"That one is Overhaul's," Omoikane said, without inflection. Sharp eyes flickered across a small face, then rose, even and challenging.
Mizukun met them, steadily as he could. Ake's presence at his side helped, even if he wasn't exactly his right hand. "Was," he said simply, and hoped his voice was strong. The man was surrounded by his subordinates, after all, and he'd seen the higher of them fight before; to show weakness would have been gravely foolish.
"The rumours are true, then?" Omoikane asked, pointedly. "Overhaul is dead."
"You're as well-informed as they say you are," Mizukun commented. "Pro-Hero Overhaul is dead." Paused. "Chisaki Kai," he admitted, "Is not."
Omoikane's brow twitched, just barely; the faintest emotion breaking through a plain, stone-cold mask. "You failed, then."
It was a statement, not an accusation. Mizukun shook his head. "The aim was not to kill Chisaki-san. Only Pro-Hero Overhaul."
"And the child?"
Mizukun glanced over at the child in question. She clung to Ake's leg with bandaged hands, all wide ruby eyes and shrinking figure, and it was Ake who spoke, placing a soothing hand on her silvery hair as he did so. "A stroke of good fortune," the other teen declared, as the tiny girl pressed closer to him, and Omoikane's blue gaze flickered to Ake's red for a moment, as if to discern the reason Ake had broken rank, then back to Mizukun's. At the the latter's silence, he pursed his lips.
"I had wished," Omoikane said, slowly, "To remove Pro-Hero Overhaul from this world myself."
The words generated a soft flurry of stifled motion behind Omoikane's back, gazes flickering around and feet shuffling, but nothing more than that. Nothing dangerous. That was good; Nighteyes were notoriously protective of their own. "I'm sorry, then," Mizukun said, politely. "I understand your feeling. Unfortunately, our hand was forced."
"Oh?"
Ake bared his pointed teeth in a twisted expression, halfway between a grin and a grimace. "They had cancellers, Omoikane-san. In our territory. Permanent ones."
Omoikane's eyes widened a fraction, head twitching to the side a moment, though not quite turning; not quite letting either Mizukun or Ake out of his sight. The shadows in the corner of the room behind him twitched, rippled; unfurled into the shape of a young man who refused to look their way. "We knew of quirk cancellers, In- Omoikane-kun," he offered quietly. "But not permanent ones."
Mizukun decided not to make any note of the fact that Suneater, too, had spoken out of turn. It wasn't as if he didn't know why.
"You wouldn't have," Ake said, with an air of blunt honesty. "Ah, no offence, Suneater-san... but as far as we know, the first deployment was only a few days ago, against one of our wildcards."
"You have wildcards?" Omoikane asked, startled, and and Mizukun's lips twitched.
"The cancellers won't be a problem, anymore," he said, in lieu of an answer. "Everyone can sleep easy."
"Killing Pro-Hero Overhaul," Omoikane said, "Would not stop the flow of cancellers."
"It wouldn't," Mizukun agreed, easily. Waited. Watched as Omoikane put the pieces together, and his gaze drifted, once more, to the little girl clutching the embroidered trefoil on Ake's trouser leg in her fist. A tiny, quailing thing worth her weight in diamonds.
"It was her," the young man breathed, and the teenagers nodded.
"A concentrated application of time reversal," Mizukun offered, and waited.
Omoikane took a deep breath, back to his men, and the façade of his predecessor split apart, and what was underneath peered through like cold stone through
The room inside the compound was much cosier than the space outside where guests usually spoke to the leader of the Nighteyes. The display of splendour, far from any clear escape routes, would have made Izuku nervous if his mentor hadn't vouched for the crime ring's safety. As it was, he settled into his seat without complaint, confident, at the very least, that he wouldn't be spontaneously assassinated.
Not unless they wanted to lose the protection an alliance with All Might afforded them; and in the current climate, they'd have to be fools to turn it down willingly.
"I know I can't be exactly like Omoikane-sensei," Tōgata admitted, pouring the tea out. He'd produced the china from nowhere, as if its use was entirely routine; Izuku wondered if it was. His predecessor had never offered him a drink; but then again, his predecessor had disliked Izuku as much as was possible without breeding homicidal intent. "But someone has to do it. To reach a million civilian hearts... I couldn't do that as who I was before."
"I admired your goals," Izuku offered, wrapping his tired hands around his teacup, "Even before you took on the burden. I'm sorry we couldn't help you more."
"They really are manly," Kirishima affirmed, warmly. "Your work to infiltrate heroic command structures, to loosen their hold on the underground -"
"All spearheaded by Sensei," Tōgata said, glumly, before he turned to the child among them, forcing his face to brighten. "And would you like some tea, Unicorn-chan?"
She jolted, curling into herself at being mentioned, but turned to look up at Kirishima and Izuku in turn, gaze questioning.
"Whatever you like," Izuku reminded her, and she twisted her fingers against each other uncertainly, dithering for a moment before she nodded jerkily. Tōgata smiled at her, poured her a cup and placed it next to Kirishima's, and she hesitated before picking it up in both hands. She didn't drink, but the tremor in her limbs faded, slightly.
"I wanna say something encouraging," Kirishima said, "But I bet everything I can think of, you've already heard from Suneater-san."
Amajiki, for his part, ducked his head, flushing slightly as he pulled his cup up to hide his face. "You're too much," he muttered, and Izuku was abruptly reminded that Kirishima had intended to be Amajiki's kohai, once, before the elder's own Sensei had been captured and the remains of his legacy folded into the Nighteyes, as if they'd never existed differently.
"I don't know where to take the agency, from here," Tōgata said, eventually. "There's too much to do, and not enough resources for it. Overhaul gutted us."
Midway through a polite sip of tea, Izuku winced; the wording was poor, if clearly unintentional. "I know you can do it. Omoikane-sama believed you could, and I do too."
Tōgata stared into his cup as if it contained all the answers in the universe. "I don't know if I trust Sensei's belief, anymore. It killed him, didn't it?"
Izuku didn't know what to say to that. It wasn't, he knew, as if the death of Sasaki Mirai had been a one-off fluke; there were other things he'd failed to grasp. The moments leading up to his death had just been the last ones.
"To- omae..." Amajiki murmured, and his hand twitched, but didn't reach out.
Tōgata sat, head bowed, and the seconds ticked past.
The shrinking child, finally, brought her cup up to her lips, sipping carefully at the hot drink. Her nose crinkled, just slightly, at the taste, but she didn't put it down.
"Do you like it?" Kirishima whispered to her, and she frowned, just barely.
"I don't know," she whispered back, and her soft, cracking voice seemed to bring Tōgata out of his stupor, the young man shifting in his seat and looking up as she took another delicate little drink. The crinkle in her nose didn't subside; it was, if you asked Izuku, rather adorable.
"So," Tōgata said, after a beat more. "You didn't come to hear my woes."
They really hadn't, but it would have been awfully rude to agree. For all that his mother had failed to raise a good son, Izuku hadn't been raised to be rude. "Unicorn-chan," he said, instead. "I... we don't know if we can keep her."
Tōgata narrowed his eyes, glancing rapidly from Izuku to Kirishima and back again. "You want to, though," he said, faintly accusing, and it took all Izuku's practice not to duck his head in shame.
"We do," he admitted. "But she's so young, and we're always - Sensei calls us his problem children, you know? And he can't take her either, he's too - Sensei."
"I'd have thought he'd be great with kids," Tōgata said, with false cheer.
"Sensei is - real manly," Kirishima said slowly. "We all thought he'd be perfect, him and his quirk, but - he's on the run more than any of us."
Amajiki twitched slightly, sending Kirishima a sidelong gaze. "Why Villain Eraserhead?" he asked, tentatively. "I understand that he's competent, and safer to be around, but why not someone else?"
The question of why they hadn't brought their wayward child to someone who was considered both friendly and safe - like Nightfall, or, as Tōgata was no doubt thinking, All Might himself - lingered unspoken in the air; the child herself, far too sharp for her own good, picked up on it as easily as breathing.
"I'm a Curse," she whispered, sad but matter-of-fact, and Izuku heard the two men opposite him suck in sharp breaths even as he spoke up in denial.
"It doesn't matter what mean things Overhaul said to you," he said, turning to the tiny figure, still clutching her cup in both hands. "You aren't a Curse, Unicorn-chan. And you'll never be one. I promise."
It was an old argument, even in the brief few days they'd had her, and her response was familiar as the scars on his hand. "But - your friends are - and O-kaa-san said - O-tou-san -"
"They were wrong," Kirishima said, firmly; his hand had found his way to her hair again, stroking it in an attempt to soothe her. "It's totally not m - not nice - for them to say such mean things to a sweet little girl like you. Okay?"
"Okay," she murmured, calmed for the moment, and Izuku and Kirishima turned back to the table.
Tōgata's knuckles were pale on his cup. "You said time reversal?"
Izuku nodded. "It's a very interesting quirk," he said, faux-cheerful, as if he was explaining any other. "It seems to stockpile power in her horn, and once applied, the object reverts slowly back to a prior state of existence, and may even cease to exist if rewound far enough. It's not clear how it decides how much power to use on something, or how fast, or what counts as a single object; and, if the permanent suppressants are any indicator, what counts as a "prior state" is pretty flexible, too. However you look at it, it's extremely powerful, and will probably grow more so. Judging by the extent of my injuries in the fight..." He trailed off, pausing to think. "She won't fall into heroic hands again," he said, eventually, and Tōgata's lips twitched.
"That's a lot of faith," he said, and Izuku sighed.
"I don't want to have to kill anyone over it," he said. "None of us - well, maybe Kacch- Dai - uh. None of us want to."
"But you will." Tōgata said. It wasn't a question, and it carried a double assumption; at Izuku's side, Kirishima's jaw jutted out in an obvious challenge, and Amajiki made an aborted motion as if to bite his lip.
"And you expect us to." Or else, he didn't add; Amajiki wasn't Tōgata's second, but he was his hand for a reason, and that reason involved a degree of discretion.
"If you'll take her," Kirishima said, evenly. "It would be the manly - honourable - thing to do."
Tōgata sighed, and placed his cup on the table. "Sir always said you were a bleeding heart," he said, nodding in Izuku's direction, and Izuku's fingers itched to run over the embroidered patch on his arm. "He liked that bit of you, at least."
"I reminded him of you," Izuku said, too kind and too cruel all at once, and politely ignored the aborted gasp his words drew out. He couldn't recall when he'd started speaking in such a way; he supposed it didn't matter. "It's not just about my feelings, you know."
"I know. You're not the only one who'd kill for her." Tōgata closed his eyes for a moment, drew a deep breath; opened them, and looked at the little girl staring into a cup of tea as if she could hide in it. "Does Unicorn-chan have a name?"
Izuku turned to her; Kirishima did too, and, sensing the eyes on her, she twitched, gaze flickering up from her drink to glance from one face before her to another.
"Do you want to give Omoikane-san your name?" Izuku asked, and the slight furrow of her brow was the only indication she was thinking.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Kirishima said to her, gently, and Izuku wondered, offhandedly, if Kirishima would have fought to keep her, if the situation hadn't been so delicate as to practically be made of crystal. He dismissed the thought as soon as it came to mind; he could dwell on it later.
He knew what he would have done, in any case.
"Will Omoikane-san stop me cursing anyone?" the girl asked, eventually, and though the young men around the table stiffened, Tōgata leant forwards with a gentle face.
"Between me, and Suneater, and everyone else here, we'll keep you safe," he said. He didn't mention curses. "Will that be okay for you?"
She surveyed him for a moment, as if to judge him - perhaps she was - then nodded, minutely. The decision was made. "Okay," she repeated. "I'm Eri."
"Eri," Tōgata repeated. "That's a good name."
"It's nice to meet you, Eri-chan," Amajiki murmured.
Kirishima's hand slipped from its comforting post, and he grinned at the young men opposite him.
Izuku smiled, too, and let his most delicate card go.