not even a hint of fear or rage to be seen. Pinky still gossips about people Himiko has never met, and Nejire still asks questions she surely can’t be expecting answers to since she moves on to her next thought so quickly. Himiko avoids her own reflection when they comb her hair, apparently obviously enough that she’s eventually taken back into the main room to be groomed right after drying off.

“I’d like to try something different today,” Uraraka says at the start of her third month. Himiko stares out the window and rolls her eyes.

“Is it letting me go?” she asks rhetorically.

“No.”

“Then I don’t care.”

Uraraka isn’t easy to break, even if she is easy to ignore, but two can always play.

Her therapist tries again, “I have someone who would like to visit you, if you’ll have them.”

Himiko stiffens, heart suddenly pounding at the idea of facing someone from her past – is it her parents? Is this some kind of exposure therapy? There’s no way they expect that to benefit her “recovery” after all this time, considering those bastards are the ones who ruined her life and testified against her, leading to those eight long years.

“I won’t,” Himiko says. Her heart won’t stop racing. The scent of the other woman in the room would be driving her nuts if it weren’t for the drugs.

Uraraka seems to catch on easily, saying, “Why don’t you ask who it is before you decide?”

Confused, Himiko finally meets her gaze. The woman’s eyes are soft, sympathetic even. Himiko isn’t sure she’ll ever get used to being looked at like that. Her chest still doesn’t feel right, so she indulges for the hell of it, “Who is it then?” They haven’t been forcing her to do much of anything, so worst case scenario, she’ll just scream her head off until they knock her out.

Uraraka smiles, looking thoroughly pleased as she answers, “Tenko Shimura.”

Himiko frowns even as her heart slows and relief floods through her. It’s not her family, but she doesn’t recognize the name. Why the hell would some stranger want to visit her after all this time?

She starts, “I don’t know who—“

Then she catches a glimpse of white hair in the little window of the door. Her posture straightens as her heart leaps into her throat, and a new feeling replaces the anxiety, something sweet that she hasn’t felt in a long time.

“Tomura?” Himiko blinks stupidly at the window. Uraraka says something Himiko doesn’t quite catch, and then the door swings open to reveal one of her oldest friends.

The first thing she notices about him is that his hair isn’t just white anymore, not like she last saw it. Black has begun to sprout in at the roots and grown in an inch or two, leaving his locks two-toned. The second thing she notices is the shy little smile he wears on shiny lips. He looks almost exactly the same, yet completely different.

“Hey, Toga,” he greets, waving with one hand while the other is tucked securely into the kangaroo pocket of his black hoodie. Himiko nods her head in acknowledgment, but can do little more than stare at him with wonder.

Uraraka stands from her chair and offers it to Tomura, who takes a seat with a quick, “Thank you, Miss.” She smiles, then makes her way to the door, leaving the two villains alone.

Himiko takes another long moment to observe him. His skin looks softer, a lot less irritated and also slightly shiny, just like his lips. Whatever he’s done to it makes him look about ten years younger than she remembers. Tomura shrinks slightly under her scrutiny, but she can’t help it.

“How are you doing?” he finally breaks the silence. Himiko is stunned further, knowing that’s the first time she’s ever heard those words come from his mouth.

She swallows her surprise and answers, “I’m stuck here against my will, what do you think?” She doesn’t mean to come off so rude, but when have they ever put up unnecessary pleasantries around each other? Last she remembers, they wallowed in their suffering together; where having complaints was the natural state of things, and they only celebrated when others finally felt as horrible as they did. Himiko feels every second of those eight years now, realizing just how long that really is.

Tomura takes it in stride, chuckling. “Yeah, I kinda figured. They probably would have had us meet in the Comms if you were feeling better.”

“Comms?”

“Oh, right, the Common Areas,” Tomura explains, taking his hand out of his pocket to point his thumb back behind him at the closed door. “After you graduate to level two, they let you socialize during the day. There’s a few TVs and video games and stuff. It’s a lot of fun, actually.”

Himiko’s frown deepens. “Fun? What kind of a place is this?”

It’s Tomura’s turn to look confused. “Didn’t they tell you?”

She rolls her eyes. “They gave me some crap about rehabilitation and keep insisting I talk about stupid stuff. I don’t get why they can’t just let me go, why are we still serving time?”

“I guess it’s just a little more complicated than that,” Tomura says. “But we aren’t prisoners anymore. We’re patients at a hospital, receiving treatment because we’re sick—“

“That’s such crap, Tomura, come on!” Himiko explodes, leaning hard into the strap across her chest. It bruises there, but she needs the pain to focus out of the drug haze. “This isn’t you, look at yourself! Since when do you believe those lies about how we’re sick, or deranged, or that we need help? Their help? Their normie fucking group therapy sessions talking about our feelings, all holding hands as long as we agree to submit? It’s all bullshit. Why should I have to change to make them happy? What about what makes me happy?” Himiko thrashes against her restraints again, growling low in her throat when she can hardly move an inch. They must be able to control her drugs remotely, because she’s quickly losing motivation to keep this conversation going.

Tomura sighs, then lifts a hesitant hand. Himiko sniffs just as her eyes begin to water, watching him with the only attention she can muster. “Can I…?” he asks, gesturing to her own limp fingers. She has no idea what he’s asking, so she nods once, just to see what will happen. When his warm fingers settle over her own, she blinks a single tear onto her cheek and stares at their hands.

“I know exactly how you feel right now, Toga,” Tomura says. Himiko looks back up at him, but he’s staring out her window, a gentle flush to his cheeks that she’s never seen on him before. It doesn’t inspire thirst, but she can’t take her eyes off it, anyway. “When my cell at Tartarus opened, I thought it was finally done and I was free. It had been so long since I felt that kind of joy and hope… I was the first person out of my block, the first one to rush out those doors, into the fresh air… Then I woke up here, and I did nothing but scream and cry for two weeks until my voice was shot and my tears dried up. I asked the same question, why won’t they just let me go?

“Eraser Head told me they couldn’t just yet, because while I wasn’t a prisoner anymore, I wasn’t free, either. Not that I would never be free, but just not yet, because I wasn’t ready to re-integrate into society. And I know you’re gonna ask, why would I want to join this society after everything? Well,” Tomura takes a deep breath, meets Himiko’s gaze, and shrugs. “Because what I was doing before wasn’t working.”

Himiko blinks. She raises an eyebrow. “Your plan would have worked if those heroes—“

“Not just that,” Tomura says, shaking his head. “I’m not talking about the power struggle between right and wrong on a grand scale. I just mean: me, I was miserable.”

Himiko wants to say, Yes, but that’s the point: they made us miserable, they made us feel like trash, they kicked us while we were down and expected no consequences. We were meant to be the consequences.

Tomura continues before she gets the chance, “I stored up all of my wrath and my envy and, honestly, even my love; and I smashed it all together until I couldn’t tell any of it apart anymore. I killed indiscriminately, my only targets being whatever stood in my way, and I convinced myself that revenge felt exactly like happiness. But I was wrong… it wasn’t like they told me I was wrong, so I believe it, but I know I was wrong because I feel it.” Tomura actually laughs then, his eyes sparkling with tears, and Himiko feels the shake of it through their connected hands. “The meds help, obviously, but— Toga, do you have any idea how good forgiveness feels?”

Himiko blinks. She shakes her head. She’s never forgiven anyone for what they’ve done to her, and she sure as hell has never been forgiven for what she’s done to anyone else. Dead people can’t do that.

“We both did some bad things, before and during that war. What I did, I… I never thought I’d have to see the other side of it. When I shot that bullet at Eraser to kill his quirk, I just figured it would be an easy win. But he was always one step ahead of me, and when he amputated the leg… really, I was just impressed. It’s kind of unfathomable now that I felt nothing even close to sorry about it. So, when I saw him, I sort of freaked out. I thought he was there for revenge. He was calm and explained the government restructure and what happened at Tartarus, but for two weeks I still thought he would come in at any moment and just saw my leg clean off.

“Obviously,” Tomura gestures to his legs. “It never happened. I was too scared to ask for anyone else, and he kept coming back… Eventually, I asked him, Aren’t you angry with me? And he didn’t even blink, he just said, No. Simple as that. No. I thought, No? I take the man’s leg, laugh it off in front of him, and he’s not even upset? When I was a kid, just wanting to be a hero made my old man do worse to me, and Eraser just straight up denies being angry about losing a leg. I couldn’t help myself, I said, That’s bullshit. He said, Why? And without thinking, I said, Because I deserve it. I didn’t really think about it much until that moment, and I realized I had actually been waiting to receive some sort of punishment for what I did to him. Just like I had waited to enact revenge, I thought I was waiting for revenge to be enacted on me.

“But he only said, There’s more than one way to process grief. I was angry once, before you shot me because you were my enemy, and after because you forced me to do what I did, but you served more than enough time, Shimura, and I forgive you,” Tomura recalls, a slightly dazed look in his eyes. “It… hit me a lot harder than I think he meant it to. After that, I… found it a lot easier to talk to him. I asked what medicine they were giving me, talked about how it made me feel, if I liked the feelings or not. Then, I was ready to talk about what I wanted in the future for myself, what would make me happy.” Tomura takes a deep breath and swallows. “I’m getting around to talking about the past. About what my dad did to me, and then what I did to him… It’s a long process, and it sucks so unimaginably bad to remember and to talk about out loud. But then it’s… okay. The weight that can lift from your heart just by talking…” Tomura meets her eyes again. “Well, I think you should try it out.”

Himiko can do nothing but look at him and breathe. Her tears are silent, falling slowly down her cheeks and neck, again wetting the collar of her shirt. She swallows a hard lump in her throat and blinks hard to force the last bit of liquid from her eyes before looking back down at their hands.

She sniffs, then whispers, “I don’t think I can.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know what I want, because I… I don’t want it all to mean nothing,” Himiko chokes out, another round of tears warbling her voice. She pushes through it, turning the pain into something easier to handle, turning it into anger. “Everything that they did to us and we did to them, shouldn’t it amount to something? Where’s the end of that story that started when Dabi and I came to the League looking for a home? I can’t just forget it all.”

Tomura looks pained when she meets his eyes again. “I’m sorry, Toga. We were denied the simple, human pleasures of existing as we were made, and that became our own mess to clean up far too soon. But, I want you to think about something for me.” Himiko blinks at him, attention rapt. “If you could start over, and instead of being driven away from what you loved, someone patient sat by your bedside and asked you to explain how you felt in as much detail as you wanted, and they listened, and they made you feel heard, would you still want to hurt them for asking in the first place?”

“There is no starting over.”

“But isn’t there?” Tomura asks. “Look around, Toga. We were left to rot in a cage for more than eight years, and yet here we are. Now, the only objective is to talk so that we don’t end up back where we started. This is where that story of you and Dabi finding us ends. The world wasn’t right for what it did to us, but that doesn’t make us right for what we did to it, either. We gave into our hate, we served our time, and now we’re being offered something new, if we’ll only just hold out our hands to take it.”

It’s so scary, her heart feels like it might pound right out of her chest. Even facing off against people who wanted to kill her never felt as scary as this.

But maybe he’s right. He’s never lied to her before, and he looks at her with so much resolve that it’s impossible not to believe him.

She takes a deep breath, chokes out a sob, and flips her palm up to grip Tomura’s hand with her own.

Chapter Text

“Why did she call you Tenko?” Himiko asks when she doesn’t have any tears left to shed. She wants to ask for water, but the idea of now pressing the red button for anything other than a trip to the toilet keeps her set on ignoring it.

He shrugs, his hands stuffed back into his hoodie pocket, a small, shy smile on his lips. “It’s the name my mother gave me.”

Her eyelids grow heavy, but she needs to know. “And you prefer it?”

A split second of hesitation, then he nods and answers, “I don’t feel like Shigaraki anymore. Shimura may be my father’s surname, but… I’m becoming okay with that. It makes me no different than anyone else.”

Himiko considers if she’s felt much like herself lately and comes up short. How is she supposed to know what she is versus what she was? The thought has her yawning and fluttering her eyes as sleep threatens to take over. She lets them slip shut, but frowns anyway. “You can change whatever you want, Tenko. Keep your first name, change the rest. Whatever.”

Some sounds of shuffling that she doesn’t bother opening her eyes for. This mattress is so comfortable, even while restrained.

“I haven’t got it all figured out yet, but that’s okay, too,” Tenko says around the sound of the door opening. “Sleep well, Toga, I hope you feel better soon. I’m looking forward to hanging out with you outside this room one day.”

With the last of her strength, she snaps her eyes open and turns to him. “Tenko?” He pauses in the doorway and turns to her. She clears her throat. “You can call me Himiko,” she says, glancing down at his slippers, cheeks flushing strangely and unable to figure out why. “If you want.”

When she meets his gaze again, he smiles and nods. “I’ll visit again next week, Himiko. If you want.”

She smiles, then nods, and lets her eyes slip shut as the door swings closed.

.

.

.

“What sort of drugs are you people pumping me with?”

Uraraka freezes mid-step in the doorway, carrying her usual satchel, clipboard, and dry erase markers. Her wide eyes stare into Himiko’s for half a second more before she lets the door fall shut behind her and a pleased smile creeps onto her lips.

“Anti-anxieties, quirk restraint, and mood stabilizers,” she answers as she makes her way to the calendar. She marks the previous day with Visit from Tenko before drawing an X through it.

Himiko frowns, but doesn’t completely disapprove. She might usually have objections to anything that affects her quirk, but the thought of losing control on Uraraka turns her stomach at the moment, so she doesn’t bring it up.

“Well, sometimes I feel… dizzy,” she says when Uraraka finally takes her seat. Himiko motions to the black glass. “I’m assuming that window there and all these stupid wires monitor how worked up I get, and you adjust the meds when you want me to chill out, but can you, like, fix that?”

The woman’s eyebrows lift in slight surprise, but then she nods, taking her pen and speaking as she writes, “I’m just making note of your description. You’re right, the machines you’re hooked up to monitor your vitals and adjust to your hormonal response accordingly, but the viewing window is just for viewing. Does it get worse when you stand up?” She nods once. Uraraka writes. “This is good to know, thank you.”

Himiko eyes the black window, suddenly a little self conscious. “Are there people watching us right now?”

Uraraka shakes her head. “Not for this session, no. When Tenko visited, yes, and for our first few sessions, as well as the sessions you had with Eraser Head, yes.”

That settles better in Himiko’s gut. She relaxes into her pillows and waits for another question.

“Do you sleep okay at night?” Another nod, another scribble. “How about before Tartarus? What were your sleeping habits like then?”

Himiko can barely remember through the haze of lost time and long nights spent scheming with the League. “I was rarely ever tired,” she says, thinking about how she and Jin used to hang out well into early morning when they both found no use in sleep. “Where is Jin?” she finds herself asking. Uraraka continues to write, eyes down at her page, for another moment before she meets Himiko’s again, expression clinically neutral.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the therapist answers. Himiko clenches her jaw. “We abide by patient confidentiality.”

Himiko scoffs. “You just let another patient visit to parade around his amazing recovery.” Uraraka’s lips seal shut as she appears to consider her next words too carefully. Himiko’s annoyance flares even hotter in her gut, then a wave of fatigue passes through her, and she knows whatever just happened is the fault of her medication machines. She lets her head fall against her pillow. “You people are ridiculous.”

Uraraka stands very suddenly, causing Himiko to tense, but not flinch away. She watches her therapist step to the machine she’s hooked up to and press a handful of color-coded buttons before sitting again.

“What did you just do?”

“In about five minutes, the fogginess should wear off. Can I trust that you won’t hurt yourself on the restraints just because you get upset with me?” Uraraka asks, a stern and immovable tone to her voice. Himiko is stunned by the change in demeanor, so much so that she agrees right away, eager to be less doped up if it’s truly being offered to her. She monitors the feelings swirling around in her body more closely.

Uraraka nods once, satisfied. “You’re right, anyway. Shimura’s recovery has amazed us all. It was my idea to let him visit you, to test if he could maybe help put your mind at ease, but he didn’t take much convincing. So, how do you feel now that you’ve talked to him?”

Himiko considers it. She’s not entirely at ease, if that was the intention. Seeing him happy in a way that could have never come to him with the League alone did flip a small switch in her brain, one that she had no idea existed there. She still doesn’t have words to describe it, unhelpfully enough, so she does what she does better than answer questions.

“How am I supposed to feel?” she asks.

Uraraka’s eyebrows twitch, then settle back immediately. “There’s no right or wrong answer.”

“Right,” Himiko says, rolling her eyes. “But if I said, Actually, I’d still like to kill you all and take over the world, that would obviously be the wrong answer, so don’t pull that crap. I don’t, by the way, so don’t go writing that down – it was a joke.”

Uraraka presses her lips together, clearly stifling a smile. “I promise I won’t write it down. Clarify something for me, then: If you do not want to kill us all and take over the world, what do you want to do?”

Himiko sighs, her objective to notice when the haze clears entirely forgotten. She stares up at the ceiling as she figures out how to verbalize her thoughts. “I don’t know. I guess, yeah, I feel… not as bad and still not good, and all I want is to get the fuck out of here. I can’t pretend like it’s easy to answer stupid questions, nor do I want to.”

“Well, unfortunately, I only have questions. Mostly about your childhood,” Uraraka says, scribbling down another quick note. Himiko growls, throwing her head back onto her pillow. “I take it that’s a topic you’d rather avoid at the moment?”

Himiko rolls her eyes. “You’re real smart, Wide Eyes, you go to college?”

“I did, actually,” she answers. Himiko blinks, then lifts her head back up again to narrow her eyes at her therapist, who just sits there, calm as ever.

“And is this where you intended to end up?”

Uraraka shrugs. “I’ve always intended to help people. I did hero training in my youth, and I had wanted to go Pro, but I thought maybe I could do more this way instead.”

Himiko then remembers her introducing herself as head therapist, so it’s clear Uraraka has made off with a pretty sweet deal if this was what she always wanted. Still doesn’t mean Himiko has to make it easy for her. “Those who can’t do, psychoanalyze.”

Uraraka actually chuckles, the apples of her cheeks plumping adorably. Himiko stifles her own grin. “Ouch,” the therapist jokes. “But I don’t think that’s how the phrase goes.”

Because Himiko still wants to test her, she asks, “How old are you?”

Her smile doesn’t falter as she answers, “Twenty-five.”

Why she expected Uraraka to be much older, she doesn’t know, since the woman doesn’t look a day over twenty. It momentarily stuns her to realize they’re nearly the same age, but Himiko shies away from asking her birthday, not wanting the woman to get the wrong idea – like, as if she’d ever have a present to gift her, anyway.

“You wanted to go Pro,” Himiko says. “So, what’s your quirk?”

At that, Uraraka flushes, which only intrigues Himiko further. Her thirst flares, and she’s worried for a second that the machines Uraraka messed with reduced the quirk restraining drugs specifically, but then the feeling steadies back into manageable territory.

Suddenly, the pen Uraraka holds lifts from her fingers and into the air, suspended by nothing. Himiko blinks at it, mouth falling slightly agape. It’s not incredibly impressive, but if Uraraka has been through enough quirk training, that power could be incredible. She then touches the tips of her fingers and the pen falls right back into her ready hand.

Himiko just hums. “Cool, I guess.”

Uraraka shrugs. “Yours is cool, too.” She smiles when she says it, like it’s a little secret just between them.

And that throws Himiko off entirely.

Other than when Tenko remarked at how useful her quirk was, Himiko has never been outright complimented on it. Even when Dabi saw her in action, he only said, That’s going to come in handy. A warmth creeps to her cheeks under Uraraka’s gaze, and she pushes it all down, down, down, suddenly uncomfortable with just how much she liked it.

“When are you gonna release me?” she asks, just to change the subject.

Uraraka crosses her legs and rests her hands on her clipboard, answering, “Well, that all depends on you. You can move on to Level Two when we talk a little more.”

“Is that what you do for everyone?”

Uraraka nods. “Everyone at the RQRP is given the same initial treatment until we know more about what individuals need specifically.”

Himiko glares down at her IV and back up. “So why am I on something you don’t know I need yet?”

“Well, aside from your incident,” Uraraka starts, unclipping a few pages from her clipboard. Himiko glances down at the pale scar on her left arm from that handful of months ago. Fair enough. “We had a decent psychological assessment on you from before Tartarus.” Uraraka holds a page up for Himiko to see.

The first is dated eight years prior with her name printed at the top. What follows is a series of check boxes and handwritten notes drawing conclusions about her mental state based on her villain activity and other recorded interactions she had with authorities. Her eyes zero in on one line regarding her quirk: Psychotic bloodlust and compulsive impersonation.

Her heart pounds uncomfortably. She scoffs at the page, choosing to look past it and glare at Uraraka instead.

“Don’t take it too personally, it’s outdated,” Uraraka says, tucking that page away and holding up another. “This is your most recent assessment.” Himiko barely glances at the date – yesterday – and rolls her eyes. The discomfort writhes around in her guts before settling in her chest, heavy and aching. She repeats the words over and over in her head: psychotic bloodlust and compulsive impersonation.

“You still don’t get it,” Himiko mumbles, staring intently at the glass of her outside-facing window rather than through it.

Uraraka lowers the page. “What don’t I get?”

“My quirk, my bloodlust, as your fucking paperwork calls it,” Himiko growls. She digs her nails into her palms, wishing her stupid cleaning ladies didn’t cut and file them so nicely, so she might be able to feel something else. She takes deep breaths as her anger fills her chest to the brim, yet can’t quite spill over. “Just because it isn’t pretty or magical or- or of some use to you heroes, that means it’s psychotic and it’s disturbing and it’s horrific. I was born with it, I can’t- there’s no other way for me to—!” A lump sticks in her throat, but she refuses to cry, blinking rapidly and swallowing it all down.

“You’ve been hearing those descriptions for a long time, haven’t you?” Uraraka asks, and Himiko just rolls her eyes again, regretting it immediately when a single tear catches and falls. She shoots her therapist a glare, but stops short when she sees the woman’s parted lips and flushed cheeks. That familiar tingling taste for her blood replaces the anger almost immediately.

Uraraka clicks her pen thoughtfully a few times, glancing down at her lap before finding Himiko’s gaze again, eyes glassy. She looks so soft and sympathetic. “I won’t ever make excuses for the way you were treated- are treated. It’s horrible that anyone has ever made you feel like less than human for something you have no control over. Here’s the truth, Toga: blood scares people. Death scares people. You must understand that. We all fear it, and your quirk happens to remind people of that fact.”

Himiko’s lip trembles as more tears spill out and onto her face. She knows that, she knows. Himiko has always known how she scares people, it’s all they could ever manage to tell her. Yet, even after twenty-five years, it still doesn’t hurt any less. She used to kill people for making her feel that way.

“But you have always deserved better,” Uraraka continues, staring so determinedly into Himiko’s eyes. “From your parents, your teachers, your peers, from heroes, from the world. You deserve love and understanding to the fullest extent, and I want to help bring that to you. Will you let me help you?”

Himiko inhales sharply, trying to steady her voice as it comes to the surface. “I can’t play pretend like you people want me to. I won’t. That’s why I ran away—” She shakes her head, forcing the memories out, and clenches her fists even tighter.

A moment of silence falls between them before Uraraka sighs. “Look, I’ll be honest, Toga. You’re not going to be released anytime soon. Even if your recovery looked exactly like Shimura’s, there’s still a lot more work to do before you would be free to go. It’s part of the new system. You’re not in maximum security waiting to die alone in a cell, you’re here. You’re fed and cared for, you’re talked to. If you don’t want to get better, that’s fine. You’ll still be here, you’ll still be cared for until the end of your days. But if you want to leave, you have to answer stupid questions.”

The strange, frightening feelings twist into something easier to deal with. A fury pulses beneath Himiko’s skin. It’s almost disturbing how fast that emotion fell over her. She remembers that her meds have been reduced and the agreement she made to Uraraka not to lose her head, so she takes several deep breaths. She bites at the inside of her cheek, then prods her tongue at the newly formed wound there, lapping at the taste of blood as it grounds her to the moment.

“Tell me how my words make you feel, Toga.”

Himiko snaps her eyes shut and works out the command, holding her body very still against the restraints, even though all she wants is to kick and scream against them. “Angry.”

“Why?”

“I don’t—“ She fills her lungs to full capacity, then exhales just as hard. She swallows. “Maybe you should turn the meds back up—“

“No. How do you feel without them?”

She can barely catch her breath now. Is Uraraka really going to push her like this? The restraints are strong, but she said it herself, there’s no one else watching them. If anything were to happen, if for some reason Himiko slipped free and she still felt this anger, there’s no doubt in her mind that she’d kill Uraraka without blinking. The thought of her blood spraying across the room, of even a single drop entering Himiko’s mouth on accident, overwhelms her senses. Himiko presses the tops of her thighs against the straps there, going against her agreement not to hurt herself. She needs the pain to focus.

“I want to bleed you,” Himiko manages, still keeping her eyes twisted shut. If she even just sees the pink of Uraraka’s skin, she’ll lose it. Did she turn the quirk restraining drugs down as well? The thirst feels secondary to the urge for revenge, but it’s still there, more present than it’s been inside of her since she woke up here.

“Why?”

“Because you’re pissing me off?” Himiko screams, kicking between the straps and her mattress. She manages to keep her upper body tense and still. “I just want to see you bleed, I don’t know why, I can’t stop it, I can’t—!”

“When was the last time you felt this feeling?”

Himiko growls, sucking at the hurt spot of her cheek now. The taste of iron on her tongue helps her push ahead. “When I almost hurt Froppy.”

“What happened that made you want to do that?”

She tries to ignore the pounding in her chest. “She said I had a nice smile, and I… I thought she looked pretty?”

“How about when you were a kid?”

Himiko’s body seems to react to the question before her brain, freezing in place. She hates to remember being a kid. She shakes her head violently, whining deep in her throat. Why did she have to go and bring that up?

“Please no,” Himiko sobs, and only then does she realize she’s crying. How long her face has been wet with tears, she can’t say. How long she’s even been sitting there, at the mercy of her own emotions, she’s lost track entirely. “I just wanted to cuddle the cute little birds. Please…”

She’s always being punished for her love and affection, helpless to the strength of her quirk’s desire for blood and helpless to her parent’s fury at her nature. She can taste the life of those birds, feel the tickle of itty bitty feathers brushing against her cheeks, the stiffness of the bird’s dead body in her tiny hands.

“Toga, look at me,” Uraraka says, and Himiko shakes her head again, squeezing her eyes shut even harder. If she looks, she’ll try to hurt her, she knows it. If she sees the pink of Uraraka’s lips or cheeks, she won’t be able to control herself. Himiko doesn’t want to do it, she doesn’t want to— “You’re not going to hurt me, Toga.” How does she know? How can she know that? “Because you don’t want to. You are in charge of your actions, you call the shots. It’s your quirk, it’s your body. Look at me.”

Himiko sobs. She obeys.

Uraraka sits exactly where Himiko last saw her, clipboard on her lap, patiently watching from her bedside. She’s beautiful, she’s slightly flushed, and she’s determined. Himiko would like to suck her blood, but now that she’s opened her eyes, she knows that she won’t do it. Yes, the bonds are still in place, but she feels more like she’s just woken up from a nightmare, and it’s becoming obvious that none of the horrors were real after all. She swallows and breathes into the silence, unable to tear her eyes away from Uraraka’s.

“You don’t want to bleed people because you hate them,” her therapist says after a long moment. “That’s the piece your assessment had been missing.”

Himiko frowns and sniffs, bringing her cheek to her clothed shoulder to wipe away her tears. “I’ll bleed anyone.”

“I believe you, but that’s not the function of your quirk,” Uraraka says. “I’m sorry for overwhelming you just then, but I believe it was necessary to get to the bottom of—“

“Can you leave?” Himiko surprises herself with her words. Uraraka looks even more stunned. “Now.”

Her therapist just blinks, then nods. She packs up her things faster than Himiko has ever seen her do, then she pauses. “I’ll be back tomorrow, unless—”

“I want someone else.” Himiko can’t look at her now, only staring down at her lap. Uraraka clears her throat, but Himiko doesn’t dare look back up.

“Alright, Toga, another therapist will visit you in the morning at our usual time,” Uraraka says, then her slippered steps make it all the way to the door and disappear on the outside of it.

.

.

.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

“Did you catch that, Toga?”

Pain.

Pain.

“How about the new medication? Feeling any better?”

Silence.

Silence.

Kurose sighs. “I’ll take my leave then.” Shuffling, zipping, the door opening. “I’ll be back tomorrow, after your crew comes by.”

The door shuts.

Pain.

The birds sing outside her window, and she pretends she’s caught one as she laps at the wound in her mouth, coaxing more blood onto her tongue. She should’ve just stuck to this months ago. Giving in and answering any questions at all was stupid of her. Maybe this was a world for Tenko to thrive in, but Himiko wasn’t so easily convinced.

She refused his last attempt to visit her, exactly a week after his first, just as he promised it would be. Himiko just decided she didn’t want any more interruptions. Kurose is even easier to ignore, surprisingly enough. She also reminds Himiko even less of any action she ever took to get locked up in the first place, so this new situation she’s in is really ideal.

Her days pass by peacefully. The sun rises, the birds sing, she drinks some blood, she eats her meals, she ignores her therapist, and she pretends it’s of her own volition that she gets out of bed for her regular showers and bathroom trips. Her crew sometimes bothers her, but she’s gotten better at ignoring them, too, as long as she doesn’t look at any of their faces – especially Froppy’s.

It is exactly as they all said it would be: she’s not getting released, but she’s not rotting in her own filth, either. This is a good, manageable balance. Maybe this new government isn’t half bad. Himiko laughs at her own joke, filling the silence momentarily before settling down again. She sighs and leans against her pillows, readjusting minutely under the bed restraints. Those still bother her, but she won’t stoop so low as to say anything about it. Even now, when she presses that ridiculously giant red button, the attendants that arrive don’t ask what she needs or wait for a reply anymore, Himiko just gets unstrapped and taken right to the toilet. Everything is like clockwork, and it’s actually a nice thought – even if she won’t utilize it – that these people are desperate enough for some kind of reaction out of her that if she asked for something new one day, they’d probably bend over backwards to give it to her within reason.

Within reason is completely subjective, unfortunately, but Himiko doesn’t bother getting caught up in that. She’s done thinking too hard and trying for something she’ll never get. It was way too exhausting. Ironically, that is a new problem for her in the wake of all the changes. In the quiet after the sun goes down and the light in her room dims to just the lamp in the corner, Himiko sometimes can’t fall asleep for hours. She just stares up at the ceiling, or out at the moon, or even at that closed door, waiting for something to happen without realizing that she’s waiting. When her mind wanders, it finds chestnut hair and pink lips immediately, or sometimes black roots growing into white strands, or sometimes she just remembers how Jin looked with half of his mask blown off, tears welling in his eyes as she tied her handkerchief around his head. Her heart always feels so heavy in those moments, so draining, and it’s an entirely different kind of pain than what she’s gotten so used to. Sometimes she cries, and usually that’s a relief, because then she can finally sleep.

In the light of day, all is well again. She ignores the entourage of women greeting her in the morning, tuning out of their chatting as she’s unstrapped and allowed to stretch her limbs and reach for her toes. Then, one of them sets a timer for how long she can be in the shower. On her new medication, the shower can stretch for a maximum of thirty minutes, but she’s usually done by then, anyway, so she takes her time.

After soaping up her body, she finds herself bored from her usual thoughts, and she ends up tuning in to what her crew is gossiping about on the other side of the shower curtain.

“I’m just glad the construction is done with,” Pinky’s voice echoes in the small bathroom. “Even with Cementoss and thirty other building quirks, the noise was driving me nuts.”

“Oh, I know!” Nejire’s squeaky voice pipes up. “But it’s good that Ochacochan got the permits so fast—” Himiko’s ears perk up at the mention. “—it would’ve been a nightmare under the old government. How many folks are lined up to train now?”

“Fourteen,” Froppy answers from the other room. She then says something else Himiko can’t make out over the stream of water right next to her ear.

“Right,” Pinky says, voice lowered suspiciously. Himiko strains to hear anything more, but nothing comes until, “You doing okay in there, Toga? Time’s almost up—“

Himiko shuts the water off and swipes the shower curtain to the side. She stands before them, naked and dripping wet, observing each of their expressions before they collect their composure. Unfortunately, Himiko sees nothing in any of their eyes, all just watching her with rapt attention, maybe a little expectant since she doesn’t usually respond so quickly, even with actions.

She says nothing as she steps out onto the dry bath mat and holds her arm out toward Nejire, who dutifully places a soft towel into her hands. Himiko quickly dries herself off, then stares back at the three women, avoiding lingering too long on Froppy through the doorway.

“What?” she asks defensively, hating how they’re just standing there looking stupid. It’s the first word she’s spoken to them in weeks, and the women look even more stunned then. Himiko just rolls her eyes as she wraps herself in the towel. “You three are pathetic. What were you talking about just now?”

Pinky blinks herself back to the present. “They’re, um, going to work with Acclimates in a new training center? Is that what you mean?”

Himiko isn’t sure what she means, since she has no context for any of the words coming out of Pinky’s mouth. She just blinks, then asks, “What’s an Acclimate?”

Nejire grins as her hand shoots into the air. “Oh, I’ll tell you! That’s Level Two, right after Potential. After Level One, you graduate and become an Acclimate, meaning getting used to the world around you and yourself after imprisonment! There are plans in place to start quirk training for this group of people, so they can better reintegrate into society! Rehabilitation just gives me such a rush!” Himiko grimaces away from the excitement radiating off of the woman, then pushes past her and into the main room.

Quirk Re-education makes a lot more sense now. She wonders what villains they’re going to be letting loose, and if Tenko or Jin are among them. It hasn’t been even a year since they released everyone out of Tartarus, how can they already have so many people ready for training?

Froppy steps aside after smoothing down the bedspread, then gets to work with a comb in Himiko’s damp hair. She avoids looking too closely at the frog girl, even though her thirst hasn’t been a problem between them in weeks.

“You know, Toga,” Froppy starts, and Himiko wishes she hadn’t said anything at all. She stares at the floor, trying to ignore the woman and failing. “If you want to ask about her, you can.” That makes Himiko freeze on the spot. The comb still works through her hair until she looks up at Froppy with a frown. Her gut twists as she observes her wide eyes, all too perceptive.

“What?”

Froppy isn’t making sense. Himiko just wanted to know a little bit about what was going on outside her door, not for any ulterior motive, she’s just fucking bored. She’s never not bored in this stupid box, it’s almost worse than Tartarus in a lot of ways, because now they’re not even doping her up beyond comprehension. She just has to sit here, stuck in her own head all day.

Technically, says a voice in her head that sounds way too much like her former therapist, all she has to do is speak up and they’ll do something about that. Himiko shakes her head and rolls her eyes, waving Froppy’s hands off of her head and slumping back onto her pillows, getting them all wet with shower water.

The other two enter the room with her discarded laundry. Pinky tries, “Um, well, what Froppy meant to say was: we are more than willing to answer any of your questions, Toga. Anything at all, no judgment, no clipboards. Off the record entirely!” Nejire hits Pinky’s arm with the back of her hand pointedly. “Uh, well, not entirely, but mostly—”

“I don’t care,” Himiko sighs. “Just give me my clothes and get out of here already.”

The women dress her, hook her up, strap her down, then make for the door, brief apologies on each of their lips for the interlude. Himiko waves them off and can only breathe properly again once they’re gone.

Of course, she’s not allowed even one fucking moment of peace, because then comes the familiar knock at the door that signals Kerose. The therapist steps inside with a simple greeting before making her way to the calendar and X-ing out the previous day. They’re almost to the end of the month, and Himiko starts to grow uncomfortable with the idea that Kerose is going to be drawing the next one.

“How are you feeling today, Toga?” she begins, pulling up her chair and staring at Himiko expectantly – annoyingly. How the woman can act like she actually expects something new out of her today, Himiko has no idea. The resilience these people are trained with is—

“I’m bored.” Himiko frowns. She didn’t really mean to answer out loud, but now that she has, it feels kind of good, right in the pit of her stomach. Anticipation or something like it sits there, awoken and waiting. Kerose looks like she’s just witnessed a ten car pile-up. She clicks her pen open and starts writing on the page without even looking down at it.

“Does it bother you to be bored?”

Himiko rolls her eyes. What a stupid question. Uraraka would’ve— No, don’t think about that, just— “Obviously, that’s why I said it.”

“Is that a… new feeling?”

“What kind of a question is that? I’ve been bored before, I know what it feels like.”

Now that they’re talking, Himiko knows she never would have chosen Kerose out of the line-up of therapists offered when she first got here. Sure, she’s only met two of them and Eraser Head, but it’s vindictively satisfying to imagine rejecting her.

...

“Right, but you haven’t mentioned it – or anything at all – until right now, so… what’s changed?”

Himiko scoffs. “This is exactly why I don’t want to say anything. You people freak out whenever the smallest thing happens, it’s so tiring. Can I talk to someone else now?”

Kerose’s mouth drops open. Himiko smirks.

“Yes,” Kerose chuckles, a grin spreading across her cheeks. Himiko frowns. “Yes, Toga, I’ll get you another therapist. Thank you for your time.” She packs up her things so fast Himiko barely has any time to blink, then she makes her way across the room and stops in the doorway. “Oh, um, do you have any other requests? Perhaps you want someone you’ve already talked to…?” Her words are innocent, she isn’t implying anything, but Himiko scowls anyway.

“No.”

Kerose shoots her a thumbs up, then leaves.

Himiko sighs.

.

.

.

Chatora is intimidating, but Himiko is unaffected by his presence, knowing the drill well enough now that no harm will come to her in this place. That’s just one of the RQRP’s many weaknesses – she’ll never be worn down through fear. Not to mention, he actually has an incredibly soft side that she has no patience for. When he catches her listening to the birds and mentions how much he also likes nature, she asks for someone else.

Shiretoko can’t take a hint if it hit her in the face. Her eyes are wide, wider than even Froppy’s, and she notices absolutely everything. Himiko can tell there are constant gears turning in her head, even if she says nothing, and somehow she has pages full of notes, even though Himiko is so pointedly silent it hurts. They don’t even last one session.

Koda is entertaining for a little while, bringing the birds directly to her window so she can see who fills her room with song every morning. Himiko still says nothing, only sits up a little straighter under the bonds and lets her eyes trail over their plumage. After the hour is up, they flit back into their trees, and Koda takes his leave. Himiko allows him to visit for a week, but when no progress is made and he attempts to negotiate bringing the birds with her answering a question, she asks for someone else.

When Eraser Head walks in the following day, Himiko groans, throwing her head back onto her pillow. “No, I already talked to you, I want someone else!” His one eye stares down at her, making her feel even smaller and more pathetic than she already did. She glares back at him.

“We know what you’re doing, Toga,” Eraser says after taking a seat. He sounds just as bored as Himiko claimed to be last week. “You know you aren’t leaving, so that’s out of the question, and your meds have already been changed at your request. Nothing else can progress without you first.”

“Why are you here, then?” Himiko asks, narrowing her eyes at his form. Then, they trail all the way over to the black glass, where her new calendar has yet to be set up – even though they’re three days into the new month by now. Just beyond it, she knows someone else is watching.

“Nice catch,” he says, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards almost imperceptibly. “I’m sure you remember Uraraka telling you that we’ll take care of you regardless of how much progress you make.”

The blood drains from Himiko’s face. They’re not taking it back, are they? Those fucking bastards, they’re really going to just shove her back into that rotting cell for the rest of her life, all because she won’t answer a few fucking questions? She was promised they wouldn’t do that to her – or was she? Does it matter? Heroes never keep their promises regardless, they’ll always—

“Stop freaking out, kid, just let me talk before you spiral.” Himiko holds her breath. “You’re not going back to Tartarus – the place doesn’t even exist anymore, by the way. You’re being watched because we’re trying something new.” Himiko’s heart stutters. Fear, anticipation, anger, hope. Hope. It’s scary, but such a relief. Is this what she’s been waiting for all along? “We’re taking off your restraints.” Himiko’s eyes widen.

“You can’t!” she yelps immediately, sinking further into her bed beneath the straps. Her reaction is surprising even to herself, and she wonders what the people beyond the glass are thinking. What sort of notes are they taking now?

“This is a regular occurrence for you, Toga, your hands are freed to eat every day, and you’re unrestrained for grooming every other day. You’re clearly used to it by now—”

Himiko sputters, “That’s completely different, the drugs calm me down enough so that I don’t- And- and I told Uraraka I wanted to hurt her last time she got a little under my skin! I nearly did hurt Froppy before that! You know what I’m capable of, Eraser, you can’t take them off, it’s a horrible idea! Tell me you won’t let them.” Her panic is so strange, even to her own ears, but it’s much more real now that she’s spoken it aloud. Are they fucking insane? She’s gone long enough without blood now – well, she’s been keeping herself thoroughly supplied with her own blood for weeks, but with other people’s blood – anything can happen.

“This is not the reaction you should be having,” Eraser says, eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed.

Himiko gapes. “What? Are you even listening to me?”

“Look at yourself, Toga, for weeks you’ve said you’re stuck here against your own will, despite what everyone has insisted over and over again, refusing treatment and ignoring your therapists. Now, you’re advancing in the program without having to even do anything, and you refuse that, too. That doesn’t quite add up, does it?”

That settles deep in her chest, but she has no idea what it adds up to. Yes, she wants to get out, but no, she… doesn’t. When she’s here, strapped down, drugged up, and on a regular schedule for absolutely everything, she’s safe, and everyone is safe from her. Everyone.

Eraser speaks again, more gently this time, “You think you’re going to lose control? Well,” Himiko meets his gaze. “Then don’t.”

He stands and moves to unstrap her, but she flinches away from his hands as much as she can. “I’m not ready,” she admits, tears welling in her eyes.

“You’re still hooked up to the quirk restraint,” Eraser says, hands paused at his sides. “And besides, I’m sure you don’t want anything of mine, anyway.”

Himiko huffs out a humorless laugh. He’s sort of right. He doesn’t smell unpleasant by any means, but not desirable, either. Even if he flushed bright red – which she’s not sure he’s even capable of doing – she knows she wouldn’t crave his blood at all. What Uraraka figured out just before Himiko ordered her away is true, too. She only really wants to drink blood from people she admires, and well, it’s fairly obvious all she feels for the erasure hero is tolerance.

She huffs out an uncertain breath, then nods once. Eraser’s hands work diligently and quickly, first loosening then undoing each strap one at a time, starting at her feet and working upwards. Himiko tenses her muscles as they’re freed. She has no obvious desire to make any sudden movements, threatening or otherwise, and as she keeps herself so pointedly still, he raises an eyebrow at her.

“Breathe,” he commands, and she does, realizing she was getting slightly lightheaded.

He continues with the last of the straps, finally undoing the very last one that crosses her chest, before stepping back. Himiko stares down at herself, completely free. Her heart pounds in her chest, but she doesn’t feel out of control at all. She feels completely in control, actually, maybe more than she did while all bound up.

“So, what do you think?” Eraser asks. She looks back up at him and sees something more… curious in his eyes. Does he actually care?

“I think… I’m not going to totally lose it on you,” Himiko says, taking slow, calming deep breaths. The corner of his mouth tips up again.

He then takes a deep breath and starts, “Usually patients get to choose their therapist, but… you’re a special case.” She frowns. “The RQRP is officially and permanently assigning Ochaco Uraraka to your case.”

Himiko blinks. “That’s…” She loses her train of thought. Immediately, her imagination whirls with every possibility. Her, unrestrained, next to Uraraka. Red cheeks, pink lips, blood, teeth. “No.”

Eraser sighs. “It’s no longer up to you. This experiment has proven her to be the best therapist for your recovery.”

Her brain isn’t catching up fast enough. “What?”

“Do you have any doubt in your mind that you won’t attack me?”

Himiko answers without thinking, “No.”

Eraser smirks, and the sight is completely jarring. “The visit from Tenko was her idea, and you improved. Lowering your medication at your request was her, and you may have sent her away, but you clearly improved. Taking off your restraints was her idea, and you’re… improving.”

Himiko shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk to her right now, or ever. I’ll- I threatened to—”

“You didn’t threaten her, you just voiced your feelings,” Eraser says, a little exasperated. “You’re a smart girl, try to keep up. The only way forward is to just be truthful about what you feel. That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? That’s why you joined the League of Villains, because you didn’t want to pretend anymore?”

Himiko tenses at his words. It’s unsurprising that he knows, but it still doesn’t sit right with her to be confronted with what she never told him directly.

“Face it, kid,” Eraser says, dropping the smirk but still looking impressed. “We all want the same thing: for you to get the hell out of our hair. Just talk to the woman, and you’ll get your wish.”

Himiko clenches her jaw. “Can you leave now?”

Eraser rolls his eyes and saunters to the door. “She’ll be in tomorrow morning.”

“You can’t make me talk,” Himiko says, grasping for any last crumb of control.

He shrugs. “Not my problem.” Then, he steps out.

“You’re all wasting your time!”

Just before the door swings shut, he gets the last word in from down the hall, “You’re welcome.”

.

.

.

A new calendar with four X’d boxes stares at Himiko the next morning while she ignores her therapist.

Uraraka hums, as if the last two minutes of silence answered whatever question she had before it. “Alright. And why did you refuse Tenko’s visit?”

Himiko clenches her fists. “I—” But she doesn’t give in any further.

The restraints remained off all night, but Himiko didn’t get out of bed even once. This morning, just before the sun peeked out over the horizon, she sped to the bathroom to relieve herself, with her IV pole trailing after her – avoiding the mirror – and then tucked herself right back into bed.

“He wants to see you, you know,” Uraraka says then.

Himiko wants to see him, too, if she’s being honest with herself. She wants to ask him some questions about what the rest of this place looks like, what it feels like, if they’re training him to use his quirk like a hero. The word leaves a sour taste in her mouth, but then she remembers Tenko saying that’s exactly what he wanted to be when he was a kid, and her chest tightens uncomfortably.

But letting him in is exactly what they want, and Himiko can’t let her guard down again.

Uraraka sighs. “Toga, I don’t understand why you’re resisting this. If you don’t want to answer questions, then ask some. That was going well for a while, wasn’t it?”

Himiko takes a steadying deep breath, careful not to inhale too fast. The smell of Uraraka in the room isn’t overwhelming, not like she assumed it would be, but the quirk restraint can only do so much.

She doesn’t reply.

“Alright, I know we’ve lost your trust, so let’s try this,” Uraraka begins, shuffling the stack of papers from her clipboard and holding one up. Himiko just keeps her eyes steady on the calendar. The therapist sighs. “Fine, I’ll read it to you.”

Himiko Toga, Quirk: Transform; Her desire to drink blood comes from admiration, shown through transformation into the subject and impersonation of them. She has a heightened sense of smell, emotion, and perception. She—

“What is the point of this?” Himiko groans, giving up her silence if she can just get Uraraka to stop. Her therapist raises her eyebrows.

“To show you I’m not your enemy,” Uraraka answers. “Your previous assessments were unfair to you, they didn’t try to understand your motivations. I know I don’t have the full story, Toga, but I’ve pieced it together enough to know you’re special, and you’re not beyond help.”

“I don’t need your help!”

“You said yourself and you’ve shown repeatedly that you don’t want to hurt people,” Uraraka points out, her expression serious. “Just yesterday, you didn’t believe you had it in you not to. We helped show you that it wasn’t true. You did the hard work, Toga. I have no interest in diminishing that, but you do need some assistance at least to get through this program. I want to see you get better, and I want to see you happy.”

“Get better? What a fucking joke. Bringing up things I don’t like talking about, forcing me to answer your questions while I’m stuck here at your mercy, is that your idea of making me better? I’m perfectly fucking fine as I am!”

Uraraka sighs. “I’m sorry again for making you uncomfortable—” Himiko scoffs. “—but you had to see for yourself what you can handle. At least tell me this, are you still dizzy when you stand up? And do you want to hurt me right now?”

“That’s more than one question,” Himiko grumbles. “And no.”

“No to…?”

“No and no,” Himiko spits.

Uraraka sits back in her chair, clearly exhausted, but satisfied.

Fucking hell.

Himiko rolls her eyes, letting her head fall back onto her pillow. It’s actually more of a pain in the ass not to just give in now, which they were clearly banking on.

“Fucking fine,” she growls. “But don’t read off that stupid paper like you know a goddamn thing about me.”

Uraraka tucks the pages away. “Then allow me the pleasure of figuring you out.”

Himiko glares at the ceiling, cheeks flushing. “Ask your stupid questions then, we don’t have all day.”

The therapist clicks her pen and scribbles on a new page on her clipboard. “I’ll start off easy. How are you sleeping?”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She snaps her head back down and glares directly at the offending woman, who’s already lifting an eyebrow at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Her therapist gives her a disbelieving look. “Your vitals from the last three weeks indicate a lack of sleep.”

Himiko suddenly sits up and kicks the blankets off her legs, growling, “Why would you ask if you already know the answer? You heroes are really a piece of fucking work—!”

“Toga,” Uraraka interrupts. “Why didn’t you answer truthfully?”

The silence between them stretches. Himiko doesn’t have a reason, she just found it to be a stupid question.

You’re going to have to answer stupid questions.

Fuck off.

“Can we make an agreement right here and now?” Uraraka prompts. “I’ll be completely honest with you if you’ll be completely honest with me. No skirting around the truth, no manipulating an answer, and no avoiding what you really want to say, okay?”

“Fine,” Himiko says, narrowing her eyes. “Only if you all stop tricking me, stop holding back information, and…” What’s a good third thing? “When I say I don’t want to answer, you don’t force it out of me.”

Uraraka nods. “Agreed. Should we shake on it?” She holds out her hand, but Himiko only stares at it. “Come on, I won’t bite.” The therapist chuckles a little at her own joke, and Himiko bites her cheek to keep the smile away.

The former villain reaches out with the arm that’s not connected to an IV and grasps her therapist’s hand in her own. The woman’s palm is predictably soft, with smooth, dainty fingers that contrast Himiko’s bony, scarred ones. Strangely, Uraraka uses just four of her fingers to grip Himiko’s hand, then shakes once before letting go.

She then hides her hand under her legs, skin tingling. “Why did you do it like that?”

Uraraka frowns for a second before her expression brightens again. “Oh, my handshake? My quirk activates when I use all five fingers, so I developed the helpful habit.” Himiko realizes that she has noticed Uraraka is always lifting her pinky finger when she grips things – her pens, her bag, her clipboard.

“Oh.”

Uraraka’s smile lingers as she then clicks her pen. “So, taking you off the anti-anxieties seems to have disrupted your sleep somewhat. I’ll look into some alternatives, but for now we can give a sedative right before bed, if you’d like.”

Himiko shrugs. “Whatever.”

As her therapist scribbles, she continues, “And just making sure, you’re still not ready for questions about your childhood, correct?”

A spike of anxiety in her chest threatens to choke her, but she takes a steadying breath before answering, “You can try one.” She’s right about one thing – Himiko needs to test what she can handle.

Uraraka nods. With eyes then cast down at her page, she asks, “What quirks did your parents have?”

Himiko squeezes her eyes shut, her fists clenching onto the bed sheets. She hates thinking about being a kid, but just thinking about them alone inspires a rage so vastly different than her other forms of anger. She feels like a bucket of ice has been poured down her back, goosebumps prickling the flesh of her arms.

When the silence stretches, Uraraka looks back up, catching on right away. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, Toga—”

“They were quirkless,” Himiko manages through gritted teeth. “Just ask me something else already.” Uraraka hesitates just a beat too long, and Himiko finds herself so frustrated that she just wants to scream. She swallows it down.

“So with your quirk, do you have a theory where it came from?”

Himiko shakes her head, but can’t bring herself to say more. She remembers her siblings being without quirks, too. Her grandparents were out of the picture, so that much she couldn’t speak to. Doctors used to say it was a mutation.

Uraraka nods, then clicks her pen. “Alright, Toga, maybe that’s enough for today. Do you have any questions for me?”

Himiko shakes her head, avoiding eye contact until her heart rate returns to normal. Uraraka gathers her things and pads to the exit.

“I’m really proud of you, you know,” Uraraka says before she opens the door. Stunned, Himiko just stares at the woman, each of their cheeks flushing to match. “See you tomorrow,” the therapist then bids before shutting the door behind her.

Chapter Text

Once the sun has set, Himiko tries the door handle out of curiosity, even though she already figures it’s locked. When it doesn’t budge, she flops back down onto her bed and looks around for another source of entertainment. There are two drawers in her bedside table that slide open easily but hold nothing interesting – one drawer has just a user’s manual for the reclining feature on her bed and in the other lies a pair of slippers. Himiko slides the slippers on as she then turns to the open bathroom. 

Better late than never. 

Pushing her IV stand along, she shuffles into the darkness and examines her reflection under the dim light emanating from the bedroom. Her hair is still that familiar shade of pale blonde and maybe an inch longer than she last saw it a few months ago, messed from the frustration of therapy and subsequent rolling around on her pillows to try out what position is most comfortable to rest in. 

Without letting herself ruminate on it for too long, she lifts her hand and flicks the light switch, watching as her face becomes fully illuminated. Her eyes no longer look so sunken in, but the dark circles have only barely lightened. She tilts her head to the side, examining the fullness of her cheeks that was absent a few months ago. Her golden eyes trail across her neck, then her body, which has also gained a much needed plumpness to counteract the zombified appearance she took on before. The hospital clothes still hang off of her frame, but once she starts gaining weight and moving more, they’ll fit better. 

She sighs, then parts her lips and drags her gaze across her teeth. She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to them, but might as well try. A moment later, she’s bored again, and she flicks the light off before stalking back to bed. 

Just as she’s settling back in, one of the attendants comes in with a syringe of clear liquid and a friendly smile. 

“This is to help you sleep, dear,” the woman says as she makes her way over to the tubes connected to Himiko’s IV. She presses the needle in, pushes the plunger, then steps back and sticks a cap on the sharp point. “Do you need anything else before I go?” 

Himiko dismisses her and sighs once she’s alone again. The drugs take hardly any time at all to kick in, and soon enough, she’s knocked out. 

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Her gaggle of women wakes her in the morning. Still groggy with sleep, Himiko frowns up at them as two grin down at her and the third stands back with her finger on her chin.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Pinky says. “Welcome to the land of the free!” It takes an extra second too long for Himiko to realize she isn’t talking about the United States as she sits up and holds her head. 

“Do you have a headache, Toga?” Froppy asks. “You slept in more than usual.”

Himiko shakes her head. “Just groggy. I think the sedative is still wearing off.”

“We’ll make note of that,” Nejire assures her as the three help her to her feet and unhook her IV. As Himiko moves around, she feels more clear-headed. “So, it looks like we won’t have to stop by as often to help you clean yourself off anymore, huh? How do you feel with your new independence? I always knew you’d get there eventually, everyone just operates at a different pace. Oh, nice slippers, did you grab the spares? You know, I can—”

Himiko tunes her out, as she’s used to doing by now. Nejire and Pinky follow her into the bathroom while Froppy starts changing her bed sheets. The women fall into conversation once Himiko is standing under a stream of hot water, and the gossip they pass back and forth makes little sense, but she finds out someone named Deku has finally made it to the top five on the Hero Billboard Chart. She briefly wonders who would have been top five on the Villain Billboard Chart, and this entertains her as she washes herself, debating whether or not Stain is really a villain and if Tenko at his peak could have beat him in a fight. She gets lost imagining the gore of the battle until her time is up and she has to dry off. 

After, she stands in front of the mirror and tilts her head side to side, examining her damp locks while Nejire gathers discarded garments and Froppy fluffs her pillows. Pinky stands to her side, also dragging her gaze across Himiko’s appearance. 

“Would you like a haircut, Toga?” she offers. “I got my license last year.” Himiko lifts her eyebrows at the pink girl’s reflection. 

“Then why has Froppy been doing the styling this whole time?” she asks. Pinky shrugs. Himiko then looks back at the mirror and nods. “Sure, whatever.” 

Pinky cheers, then excuses herself to grab hair-cutting scissors. When she returns, Himiko sits on a fold-out stool next to her bed with a towel draped over her shoulders. Nejire hooks her back up to the IV drip, then Pinky combs through a lock, holds it between her first two fingers, and cuts. 

The fallen hair tickles Himiko’s neck and arms, but she stays perfectly still, even under the scrutiny of the other two women who stand by and watch as Pinky works. It takes a while, but just as Himiko’s legs are starting to ache in that position, she’s being ushered along to the bathroom mirror again, with Froppy trailing behind and pushing the IV stand forward. 

When Himiko’s eyes focus on her reflection once more, she’s rendered speechless. She didn’t expect much from Pinky, other than just enough competence to trim a few dead ends, but the style she’s given Himiko is stunning. A curtain of bangs hang over her forehead, locks frame her face and feather out, and when she turns to the side, she sees the volume of her hair has been brought to life through layering. It stops just barely past her shoulders, so she still has enough to put it up if she desires. She kind of looks like a rock star.

“Wow,” is all she can say as she tips her head back and forth. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment!” Pinky says as she takes the towel from Himiko’s shoulders and shakes it out over the pile of hair on the ground. Himiko thinks back to Tenko’s I don’t feel like Shigaraki anymore, and finally understands a little better. Just looking at herself now, she feels much more like Himiko Toga than she has in ages. 

“You work magic, Pinky,” Nejire says. “Toga, you look perfect!”

Froppy hums in agreement. “Ribbit.”

“Thank you, Pinky,” Himiko says then, though she can’t meet her eyes. The pink girl grins and waves her off. 

“I’ve been dying to do something about that hair for weeks- um, not that it looked bad, I just—” 

Himiko shrugs. “I know what you mean.” The three women quickly sweep up the pile of hair and take the dirty laundry out with them. 

Just before she leaves, Froppy goes over their new schedule for her, explaining they’ll be stopping by just once a week now to take her laundry and change her sheets. Himiko can now decide how often she wants to bathe, and if she needs any day-to-day help, she can always press the red button. 

Once she’s alone, Himiko runs her hands through the shortened locks, reveling in the softness. A moment later, Pinky pokes her head back in the door. “Let me know if it starts getting too long, I’ll go at it again!” She holds the scissors up in one hand and snips at the air before leaving again. 

Alone once more, Himiko lets herself smile.

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“I’ve made adjustments to the nightly sedative, so hopefully you won’t wake up so groggy in the morning,” Uraraka says, clicking her pen once to close it as she makes her way down an itinerary on her clipboard. “As you know, you’ll be visited a lot less in the coming months, but we don’t want you feeling isolated, so just as a reminder, you can press—”

“Press the red goddamn button, I know,” Himiko interrupts, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. The IV tube digs into her skin, though, so she readjusts again. Uraraka shoots her a look, which Himiko scoffs at before shutting her mouth. 

The therapist continues, “Your meals will be delivered on schedule, and our sessions will remain daily until you graduate to Level Two. And… your hair looks nice.” Uraraka smiles at her, but Himiko shrugs off the compliment and ignores the heat rising to her cheeks. “Anyway, if we can’t get at your childhood, I think it would be most useful to look to your future instead.” Uraraka flips to a new page and clicks her pen open again. Himiko stiffens, but waits to hear her out before reacting too strongly. “I know I’ve already asked you this, but humor me again just in case your answer has changed: What do you hope your life looks like after the RQRP?”

Himiko gave a shrug and a short I don’t know months ago when the topic was last brought up, a reaction she’s inclined to repeat. She stops herself, though, and tries to give it thorough consideration. 

“I know you’re training other people to be heroes,” Himiko says, frowning at the floor. “And I don’t think that’s ever going to be my path.” 

“Can you explain a little more?”

She sighs. “Tenko told me when he was a kid, he wanted to be a hero. Dabi comes from heroes, Spinner looks up to Stain – still arguably some kind of hero, even if you guys don’t agree. And even Jin said he would have taken the hero route if all heroes weren’t heaps of garbage… So, all I know is that I never cared about it before, and I still don’t care about it now. I’m just Toga, and I’m not a hero. Never going to be.”

“Do you feel like a villain?” 

“Are you asking because that’s the only other option?” Oxymoron. 

Uraraka shakes her head. “Not at all. But I think your definition of these words is more important than mine, so enlighten me: why don’t you feel like a hero?” 

Himiko pauses. If she really thinks about words that describe herself, hero doesn’t even make the list. If a hero is just someone that saves people, then maybe she is – she’s saved her friends’ butts dozens of times – but if a hero only saves the right people, then she definitely isn’t one. If a hero never kills people, then plenty of heroes she’s seen throughout her life have crossed that line time and time again, and thus also keeps her from being one. 

“I just don’t,” is all Himiko can come up with. “But no, I don’t feel like a villain, either. Just Toga.” 

Uraraka nods and makes her notes before speaking again. “How do you feel about going through a little thought exercise with me?” Himiko shrugs. “Great. Close your eyes and just imagine the scenario I pose for you.” 

Himiko rolls her eyes, then obeys. She focuses on the image that Uraraka paints with her words. In her imagination, she sees a little girl hanging from a cliff. Her little fingers are slipping from the rock, and Himiko stands three feet away, cornering her worst enemy with a knife in her hand – she pastes the face of that explosion kid on the figure and smirks at the thought. She only has enough time to do one thing; she can either kill her enemy once and for all and get her revenge, or save the little girl from falling to her own death. Uraraka doesn’t describe the girl, but Himiko sees her, anyway: tears and snot streaming down her face, gasping and crying out as she struggles to keep hold on the rock ledge. Her canines are sharp, and her eyes are piercing gold, but Himiko is not afraid of her, not like everyone else is. Her enemy notices she’s distracted and bolts away just as she grips onto the little girl’s arm and pulls her to safety. 

Then, Himiko opens her eyes. Her cheeks are wet. 

Uraraka stares at her with a pleased smile. “Maybe you don’t feel like a hero, Toga, but I think if you were given the opportunity, you would act like one.” 

She wipes away the tears, swallowing the lump in her throat. “You can’t know that, it wasn’t real.” 

“I think—”

“People don’t change, not really,” Himiko protests, though it’s weak even to her own ears. “You wouldn’t get it, miss Pro-Hero. You were raised good, with a quirk that everyone probably thought was cute, and no one ever had a problem with you. You eat, sleep, and breathe goodness and hero-ness because it’s the only way you’ve ever been.”

“My life isn’t perfect, Toga, and even if it was, the circumstances of our lives have nothing to do with us. The love shown to us by our parents isn’t where our stories end. There’s nothing stopping any of us from changing course and starting over.”

“Yeah, right.” Himiko snorts, tears blurring her vision again. “The way you love will always be different from the way I do.” 

“Well, try me,” Uraraka says then, maintaining eye contact as she sets her clipboard on the side table. She then uncrosses her legs and leans forward, giving Himiko her full, undivided attention. “What does love feel like for you? Not what it makes you do, but how it makes you feel.”

What a question.

Himiko’s mind scrambles through every drop of blood she’s ever tasted, every person she’s ever wanted to become, and this very moment – the first in her life where someone was genuinely interested in everything. Not to get her in trouble, not to take over the world with, but just to hear it. 

Would you still want to hurt them for asking in the first place? 

No. She doesn’t. 

“It feels like I’m a little kid again,” Himiko whispers, eyes closed because that’s the only way she can pour her heart out now. Her tears slip out anyway, and she sniffs as she continues. “Following after someone I love. I want them to hold me, even if I haven’t known them very long. It… hurts. In my heart, sometimes in my stomach. And it’s lonely. I know no one would let me suck their blood, even if I really love them. Even just my- my smile was enough to scare people away. So, I learned how to take what I needed. The League helped me feel like I belonged, but I was still always… frustrated…”

“I know how that feels,” Uraraka says, and Himiko blinks her eyes open to her beautifully sincere expression, and she can’t help but believe her. She continues, “Love is scary. It forces you to your knees, it shreds what you thought you knew about yourself into tiny, indecipherable pieces. Love can make you believe and do things you might not otherwise, and in its absence…  sometimes you regret ever feeling it in the first place.” Tears pool in her eyes but never fall, and Himiko struggles to figure out exactly what just changed. The air is different between them, like a brick wall has suddenly evaporated into dust. A haze clears from Himiko’s mind, and she nods. 

“I loved the League,” she admits. “I felt normal there, and I didn’t care what I had to destroy to keep that feeling close. When we won battles against the heroes, I felt so happy, so fulfilled. But when we finally lost, and when my freedom was taken away from me…” She chuckles humorlessly. “I guess it’s good they kept me so sedated, because I… I don’t think I could have survived it.” 

“Me neither,” Uraraka says, shaking her head with a small, sad smile on her face. “I can’t even live alone, I start going crazy. I had to get a cat to fix it.” Himiko chuckles wetly, then swipes away more tears. Uraraka reaches into her satchel and pulls out a handkerchief before holding it out for Himiko to grab.

Briefly, Himiko imagines what it would be like for Uraraka to stand at her bedside, fingers cloaked within the handkerchief and dabbing gently at Himiko’s cheeks, drying the spilled tears there. It would be quite different than skin-to-skin contact, but she desperately wants to feel the gentle touch of this woman, and the want is so strong inside her that it scares her a little, even though she’s definitely felt this way before. Even her cleaning team has always been careful with her, but she still never wanted to lean into any touch as much as Uraraka’s right here and now. Without the veil of bloodlust, which Himiko now has to admit is a nearly accurate description, just the emotions alone are overwhelming. But that’s not the offer, and Himiko just nods as she takes the square of fabric and presses it to her own face. 

“At Tartarus, they… filed your teeth down, didn’t they?” Uraraka asks. Remembering how they disfigured her inspires a new wave of tears to shed, and she wipes them away.

“Maybe it could have saved me a lot of trouble if my parents did it when I was a kid,” Himiko says. “I remember a doctor suggesting it once, but they seemed to think yelling at me should do the trick. I learned that the easy way to stay out of trouble was to just pretend. Pretend I didn’t feel how I felt, pretend my love looked exactly like theirs, and I did a damn fine job of it until…” Himiko swallows, closing her eyes again to help her power through. “I got a crush on this boy. He was nice to me, even when everyone else still called me creepy, and I really felt like I- I loved him, but I knew he would just call me a freak if I ever asked to taste his blood, so I never did. One day, someone else hurt him, and the smell of his blood was so… overwhelming, and I just… couldn’t help myself, I had to drink from him. That was the last day I spent as a normal girl, keeping my quirk hidden as best I could, even though it didn’t matter…”

“Were kids always mean to you in school?”

Himiko nods. “Because of my smile, the way I talked… They had no idea what my quirk did, and I would have told someone I trusted, but I never had someone like that. I begged my parents to do something, but they only told me to just stop it and get ahold of myself, as if I ever had any control over it… I remember Tenko once asked, Why shouldn’t I destroy the world? Why must I suffer it? And I was already in the League, but that’s when I knew I would never leave. I intended to die a villain, if that’s what the world deemed me. Maybe it’s the baseline function of my quirk, but I’ve evolved well past the need for love to use it.” 

“Well, Toga,” Uraraka says after a beat. Himiko meets her gaze once more. Her eyes are still glassy. “How would you feel about graduating to Level Two?” 

Himiko can’t help the croak of laughter that falls from her lips as she wipes the last of her tears away. 

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Uraraka beams as Himiko looks over her diploma. 

REHABILITATION AND QUIRK RE-EDUCATION PROGRAM CERTIFICATE PRESENTED TO:
Himiko Toga
“Level One: Potential” Graduate

“Thanks…” Himiko trails off. As nice as it is, the paper is nothing but fancy garbage. “I’ll just…” She looks around her room for a place to set it down and forget about it. Uraraka lets out a tsk and plucks the page from her fingers. 

“I’ll keep it safe for you,” she says, tucking it into a clear sleeve, then into a binder with Himiko’s name on it. She then takes out her clipboard and starts on the agenda. “Alright, now that you’re officially an Acclimate—”

“Do you absolutely have to call me that?” Himiko groans. Did they pick the most annoying terms on the planet just to bother her specifically? 

Uraraka sighs and tries again, “New level means new privileges. At Level Two—” she pointedly emphasizes, which Himiko bites back a smile at, “—You are granted full escorted access to the hallways and Common Areas, including but not limited to: the living room, cafeteria, library, and Training Center during socializing hours, which are from six A.M. to ten P.M. every day. Now, would you like to meet your escort?” 

Himiko pauses. She’s going to be babysat all day. 

“Do I have a choice?” she asks rhetorically. 

Uraraka pauses. She blinks. “Um, well. No?” 

Himiko could fight it, but what’s the use? She has to play by their rules, at least while they serve her. One step closer to getting out, one step closer…

She frowns and waves Uraraka on with a hand. “Whatever.” 

Uraraka beams once more, then she pushes the sleeve of her blazer back and holds her wrist up to her mouth to speak into her watch, “Come on in, Kiri!”

A head of spiked red hair resembling a sea urchin appears in the window of the door a split second before it opens to reveal a grinning man. “Good morning, ladies,” he greets, flattening one palm to his stomach while he tucks the other hand behind his back and bowing deeper than necessary. He straightens as he continues, “I’m Eijiro Kirishima, and you can call me by either name! Or Red Riot, cause that’s my hero name, but whatever you want is cool, too!” 

Himiko raises an eyebrow at the display. He wears a white button-down shirt without a tie, the short sleeves rolled over his biceps and shirttails tucked into off-black slacks, topping it all off with… red bunny slippers. She can’t help the tug at her lips. 

“Nice shoes, Red Hair,” she comments. “Where can I get a pair of those?” 

Kirishima’s face flushes as he steps closer, pointing a fist at her and flexing his bicep, gushing, “Thank you, I really appreciate that! My mom bought them for me last year as a Christmas gift, I’ll ask her where she got them from.” Himiko realizes a second late that flexing his mass wasn’t the purpose of his motion, but that he’s offering her a fist-bump. 

She indulges in tapping her fist against his, but lets her face fall back into a frown before he gets any ideas. Uraraka still beams in her peripheral, sneakily giving Himiko an encouraging thumbs up. 

“I’m glad to finally meet you, Toga, I’ve been hearing great things about you!” Kirishima says, tucking his hands into his pants pockets. Himiko raises an eyebrow. 

“Like what?” she challenges. His face falls, like he wasn’t expecting her to call him on it. 

“Um… well—”

Uraraka saves the day. “Kiri will be your weekday escort for as long as you remain at Level Two. In order to reach him, should you two ever be separated—” Uraraka holds out what looks like a strangely shaped silver make-up compact, donned with an antenna and LED screen. Himiko blinks. Oh, shit, that’s—

“A phone?” Himiko snatches the thing from Uraraka’s palm and twists it around in her hands, flipping the screen open, then snapping it shut again with a single finger. “Holy shit, this thing is vintage.” 

Uraraka scoffs, then chuckles. “It’s the same model as my old phone. It’s really dependable and the battery lasts forever.” 

Himiko glances up at her therapist. “You… gave me your old phone?” 

The woman flushes, then shakes her head. “Oh, no, I just mean it’s the same kind. My old phone is actually in my desk, and sometimes I- Well, anyway, I just trust this model, and all Ac- Level Twos—“ Himiko actually laughs at her correction, “—have a phone of their own just like it to contact their therapist or other Level Twos of their choosing. The emergency contact is set to their escort. On weekends, Level Twos have a different supervised schedule, so you shouldn’t have to worry about reaching him – unless you really want to.”

Himiko almost feels bad for making Uraraka say Level Two so much. Almost. “So I can have anyone’s number on here?” 

“Not anyone from outside the RQRP just yet, although we can now discuss outsider visiting hours if—”

A chill shoots down Himiko’s spine and her eyes widen as she protests, “No, no, no. Um, first, I don’t want any outside visitors. Yes, I tolerate all you heroes inside this place, but if any of you ever run into my parents, you just make sure they stay far away from me.” Himiko takes a steadying breath before continuing. “Second, I’m only talking about other RQRP prisoners,” she adds playfully just to see Uraraka’s exasperation at the word. 

“Noted,” Uraraka replies, scribbling on her pad of paper. “You can add every other patient in Level Two or above, as well as any staff member to your contacts if they consent to it. My number is under Uraraka Ochaco and Kiri’s is under Kirishima Eijiro.” At the mention of his name, he flexes his bicep – this time intentionally – still grinning. 

Himiko flips open the phone again and navigates to her saved contacts. There are only two, just as promised. 

“As I was saying, you’ll be keeping this phone on you at all times, even when you’re in your room. This is how you get hold of Kiri if he’s not already here and you want to leave the room, or if you get lost somewhere without him,” Uraraka continues. Himiko pays barely any attention as she meticulously presses each number button on her phone’s limited keyboard as many times as it takes to get to the right letter. “You can now have breakfast in the cafeteria any time before eleven. Training will begin tomorrow at ten, right after our sessions – which we’ll be reducing to three times a week instead of every day. Then, lunch is at twelve-thirty, but there are always snacks available if you’re hungry. The library is open from eight A.M. to eight P.M. every day, and your cleaning crew will still be around just once a week.” Uraraka looks up from her notes. “Any questions for us, Toga?”

Himiko finishes inputting their new contact names, then snaps the phone shut as her stomach growls. “Yeah, can you show me to the cafeteria?” 

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Himiko isn’t stupid, but she sure feels like it when she realizes for the first time that Uraraka has other patients, meaning she’s busy the rest of the day that she isn’t bothering Himiko in her room. Before she left, Uraraka handed her a cup full of capsules that Himiko swallowed dry, then unhooked her IV and bid the two of them goodbye. Kirishima is in high spirits – something Himiko gets the sense is common for him – and holds the door open for her as they step out. 

As she breezes past him, a particular scent strikes her hard and fast, causing her to pause. She turns to face her escort, and his eyes widen, then his cheeks flush under her scrutiny.

“What’s up?” he asks warily, but she doesn’t answer. She just sniffs him again, and it’s thankfully not an overwhelming smell – quirk restraint meds for the win once again – but it’s enough to make Himiko smirk. This boy has a crush. 

On whom, she can’t tell, but she makes a mental note to pay extra close attention to his interactions going forward. She then shrugs as a response to his confusion and continues out the door.

She finds out then that her room is the last one at the end of a long hallway, and while it’s nothing grand, the atmosphere is cozy in a way Himiko hadn’t predicted. The lighting is near that of a hospital, but not so glaringly fluorescent. The overheads cast a warm tone like daylight across the tiled floors, and the walls are lined with wood paneling. Every couple of feet, there’s another door, each with its own little viewing window and a decorative name plate just below it. Most doors are even fully decorated with taped-up paper crafts and stickers, but Himiko is grateful to notice hers is not the only bare one. 

“They keep construction paper and scissors and stuff in the library, so you can make your own name tag and stuff,” Kirishima explains as they near the end of the hall. Himiko doesn’t reply, but the thought of handling scissors catches in her brain. She’s only just made it to Level Two, and they’re trusting her with a blade? She makes a mental note to keep her distance from the rest of these “reformed” villains they’re surrounded by. 

Once they step out of the “Bedroom Wing” – as Kirishima has dubbed it, since that’s exactly what it is – the place opens up drastically. Glass is a replacement for most walls, and everything is doused in sunlight, thanks to the giant outside-facing windows along the outer walls. Even without the sun, the place is otherwise lit with wall sconces and floating lanterns, too high up for any normal patient to reach – or hang themselves from, which is the first of many safety measures Himiko starts to notice. Every door handle is sloped, sharp corners are rounded, nothing ends in a point – not even the chair legs, which are more like chair-shaped hunks of plastic. The staff on this side all write with felt-tip pens instead of the clicking ones her therapists use.

Kirishima pushes on and clearly knows exactly where he’s going, despite the claim that Himiko is the first patient he’s been assigned to escort. “I work at an agency on the weekends, but I can’t tell you which one just yet—” Himiko rolls her eyes, “—Usually I’m just the muscle, but I wanted to do more than that. So I got training in first aid, martial arts, and safe restraining techniques – in case anyone tries to pull a fast one – and here I am.” 

Himiko wonders if she truly wouldn’t be able to pull a fast one on him. He’s clearly built and maybe even somewhat intelligent, but it’s possible he wouldn’t see her coming. She shrugs the thought off, uninterested in causing any trouble.

They pass the living room, where a handful of patients sit on a plush area rug in front of a giant television, which is mounted on the wall behind a pane of presumably protective glass or maybe plastic. Each player has a controller in their hands as they stare at a four-way split screen. Himiko recognizes the racing game from hours spent watching Tenko and the others compete while they weren’t scheming, but her eyes focus on one player in particular. His purple hair fans out behind him in long locks, and he grins at the screen, his fingers moving over his controller. 

“Spinner,” Himiko whispers, following her feet to the area rug. Kirishima falls in step alongside her, hands in his pants pockets. 

When they reach the rug, the game is just finishing up, with Spinner’s little green character taking first place. He leaps to his feet at the victory, hollering at the ceiling, “I’m the king of Mario Kart, now and forever!” He hands the controller over to the next person waiting, then glances up to where Himiko has just arrived. His eyes widen as he cries, “Toga!” and throws his arms around her, nearly crushing her frame in his embrace. She stiffens at the sudden contact, but forces herself to relax. If she’s being honest, she doesn’t want him to let go too soon. 

Her arms are trapped at her sides under his hug, so she just manages to say, “Good to see you, too, Spinner.” In her peripheral vision, Kirishima wipes away a few stray tears. She rolls her eyes.

Spinner lets her go eventually, still smiling wider than she’s used to seeing. His hoodie looks just like Tenko’s, but in an ash gray color instead of black. He’s completely foregone the mask, which Himiko only ever saw on their off-days, so she takes a moment to admire his green reptilian skin that’s clearly being adequately moisturized in this place. “How are you doing? Did you just graduate?” he inquires. 

Himiko nods, a smile settling on her own lips against her will. “Just heading down to get a snack now.” Spinner voices his approval, then finally turns to Kirishima, who’s been surprisingly patient and quiet throughout the entire interaction. 

“Hey, man, nice to meet you. I’m Kirishima, Himiko’s escort.” He sticks a hand out for Spinner to shake. 

The heteromorph takes it, smile not faltering even a little. “Spinner. Or Iguchi, if you’re going by my paperwork.” 

“I’ll call you whatever you like,” Kirishima says as they pull their hands away. 

“Then it’s Spinner, apprentice to Mirko, the Rabbit Hero, and proud heteromorph!” He starts towards the exit, taking the lead. “Let’s get some grub! Have you seen the selection yet? It’s fantastic.”

Himiko furrows her eyebrows as she follows. “What level are you at now, Spinner?” 

As he passes by a staff member, Spinner gives the man a high five and a familiar greeting. Then, he turns to Toga. “I’m Level Three, Trusted. My escort used to be Ibara, but she’s gone back to Pro work since I graduated.” 

The name doesn’t ring a bell to Himiko. “And you’re apprenticing with a hero now?” 

“Yep!” Spinner answers. He greets another passerby and fist-bumps them. “Three days a week.” 

Himiko trails along after him, blinking at the ground. While she’s been stuck in one place this entire time, everyone else has moved on. She asks after the others, and Spinner fills her in on the details: Tenko is currently in training, along with Magne, who also recently graduated to Level Two. Himiko’s heart swells at the mention of Big Sis, and she makes a mental note to catch up with her as soon as possible. As they walk, their little group passes by a gym – adequately labeled with a giant sign that says GYMNASIUM – that must have soundproof glass, since they can clearly see people inside but hear none of the sneaker squeaks or balls dribbling across the court. 

“Dabi and Jin are still Potentials, so they haven’t come around just yet,” Spinner explains. Himiko’s ears catch on the word yet, and for a split second, her chest tightens with affection for her friends. If she can make it out, they can, too.

They finally come to the cafeteria – once again appropriately labeled CAFETERIA – which is mostly empty with a few stragglers huddled at tables in groups or alone. The clock on the wall tells them it’s half past 11 AM, so meals are unavailable, but Spinner leads them right to the snack bar. He’s right about the spread: it leaves Himiko’s mouth watering. It’s mostly all health foods, fruits, and vegetables, but there are a few sweets like mochi and other rice cakes. There’s water flavoring packets in a small container, and Himiko’s eyes find a water filling station near the kitchen that people line up to fill plastic cups at. Everything is in finger-food sized pieces or can be manhandled with one of the plastic sporks available, so Himiko assumes chopsticks are handed out and then collected with meals here, the same as when food is delivered to their rooms. 

She makes her selections alongside Spinner and Kirishima, piling everything onto little plastic plates. They find an empty table near the outside-facing windows to sit and eat at, and she takes a good look outside to observe the new view. This side of the building overlooks a lush green field with two giant nets at either end, and a staircase of bleachers sit across from the window. It’s all currently empty, but Himiko can imagine the stands full of cheering people. She wonders what level she’d have to be at to sit through a game – not that she cares much for sports, but maybe she’d go just to pass the time. 

As Kirishima and Spinner make small talk, Himiko sweeps her gaze across the room. It resembles a school cafeteria – though, thankfully, not her school – yet also somehow maintains a balance between clinical and comfortable. The lighting isn’t harsh, seating is well placed for both privacy and people-watching, and the booths are padded so nicely she could fall asleep on one. Wood paneling and lantern motifs continue here, and Himiko makes a mental note to come back for dinner just to see the place lit up without the sun. 

“How are you liking it so far, Toga?” Kirishima bites into a piece of jerky. Around the mouthful, he asks, “Anything else you want to see today?” 

Himiko shrugs and pops a pomegranate seed into her mouth. She bites down, and it bursts deliciously on her tongue. “Will Tenko be done with training soon?” she asks Spinner. He nods as he drains his entire cup of water in one go. “Maybe we could all have lunch.” 

“Sounds great! You wanna check out the library after? Maybe get some decorations on your door?” Kirishima offers, a sly smile on his lips. Himiko hesitates. It feels sort of silly to be doing arts and crafts, but her door is looking awfully bare. “I know I want to, I’ve got a locker in the Staff Wing in need of some color.” 

“Fine,” she answers, chewing. “If you want.” 

“I’ll pass,” Spinner says. “There’s a Smash tournament right after lunch. Duty calls.” 

They waste the last of the hour waiting for Tenko and Magne to arrive. The cafeteria fills with former criminals as lunch time nears, some lining up prematurely to be the first ones handed a meal. Himiko watches as plainclothes escorts follow around their assigned patients, many of whom wear the same issued clothing as she does. She recognizes dozens of former villain faces – some from her own interactions, but most from seeing them on TV, committing crimes and being caught for them. A lot of these people probably hadn’t seen the light of day since they were first locked up, much like herself. 

Only about fifty new people fill the room, but the volume increases considerably, and by the time Tenko finds them, they have to raise their voices slightly to be heard. 

“Himiko!” Tenko greets, grinning with teeth as he pulls her into a firm hug. She hugs him back, sinking into the embrace with a relieved sigh. A part of her worried he was mad that she rejected his last visit. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he says close to her ear before pulling away. 

He does some sort of special handshake with Spinner, then holds out a hand to Kirishima, who takes and shakes it right away. “Hey, I’m Tenko, nice to meet you,” he greets, then steps aside to motion his escort forward. Himiko barely has a moment to observe the guy before the two escorts are battling for dominance as they alternate between growling and laughing. 

“Guess they know each other,” Spinner comments. “They look like they could be brothers.” Himiko hadn’t noticed before, but she nods in agreement. Tenko’s escort is pale head to toe, gray hair and eyes, matching gray muscle shirt and slightly darker gray sweatpants. He looks furious, even when he’s smiling, but the men are nearly identical otherwise, with spiked hair and bulging muscles. 

Kirishima finally gets the upper hand and digs his fist – which perceptibly hardens like rock – into the other man’s hair. “Toga, Spinner, this is Tetsutetsu, AKA Real Steel, my main man, and apparently Tenko’s escort, which I had no idea about until just now.”

Their roles reverse immediately, with Kirishima stuffed into a headlock while Tetsutetsu grinds at his scalp with his knuckles – which do almost the exact same thing as Kirishima’s, except they forge into shiny steel. To Tenko, he says, “This guy’s Kirishima, AKA Red Riot, and he didn’t tell me he was applying for the job, otherwise I would’ve said something! What a piece of work!” 

“Nice to meet you?” Himiko says as their group lines up. She turns to Tenko soon after, “Where’s Big Sis? Spinner said she was training with you.” 

“She still takes her meals in her room sometimes,” Tenko replies. “If she knew you had graduated, I’m sure she would have come down. We can visit her after, if you’d like?” Himiko smiles and agrees.

The two men still battle all the way through the line until they get into the kitchen, where an angry looking man with four arms smiles at everyone from behind the sneeze guard, except the two near-identical escorts. 

“Not these two dense idiots again!” his voice booms, causing the two men to separate immediately and stand to attention. “Get your hard heads out of your butts and move along, I don’t want to tell you again!”

“Yes, Mister Fourth Kind, sir!” the two exclaim simultaneously as they hold out their trays. Fourth Kind places a bowl of noodles onto each of their plates with one set of hands, then waves them along with the other set. 

“And don’t let me see you drag your feet on your way out of here!” he calls after them. Himiko bites her lip to stifle a laugh as the two escorts follow along after her and Tenko. 

“He’s so manly,” Kirishima cries, rubbing at a single tear escaping the corner of his eye. “He’s retired and still giving back to the community.”

Tetsutetsu wraps an arm around his shoulders, tears also welling in his eyes. “I know, man. I know.” 

They take a new booth that overlooks the hallways, and the boys start talking immediately. Himiko listens as she eats, finding out through their chatter that Tenko is gaining better control over Decay and has already figured out how to reverse its effects, while Spinner’s apprenticeship with Mirko has increased his stamina and reaction time tenfold. Himiko stuffs her face with more food as she feels a sudden sting in her eyes. She stares down at her plate to keep anyone from noticing. 

It’s been over six months since she first woke up in this place, and while she was spitting on her therapist’s shoes, the world kept on spinning outside her door. The realization settles uncomfortably in her gut, and she has no name for the feeling, but the pressure inside of her is almost painful. She’s really been acting like a… dense idiot.

A gentle hand lands on her shoulder, and she stiffens under the touch. “You doing okay, Himiko?” Tenko’s soft voice questions while the others keep talking. She nods, but doesn’t shrug him off. She sniffs and blinks away the tears before looking up at her friend. 

“I’m just happy you guys are happy,” she says. Not a lie. “That’s all.” Not the truth. Good thing she only promised Uraraka she’d be honest. 

Tenko smiles, then turns back to the table. Himiko pokes at her plate. Why bother him with the burden? 

After lunch, Spinner separates from the group to get to his video game tournament. At Tenko’s wistful look, Himiko waves him on after Spinner. He hesitates, but she reassures him that Kirishima will help find her way to Magne’s room. 

“Oh, wait, before you go,” Himiko says, pulling out her phone from her pants pocket and flipping it open. She holds it out for Tenko to take. “Put your number in.” 

He takes his out as well and hands it over to her. “You too.” They trade, and Himiko takes a second to appreciate the way he’s customized it: permanent marker doodles are scattered along the body of the phone, standing out against the silver. Some are just little shapes like stars and swirls, but as small as they are, others are clearly drawings of hands. When she flips it open, the background image has also been changed to something very pixelated that she can’t quite make out, other than that it’s made up of vibrant pinks and blues. 

She quickly navigates to the contacts and inputs her number before trading phones again. “Send me Spinner’s number, too, okay?” she requests. Tenko agrees. The two hardening escorts fist bump as they part, their knuckles clacking loudly in the hall, and then it’s just Himiko and Kirishima alone once again. 

“There’s five halls in the Bedroom Wing, so we should check with the front desk to see which one Magne is in,” Kirishima explains as they make their way back to where they came from. 

However, once at the desk, the polite woman behind it informs them that Magne has requested no visitors for the rest of the night, but she’ll be available again tomorrow morning. Himiko is disappointed, but she shrugs off Kirishima’s unnecessary apologies. He’s really too nice for his own good. She could totally pull a fast one on him. 

“Let’s just go to the library,” she says, walking back down the hall and knowing he’s following right along behind her. 

They pass the living room – where the tournament is clearly in full swing because of all the yelling – then the gym and cafeteria. Around a corner comes the Training Center, which is the only room not surrounded by glass, though maybe still soundproofed if the silence surrounding the TRAINING IN SESSION DO NOT OPEN DOOR sign is anything to go by. 

Finally, they reach the library at the furthest and quietest end of the building. Shelves of books line every wall that isn’t an outside or hallway-facing glass window, and in the very center of the room is a round desk with two staff members sitting behind it, one typing on a keyboard in front of a computer, while the other uses a pair of scissors on a piece of yellow paper. Himiko follows Kirishima further into the room and up to the desk. The one typing glances up briefly, then raises a purple eyebrow. His bored eyes remind Himiko of Eraser Head – all he’s missing are the scarves and jumpsuit. 

“Oh,” he says. The man behind him hums questioningly as he meticulously cuts shapes into his paper. “Hey… you…” The Eraser Head lookalike stares directly at Kirishima, who chuckles nervously and scratches the back of his neck. 

“Hey, Shinso,” Kirishima says, which immediately causes the other man to snap his golden blond head in their direction. Himiko frowns as she observes the guy’s full three-piece suit, which stands out against everyone else’s casual wear. His narrowed eyes and snide smile give Himiko the impression that he’s used to getting what he wants – or at least thinking he should.

“Well, if it isn’t Class 1-A alum, Eijiro Kirishima,” the blond says mockingly. “Don’t tell me you’re here to read. I wouldn’t believe you, anyway.” 

Himiko briefly wonders if Kirishima is really going to let this little twerp pick on him like that, but then she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. Of course he will. 

“No, actually, we’re here to cut shapes into paper,” Kirishima says, gesturing to the mess in front of the blond. “Like you’re doing.” 

The blond quiets immediately, glancing down at his work and back up again. “I’ll have you know I’m doing more than just cutting shapes, I’m making garland—” 

“Fill this out,” Shinso says, passing over a clipboard with a chart that’s already been half scribbled in. “You have to check out any scissors or sharp writing utensils, then check them back in before you leave.” 

Kirishima takes an offered felt-tipped pen and fills out whatever boxes are necessary, mumbling, “How do you spell your first name?” to Himiko before handing it back over. 

Shinso trades the chart for a plastic container full of supplies, then he points to an adjacent room behind him. “Construction paper’s in there, and it stays in there. That’s also the only approved room for scissor usage, got it?” 

Kirishima nods. When Shinso’s gaze falls on Himiko, she just blinks, not realizing he’s also expecting an answer out of her. She nods a second later. “Got it.” 

“I’ll see you back here before eight,” Shinso says, then waves them off. 

“And not a minute later!” the blond interjects, leaning over his companion, who shoves him off. 

As Kirishima and Himiko make their way to the designated room, Shinso mumbles, “Monoma, please pipe down.” 

.

.

.

When Himiko wakes the next morning, she feels a tickle at her neck. After she scratches at the spot, she looks at her hand and spots a sliver of red construction paper under her nail. When she sits up and shakes out her hair, a scattering of paper pieces rains onto her pillow like confetti, and the sight makes her chuckle. It took them nearly the rest of the library’s open hours to figure out exactly how to translate paper into their ideas, which caused the two to miss dinner. It was sort of disappointing not to get another meal in with her friends, but Himiko felt really good keeping her hands busy with something. Kirishima was entertaining enough with his sporadic chattering, talking for minutes without stopping, then going silent as he stuck his tongue out and paid extra close attention to his cuts. 

The blond – Monoma, as Shinso called him – tried to make another fuss about Kirishima checking the scissors back in at exactly 7:59 PM, but his companion did some sort of mind-wipe on the guy, which left him all wide-eyed and silent until she and her escort left the library. Kirishima later explained that Shinso has a brainwashing quirk, which Himiko raised an eyebrow at. How useful that would have been eight years ago. 

Himiko stands and unplugs her IV before tossing back a cup full of pills sitting on her bedside table – courtesy of the night staff that snuck in after she knocked out. In exactly six hours, she’ll need to come back and take a second dose. The plan for her at the moment is to transition from the IV into taking the cocktail of medications orally, which is slow for… medical reasons? Himiko wasn’t entirely listening, too distracted by the prospect of saying goodbye to those stupid bags forever. Whatever she absolutely needs to know will be repeated at her about a thousand more times anyway.

She then slips her feet into her slippers and stretches her tired muscles as she glances at the clock, planning out how much time she has to shower if she wants to grab something to eat before training. She then turns to her calendar and picks up the electric blue marker Uraraka left behind for her. She X’s out the previous day that was already marked with Graduate to Level Two in Uraraka’s fine print, then her eyes land on today’s box, marked with Training Begins. Today is also her first day without a therapy session since she began having them regularly, and the new schedule fits into Himiko’s brain strangely. She’s so used to having someone greet her right away in the morning. She caps and discards the marker while she considers Ice Breaker Bonding, which is scribbled over both weekend days and certainly can’t mean anything good. 

After a quick shower, Himiko holds up and examines the training outfit that was laid out for her the night before. It’s a jumpsuit similar to Eraser Head’s, but in a deep forest green color instead of black. The letters RQRP are stamped onto the back in white, and there’s a tightening drawstring around the middle and on the cuffs of all four limbs. She has the time, so she fusses with her hair in the mirror, struggling as she tries to get her fingers to work on the tiny elastics Pinky left behind. She’s so out of practice now, not having messed with her hair for eight years, let alone worked out the muscles in her fingers for nearly as long. Her arms are aching by the time she’s finished, but she leaves the bathroom satisfied. 

Her phone buzzes on her side table then, the screen lighting up to say UNREAD MESSAGES. She sits and flips it open to address the notifications. 

RED HAIR
good morning! do u want coffee??

Toga Himiko
YA

She frowns at the screen. Is it even possible to make the letters lowercase? When she can’t figure it out in less than ten seconds, she just gives up and moves on. Kirishima responds right away. 

RED HAIR
how do u take it??

Toga Himiko
BLACK

She opens the next few messages and shoots off replies, grinning. 

TENKO
###-#### <--Spinner

TENKO
###-#### <--Big Sis

Toga Himiko
THX TTYL

Unknown
THIS IS SPINNER

Toga Himiko
HI

Unknown (1)
HIIII <3

Unknown (1)
THIS IS BIG SIS

BIG SIS
TTYL TOGA <3

Toga Himiko
HIIIIIII SEE U L8R <3

Nice to know she’s not the only one that can’t figure out the capitalization issue. She changes the contact names while she waits for Kirishima, and then her cursor hovers over Uraraka’s name for a moment longer than necessary. It’s not weird to text your therapist. In fact, sometimes it’s necessary. 

Surprisingly, she replies right away. 

Toga Himiko
NXT SESH IN 2 DAYS?

WIDE EYES
Yep! But let me know if you need anything before then! :)

Toga Himiko
K

Not weird. 

A moment later, Kirishima pushes her door open with his typical smile. With him, he brings two paper cups of coffee – one black and one jarringly pale – along with that same smell he has. Himiko feels neutral about seeing him, but she is absolutely dying to find out who he has a crush on. 

“Morning, Toga! I forgot to ask yesterday, do you have a nickname or anything you’d like to go by instead?” 

He uses one bunny-slippered foot as a door stop, keeping the exit open as she takes the dark cup and slips out.

She takes a sip of her coffee and shrugs. “Not really.” 

“That’s cool, I’ll stick with Toga then.” He lets the door fall shut before appraising her handiwork on it. Her garland is a little wonky to her eye, but back in the library, Kirishima recognized her cuts immediately. “You did an awesome job on your door! I know it’s paper, but those pomegranates actually look delicious,” he praises. Himiko’s cheeks heat and she shrugs off the compliment, making her way further down the hall as he trails after – actually, his legs are much longer than hers, so he keeps up the pace easily. 

“You said that when I put it up,” she mumbles into her cup. 

Kirishima shrugs. “It’s still awesome. I’ll show you my locker later, I think it’s looking pretty good so far, just needs some finishing touches.” 

Though she was busy working on her own crafts, she did catch a glimpse of Kirishima’s decorations. He made one garland of black paper cut into little skull shapes, then a second one of plain red triangles that resembled the spikes of his hair. It’s not a priority of hers, but if he wants to show her his locker, she’ll play along. 

He starts chattering about a dream he had last night – “This monster was seriously huge! Like, Godzilla times a hundred- no, that’s too big. Like Godzilla times ten!” – while they walk to the cafeteria. Himiko half listens as she starts to grow slightly anxious for the day ahead of her. They still have a good chunk of time to eat breakfast before training, but she can’t stop wiping her sweaty palms on the jumpsuit and taking steadying deep breaths. Her escort’s babbling helps keep her head on straight, but she knows some food would work even better. 

The meal is small, but enough to stave off the hunger pains. She doesn’t spot any of her friends in the mostly-full cafeteria, but she’s too distracted by her own nerves to be bothered. Whether or not Kirishima can tell, she doesn’t know, but he keeps on talking, sometimes asking her a trivial yes or no question. He’s doing an almost thorough job at distracting her during and after the meal, filling the otherwise quiet hallway down to the Training Center. 

They soon stand before the double doors, which are still closed, but without the DO NOT OPEN sign from yesterday. Instead, she notices a small chart next to the door lays out the schedule for the area, and her hour is blocked off with shorthand she struggles to decipher: I.M. & K.B. – H.T. / esc. E.K.

Himiko frowns. “H-T is me, E-K is you, but who’s—“

The doors burst open. Her eyes widen, and the anxiety finally unleashes itself all at once as her hands start to shake. 

“Morning,” the trainer says in an aggressive monotone. His red irises glance over her shocked expression, then land on Kirishima at her side. “Your hair isn’t so shitty today.” 

“You,” Himiko growls through clenched teeth. “Explosive kid.” 

Explosive Kid raises an unimpressed eyebrow at her. “Yeah, we’ve met before.”

To make matters worse, the second trainer decides to reveal himself then, and Himiko’s heart drops right into her stomach. He… he looks just like…

“Good morning, guys! How are you feeling today?” he asks, bright and friendly. His hair is green, not black, but Himiko can’t pay attention to that minute detail as her breathing quickens. The shakes travel all the way up her arms, where goosebumps stand to attention. She has to get out of here, or she’s going to lose it. 

“Woah, are you okay, Toga—?” 

Then, she blacks out.