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Shikako had expected to land in a world that wasn't her own. Even discounting Team 7's notoriously terrible luck, the odds weren't in her favor; only one version of her would wind up in the correct dimension, able to see and fight for the friends and family she had spent the last 13 years of her life with. Every other version of her would have to build a life somewhere new.
She just hadn't realized how broadly every world would be interpreted by Gelel. Looking around the devastated cityscape she's landed in, Shikako wonders whether this is even Fire Country anymore.
She can see the sparking of some electronic device, next to a half-crushed car, and make out the silhouettes of skyscrapers through the smoke and dust filling the air. If it is Fire Country, it's decades - possibly even centuries - in the future from the time she's just left. At least I'm not an infant again, she muses, and turns to take stock of the full situation around her and decide which way to go.
Another shockwave echoes from behind her and the ground shakes, more rubble tumbling from the ruins around her. Shikako turns, finding the source of the shockwave immediately - there are two men at the center of the devastation, clearly at odds with one another. One seems to be wearing a business suit and a metal mask, and what little visible skin he has is severely scarred. The other is wearing bright colors and even a cape, like some sort of comic book superhero.
Shikako shifts some chakra toward her ears, listening in to the conversation between the two strangers. After all, if she's going to get involved, she needs to know whose side she's on.
It takes far less time for her to decide who to side with than she'd expected it to; in fact, the decision is made for her. She's already witnessed the immense power these two hold, so when the man in a suit directs his bulging arm toward her while taunting his opponent about civilian lives being a distraction, she isn't about to let him finish his technique unhindered. She casts her shadow over as quickly as she can, and as the villain announces his attack - what kind of idiot announces their attack out loud? - she wrenches his arm back toward his own chest with shadow possession.
The ground shakes from the force of the blow Shikako had redirected with her shadow possession, rubble once again shifting all around, and Shikako is so focused on maintaining shadow possession that she fails to notice the danger until her foot flares up with sudden pain, half-buried under cement. She thinks it was worth it though; when the dust clears, the man in the suit is no longer standing. He's also half the size he was before; the rest of his body mass having been violently separated and scattered around on the ground surrounding him. The caped hero stands in front of her, arms thrown out, still prepared to take a blow that isn't coming.
Shikako only has time to grimace - partly at the pain and partly at the gore - before the spots dancing on the edge of her vision close in and she loses consciousness.
Shikako wakes up in the hospital, and absurdly her first thought is Kakashi would hate it here. The walls are pure white, the strong chemical scent of cleaning products lingers in the air, and the fluorescent lighting casts an even, cool tone through the room that makes the world feel flat and empty.
Shikako immediately wants to leave.
She pulls her foot out from under the covers, making a face at the bulky cast they've put it in. Either the medical ninja were busy yesterday, or they aren't very advanced here, because her bones are still broken and the swelling hasn't gone down much at all even though her chakra exhaustion had probably taken her out for hours if not days. She's not particularly skilled with iryoninjutsu, and even she could do better than this. Will do better than this, once she gets the cast off her foot. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the time to wrangle it off before someone enters the room, and if the way they're rushing toward her is any indication they're going to protest her taking matters into her own hands no matter how capable she is.
If it wouldn’t immediately draw unwanted attention to her, she’d just drop into shadow state to take care of the injury now that her chakra has recovered somewhat, but even that’s not an option with someone else in the room.
Shikako lays back down, ignoring her new company and resolutely pretending she hadn’t been intending on interfering with her medical care. He doesn’t seem to be a medical professional; she isn’t entirely sure why he is here – all she knows is that he is someone tall, vaguely skeletal, and very blonde. He didn’t seem to know what to say when being ignored though; he’d rushed in when he’d seen her conscious, only to start awkwardly hovering when she didn’t make eye contact.
She spots the TV on the opposite wall – a large flatscreen, nicer than she’d have expected a hospital to have on-hand for a patient – and remembers just how far from home she really is. Speaking to the stranger probably couldn’t hurt.
“Hello,” she says, finally making eye contact with the gaunt man. He perks up immediately, sending her a smile.
“Hello!” There is a lot more enthusiasm in this man’s voice than she’d been expecting. “I was worried when you passed out. I’m glad to see you’re alright.”
That… doesn’t make sense. He wasn’t there when she passed out, unless – Shikako focuses on her sensing abilities. The man’s chakra feels unusual; it’s nothing like the developed chakra system of a Shinobi, and yet the well of chakra he has is considerably deeper than most of the civilian-level signatures around them. It’s also familiar; it’s the same layered chakra of the buff blonde who had jumped in front of her yesterday as she’d used shadow possession to kill a man with his own technique.
“I’m fine,” she assures him, before grimacing as she remembers the state of her foot. “Well, except for that,” she adds, gesturing at the clunky cast. He clearly assumes she’s referring to the broken bones, as she’d intended, despite her true irritation being with the bulky boot that she’s going to have to wear until such time as it wouldn’t be unusual to remove it. She can’t afford to stand out too much until she figures out how to stabilize her position in this new dimension, seeing as she’s stuck here from now on.
“Ah,” a grimace from the blonde. “I am sorry about that.” Shikako waves him off.
“It’s not an issue,” she tells him. “I’ll heal.” She doesn’t mention that she already would have healed herself, if he’d taken a few minutes more to get here.
“I just have a couple of questions for you,” the man says, pulling out a small notebook. “Well, the police do, just routine post-disaster things, but they’re somewhat overrun at the moment, and I offered to help out.”
“Very noble of you,” Shikako says, attempting to keep her tone genuine rather than bitingly sarcastic.
“The least I can do,” the man says, waving her off but smiling all the same. “Now then, what is your name?”
“Shikako Nara,” Shikako says, figuring it’s best to just be honest here. There was a lot of destruction around, and if she plays this right, she’ll probably be able to brush off her lack of records as due to the devastation there. The man beside her dutifully jots down her name in the little notebook, turning it toward her to verify the spelling and offering her another smile as she nods to confirm his first attempt.
“And what are your parents’ names? So we can help locate them.”
Shikako shakes her head. “They’re both dead.”
“Oh.” The blonde’s shoulders slump – he’s very expressive. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Shikako shrugged. “It hasn’t really hit yet, honestly. Like, I know, but there was kind of a lot going on.”
Blondie’s expression shifts from awkward to horrified and pitying. “It was…”
“During the incident, yeah.” Shikako says, shrugging. “They certainly didn’t have any way to survive that much building coming down at once.”
“And you were there?”
“Well, within line of sight. I was a few meters away though, hence…” she gestured at herself, relatively intact. “My less-crushed state of being.”
Blondie looked like he wanted to pat her on the shoulder, and Shikako shrugged and gestured at the notepad to direct his attention away from whatever touchy-feely impulse he was clearly having. “What else?”
“Oh, um.” He glanced down at the paper. “Ordinarily we’d ask after your quirk, but because they had to scan your foot, we already have that filled out for you.” Shikako nodded calmly, as though any of that made any sense whatsoever, because Blondie clearly expected it to be common knowledge. “Since you’re quirkless you wouldn’t be in the quirk registry…” Shikako was going to look up both those terms as soon as she could. “How old are you?”
“13.” A not insignificant part of Shikako wanted to lie about her age, but being as young as she was served as an advantage here. In Konoha a 13-year-old genin was legally an adult, but in her first lifetime you were still considered a child at that age, and going off the technology of this world she was guessing it shared more similarities with that first world a lifetime ago. They would probably be dramatically more lenient with her if they saw her as young and naïve and pitiable.
“Ah. Were you a student at Nisemono middle school?”
“Don’t you have the student lists?”
“Ah,” Blondie scratched the back of his neck, shoulders up sheepishly. “I’m afraid the school is currently…”
“A pancake?”
“Effectively.”
“Ah. Well, yes. I was a student there.” She didn’t know the name of any of the local schools, so she’d take the out given to her, especially since they had no way of verifying that information. Regrettable though it was to admit, the number of casualties this kind of disaster was likely to result in would help her story further; Blondie hadn’t hesitated to believe her for a second when she mentioned her parents dying, so he probably wouldn’t dig too deeply into any other potential connections as long as her answers didn’t raise any eyebrows.
“We’ll need to move you to a different school for the remainder of the academic year then,” Blondie remarks, jotting something down in the little notebook. “Unfortunately, your transcripts are likely unavailable, but you have some time before entrance exams at least.”
Shikako grimaced. School, again? She enjoyed studying, really, but only when she was researching topics that mattered and that she was interested in. It was going to be a long few years before she had full control over her schedule again, she could already tell. “I’m going to need a lot of help brushing up on History,” she remarked. “It’s probably my worst class.” It wasn’t, never had been, but it was the one most likely to give her insight into what exactly was going on in this society, so it would be her priority for the next few months.
That and studying for entrance exams, apparently.
Blondie chuckled half-heartedly. “It wasn’t my strong suit either I’m afraid,” he remarks. “With your situation…” he stared down at the notepad, avoiding her eyes, but that pitying expression was back on his face so Shikako immediately grasped what exactly he meant by situation. “Do you have much you need to do before you can be released? Do you have anyone you can stay with?”
Shikako shook her head. There was no way she’d know anybody here. “Not unless you want to adopt a teenager,” she quipped halfheartedly, before changing tactics at the awkward expression on his face. “And I do still need to thank you for the other day.”
Blondie stiffened quite abruptly, something like alarm in the back of his eyes even as his expression sat in a frozen smile. “What do you mean?”
Well, he clearly didn’t want to address this. Unfortunately for him, Shikako was a curious person, and this was an opportunity she didn’t plan to let slip away that easily. “You know, when you jumped in before the masked man in the suit could attack me? Although your hair was a bit…” she gestured with her hands, drawing the spiky hair antennae he’d had the other day, when he’d been buff, “taller, then.”
“Ha, ha-ha. That wasn’t me,” he said, and someone without her training and experience might even have believed him.
“Of course it was?” She said, attempting polite confusion. “I mean, you look different now, but not that different. Do people not normally recognize you like this?”
Blondie slumped. “No, they don’t. His eyes met her, and for the first time since he’d walked into the room Shikako felt like she was being seen. “You cannot tell anyone. If the world found out about my weakness…”
“Weakness?” Shikako asked, making her tone alarmed. Sure, he wasn’t as buff right now, but Choji would get similarly emaciated when he wore himself out with his stronger clan techniques and by the time he resumed walking around he was already practically recovered – though admittedly less combat capable. She’d kind of assumed this guy was the same.
Though, clearly not, because his surprise at her surprise had resulted in him coughing up blood.
“Ah,” he said, waving dismissively as she reached toward him in concern. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just.” He met her gaze firmly again. “The world cannot know that All Might is getting weaker. You cannot tell anyone.”
“Alright,” Shikako said agreeably. “You should really see a doctor about that coughing up blood thing.”
“I have,” he told her, smiling again, and it seemed more genuine this time though still strained at the edges. “Several, even.”
“See better doctors,” Shikako quipped, leaning back against her pillows. The man in front of her laughed, though there didn’t seem to be much spirit in it. That didn’t bode well for his prognosis. “So, where were we?” She snapped her fingers, as though she’d just remembered. “Right! Where do we stand on the whole adopting a teenager thing? I’m very well behaved. You’ll hardly notice I’m there.” She had been joking when she first brought it up, but it was seeming more appealing the more she thought about it.
“I don’t…”
“And really, I’m vying for any option that avoids group homes,” she said, grimacing. “If middle school taught me anything, it’s that the other kids don’t really…” She trailed off, letting her expression speak for itself.
“Because of your quirk status?” Blondie asked, and that was a very promising amount of emotional turmoil in his voice. Shikako let herself nod.
“Well, lack thereof, really,” she said, remembering how he’d referred to her as quirkless and not on the quirk registry at the beginning of the conversation. Hard to forget, when she’d immediately decided looking up quirks and how they related to feet would be her priority once she got home. Wherever home wound up being now.
Blondie reached out to pat her shoulder again, and this time Shikako allowed it. “I can’t promise anything,” Blondie said, regretful in his tone. She smiled at him with sad eyes and patted the hand he had resting on her shoulder.
“I understand,” she said. “But you’ll try?”
Blondie nodded at her with a determined expression, and Shikako could remember seeing Naruto sporting a similar look enough times to feel plenty optimistic at the sight. “I’ll try,” he assured her. She shot him a grin in response.
By the time Blondie returned, this time accompanied by a man in a tan trench coat, Shikako had learned considerably more about her situation. She hadn’t yet managed to get access to a history book or the internet, but she had talked a Nurse into putting on the news, and with almost all the coverage focusing on the disaster what she learned was enlightening.
The man she’d been trying to talk into adopting her was apparently the number one Hero of this dimension, known as All Might. The way the anchors discussed heroes and the Hero Public Safety Commission led Shikako to think they were more similar to Shinobi than the comic book heroes she’d grown up with in her first life; an occupation, rather than a self-imposed calling. All Might, known for being the unbeatable strongest, was at the top of his field.
He was also treated almost like a god; despite the destruction that plagued the city at the hands of the masked villain – and how funny, that they referred to criminals as villains here – All Might’s name was praised for how well he’d handled the situation after his arrival. Although there were civilian casualties, the media seemed to stress that no UA students had died and that the bulk of the destruction happened in the extraordinarily brief period between the masked villain appearing and All Might’s arrival. Although the other heroes, who had already been on the scene, were being torn to shreds in the media, All Might’s name was seemingly untouchable.
Just how had the man cultivated such a reputation? More to the point, why? Clearly his weakness was causing him stress; being venerated as this untouchable pillar of justice likely didn’t help his stress levels at all.
The anchors occasionally touched on her as well; although her face was blurred, likely due to some sort of privacy law she was unfamiliar with, All Might jumping over to shield her from what would have been a killing blow (at least as far as the anchors knew) was a regularly replayed clip, particularly when speculation regarding the fate of the masked man began running rampant. It was clear that nobody had figured out the reason for his attack being turned on himself at the last minute; though several had posited outside influence, the fact that she was quirkless had apparently been leaked to the press, so she had managed to escape scrutiny.
She also learned what exactly quirkless meant, and she was rather certain the descriptor didn’t apply to her. Thus far nobody had made any mention of what exactly feet had to do with quirk status, but if quirks were simply superhuman abilities, then her use of chakra and various jutsu definitely counted. She’d have to be careful to keep her abilities under wraps, since her supposedly quirkless status was what was keeping suspicion off her for the villain’s death. Figuring out why everyone thought she was quirkless was seeming more important by the minute, if only to avoid revealing her abilities to the general public.
Which makes Trench coat man an issue.
“My name is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa,” he offered, sending her a polite smile as he sank into the chair next to her bed. An emaciated All Might leaned against the wall behind him, occasionally fidgeting like a nervous teenager. “Because we can’t find any of your records at the moment, I’m here to confirm some information before we place you with a guardian.”
“Oh?” Shikako asked. “Is he going to be my guardian then?” She ensured she looked enthusiastic at the prospect, sending All Might a smile as she referenced him. Tsukauchi smiled softly at her.
“Possibly. Before we begin, I should let you know, my quirk is a passive emitter called Lie Detector. I’m afraid it can’t be deactivated, so I will know if you are dishonest at any point.”
Shikako huffed a laugh, attempting to keep the panic that those words inspired hidden. “I bet sarcasm is so much fun for you.”
Tsukauchi huffed a soft laugh at her remark. “Not as bad as you might assume, actually,” he tells her before flipping open his notepad. “Name?”
“Tsukauchi Naomasa,” Shikako said, “at least if I remember right.” Tsukauchi’s eye twitched at the first half of the statement, and he sent her a dry look at the second half. She shot him an amused grin before settling back. “Sorry, sorry, I just saw the opportunity. My name is Shikako Nara.”
He puts it down. “Date of birth?”
“22nd of September,” she says. “I was born 13 years ago.”
“You’re 13?” he says to confirm, and she gives him a dry look as she nods. She doesn’t dare confirm beyond that, because she isn’t sure whether or not that statement would register as a lie. She was born 13 years ago, sure, but does the age of her soul count? Does she need to factor in her first lifetime? Unusual phrasing may seem suspicious, but it’s her only option at the moment.
“We just covered that,” she says, when it’s clear he’s waiting for verbal confirmation. It’s the closest she can give.
“Do you know All Might’s civilian identity?”
“No.”
Tsukauchi’s pencil paused over the notepad, before he looked up at her in surprise. “No?”
She shrugs at him. “I know what he looks like, but he never actually, y’know, introduced himself.” She shoots an awkward expression at All Might, and Tsukauchi turns to look behind him with a sigh. All Might himself just looks sheepish.
“Ah, I forgot to introduce myself?” he says, sheepishly.
“You did,” Shikako confirms.
“My apologies, young Shikako. My name is Yagi Toshinori.”
Shikako turns to face Tsukauchi again. “I would like to amend my previous answer.” The man chuckles good naturedly.
“Which one?” he says, though it’s clear he knows exactly which one and just needs her to say it verbally for his quirk to take note.
“I know All Might’s civilian identity.”
“I see,” Tsukauchi notes it down. “Are you quirkless?”
Shikako snorts and uses the supposedly sensitive nature of the subject as her implicit excuse as she withdraws, folding her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes. “I’ve been reliably informed that I’m quirkless,” she says dryly. “Is that really relevant?”
“Afraid so,” Tsukauchi says, and though his voice still sounds perfectly pleasant, something about him feels more dangerous than he had a moment ago. “Are you associated with the league of villains?”
“No. I’ve only ever heard about them on the news.”
“Have you ever met any of them in person?”
“Not to my knowledge, unless the masked villain was one of them, in which case I guess? Kind of?”
Tsukauchi hums, and though he still appears relaxed Shikako doesn’t buy it for a second. “The masked villain?” he says, and it’s clear that it’s a question.
“Ah, right, the news was calling him something else. The Scourge of Kamino I think?”
Tsukauchi is writing something on his notepad, but he has it angled so she cannot see what he is writing down. “When did you meet him?”
“Well, I didn’t really meet him per se, but he did kind of try to kill me. Y’know, the night I met All Might. It’s on basically every news station ever at the moment.”
“You hadn’t met him before that night?”
“I hadn’t met him before he suddenly decided I made a great distraction and tried to murder me because he knew tall, blonde, and self-sacrificial over there would play the martyr for a random kid too close to the destruction, where I distinctly did not intend to be. I only met him if you count overhearing him plotting my imminent demise as meeting the guy.”
“He never used his quirk on you?”
“He tried, but he keeled over dead before he could.”
“He never gave you a quirk?”
“Gave me a… Is that possible?” She asks incredulously. Tsukauchi looks at her, gaze unfaltering, not answering her question at all. She leans back against her bedsheets, sensing that she’s stumbled onto something more serious than expected. “No, no he never gave me a quirk. I wasn’t aware that quirks were something that could be given.”
“Normally they aren’t,” Tsukauchi assures her. “He was something of a special case.”
“I see,” Shikako says. “Shame about him being an evil mass murderer, huh?”
All Might’s shoulders shake, a hand pressed to his mouth as he attempts to stifle his laughter at that comment. Tsukauchi sighs, his shoulders slumping a little. “A shame indeed.”
“Is this some sort of let’s make sure the kid isn’t plotting to murder the number one hero interview?” Shikako asks him, curiously. “Because that’s kind of what it sounds like, and I feel like we could speed this up a little.”
Tsukauchi raises an eyebrow. “That’s not its only purpose, but I’m curious as to your idea regardless.”
Shikako looks him dead in the eye. “Can your quirk work even when you haven’t asked a question?” Tsukauchi nods in confirmation. Shikako takes that as her cue to begin. “My name is Shikako Nara. I was born 13 years ago on the 22nd of September. I have no living relatives in this world. I have no criminal record. I am not associated with any criminals or villains. I have never knowingly interacted with any villains. I do not wish to harm All Might. I do not want to commit any crimes. I am a good student. I want to be adopted to avoid going to a group home, and I want to study for my entrance exams because I really really need to brush up on history before they begin, and I’m very worried about not having enough time to do so.”
Tsukauchi laughs a little. “Fair enough. You mentioned being a good student, could you elaborate?”
“I don’t remember my exact grades, but I was near the top of my class,” Shikako says. “I didn’t have any clubs or anything, but I also didn’t make trouble.” She doesn’t mention that the class she was near the top of was at a shinobi academy, nor does she mention that there weren’t any clubs for her to join in the first place. Instead, when she continues, she does so in the hopes of avoiding the question of where she went to school. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it’ll be possible for you to access my academic record.” Tsukauchi looks up, and Shikako shrugs. “All Might told me about the current state of Nisemono middle school.”
“Ah, yes.” Tsukauchi says. “It is rather destroyed at the moment.”
Shikako chuckled. “I won’t miss it.” She can’t very well miss a place she’s never been after all. She leans back against the wall. “I do well in classroom environments, but they aren’t my favorite.”
“Not your favorite huh?” Tsukauchi asks, and he isn’t taking notes anymore, seemingly just holding a conversation now that the matter of her identity and motives seems settled. “What is?”
Shikako grins. “I like independent study, and more active environments. I’m pretty good at martial arts; my brother and I would practice together before…” she trails off. Before Jashin. Before splitting herself with Gelel’s aid. “Before Kamino,” she finishes, because it’s true, even if it’s not what she really means.
“You had a brother?” Tsukauchi says.
“Yeah. I had a brother.” She smiles, but it’s a bitter, brittle thing. “We didn’t always get along, but I loved him, and I know he loved me.” She pokes at the bedsheet. “I wish I could see him again, but some things just aren’t possible.” Tsukauchi nods, a sympathetic expression on his face.
“I’m sorry.” He says. Shikako nods in acknowledgement.
“So am I going to be staying with Mr. Yagi?” Shikako asks, looking up at Tsukauchi. “Or do you have more questions?”
Tsukauchi stands up, smiling at her sympathetically. “That’s all for now,” he assures. “You will be staying with Toshinori. I’ll let the two of you head home.” He pauses at the door. “Good luck with your studies.”
“Thanks,” Shikako calls as he leaves.
Mr. Yagi walks over toward her. “So,” he says, smiling. “Shall we?”
Mr. Yagi’s apartment is nice, but it’s immediately apparent that the man had not expected to be caring for a child anytime soon. The bed in his second room appears new, and there are bookshelves along one wall cluttered with papers and books that seem to be left over from when this room was once a study of some sort. The desk is nice, and the drawers have been cleaned out, but the closet is still full of boxes, most of which contain what appears to be All Might merchandise.
“Big fan?” Shikako asks with a grin, holding up the All Might plushie she’d dug out of the top box in the closet. She probably shouldn’t snoop so soon after being given the room, but if he’s going to leave his stuff there, she’s going to go through it. Besides, it’s hard to regret it when his reaction is to laugh good-naturedly.
“It’s one of the prototypes,” he tells her. “They send them to me before any new merch drops, and that’s one for a plushie from earlier this year. Everything in that closet is a merch prototype and I’m afraid I didn’t quite manage to get it cleaned out. This wasn’t very expected.”
Shikako grins, cuddling the plushy to her chest. “They just send you these?”
“Well, it is a plush version of me,” he confirms. “Trademarks and such.”
“Mm. Can I keep it?” Mr. Yagi looks surprised and a little flattered at the question.
“Of course,” he tells her, as though it were a given. “I see no reason why you shouldn’t.”
She shrugs. “Wasn’t sure if it was a personal collection thing,” she says.
“No,” He tells her. “You’re welcome to it, and anything else in there that catches your eye, though the clothes might be a bit big on you.”
Shikako eyes the clothes he’s wearing, which are notably baggy on him, and snorts. “I’d imagine so.”
The clothes she finds are noticeably too large, but that doesn’t matter overmuch. Shikako had plenty of resources stashed in hammerspace - food, clothes, and weaponry amongst other odds and ends - not that her new guardian knows as much. She steals an All Might themed hoodie anyway, so large that the hem falls below her knees and the neckline has to be tied off with the strings to be anywhere near reasonable. It’s one of the most comfortable things she owns, and it amuses her to parade in the merchandise of her new guardian.
Her new guardian, who is so well meaning and so very gullible. He’ll make for a fantastic smokescreen against any accusations of wrongdoing; after all, who would dare suggest the quirkless daughter of the number one hero is off breaking the law?
Not that she intends to break the law any more than she already has, but, well. If none of the other heroes had been able to handle the Scourge of Kamino, maybe she’ll need to get involved in future incidents too, and if none of the heroes are willing to resort to lethal force, then she probably won’t be doing so as a hero. She contemplates the Bat ANBU mask sitting in hammerspace - a relic from one of the worlds she’d passed through, after Jashin and before dividing herself to ensure some version of her made it home - and smiles.
Batman was her favorite Justice League member, and he’d been a vigilante. Besides, if you have the chance, you should always be Batman. Though that does once again brush up on the question of lethal force… Well, she’ll keep it as a last resort, for Scourge of Kamino level opponents.
The thing she’s most excited about in the apartment, however, is the computer sitting on the desk in her room. Apparently, it had been a spare of Mr. Yagi’s before and was somewhat outdated, and he’d left it there on purpose for her to use. This gave her access to the internet for the first time since her reincarnation, a fact that she was immediately taking advantage of to research recent history - the things that were unlikely to be covered thoroughly by an entrance exam prep course.
As it turns out, the reason everyone thought she was quirkless was due to a toe joint. It explained why X-raying her foot led to the conclusion, at least.
Some quick searching told her that entrance exams for high school would happen in February, so she’d have nearly 6 months to get up to speed. Arithmetic hadn’t changed much between her lifetimes, and Shinobi had a startling amount of math in their curriculum, so she felt relatively confident that a brief review would be enough there. Literature and History would need a total overhaul, because even the titles that seemed familiar could be different, so she’d have to check. She had a good basis for science, but it would need review, particularly when it came to biology; the lack of chakra and introduction of quirks would throw things off there.
Overall, she thought it was probably manageable. Now she just needed to figure out how to keep up her more physical skills without drawing too much suspicion to herself.
“So your name is Midoriya?” Shikako said, smiling at the green-haired kid who looked more anxious than she felt the situation warranted.
“Yes!” He confirmed, standing up straight. “And you’re Shikako, right?”
Shikako nodded. “Mr. Yagi said you’d be a good sparring partner if I wanted to continue practicing martial arts,” she said. “What style do you use and how long have you been practicing?”
“Um,” Midoriya sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, the sleeves of his T-shirt riding up to reveal a startlingly large bicep. This kid looked more like someone who did weight training than someone who focused on martial arts, and his hesitance wasn’t doing much to dissuade that notion. “I don’t, really? We have combat training as part of our classes at school, but I never really studied at a dojo or anything.”
Shikako let her shoulders relax. That was ideal, if she were being honest. She wasn’t exactly sure how to classify Konoha’s taijutsu style according to the different martial arts of this world, and her opponent being unfamiliar with the different styles will make it easier to dismiss her own as a combination of several without having to get into the details. “You’re capable, though?” she says, knowing that she won’t really be able to gauge his skill level until they begin sparring in earnest.
“I guess?” He says, his tone not really inspiring confidence. “Usually we’re sparring with quirks, and obviously we, um.” He gives her an awkward look. “So, I’m not sure exactly where our skills will fall, relative to one another, right now at least. We’ll need to start to figure it out.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Shikako confirms. “Some light warmups first?”
“Yep!” Midoriya agrees. Mr. Yagi is sitting on the side of the beach, reading a book about teaching (Shikako gets the idea that as good as he is at being a Hero, he doesn’t have much experience in the classroom) as Shikako and Midoriya pick up a light jog along the shoreline, holding a conversation the whole time. Midoriya tells her about cleaning up the beach for training, how it used to be completely covered in junk. Shikako tells him about sparring with her brother and training with her father, and how her brother had been such a lazy kid that she often had to simply begin the spar to get him up and moving. Midoriya talks about his classes and his teachers, and Shikako talks about the self-study books she’s picked up to practice for the entrance exam.
“I’m really worried about history and literature,” she confesses, “but not at all worried about mathematics. I’ve already done enough review to know that I was well ahead of the curriculum there. I thought about asking Mr. Yagi for help, but, well…”
Midoriya smiles awkwardly. “Not his specialty?”
Shikako sighs. “I don’t think teaching is his specialty yet, let alone teaching a subject he’s unfamiliar with. The kids at UA are lucky that he’s assigned mostly to cover practical heroics exercises. At least it’s in the range of his expertise.”
Midoriya laughs awkwardly. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says, and there’s something like paranoia in his eyes. Shikako squints at him. Mr. Yagi had said that Midoriya knew he was All Might, but the way he’s resolutely avoiding her gaze…
“You know I live with him, right? I’m familiar with his deflation act.” Midoriya looks over at her, shock painting his face. “He didn’t tell you?”
“He told you?” Midoriya asks.
“Yeah, he told me you knew. It was the first question I asked after he said he’d found me a possible sparring partner.” She shrugged. “Seemed like important information to know, if I was going to be spending an extended amount of time with someone. Had to be aware of what I could and couldn’t say.”
Midoriya relaxes. “Well, yes. Um. He really isn’t a bad teacher, he’s just.”
“A bad teacher?”
“Inexperienced!” Midoriya protests, and Shikako laughs.
“You’re a nice guy,” she tells Midoriya, slowing down as they come back around to their starting point and dropping into a stretch. “You better not pull your punches though. I need to get an accurate reading of your current skill level to know how far I can push you during these spars.”
“What makes you so sure you’ll win?” he asks, dropping into a stretch next to her. She raises an eyebrow at him.
“One of the first things you told me was that you weren’t used to quirkless sparring,” she said blandly. “I’m pretty confident that I’ll beat you for at least the first couple sessions.”
Midoriya grinned at her. “I look forward to it.”
Shikako was right. She defeated him soundly, repeatedly, until the sparring sessions became less about her keeping her skills up to par and more about her bringing him up to par so that she could have an opponent worth facing. Midoriya seemed very sorry about it, but it gave her plenty of exercise and that was really what was most important here. Without the standing appointment to meet up with Midoriya at Dagobah Beach, Shikako may well have melted into her desk chair. There was a lot of studying to do before entrance exams.
As August came to a close, Shikako was transferred into a new middle school, one called Aldera. Midoriya winced when she mentioned where she’d been assigned in the interim, and when pressed about it mentioned that it was where he had gone. “The staff there isn’t very good about dealing with bullying,” he told her. “I mean, you’re strong, so you might be okay? But…”
“They’re discriminatory?” He nodded.
“If you’re in any fights, they’ll claim you were the one that started them. It doesn’t matter what’s true.”
Shikako grimaced. “Noted. I’ll try and avoid that, then.”
Midoriya offered her a small smile. “At least it’s only for six months, huh? Where do you think you’ll attend high school?”
Shikako shrugged. “No clue. I haven’t really looked into the options. Depends on where I get in I guess.”
“Do you know what you want to do with your life?”
Shikako shrugged again. “I’ll figure it out. Maybe something like UA’s support course.” It would give her plenty of opportunity to get more equipment for any illegal activities that she may or may not choose to embark on in the future, and it was the closest thing to working with seals that this dimension seemed to have.
Midoriya seemed very enthusiastic about that idea. “I should introduce you to Hatsume!” he said, eagerly.
“Hatsume?” Shikako asked. It wasn’t a name she was familiar with.
“Ah, did you watch last year’s sports festival?” Midoriya asks. “She was the girl with pink hair from the support course who made it into the tournament.” That information would be more helpful if Shikako had watched last year’s sports festival, but for the moment she was completely unfamiliar with everything Midoriya was referencing at the moment.
“Ah. Are you two close?”
Midoriya waved his hands as he shook his head in denial - he was a very expressive kid. “No, not really,” he said. “But she’s good at what she does - she helped with my equipment when I was developing shoot style, and she’d be a good person to talk to if you wanted to get an idea what the support course was like. Although,” He paused and looked a little unsure for a second. “She does have something of a reputation for… explosive results.”
Shikako laughed, thinking of her own reputation from back in Konoha. “What a coincidence.”
Aldera wasn’t nearly as bad as Midoriya had made it out to be, but that might have something to do with Shikako’s own reputation. He had been right - the kids there weren’t overly friendly, and they seemed to see her as a viable target from day one when she had introduced herself to the class. Why the teachers had felt the need for her quirk to be a part of her introduction when they knew she didn’t have one to introduce was beyond her, but the results were predictable.
Fortunately, Shikako didn’t need these kids to like her. She was only stuck with them for six months anyway, and Midoriya seemed like he’d be a better friend than any of them. She had no particular reason to care for these kids, and she’d gotten over the worst of her social awkwardness back in the academy under Ino’s brash influence. She didn’t let herself take any of the whispered insults and ostracization to heart.
She was a little surprised when nobody wanted to partner up with her for any classes that required partner work, but the teachers seemed to almost expect that despite it being her first day. Several of them let her do her own work when group projects came up, which increased her workload but made things a lot easier at the same time. Shikako couldn’t say she minded.
Only one girl ever tried to escalate to physical altercation, cornering her near the side of the school where there weren’t any cameras after classes had let out for the day. Shikako was the one to walk away from the brief scuffle first, completely unharmed. None of the other kids tried it again, and Shikako wondered whether that was due to the girl or her friends spreading the story or because the others weren’t inclined to violence that way. Either way, it didn’t affect her.
The best part of school was the library - she spent most of her lunch breaks there, reading through as many books as she could off the list of literary classics she was likely to need to know for her entrance exams in February. It saved her the trouble of having to track them down herself and allowed her to avoid most of her peers at the same time. People didn’t generally start trouble directly in front of a teacher, and the library was always staffed with at least one faculty member.
She and Midoriya continued to meet up for sparring regularly, and she got to know him better with every session. The kid was a little awkward, but if you could get him started on a topic he cared about he could ramble for days - sometimes without even realizing he was rambling. Fortunately for Shikako, his mumbling was easy to pick up with just a little chakra directed to her ears, something that was practically second nature at this point. He always seemed surprised when she brought up something she’d heard him muttering about, but he never seemed upset by it, so she figured it was probably fine.
He never seemed to fully believe her when she told him that school was fine, and she liked Aldera middle well enough. She wondered what his own school experience had been like for him to be so aware of the culture of quirkless discrimination the school fostered despite having one of the strongest quirks she’d seen - though the drawback of breaking his own bones seemed like a probable contributor.
She’d looked up the UA sports festival after he’d brought it up. The kid had power. Tsunade would probably have been appalled at his lack of control, but Shikako honestly wasn’t sure which of the two of them had a larger single punch force. It’s a shame that she’ll never be able to find out.
She was starting to really settle into this new world, and somehow that led to her spending more and more time thinking of Konoha. Maybe it was because she knew that she would be the only one missing her family, that they had a version of her back and wouldn’t have to miss her, but she was finding it easier to remember her old home than she’d expected. She still missed it terribly, but it felt more like homesickness than grief. It was only on days when she started planning for her future and remembered that her family would never have any part in it that the true weight of losing her entire world again hit her.
Well, she’d just have to make sure this was the last time. No more dimension travel or reincarnation for this girl, thank you very much.
Midoriya kept his word and introduced her to Hatsume, and Shikako immediately liked the girl. She had an infectious enthusiasm, even if the lingo she used was somewhat unusual. Shikako would probably never start referring to her own inventions as babies, but helping Hatsume come up with ideas or tweak her own inventions turned out to be surprisingly fun. The hardest part was using the technology of this world instead of seals; Shikako didn’t have anywhere near as much experience as Hatsume did, but she was eager to learn and Hatsume was always willing to go into detail about her ideas.
Besides, she’s pretty sure Midoriya had been exaggerating. There weren’t that many explosions.
Shikako pinned Midoriya for the third time in as many minutes before taking a step back. “You’re distracted,” she said, and it was true. He wasn’t as focused as usual, and it was showing in their spars. “What’s up?”
Midoriya sighed, sitting up and glaring at his hands. “I don’t think I can talk about it.”
Shikako raised an eyebrow, heading over to sit down next to him. “Sounds like something you need to talk about,” she said. “It’s clearly eating you.”
Midoriya sighed, slumping a little. “Like I said, I can’t.”
“Because you don’t know how, or because you’re not allowed?” Shikako asked. Midoriya shifted so that his left knee was against his chest, his arms folded over the top of it and his face buried in the ensuing arm circle.
“Not allowed,” he mumbled into his forearms, and it was only the chakra enhancing Shikako’s ears that allowed her to hear him. She patted his shoulder consolingly.
“Well you should find someone you are allowed to talk to,” she said placidly. “You clearly need to talk about it. If you can’t find someone you’re allowed to tell, then find someone who can keep a secret. If it’s affecting your ability to fight, it’s gonna put you in danger at your work study.”
“That’s the problem!” Midoriya said, right hand grabbing at his hair. “I can’t…” he huffed, before looking at her consideringly. “You’ll keep everything I say here a secret, right?”
Shikako drew an X over her heart, before raising her right hand in a mockery of being sworn in at court. “I solemnly swear it.” This successfully drew a chuckle from Midoriya, so she counted it as a win.
“It’s my work study,” he told her. “I was on my first patrol - the first one, and already I’ve messed up - and this little girl came darting out of an alley and crashed right into me.” Shikako tilted her head to show she was listening, but Midoriya wasn’t even looking at her as he plowed on. “She was tiny, and she looked so scared, and she was just covered in bandages. I knew something was wrong, Shikako, I knew it, immediately, but I still…” He sighed. “This other guy came walking out of the alley, and he’s bad news, but he was claiming to be her father and I wanted to take her away but he started to pull off his gloves and she ran back to him and I just let them go.” He slumps over. “When I say bad news, I mean bad news. Major criminal. Horrible influence. And she’s trapped with him.”
“Trapped?”
“You didn’t see her,” he said. “She was terrified, and all those bandages…” He sighed. “There’s no way that guy was actually her Dad, but I didn’t have any proof, and now she’s back with him and I can’t even change that without throwing off a much larger operation because he’s not just some small-time thug. It’s my fault she’s still with him, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Shikako hummed sympathetically, rubbing her friend’s back. “I understand this doesn’t make it any easier,” she said, “but that doesn’t sound like it’s your fault.”
“How is it not?” He protested, voice rising despite how close together they’re sitting. She raised an eyebrow at her friend for his volume and he muttered a quick apology.
“You said it was your first patrol, right?”
“I still should have known better-”
“Were you alone?”
“What?”
Shikako raised an eyebrow at him. “Were you alone?”
“I… no, I was with Lemillion.”
“Was it his first patrol?”
“No,” Midoriya said, his brow furrowing. “But…”
“But nothing!” Shikako said. “It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t the only one responsible, you weren’t the one with the most experience, and you couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to feel guilty, because you have a guilt complex the size of Might tower, but you have to remember that this isn’t all on you.” She poked him in the shoulder. “Besides, just because you can’t run in and grab the little girl on your own right now doesn’t mean you’re giving up on her, right?” She grinned at him as he stiffened. “You don’t actually have to confirm or deny; I know you. You’ll make sure she gets out.”
Midoriya shot her a small smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she said, standing and holding out a hand. “Now, let’s try that sequence again, and you better focus this time!”
That evening Shikako sat in her room, working on seals for the first time in months. After all, she needed something specific for this one if she was going to get the information she needed.
She’d acted very confident in Midoriya when they were at Dagobah beach, but the truth is that he’s only one small cog in a very large system, and there are no guarantees. If the government chooses to prioritize busting the girl’s awful pseudo-father and whatever organization he’s a part of over saving the girl, she won’t be surprised at all, which means that if she wants to make sure the girl gets out she’s going to have to take some action herself.
Which means it’s finally time for Bat to make her debut.
Shikako waits for All Might to go to bed before making her move. She changes into ANBU blacks rapidly - they’re the least identifiable outfit she has available to her, and one she has a shocking number of considering how few universes she’d actually joined ANBU in before committing to the split – then she puts on Bat’s mask, gathering the sealing supplies from her desk and tucking them back into hammerspace before jumping out the window with her ANBU stealth fully active.
She orients herself quickly, running a direct path over the rooftops and along skyscraper walls as she heads for Sir Nighteye’s hero agency.
ANBU stealth is just as effective here as it had been in fire country; nobody notices her even as she darts across rooftops and along windows, and the city below her is still full of people even this late at night. Then again, Mr. Yagi does tend to retire pretty early, being on a teacher’s sleep schedule during the academic year as he was. Perhaps it’s not surprising that so many people were still awake.
Fortunately, Sir Nighteye didn’t seem to be one of them - or if he was, it wasn’t at the office. His agency’s windows were dark, no light to speak of, and Shikako paused outside the window of an office so choked in All Might memorabilia that it may as well be her own closet; she and Mr. Yagi never had quite gotten around to cleaning that out.
Unfortunately, now came the hard part; Shikako didn’t know exactly how her stealth would hold up against the security systems of the modern era, and she didn’t exactly have a way to test it without just testing it. That meant she couldn’t just break and enter, or they’d know that someone had access to the information in that office, which would be counterproductive if she wanted any of the information she found to remain useful.
Thus, her seal.
Shikako pulled out the paper seal she’d been working on at home; a variation on a stasis seal, combined with the sort of spiral pattern she’d used in her chakra control measuring seal and the kanji for electronics. Presuming it worked correctly, it would prevent any electronic devices in her vicinity from altering their behavior based on environmental inputs until she deactivated it - meaning if she did cross any sensors, they hopefully wouldn’t sense her, while also remaining active enough to not register as being deactivated.
She’d probably watched too many spy movies where the hacker looped the security feed, but sue her, if she could make the idea work then she would.
She set the seal against the side of the building - it was an area of effect one, set to roughly a 10-meter radius, with one significant downside; she wouldn’t be able to look at electronic files. Computers required external input to pull anything up after all, and this actively suppressed that. She’d have to make do with only the paper files within 10 meters of the window she was entering from.
The window didn’t open very far - it was on the third floor of the building, so that wasn’t a surprise. Shikako didn’t need it to open very far anyway - just far enough to get to where it was attached. She made quick work of the frame and slid the window carefully into the room the moment it was loose enough.
It’s a shame she couldn’t just use the substitution jutsu, but dropping one of the large objects from the office to the street below seemed like a great way to get herself caught.
A quick survey of the room revealed what she had already suspected; All Might Memorabilia everywhere. There were files here and there in cabinets that sat closed, with locks she made easy pickings of (pun very much intended), but they were all outdated; records of closed cases, rather than information about current ones. She didn’t find anything related to the little girl Midoriya mentioned, or the larger operation that they intended to undertake soon that prevented Midoriya from getting her out.
If Shikako had all the time in the world, she would simply lurk in ANBU stealth outside the building until she overheard something useful. Unfortunately, she has obligations - Mr. Yagi will worry if he notices she’s gone, her school will notice if she doesn’t show up, Midoriya will notice if she misses a training session. She can’t just avoid her responsibilities.
Fortunately, Shikako is nothing if not resourceful.
She hadn’t quite managed to figure out a seal that would record audio, but she’d already had all the access she could need to tracking seals, and she’d practiced with her shadow before coming here. The hardest part had been condensing them to be nigh unnoticeable, until they looked more like an ink stain than an intentional pattern. Looking around, she finds all the objects within a 10 meter radius of the window that are likely to be taken in the event of a raid; a few of the dense stamps that Sir Nighteye is known for, a pair of glasses that might be a spare, an ominous looking rig with feathers that she couldn’t parse the purpose of, and every fancy lens or tripod in a camera case. Having placed a tracking seal on each of them, she hauls herself back out the window, reattaching it to the frame and sliding it shut after herself before removing her stasis stamp from the brick beside it.
That done, Bat runs back home, completely unnoticed.
The hardest part of this, Shikako muses, is coming up with adequate excuses.
“A study group?” Mr. Yagi asks, looking ecstatic at the news. “You were invited to a study group?”
“You make it sound like such a big deal,” she says, shrugging and scuffing the ground with her foot. “A group of kids meets up in the library after school, and I just don’t want to have you panic if I don’t get home at the regular time.”
Mr. Yagi smiles like a proud father, and Shikako doesn’t know how to handle that - he’s not her Dad, but he means well, so she can’t get mad at him for it no matter how tight her chest feels. “Would you like a ride home afterward?”
Shikako shakes her head. “No, I’ll walk. It’s not too far.” She shoots Mr. Yagi a grin on her way out the door. “Tell Midoriya hi from me, yeah? I’ll be seeing him tomorrow.”
She has most decidedly not been invited to a study group; sure, a group of girls from her class meets up in the library to study just as she’d said, but none of them like her. Even if she did show up, she’d just be kicked out immediately. She has other plans for the afternoon, and the moment school gets out she’s off.
It’s a matter of moments to change into her ANBU blacks and slide Bat’s mask on, full ANBU stealth active as she dashes out the window. The tracker seals that she’d placed don’t all move - the weird feather rig doesn’t appear to have moved at all, though that one was a long shot from the start given how large it was - but the ones that do move are going to nearly the same location every time, which means she has a place to start.
The trackers she’d placed are all in Sir Nighteye’s office at the moment, and she suspects the man is there too, but she makes a loop around the area anyway, looking for anything unusual. There are a couple shady figures in alleys swapping money for illicit drugs, one nervous man loitering around a grocery store that Shikako can see is armed, various groups of men wearing decorated beak-shaped masks, like a set of bird themed carnival performers in otherwise ordinary clothes. None of them are wearing gloves, though, and that’s the one detail Shikako remembered from Midoriya’s explanation as out of place; the girl returned to the man claiming to be her father when he started to pull off his gloves. The only people she’d seen wearing gloves were a small grandma and a couple of teenagers - nobody who would be able to pose as a young girl’s father believably.
Shikako was considering heading home when she finally saw someone who could fit the bill - young, but not a teenager. Male. Wearing gloves. He was wearing one of those brightly colored beak-shaped masks, meeting up with a group of other men all wearing them as well, exiting a building across from one of the tracker’s most common locations.
Of course. Because Sir Nighteye was probably conducting surveillance on this guy, which meant that building…
Shikako decided against attempting to break in right now - not only was it daylight, but it might not be the correct building at all. Instead she followed the men with the beak masks, keeping her stealth active and channeling chakra to her ears to eavesdrop as best she could in the loud urban environment.
By the time she decided she had to head home, lest Mr. Yagi start to worry, she thought she had a pretty good grip on what was going on. Yakuza, huh? That would explain the big bust that Sir Nighteye wanted to pull off.
Now she just needed to find the little girl.
After Mr. Yagi went to sleep that night, Shikako once again got dressed up as Bat and left, heading straight for the building the Yakuza boss had exited earlier. She didn’t know exactly what she’d find there, but she was fairly confident she could handle it.
Though she’d made note to not let Chisaki Kai remove his gloves, even if she didn’t yet know exactly what he could do with them off.
The building was easy to get into - she didn’t even bother with a stasis seal tonight, because even if they knew somebody had gotten in they’d still have to find her before they could take any action against her. It didn’t seem to matter anyway; nobody approached her after she entered, and she wondered whether there were any alarms to trip in the first place. This place did have more traffic than Sir Nighteye’s office, and she had entered through the front door today instead of going in through a 3rd story window, so it’s possible none existed.
She walked past swathes of men, some who even had the decorated bird masks, and mused on how disappointing it was that they were organized crime and not a circus as she peeked into every open doorway she saw in the hopes of finding the little girl. No such luck. As far as she could tell, the building had no children in it whatsoever, and no signs of illicit activity. Where were they hiding her?
Then one of the masked men – the beak masks are apparently status symbols, several of which look more like plague doctor masks than just birds – appears from a wall that she hadn’t known was a door. Bingo .
She manages to dash through before the wall closes again, finding an entire complex under the otherwise innocuous building. It’s no wonder the heroes hadn’t been able to bust this organization yet – nothing in the house was outwardly suspicious, and the only entrance she’d found to the more suspicious subterranean complex was positioned outside of the view from any windows.
Unlike the traditional Japanese décor of the aboveground home, the complex below is mostly bare concrete tunnels, hardly any defining features along it. Doors here hold more of her interest than those above did; laboratories, record rooms, weapons stashes, what appears to be a room entirely filled with illicit drugs of some sort. Shikako pockets a little of anything that catches her eye, stashing it in hammerspace to investigate later. A few crates of the various pills there were, certainly, though she isn’t sure yet what they do.
Eventually she comes across what must be the little girl’s room; it’s deep in the complex, and the first truly colorful spot she’s seen since entering. The entire room is a lurid pastel pink, unnatural in the otherwise bland structure and unsettling under the cool-toned fluorescent lighting. It feels like a mockery of a child’s bedroom, less comforting because of how it sticks out in the impersonal structure of the compound.
It is also entirely empty. The girl isn’t here. Shikako’s search continues.
Another four guns find their way into Hammerspace before Shikako comes across a populated room, two of which have unusual bullets that seem to be part syringe. She assumes most of the men who usually fill this compound are asleep, given the late hour, but three are not, and beside them is a young girl. She looks tiny; if this were Konoha, she’d barely be old enough to start at the academy. Her eyes are huge, frightened, and a vivid ruby red. She’s trembling minutely, but clearly attempting to hold herself still, her jaw clenched from the effort. There’s a needle in her arm, drawing her blood, and none of the men in the room are watching her even a little. Shikako hopes the girl is naturally pale, because the pallor of her skin does not bode well for her health otherwise.
Chisaki Kai stands closest to the little girl, occasionally glancing down at the bag that her blood is being drawn into, clearly more concerned with how much he’s gotten than her health, and Shikako wants to know why, wants to know what could possibly justify this girl’s fear, but she can’t just watch this happen.
She flash steps into the room, and one knockout tag later Chisaki Kai is down. The two other men in the room immediately react, one pulling off his hood to reveal hair like the hands of a clock, the other diving into the door as though it were a pool, disappearing into it entirely. Shikako makes to go after him – she can’t afford to let him escape, or they’ll raise an alarm before she gets the girl out – but she’s quickly distracted by the man with the gold plague doctor mask as his hair lashes out at her and she’s forced to dodge away from the door.
“How did you get down here?” he asks, and she doesn’t bother answering, instead putting her hands in a rat seal as she dashes forward, shadow extending. He remains still instead of attempting to dodge her shadow; the only part of him moving is his hair, and Shikako dodges the longer chunk of hair as she darts close.
Her shadow snags his just as she feels something collide with her shoulder; the longer length of hair having snuck around behind her guard as she got close and managed to hit her. Fortunately, she’d managed to get the man’s shadow in the same moment, and he was now frozen as she stepped forward away from the hair – or rather, tried to. It felt like she was attempting to dig her way out of a headhunter jutsu without the use of chakra; her movement was impeded, and it was impossible to move the way she knew she should be able to. It was as though she had been forced into slow motion.
It takes her over ten seconds to fully separate her shoulder from the man’s hair by a centimeter, keeping her hands in the rat seal the entire time. She can’t drop it, or she’s done for – whatever he’d done, it puts her at an intense disadvantage. There’s no way she’ll manage to catch up to the one that got away before he calls for help now.
Priorities: she needs to take down the threat in front of her, get the needle out of the little girl’s arm, and get them both out of here – ideally unharmed. She starts shifting her shadow into the familiar shape of her touch blasts, annoyed at how long it’s taking; ordinarily it’s the matter of a moment’s thought, not an extended process, but between the quirk she’s suffering under and her focus being split between the seal and shadow paralysis it’s taking her ages.
Then suddenly it isn’t. Shikako registers her return to normal time an instant after the seal takes shape, and quickly jumps backward, putting herself between it and the little girl. It was a small one, underpowered enough that it probably wouldn’t hurt either of them, but she isn’t about to gamble a child’s safety on probably .
After the explosion, she eyes her stumbling opponent cautiously – did he release his quirk’s effects, or is it time based? Clearly he put her under its effect with his hair, so if she can just avoid that she should be fine. With that in mind she throws a kunai toward the longer length of hair, the one that had gotten her earlier, and watches as he awkwardly dodges toward her – right into the knockout seal she had prepared.
Two down, one off to get help. Shikako turns away from the unconscious yakuza on the ground and sets about pulling the needle out of the little girl’s arm, a roll of bandages falling into her palm from hammerspace as she does so. The girl looks confused, but not nearly as scared as Shikako would have expected her to be – probably because Shikako’s introduction had been knocking her main tormentor unconscious.
“Are you a hero?” the little girl asks, and Shikako nods at her. She doesn’t want to speak if she can avoid it – ANBU voice disguises are gravelly and frightening, and she doesn’t dare use her actual voice without knowing how much surveillance the Yakuza has set up in their compound. The girl seems satisfied with the non-verbal answer though, grinning and not protesting as Shikako picks her up after bandaging her arm.
Shikako dashes back out into the hallway, attempting to get out of the compound before help arrives for Chisaki and his deputy, but no such luck. There’s a group of men – the upper echelons, judging by the number of masks she can see – charging down the hall toward her.
Hm. Nine on one, while she must protect a hostage, ideally while avoiding lethal force. She’s had worse odds.
“How did you get in here?” one of them yells at her, and Shikako doesn’t mean to answer him – she means to dash forward, flash step behind the group in an instant and knock as many unconscious as she can before they retaliate – but she finds herself unable to suppress the answer.
“Through the front door.” Well shit – that’s even more dangerous than Tsukauchi’s quirk, and Shikako suddenly knows who her priority target is. She tacks on a taunt to stall for time as she sets down the little girl, freeing up her arms. “Your security is abysmal.”
“Who-“ he starts, but his sentence is cut off before the question can fully finish. Shikako feels like she should wince in sympathy – she hadn’t led with a knockout tag on that one, instead flash stepping in and slamming the hilt of a kunai against his throat, causing him to choke a little. As he coughed, attempting to regain use of his voice, she lashed out with her shadow, placing a couple flash-bang touch blasts on the ground under the men’s feet and flash-stepping back toward the little girl.
A small noise suppression seal in hand and the girl’s face tucked into her shoulder, Shikako closes her eyes and counts to two, hearing a muffled bang and some shouting before she opens her eyes again. The nine men were stumbling a little in the center of the hall, disoriented. One has sprouted crystals all along his face and arms, and Shikako wonders whether they’ll be weak to lightning the way Earth Jutsu is. More worryingly, there is now a glowing gold barrier surrounding the group.
Shikako throws a kunai with a small touch blast on it – not enough to kill unless someone gets very unlucky, but enough to give it some additional force. It goes off just as it reaches the glowing barrier, and yet the surface appears completely unaffected. Inside the barrier, her opponents are sorting themselves out.
Hm. That may pose a problem.
“Let me at her!” one of the taller members calls, one wearing a black plague doctor mask with wild hair flowing out behind it. “I’ll stop her cheap tricks!”
A blonde man in traditional dress, with a simple brown beak mask, sighs heavily at his companion’s enthusiasm. “Patience, Rappa.”
Shikako holds out one of her hands, bending her fingers back twice in a come at me gesture. Rappa presses up against the gold barrier, impatient.
“See, she wants to fight! Let me at her!”
“We will need to let him engage her at one point or another,” another of the men pipes up from the middle of the pack.
Another sigh from the one with the beak, and then the barrier falls. Rappa immediately runs at her, clearly intending to engage her in a taijutsu battle. He likely has a physical enhancement quirk of some kind, and she does not intend to play along in the slightest. The moment the barrier is down for even a second, Shikako has flash stepped back into the group of men, focusing on the two she’s identified as the greatest threats, certain that Rappa will follow after her given his desire for a fight.
Two knockout tags later, and both barrier man and the honesty-inducing question asker are down. One of the largest men, wearing a plague doctor mask that looks like it wouldn’t be out of place in the WWE, manages to get a hand on Shikako’s shoulder and she feels exhaustion set in, as though she’d expended twice as much chakra than she really had.
She kicks out hard and sends him flying into the two guys behind him, and she can feel the energy drain stop as the whole group crashes into the wall. She feels rather satisfied to notice that one of them is the little guy who had escaped her earlier; hopefully that means that this is all the backup she’ll have to worry about.
Then she feels herself go off balance, the world tilting around her unexpectedly. She can’t identify the cause, so it must be one of the men around her – she’ll just have to start taking them all down until she finds the source. She doesn’t dare flash step while off balance like this, but she wants to focus on the men who are hanging back. Unfortunately, with her balance off like this her aim will be off too, and she can’t afford to risk hitting the little girl, so she can only throw kunai in one direction.
Well, there’s one surefire way to make sure they pack a punch. She tosses three, each with a small touch blast attached, and makes sure they’re light enough to land on the ground close to people even without her aim being perfect. The group stumbles, and Shikako reaches out with both hands, managing to land two more knockout tags at random even while dizzy and squinting against the light and hoping they get who they need to.
They don’t; When she opens her eyes, head still spinning, she can see the big energy drainer and the little snitch unconscious in front of her. How did she move sideways? She turns, swallowing down the dizziness at the action, and manages to slap a shirtless man with another knockout tag.
Her nausea disappears, and she feels steady on her feet again. Well, that’s one problem taken care of.
The man covered in crystals charges her, and she smacks a knockout tag on his shoulder as well, intending to take care of this as quickly as possible. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to affect him, and he swings a punch at her - are the crystals not technically a part of him? Perhaps they interfere with the chakra of the seal somehow?
It looks like she’ll get to test her theory about chakra elemental weaknesses being effective in this dimension. She pulls out the sword of the thunder god, lighting it - and it disappears from her hand. What.
“How do you turn this thing on?” a blonde man with a black beak mask asks, twisting the handle of the sword of the thunder god in his hands, and Shikako takes a fist to the gut as the man covered in crystals takes advantage of her distraction. Stupid . She drops into shadow state, using the intangibility to avoid the teeth of an eager man whose entire head appears to be covered in a type of burlap, recovering from the gut punch as she does before resuming tangibility next to the thief.
She uses a knockout tag on him, catching the sword of the thunder god as he drops unconscious to the floor. Three left, and now she has her pseudo-lightsaber back. Rappa has rejoined the fray, close enough to try and engage her in combat, and Shikako doesn’t intend to allow him to. She flash steps behind the burlap-covered biter, shoving him into the path of Rappa’s fists, and the man doesn’t manage to stop his rapidfire punches before sending his ally to the floor with them, and wow he punches fast. Shikako is abruptly very glad that she hadn’t attempted a taijutsu battle, but well, she’s a Shinobi. She’s under no obligation to fight him on his own terms. If she can avoid fighting him entirely, that’d probably be best, but she has one more opponent to take out first, and she really does want to test her theory about elemental chakra weaknesses viability in regards to quirks. After all, if the quirk-related crystals can interfere with a knockout tag in a similar fashion to shinobi chakra systems, maybe they’ll react similarly to chakra in other ways too.
Sure enough, the sword of the thunder god shears a line of crystals off the man’s shoulder like a hot knife through butter, and Shikako has to jerk her wrist rapidly away to avoid beheading the man. Lethal force is all well and good where it’s necessary, but she doesn’t want to draw undue attention from the law or traumatize the young girl who is still watching all of this from where Shikako had set her down the hall.
Jumping backward, Shikako just manages to avoid Rappa, who has once again swung at her despite the proximity of his own allies. Just how battle-hungry is this guy? Shikako decides to try killing two birds with one stone, and throws her shadow out toward the men, catching their shadows easily enough. Neither had attempted to dodge, and she’s unsure whether they’d even noticed that her shadow was a threat. Quirks really made people assume that their opponents would only have one dangerous technique, and that was always going to put them at a disadvantage against a chakra user.
With shadow possession active it’s easy enough for Shikako to approach them, pulling two knockout tags out of hammerspace as she does so. Rappa goes down as soon as the tag touches his skin, while the crystal-covered man only falls unconscious when she manages to get the tag on some of his uncovered skin. That at least verifies her theory about the Crystals being the source of the interference.
With all her opponents now unconscious - and doomed to stay that way until somebody removes the knockout tags from their heads - Bat heads back to retrieve her prototype barrier seal and the little girl she’s rescuing so she can leave the Yakuza base behind. After all, she has to stop off at the nearest police station before she can head home and get some sleep; Mr. Yagi would notice if there was suddenly an extra child in his house.
Midoriya doesn’t show up to their regularly scheduled sparring the next day. He has Mr. Yagi pass his regrets on to Shikako; apparently something came up at his Work Study.
When the news that evening runs stories of a major Yakuza bust involving the trade of Trigger, one of the most dangerous drugs that had been plaguing city streets as of late, Shikako isn’t in the least surprised.