WITH OVERHAUL DEAD AND DISMEMBERED, and Keito in charge, things start to slow a little. Eri gets placed in school－after the sun sets on some warped back version of the Hassaikai. It's gone now, because Overhaul is gone and Keito is－he's gone too.

He's not literally gone, of course, he's in charge, first thing he does is decided to keep the name－despite the absolute shitstorm Overhaul put the name through, it's still one of the oldest yakuza around, and it's name holds weight in almost every circle around. Even if it's almost bankrupt (which happens when the one in charge of funds is a fucking madman who thinks torturing little girls is the way to do business－whatever); Keito decides second they're selling off all their supplies.

The paperwork piling around jus new desk is probably enough to build a small house. He has to get rid of everything― sell the old drugs.

All of them. Starting new. With funds. While his language skills are absolute shit, he's been poor long enough to know money. How to handle it. So, time marches and he figures out which money deposits go where and who to bribe and all the ins-and-outs with enough left over to play around.

(He may be doing a good chunk of the work himself―shut up Yunomi―but it's the cheapest and easier way.)

He can also pay off the precinct police (which Overhaul did right, thank you gods he doesn't believe in) and gets to fucking work creating the illusion that Overhaul hasn't been usurped. Also that the previous Overhaul magical became competent. Which is harder somehow－ the amount of times Hishimoto has found him half asleep and cursing at paperwork is more than she can fit on her fingers and toes. Probably. 

Keito does learn how to read. Very well. His accent sticks, horribly, to everything he says; festering like an infection, but his grammar stopped sounding like he put it through a woodchipper; if nothing else there's that. 

Then－about a year into his very stressful leadership, Eri almost-smiles at him with a picture she drew in class that says ERI-CHAN AND NĪCHAN and Keito chirps and Eri laughs and－the entire compound throws a party. It's a good day.

Time moves like corn syrup in winter.

He works up the guts to sneak into his old apartment (assuming he remembered where it was correctly). It's four-AM and he wears his comfortable clothes. A ratty hoodie and some jeans that are ripped from wear. He dresses in them going out, it makes him feel like he's actually nineteen and not some  yakuza boss (even though he technically is). The district he used to live in is getting gentrified (which is always depressing.. kē, maybe he should take it over just to keep shit nostalgic) － anyway.  anyway.

The way his stomach twists is familiar enough that he can ignore it completely.

There's nothing in there except cobwebs and unpleasant memories. The floor is still creaking and the one leaking pipe completely busted open and Keito knows that he wouldn't be here, but it still kind of hurts. A heartache sewn into his ribcage, he ignores the way his throat closes and his eyes try to make enough tears. It won't work. It's a good thing, really.

Crying is weakness, after all.

He goes into his old room, where he and his little brother used to slum it up－its barren, but there are still little height ticks he scratched into the wall. A blanket collecting dust in the corner. A ruined futon festering a new strain of bacteria. The smell of something sour and rotting like fruit in the summer,

The closet is open and he leans down to feel for the loose floorboard, tears it open to find－the shitty little notebook he left in a backpack. Keito let's out a mourning sound and picks the ragged thing up. It's tiny. Fit for Eri more than him, even when he was using it it scrapped against his sides. Keito opens the water-soaked backpack－there's mold growing at the bottom, crawling up the sides but -

He leaves, ratty clothes and rattier backpack.

It's dark outside.

He pretends he can only feel the shaking in his hands.

_

IF THERE'S ONE FACT SHE COULD NOT REFUTE it would be this: Ochako's best friend is an asshole－

Shut up, "Shut up."

"Nē－what?" He yawns, wearing her favorite hoodie. "If you wanna say something, say it."

But this piece of shit knows exactly what's happening. "Tocchan, I can't believe we're graduating in two years."

"It's just middle school." He shrugs. "Okuta-oji says that he didn't even graduate and he's living okay."

"Yeah," Ochako says. "you're still gonna try for Yuuei, right?"

Toshi smiles, rolling his eyes. "Obviously."

She rolls them back, "Durr."

_

THERE ISN'T A LOT OF STUFF that Hitoshi managed to wrangle into his backpack, but there was a note stuffed into Keito-nii's pillow that Hitoshi told himself could open when he got into Yuuei. When, not if.

Toshi-otōto (Keito-nii learned how to write it for Toshi-otōto)  I am sorry for what I did. Toshi-otōto will not know, but this is for me. I am twelve. Toshi-otōto is small I do not know how old he is but he is not in middle school yet. He is a baby. My baby brother. My Toshi-otōto. Tomura-kun says that I am not commited to being his player number 2 but I am Toshi-otōto's number 1 player.

When Toshi-otōto is a big hero, I will catch him and him will go to sleep and niichan will always be will Toshi-otōto's biggest fan. Number 1 player! 

Still. Things are not good now. Boss man says I will not get money until end of month, and Toshi-otōto says he is hungry. 

I am a bad  niichan for this.

I am sorry Toshi-otōto.

I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry for being a bad niichan. I am sorry I am sorry I am sorry I am－

The paper runs out on that side and he turns it.

On the bottom of the page is a sloppy drawing of Keito-nii holding Hitoshi's hand. In the quiet of the bathroom of his and Ochako's shared room closer to the school, he breaks into a thousand little pieces. Tears scathing his cheeks and teeth biting into his bottom lip so he doesn't wake Ochako up. 

It feels cathartic, almost.

_

HE CAN HEAR HER RUNNING TO THE door before she gets the chance to knock.

"Nīchan! Nīchan!"

Keito looks up from his mountain of paperwork, "Eri-chan!"

"I got－ I gotta - a hundred! Look, look!" She's shaking, holding "Look nīchan, look!"

Keito thinks he's happy that this child won't struggle learning how to read; that nobody here will struggle to read like he did. "Good job, Eri-chan. Nīchan is proud, Eri-chan is very good."

"Proud! You're really - you're proud of Eri-chan?" She says, her hands stutter. He tilts his head. He reminds himself that Overhaul is dead, and that his body is unrecognizable by now. "You're proud of－"

"Of course I am." Keito say, slowly, because it's important. Keito smiles, he tries to keep it predatory, "I will always be proud of Eri."

She smiles, bright like a sun, and her face shifts to something more sun kissed. Her hair is more rumpled and spiked up, it's a different color entirely. It makes his chest hurt, so he chases it away. The boy with a little brother died in the cold a long, long time ago.

"I will always be proud of you, Eri-chan."

"Okay," she says. "okay."

"Do you want to do your homework here, Eri-chan?" He asks. He knows the answer is yes before she says it; she nods. He thinks he might give her the world in fresh blood if she asked him with kind enough eyes.

There is a danger in this kind of knowing, of course. It will drive him insane. Maybe, Keito thinks sourly, bitterly, carelessly, he'll welcome that insanity when it crawls on his doorstep. 

_

SHIGARAKI TOMURA IS ANGER MADE PHYSICAL. MADE FLESH.

Bones wrapped in loathing and skin coated in rage; fingers twitching with wrath. Anger makes his very core, molten and burning. Smoke pools from his mouth in cruel, cutting words that drown anything out, horrifically, and then—

"Shigaraki Tomura," Giran says, one day— night. He's lax on the barstool, neon signs glowing on his skin, hair a flax silver. He looks cocky, like he already knows all of Tomura's worth, even though Sensei says that Tomura is invaluable. "I hear you've got competition."

Tomura scoffs, because Sensei is on his side, and Sensei has all the power in the world. Tomura feels like a little kid, when he's like this, angry, explosive, like he could go boom— loud, shock-value earth for a character backstory, except. Except. Tomura has the hero's tragic backstory. His family is gone (ash, crumbling under his fingers, his father with a garden clipper swinging— CRACK—) and his first best friend is gone gone gone and even with Sensei (the great, all powerful, all seeing all knowing all benevolent sensei) they could not find a sharp tooth grin or purple stained eyebag to match the blue blue blue of Keito-kun's eyes. 

"Hell d'ya mean," Tomura hisses, "competition?"

"That old yakuza's come back from the dead. Under that one guy— wha's his name?" Giran is lying lying lying until Kurogiri pours him a drink and he takes it, humming, a mockery of thoughtful that makes Tomura hate hate hate, "Overhaul?"

"Overhaul—" Tomura hisses. He seems to always be hissing these days, scathing words spill like acid from behind his teeth. "Who the hell—"

Giran makes a whimsical face, like what Tomura is asking is funny; it isn't Tomura is being serious, "That, kid, is gonna cost you a prettier penny than this bourbon was worth." 

Giran's breath reeks horribly of ash and liquor, but Tomura doesn't care, now or ever or ever or ever, because Sensei said not to care and sensei is always right and Tomura is on sensei's side. Sensei is the best and the number one, so—

"Ok." Tomura does a terrible attempt at calming himself, because he was never the calm on he was the calm one before— but that doesn't matter now. "What's it worth?"

Giran laughs, eyes going sharp, he says, "The necklace."

Tomura stops breathing. Clutching a four fingered grip around the tousled string, the white feather at the end twitches when he touches it, always trembling at any kind of force. "In your fucking dreams, you old rag."

Giran wheezes out something horrible, crackly like Rice Crispies and day old Seltzer. "Spitfire."

"I'll kill you," Tomura hisses, "I'll make it fucking hurt, too."

"Guess you don't know anything about Overhaul for now, spitfire."

And he laughs his drunken ass out of the bar. Tomura feels his skin bursting with red, rage or blood; he can hardly tell the difference.

_

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT FILING PAPERWORK THAT GRATES on Keito's nerves like a fly buzzing in his ears. It's so impossibly boring and agitating ― also he has to have a dictionary by his side because kanji is a fucking nightmare.

Keito is at that age when rage stiffles though his brain at the mere concept of alphabets. He speaks Russian (now that he knows it's name he can pinpoint where the house is, he can pinpoint where to never step foot nor feather into that place again; he can also,quieter, pinpoint where to mourn for the girl and boy he could only half-speak to―tongue cut up in two directions and four alphabets, five if you count English. He hates counting English) and if someone put letters to sounds he could maybe read it― whatever. Keito doesn't want to think about that too much.

(Sometimes, when he thinks about these things too much, he ends up with his hands smoking and some macabre substitute of an arts'n'crafts project sticking to the walls. Gasping for air that won't come.)

"Eri, Eri, Eri―"

"Hmm? Nīchan?" She's sitting in her self proclaimed spot in his office, Keito thinks that she's so adorable when she sits all pretend-adult like that, hands folded so, so carefully on her lap, "Haaaa― nīchan!"

"It is not the most important, but would you like to read with your nīchan?"

"Really?" She asks, awe spilling from her mouth to the floor.

"Yes, hai― come here. You're almost six soon, sit, sit. I will teach you to read, without the dictionary."

"You will―really, really?" Her words tumble out.

"Yes, yes, come to nīsan," he says, and it's catches on a memory, "come."

She's all of five years and seven months on his knee and he cracks open his paperwork. It takes him three times as long to read it and explain it to her―how the strokes work, how they're loan words from Chinese and far more formal than ― he scribbles the letters in correspondence to the word ひらがな と カタカナ ― "I used to write like this, the phonetics for each word I couldn't understand."

"That's―so many words. How do you re―remember all of them?"

Keito laughs, "It's a lot of ― going again and again, how do you say that word?"

"Repeating?" Eri eyes him.

"Repetition," Keito confirms, "writing and reading it again and again and again."

"There's so, so, so many, right? Like a hundred!"

"Something like that," he ruffles her hair, "do you wanna try reading to nīsan, or do you want nīsan to read to you?"

"I wanna try!"

There's something so soft in him that yerns for this, something battle ridden and lonely that wants her perspective to be his reality. A big brother that saved her away from a monster in the dark―still. Keito tries not to think about the blood pooling into his hands, how he'll never be clean.

Hes been dirty since he was a kid. There's no point in thinking about it now, morals are for people who don't worry about food.

"In―in according to quirk law―four one has to regulation the―the outcome of emmiter quirks and transformation quirks. If one has a permanent mutation type quirk, it is under govermet pertection that the police and and govermet offishall is allowed to investigate and bring the suspict in for questions."

He hums, "You read it a little wrong, but do you understand what it's saying?"

"Uun," she shakes her head. "I don't get it."

"If someone has a mutant quirk, the police and government are allowed to arrest them, unlawfully. It's protected by the Hero Public Safety Commission."

"That's," she seems lost for a second, she pats her horn, swollen with unused energy that will be used in one hour, "that's so mean."

"If you ever see the police, or if you're ever in trouble," Keito puts his head on Toshiba, he pulls a feather from a spot on his back and dangles it in front of his face, "snap this in half. I'll come find you, okay?"

"Okay." He whispers.

Keito puts him down, and Toshi stares at him, "Pinkie promise?"

"Yeah, I pinkie promise." He says, wrapping a warm finger around Keito's and then―

He blinks. And Toshi is replaced by Eri. And the world feels so much heavier than before.

_

YOU OFTEN DREAM IN RED― it's all blurry and weighty. This is a judging you are sure to fail, you feel your skin blister and bleed. Teeth picking gold against your face―it pieces apart like a vase you might've or might've not cracked once―have you ever even owned a vase?

It seems like something you might've.. seen before.

(A jury you have not had the time to claim trail to.)

we had a deal;

BOOM―!

Theres a gun shaped lighter in your hand that you remember from.. somewhere. It's this distant kind of blue you can't unravel—distant, fleeting. It cuts at the inside of your head, and blue fire spills out. Blueberry syrup catches flame from the numbers branded into your side; how did you get those again?

00598-H in browned red cut forever into the place where your waist dips. There is a girl, like there always is, and her eyes are red red red red like your hair used to be and her hair is blue white like the stale taste of hunger and the smell of lavender and cheap soap-scented candles. She is standing there like she always is in the forefront of a house fire, there's smoke in your eyes in your mouth in you; your very being is all smoke and solid fear—all charcoal and burnt up memories. A photo on a phone you don't have anymore. 

The script goes off focus, camera tinted blue like the summer, blue like rot, blue like the ocean you never saw. 

"Hello," you don't say, "who are you?"

She smiles something awful, this twisted condemnation of a portrait you used to love. 

"Remember, it's only one." She says, she sounds like a record going on loop; you remember this but you don't, "There's a boy, with blonde hair, his quirk goes like—"

Suddenly the lighter that you had is in her hand and you feel your heart rate spin around in your chest, it must eat confused because its in your throat, then your mouth, pulsing in your brain—

BOOM—! Goes the lighter, two bullets come out and one bullets crush the inside of your ribcage.

You feel your skull crack open and —

You are in a  car. There is a boy on one side of you and a girl on the other and / there are stairs to a basement / and there is a hand where you do not want it / and there is fire in places where you are most flammable / and suddenly the stumps where you might've grown wings are burnt and / and they tried to cut your nails but you already lost it all—

And—

(What is freedom? An open cage or just a prettier one?)

"Nīsan wake up!" Keito's eyes flutter so violently that he loses a heartbeat in the spaces between one breathe and another. "W-wake up nīsan—nīsan!"

Keito breathes so deeply he can feel his whole chest become full. 

"I'm here Eri-chan," he says. It comes out rough and tired, "I'll always be here for you. You don't have to worry, okay?"

She sniffles, "Okay, nīsan. Okay."