‘ to set things straight ’

━━━━━

Kaede woke up screaming.

Her morning's been awful. Breakfast didn't sit well with her and she had to vomit everything up. The leek quiche and the imperfect cup of coffee the room service gave her.

Paying for the hotels she's been transferring to as she visited Honoka everyday wasn't difficult. All For One was a highly influential and wealthy figure. It wouldn't take a genius to guess that he had provided his protégés with backup accounts in case they needed money. Heck, it was never an issue for them.

Under his tutelage, she could have whatever fruit her heart desired and whatever weapon she needed. Tomura had decayed so many of his gaming consoles, but at the end of the day, he'd have a new one at his hands. There were tantrums thrown about just about any material needs and sensei provided just as easily.

Kaede's thoughts turn to the fish Tomura were probably keeping now- Aquamarine and Chartreuse, or whatever, memorizing trivial names was never something she was good at nor was it something she could excel at. Kaede was trained to be prideful and if you traced her lineage, especially at her mother's side, oh especially at the Moriyama's who discarded everything not up to their standards, prideful was a great understatement. Just look at her mother who was raised to be something she could never ever be.

Back to the fish, they were probably also bought with sensei's money. Everything was bought with his money. Even the cream paper Tomoe used for his letter and just that thought taints the seraphic brilliance she's always held for the letters.

Standing in front of the mirror, Kaede decided to douse her face with a handful of tap water and brushed her teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste she bought at some random convenience store. She had to admit, security was shitty. After visiting numerous shops just for the sake of it, or in Honoka's words— me time, she's never had someone report her to the police. Or some surveillance cameras being alerted by her presence. After that incident with the Pine Hero— whatever his name was, Kaede's certain some footage has been leaked and she's already a wanted personage.

It's disappointing that she doesn't have a wanted poster yet. Deep down, she's always wanted to have a wanted poster.

Spitting the remnants of toothpaste and whatever germs nestled in her mouth, Kaede uses her sleeve to dry her lips, heads to the shower and takes a bath.

She counts thirteen minutes, six seconds and counting before she manages to wear the long black stockings underneath the red handkerchief skirt she chose to wore for today and she finishes her morning rituals.

Every day, the walk to Honoka's house, or Kaede's former house has a different time. It's not that her pace is different each day, it's the fact that she changes hotels everyday to be safe. Sometimes, she takes inns, even apartments. Counting the one where she stayed two days ago, seven hours, forty two minutes, eleven seconds ago, Kaede's already paid three months advance for four apartments.

Today, it takes her half an hour to reach Honoka's house where the girl waits for her at the doorstep, a Mathematics book in her lap. There's something churning in her stomach that Kaede can't erase and it feels awful, almost ominous.

The weather is not helping either. She's left the League of Villains, twelve days ago, and for that period of time it's been nothing but sunny. So, of course, the grey nimbus clouds up above sends an unwanted shiver across her bones.

"You're late," Honoka says, but she's not angry. It's just an observation. "For the third time, this week, but whatever Kai, you probably have a night life or something. Will you take me once I'm older?"

"Future heroes aren't supposed to have nightlives you know," Kaede informs and as soon as she delivers that line, the thick probably three hundred pages Math book is chucked at her. Kaede's reaction time is good enough to catch it.

"That's discriminatory," Honoka says and stands up. "I learned that word from Uncle."

She raises an eyebrow, steps across the threshold following Honoka who's bouncing up and down as she traipses the carpeted marble floor. "And where would your uncle use that word?"

"In front of his phone during the rare time he uses it," was Honoka's answer, oozing with casual disinterest. "Uncle's bisexual. The discrimination towards his peers doesn't sit well with him. He rants about how narrow-minded a lot of people are. It's just a matter of color, he says. Just a matter of preference. Being true to yourself and these people —well, there are a lot of curse words, that I can assure you."

"Your uncle definitely has some strong set of wills," Kaede says, flips past the pages to find the page where they stopped yesterday. It was probably adding fractions, so they'll move to similar fractions now. Kaede can do it with her eyes closed.

Other subjects make her brain go haywire, but Math has been imbedded into her system, so she has no qualms in facing it. Adding the fact, that unlike other subjects which heavily rely on subjective views, Math is straightforward and purely logical.

Kaede points the fractions, explains the steps carefully and Honoka gradually gets the general idea and when they stop for the day, decide to watch some television— Honoka likes watching the news— something terrible brews inside Kaede.

As if darkness is crawling from the throne she abandoned and it wants to get a hold of her again. But now, this feels corporeal. Like it might grab her elbows and knees at any second now.

That's why she must be so tense.

"I thought you two were supposed to be studying?" Honoka's uncle asks, a familiar lilt in his tone. There's that cheerful way he speaks when referring to his niece, but this time, Kaede senses the ersatz way he does it, so she stands up, smiles at him.

"We're done," she says, thanks her time as Yuko for the calm and collected way she says it. "Can I please talk to you? In your backyard? I heard some rodents earlier and I need your help in getting rid of them." Turns to Honoka. The girl doesn't even listen, she's busy watching some news about the price hike in fuel.

Honoka's uncle smiles at her, smiles! At Kaede, of all people! And that sends the final nail in the coffin. Already, her mind is racking for explanations, grasping for connections.

They stand in the backyard, where overhead the clouds have turned to stratus grey. Kaede feels a little anxious because she has no weapon with her, but she's reminded that time is trickling from her fingertips and she can will it with just a memory and touch. She's turned things to salt and dust. Humans wouldn't be a problem.

"Where are the rodents?" That annoying lilt again, and Kaede faces him, not exactly, she thinks, points one accusatory finger at him— her.

"You're Toga, aren't you?"

The glimmer from the blade of a knife, and it would have hit anyone below mediocre, but Kaede's not an ingenue when it comes to fighting with her fists. True, with long range quirks and all those powerful attacks, she may be helpless, but deflecting a simple knife is easy enough when you've trained for it during three fourths of your life, and when she grabs Toga's elbows, she maneuvers the girl, pushes her against the wall, the knife clattering to the stone pavements.

Toga Himiko giggles a little, a creepy blush on her cheeks. "No need to get so hostile," she says, and the old Kaede would have taken pride at breaking her bones one by one, but she's done with that and the newer version actually listens. "I wouldn't have stabbed you. We're friends, aren't we?"

"Of course we are," Kaede says, the lie easy to spin. "What did you do, Toga?"

"Call me Himi," she says, laughs a little, but Kaede might not look like it, but she's concerned about the wellbeing of Honoka's uncle. This world is lacking in decent parental figures and that one belongs to the few normal ones. The world is a better place with him. So Kaede clasps tighter and seven cracks resound throughout the backyard.

"What did you do, Himi?" Kaede asks instead of where the hell did you hide the still-breathing body of Honoka's uncle, you crazier than me, but more tolerable than Dabi, woman? "Answer your friend."

She has no strength to laugh. "Okay, I didn't stab anyone, although I wanted to. I just pretended to be a cute li'l drunk teenager and used my fingernails to get some blood from that man, he's probably on his way now as we speak"— Kaede releases the breath she didn't realize she was holding— "Tomura wanted me to come and get you. Magne got killed by some guy named Overhaul who I also wanted to stab, but Tomura told me not to 'cause Mr. Compress tried to kill him, but he got... well something bad happened to him."

Just when Kaede thought the series of unfortunate events was over, Toga continued. "The League is lacking in manpower since some things have been shaky. Old Man Kohaku left along with some fanatics of the Suits guy. I don't care about that too, I could spend all the time with my darling Izuku, but Tomura's being a sourpuss again and ordered me to do all these boring jobs. Don't worry though, I was okay with this one, because we're—"

"Toga," she says the name, oozing with imminent malice .

"Call me Himi, darling," the girl says, pretends not to notice Kaede's avenging angel look. "So Tomura said that you have to come back since your little grief escapade is over and he wants you back now."

Before Toga can add anything, she slams the girl's head against the walls, drags her unconscious body past the living room where Honoka's treating her uncle's scratches— the older man's screams are so loud that they don't hear the sound of a body being dragged across their pristine floor.

With her terrible acting skills, they manage to reach a place more than five train rides away from the place. Hopefully, the concussion made Toga forget the means to reach that place ever again. Kaede doubts that she was certain where the location was in the first place, she may have just followed Kaede to reach it, that explains the ominous presence.

She puts Toga inside a dumpster she's locked with a steel bar and some elements she managed to enlist with the help of her quirk and after cleaning the remnants of garbage and stink from her clothes, she calls Honoka— who has a phone of her own— using a newly purchased phone which she's going to throw next to the dumpster where she secured Toga.

"You were gone!" the girl says after they confirmed that Honoka was talking to Kaede and not some alien who has the same voice as Kaede. "Where did you go? Night life again?"

"No," Kaede answers, serious. "Listen Honoka, I know we're going to meet again someday. I just know it, okay, so listen carefully," she pauses, closes her eyes then opens them again. "I'm leaving." This is met with an outraged scream from Honoka's side, followed by a demand for an explanation.

"I've realized today, that I need to sort out my life and I can't just be all Orpheus for the rest of my life— never looking back," she says, clenches her fingers over the phone. "I'm going to settle things with my friends, my parents and everyone involved with me and I'm gonna start tomorrow. And believe me, when I'm done with this," Kaede smiles a little. "I can finally be a lot less depressing."

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E N D O F C H A P T E R
— s e t t l i n g