Shine and Wally took Ibara home, to the relief of her parents. It was interesting for Shine to finally see another house with Christian decor around it, though it was not quite like at home.

Still, Ibara's parents were glad to hear there was one other person of roughly the same faith as them at UA.

They were too busy crying and hugging her at first to talk about it, but gradually they did ask what happened...

And by then, Ibara realized she had been kidnapped. Seeing them again brought back her memory of a lot of things, including that she'd been living away from home for most of the year... She still got a headache when she tried to think about heroes.

Wally told the Shiogazis about her memory loss but reassured them she would eventually recover, and they should probably just take it slow for a while. They were upset, but they seemed like they'd handle it.

Ibara, of course, was just going to stay home, though the police would have to be called.

Shine warned her not to go into too much detail about what happened yet. "Just tell them you don't remember," she said, "We'll sort out how much to reveal once your memory is back."

Ibara nodded tearily.

The whole thing made Shine and Wally sad. But at least she'd be okay, for now.

They had a couple days of quiet after that where they were all resting.

Shine and Wally started talking about wedding ideas.

"We'll never pick a theme..." Shine sighed.

"Do we need one?" Wally said, like a man.

"Well, we wouldn't need one if we had small group, but if we want to invite as many friends as we've been saying, a theme would make it easier to order food and decor," Shine said.

"We could just not do decor..." Wally said.

"Do you know how much crap I will get from all my older female friends if I don't?" Shine said, "They'd offer to do it themselves--" She stopped. "Hmm, maybe that's an idea... Let them do it. I mean, Sheela would just say I did it wrong anyway."

"Uh, but she'd make it all green." Wally said.

"Well, they could split it..." Shine mused. "We'll have to work on it."

But for now this was mostly just kicking ideas around, not deciding.

Aizawa was nicer to them than they thought about the whole long trip to Canada. And the kids said he wasn't even too harsh on them in training.

Things had quieted down so much with the Metas off the grid for the time being, everyone felt less stressed.

Kaminari and Jiro even went out a bit more, and Momo and Shoto had their first date. They apparenlty just went out to eat and then did a movie...because Shoto Moogled common first date activiites and wanted to try it. Momo had actually not been to a movie theater ever before in her life, so she agreed.

Shine spent her time teaching more and visiting Dabi who was going stir crazy.

Fuyumi kept in touch too.

Kayla apparently was just crashing at the spare house for now while trying to get her Dad to leave the country, but it wasn't the work of day to get him papers and renew his visa.

Ren was helping her speed the process up.

On the second day after, Shine was watching Eri and helping Kaminari with English at the same time, while trying to knit also, when Jiro ran into the room like a ghost was after her, holding her phone.

"Hey, did you guys look at the news today?" She said.

"Uh, no," Kaminari held up his pencil. "I'm studying!"

"Right, werid, but look...turn it on." Jiro said.

"What is it now?" Shine sighed. She grabbed the remote.

"It's terrible." Jiro said.

Shine was expecting some hero's death from her tone, but she couldn't have guessed what actually was going on.

At first it took a while to find the right channel for what Jiro was talking about but then all of them watched in dumbstruck horror.

The news' anchor was talking quite calmly about something, but the pictures on display behind them were...Dabi? Using his fire it looked like...it was hard to say where he'd been, Shine could have sworn it was from months ago...but notably, he didn't have his scars...there was a picture with his scars too.

Shine didn't understand at first what the caster was saying, when she watched TV her translation app ability didn't usually work, it had to be a person she was talking to, but she had English subs on and finally she saw what they were saying.

In short they were discussing an alleged report that this mystery person with blue fire was in fact, one and the same with Dabi, of the LOV, who'd not been seen around for some time.

"Shine..." Kaminari said faintly. "Has...uh, has Nezu seen...you know...the guest we have?"

"I'm sure he has by now." Shine said slowly. "Though he didn't know who he was on sight, but...this is kind of hard to mistake..."

"And how long before he sees this and calls you into the office?" Jiro said.

"I'm not sure that's the top of my concerns..." Shine sank back. "Who did this?"

"I bet it was the Metas!" Kaminari said. "What's the picture from."

"It could be them, but why wait so long to release this?" Shine mused.

"I think it could be them, but social Media is blowing up." Jiro said. "And I mean, there's a lot of people claiming they've seen this guy in action...people from the city the nomu attacked, people from the island..."

"But they didn't see...they didn't say anything before..." Shine felt sick.

"Well this is giving them an opportunity to be part of something." Jiro said. "It could be they just needed an excuse, people are dumb like that...But Shine, they can't find him right."

"I...Nezu will hand him over..." Shine said. "I have to go get him out now. Sorry," she got up. "Watch Eri for me, there's no time at all to lose. One of you call Wally and tell him, if he doesn't already know. I have to call someone else." She vanished into a portal.

***

Dabi hadn't even seen the news--he tried to avoid it if he could--when Shine came thundering into the complex.

She was kind of upset and hard to follow, but Dabi got that his cover was blown.

Shine didn't give him much chance to respond, just told him to grab his stuff, which he did in a hurry.

"But where are we going?" He said.

"I'm going to..." Shine faltered. "Well, for now, maybe just to your family's spare house."

"What? I don't want to go there."

"We're out of options!" Shine said. "It can't be here, wherever it is. Nezu will have the staff here any second."

She looked out the window.

"Scratch that, they're here already."

Sure enough, several teachers were heading their direction.

"Time to go." Shine said.

Portal.

***

"How did this happen?" Fuyumi got in touch almost at once when she heard about it. "I rushed home from school, I didn't want to face the questions..."

"Or the news." Natsuo was mad. "I came home from class too, people were already asking me on the way though."

"Asking you?" Shine said, they were just on the phone, but she could hear the fright in their voices. "What do you mean? Why would they connect it to you?"

"I guess you didn't see the update yet." Natsuo sounded mad. "They're saying now that Dabi looks just like the photos on record of Touya Todoroki. Our dead brother."

"How in the world did they access those that fast, wouldn't the police keep that quiet?" Shine said. Sinking to the floor.

"That's what I thought." Fuyumi said. "But if there was a leak at the police station..these things happen. You never know, this is such a scandal...I'm still in shock. People are already showing up outside our house...Miss Likstar...what do we do."

"Don't open the door!" Shine said. "Is Hawks around? You might need help if someone who doesn't like Dabi or Endeavor shows up."

"He's not been by today..." Fuyumi said. "I think he's probably going back to work..."

"Dad's not home either, but when he gets here, he's going to murder us!" Natsuo sounded panicked. "Or set the house on fire..."

"He'll do neither of those things!" Shine snapped. "He'll be devasted! That door man...I hope he wasn't in public when he found out."

"Miss Likstar..." Fuyumi mumbled. "What do we do? Is Touya okay?"

"He's okay for now." Shine said.

Dabi was sitting against the wall staring into nowhere looking grim.

"But...I admit, I'm not sure how to solve this one..." Shine said. "I can't quite believe it. Normally I'm prepared, but...this is like some horrible nightmare I can't wake up from."

"I had a nightmare where this happened." Fuyumi said.

"Maybe if we're lucky, Dabi will just go to jail." Natsuo said.

Fuyumi turned to give him a dreadful look.

"What?" Natsuo said. "He deserves it. I never liked this arrangement."

"Have you thought about what that would mean for all of us?" Fuyumi said. "And, if Touya goes to jail...you know how they treat people there?" She was on the point of tears. "It would be horrible...he was doing so well...it was too good to last.."

"Don't say that." Shine said. "But...it was never going to be permanent...I don't know what we'll do, I have to believe something will turn up...I should go, I need to get in touch with the rest of the team...one crisis after another with this group..."

She hung up.

Dabi looked up. "I'm sorry..." he said dully. "I'm more trouble than I'm worth...I knew this would happen...I let it happen. I wasn't careful on those missions...maybe I did it on purpose."

"If you wanted to get caught, I guess." Shine said.

She sat down next to him.

"Well, Touya..." she sighed. "This sucks."

"Yeah...I'm dead, aren't I?" Dabi said.

"Let's not go there." Shine said. "All things can work together for good, right?" She shook her head.

"You have the gall to say that right now?" Dabi sounded bitter.

"I don't have the gall not to say it," Shine said. "At times like this, if I don't fall back on my beliefs, I would go to pieces...I'm still shocked, honestly I don't feel anything yet except sickening dread...Sorry." She rubbed her head. "I also have lost my filter apparently."

"Well, someone had to." Dabi said.

"Hey," Shine looked up. "I know this much, whatever happens in the next 48 hours...I don't regret a single thing, okay? I hope you feel the same way in time. I'm so proud of your progress."

"Not in the mood for this." Dabi said tersely.

Shine was silent.

"Sorry..." Dabi said finally. "Just...don't try to make it better."

"I'll just let you be miserable then." Shine sassed him. "I mean, who am I to try to help, right?"

"It's not like that...I don't do this whole bright side stuff you're doing."

"I'm just trying to not lose it." Shine said. "I hope Wally gets here soon."

Thankfully, he got there just a minute after she said that.

"Are you okay, baby?" He said.

Shine just leaned on his shoulder. "No.."

"I know." Wally patted her head. "What about you Short Stuff?"

"I'm not short." Dabi said.

"You are compared to me." Wally said.

"You're a giant." Dabi grumbled. "I've been better. Kind of felt like my whole life just blew up in front of me in like the space of 2 hours...so...yeah...and not the least on the list of s----y things going on, is that my Dear old Dad is going to know who I am, if he doesn't already, sometime today."

Shine laughed bitterly. "Funny how things work out huh...Worst case scenario was he'd find out through the news...I knew we should have just told him."

"You didn't say that!" Dabi said.

"I think I did," She said. "But I didn't want to push anyone."

"Well, as bad as it is" Wally said. "At least the world isn't in danger, right?"

Neither of them were in the mood for that kind of humor.

"Heh, okay, I know, too soon..." Wally said. "Sorry..."

"Shoto will be upset too." Shine said. "Where is he?"

"Oh, I think he was right behind me." Wally said. "I kind of ran ahead..."

Sure enough, Shoto and Momo and Bakugo all came running in.

"We had to dodge paparazzi on the way here." Shoto was livid. "They can't leave us alone at a time like this."

"Especially at a time like this." Wally said. "Sorry, should have waited for you..."

"Are you okay?" Momo asked Dabi.

"Oh sure, just feeling a little exposed right now." Dabi gestured blandy. "You know, the LOV will be pissed if this goes back to them...I'd welcome that over what else I know is coming."

***

The LOV, was, in fast, pissed off.

Spinner and Compress found out about it from Medea, the only one with a working phone that got news updates...and they all almost panicked.

"Will this get back to us?" Spinner freaked out. "Will they know about us?"

"If they arrest him and question him and he talks!" Compress said. "Just remember what they probably did to Kurogiri--and then the Originals kidnapped him."

"Oh gosh, do you think that's what this is?" Medea looked up. "The freaking ninja are trying to flush him out so they can kidnap him?"

"That is one of many gruesome possibilities right now..." Compress said.

"Shouldn't we tell the boss?" Spinner said.

They all looked at each other.

"He's still kind of out of it..." Spinner said. "Do you think he could handle it."

"I'm not sure he can handle it either way." Compress said. "I mean, he usually handles setbacks relatively well, but this is...well...a bombshell would have been less damaging...so I'm not sure if we should risk it...maybe after he recovers a little...I mean, what's the first of a few more days, right?"

"Depends on how fast they find him." Spinner said.

"Likstar will get him out, right?" Medea said.

"I'm sure Mirko would know..." Compress said.

Mirko as it happened, rushed back when she first got the news. Only to ask if Dabi had shown up there yet, though.

"I wasn't doing much anyway," She said. Gesturing to her foot, "But I was looking around on patrol when I heard the commotion. What the h---? I thought he was covering his tracks."

"Well, this clearly was either a Meta or an Original who started this." Compress said. "Who else would have known we were at both the place those pictures were from...and who else would care enough to go to all this trouble...and the police releasing statements about Touya Todoroki. That has to be a plant."

"The Originals have plants everywhere," Mirko's eyes darkened. "My bet is it was them. Those hacks! They're mad about us busting in on them, and they're doing this to hurt Likstar and the LOV at the same time."

That did seem to be the most likely explanation.

"What do we do? Medea said. "Will Dabi talk if they take him in?"

"I'd think Likstar will just have to take him out of country." Mirko said. "And I'm going right to where that Kayla woman is hiding, I bet this is her doing." She looked furious.

"Don't kill her." Spinner said. "I want to do that."

"Oh believe me, if she's behind this, she'll wish she was dead by the time I'm done." Mirko declared.

"Oh, one more thing," Compress said. "We all decided not to tell the boss this till he's a little better."

Mirko paused. "Is he still...?"

"He's worse, actually." Spinner said.

Mirko bit her lip. "Fine, I won't mention it either, not that I'd get the chance anyway." She stormed out.

Medea shook her head.

Her phone buzzed.

"Hey, Monama..."She answered it. "Yeah, we know...no, not sure...no, I think we're just going to lay low over here..."

***

"Where is that ninja anyway?" Dabi asked Shine.

"Kayla...she wasn't here when we arrived, was she?" Shine realized. "Huh...maybe she went out...I mean, she has a lot of things to arrange right now, she's trying to change her identity."

"Yeah, and who do you think could have done this?" Dabi said. "That b--- said something about it the other night too...maybe it was a threat."

"Dabi," Shoto looked up. "If it was her, there's a lot more she could use against us."

"Hold on, let's not jump to conclusions." Wally said. "Why would she risk drawing all this attention to us when she's affiliated with us too. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe it wasn't her."

"That's what they want us to think..." Shine realized. "They'll think we'll blame her...maybe even kill her, and whoever did this will never get caught...but here's the thing, not that many people knew Dabi was Touya...The Metas invaded the house, though...it would depend on how much they figured out...and how much the Originals had access to, but we may never know who actually leaked all this, I doubt it's anyone we've met."

Wally rubbed his chin. "Yeah...but Kayla knows we'd blame her, if she's heard about this. So I don't know if she'll come back here."

"I'm going to let Ren know then," Shine said. "If she does something stupid out of panic it could play into their hands. If they knew she's betrayed them, no telling how soon they'll have put it together, but I find this timing a little convenient if they didn't..."

"It better be true it wasn't her." Dabi said darkly.

***

"You saw right?" Intelli slid into Ren's cubical at the college library.

Ren was hooked up to the computer and scrolling through news feed. "Si, I saw it 30 minutes ago...but I can't figure out when it started. Seems like a bunch of this appeared almost at the same minute... and more data is added every second...it's a mess." He sighed.

"It's not so easy to hack the police." Intelli said. "I can't just find out who let this slip...but you know, it doesn't matter that much."

Ren's phone buzzed.

He looked at it. "Ah...Likstar...hmm..." He looked up. "They don't think it was Baker."

"I think she's too obvious," Intelli agreed. "It's what they'd want us to think. But maybe she'd know who it could be."

"Well, I was going to meet her today with some paperwork..." Ren said. "But I have a feeling she'll be a no-show...Think we can track her down?"

Intelli adjusted his glass like a boss. "I think it should be feasible."

***

UA was stormed with reporters by that afternoon. Looking for Todoroki.

Though the staff told them he was not there, and refused to tell them where he actually was, they waited around, thinking he'd come back.

Shoto had no intention of doing that today.

Nezu, finding Dabi was not on campus, called Shine, naturally...and she picked up. But he'd be suspicious if she didn't.

"Likstar, I'm sure you know what this is about." Nezu said. "Did you know the whole time?"

Shine looked straight ahead. "Nezu...let us understand each other. You will not be making any statement on this to the police."

"Excuse me?" Nezu said.

"You let a criminal stay at UA." Shine said. "I'm a nobody...whether I knew or not is beside the point. I know you well enough by now to know you'll deny any knowledge he was there. You will also be denying any knowledge of us, if you do that. And since I don't know you, I feel no need to explain myself to you."

"This kind of threat is not going to work, Miss Likstar," Nezu said.

"Well, really Nezu I'd imagine you're more concerned about what kind of secrets that Dabi person could spill if he does get arrested." Shine said casually. "Like who the mole at UA most likely is."

Silence.

"Of course if anything were to happen to him between now and getting arrested," Shine went on casually. "I can't speak for what domino effect that might have. Lots of people might be upset about that. My advice to you, Nezu, is not to make yourself a target here. To anyone. I'd stay out of the whole business. I certainly don't intend to be going to the public with any of my theories, I mean, all kinds of people watch the news."

"You are playing a dangerous game," Nezu said, in a different tone. "If you are involved with this knowingly, Likstar, you'll be found out sooner or later."

"I'm not letting a mouse intimidate me." Shine said cuttingly. "Or should I say, a rat."

"How dare--" Nezu almost choked but then he said. "That was really quite uncalled for. Let's not act like beasts, here, Miss Likstar. We're intelligent, civilized animals, aren't we?"

"Intelligent sure, but civilized? I guess we'll find out." Shine said. "I don't wish to discuss it with you, Nezu. If I were to leave UA now, there's only so many places I could go. So for both our sakes, I think we should not discuss unpleasant topics. Don't you agree?"

Nezu was quiet for moment, then he said. "Just so we're clear. And I wash my paws of it then. Don't expect UA to step forward and offer any solutions."

"I didn't expect that at all. Why should you have to get involved?" Shine said. "I'm glad we could agree."

She hung up.

"That didn't sound good." Wally said.

"Nezu had likely been onto us for a while." Shine said. "But he won't risk exposing us, until he's sure we can't hurt him back, for now I doubt he'll do anything. I'm sure he would have already if he could do it safely. But if I've learned one thing about Nezu, it's that he only collapses the maze when he is safely outside of danger...the walls have to fall on everyone but on him, and right now, it could fall back on him if he pushes it."

"I hope you're right." Wally said.

[So do I...]

***

Intelli and Ren traced Kayla as far as the modern equivalent of the DMV before she seemed to have disappeared.

Intelli refused to leave his dorm, so Ren went that direction on his own. It wasn't too far from the beach, so he had an idea of where she might have gone if she caught wind of what was happening.

While on his way, Ren tried to get in touch with Rumi...but she didn't answer. He didn't like that.

At the DMV office (though it also doubled as a Quirk Registration office) Ren asked the security if he noticed a woman with blue streaks in her hair leave about an hour ago.

"Blue hair? You'll have to be more specific." The guard said.

"Well, she's pretty tall," Ren thought. He was an observant kind of guy, more than a lot of guys were. But he didn't usually memorize people's features. Still Kayla stood out in a crowd. "Looks foreign, European maybe. Big brown eyes."

"Young, I take it." The security said.

"Yeah, around my age."

"Is she pretty" The guard asked.

"Uh...yeah she's pretty." Ren didn't see why that mattered.

"Good for you buddy," the guard said. "And I think I did see someone like that. But yeah, she left. Hard to miss her, though."

"Did you see which way she went?" Ren asked.

The guard seemed to replay it in his mind. "I think that way, to the left. And I remember, she was walking pretty fast."

To the left would be towards the shore. Suspicions confirmed.

Ren went that way.

But no sign of Kayla.

Well, maybe she got away already...but that wouldn't help them, not if she could have told them what was going on...

Ren wandered out to the sand and looked around. She might be hiding by a wharf...but he didn't see anyone.

In fact, it was pretty empty, it was cold still.

This was a bust.

Ren muttered to himself in Spanish.

He thought he'd better just get back and rendezvous with the others if necessary. But then he noticed, someone was following him.

Ren could kind of sense when technology was near him, though most of the time he didn't pay any attention to it, but when the same device stayed around him for a while he took note of it, and he felt...some kind of phone or something following him...

He looked behind him. He didn't see anyone...

Who would follow him? No one knew who he was-- he suddenly stopped shot.

"The Registration place!" he swore. "Maybe we're not the only ones that followed her there. D--- it! Someone saw me go after her. Maybe the guard even..."

He'd better run for it. If he got back in the city, he'd have endless technology to manipulate.

Unfortunately, his pursuers seemed to have the same idea.

As he bolted for the sidewalk and streets, some people in black dashed out from around the beach'es restroom and headed him off.

Ren adjusted his course and ran more to the side, if he could just get to a car, a bus...anything...

But they blocked him again, now he was cornered.

"Eh, maybe coming here alone was a bad idea after all.." he telekinetically used his phone to dial Rumi again..."Pick up, pick up, pick up..." he muttered.

But she didn't.

Ren frantically typed out a text message instead, while still running...

Now he was by the water...he looked for a boat...it would be too far away though. He should have run for the light house instead.

Probably wouldn't have made it...

"Hey..." he said, holding up his hands as the ninja surrounded him and closed in. "Let's talk about this. I'm not sure who you are, but I think there's been some mistake."

"Are you Ren Usagiyama?" One asked.

"I don't think you said that name right--" Ren began before realizing it was a mistake to correct them.

"Good enough for me." The ninja shrugged. "Technopath right? Rare quirk. Congratulations."

"Oh, well thank you." Ren said. "I'm guessing you know what I can do with those guns you have then?"

He twisted his fingers and the guns flew out of their hiding spots and turned to face the ninjas.

They backed up.

"So it's not just electronics huh..." one muttered.

"Why do you want me?" Ren said. "I'm no hero. I'm not even a villain, just a regular person."

"Oh, it's not really you we want." The ninja shrugged. "But you know to catch a rabbit, you have to dangle a carrot on a stick."

Ren turned the guns towards himself.

"I'm guessing it won't work if I'm dead already, right." he said. "I've already alerted her...So how about you back off nice and easy?"

"Go ahead." The ninja surprised him by saying. They stood still, doing nothing. "We don't care if you're alive or dead, quirked scum. We'll send the same message anyway. There's always the rest of your family too."

Ren's stomach clenched. "You leave them out of this."

"It's so precious how you think you can stop us." They said.

Ren slowly typed out a second message, one to Intelli this time...

"So...I'm fricked either way?" He said.

"Pretty much." They said.

"Well, then, might as well take some of you down with me." Ren turned the guns back on them and fired at their lower halves.

The ninja had to scatter.

Ren started running again, keeping the guns hovering behind him.

"I'll have to thank Rumi if I do survive this, for all that training by proxy watching her fight." he panted.

Ren actually had occasional asthma...it didn't usually act up except when there was a lot of pollen, but running like this was going to do it on a cold day like this one.

One of the reasons he didn't plan to become a hero...

He was almost to the water now...Maybe he could get them to follow him in.

Suddenly, a different ninja appeared from behind a pillar of the wharf, and threw something at him.

Ren felt a throwing star slice through his stomach...hopefully just the edge of it, but it hurt like hell!

"Ah..." he tumbled forward into the wet sand, dropping his weapons.

The other ninja caught up and grabbed him up by his hands.

"Take this." They shot some kind of syringe into this arm. "That ought to keep you from using that pesky quirk..."

Ren didn't feel any drug affects, but he realized he couldn't sense their tech anymore. What the heck?...Oh he'd heard about this...oh...he was so screwed...

The ninja dragged him actually onto that wharf, towards a small ship.

What did Rumi say to do at times like this? If you can't think your way out of something, punch your way out of it...easy for her...

Well, worth a shot.

He waited till they had him just about ready to get on the boat, then he kicked one of them hard in the shin.

"Ow!" They didn't really let go, but they shifted their weight.

Ren managed to throw his whole body into them and send them plummeting off the wharf into the ocean, he went with them.

The other person let go in time.

A bunch of shots came firing into the water after them...they didn't seem to care about killing their own guy.

Ren felt something hit his arm and something else hit his leg...he had to be losing blood a lot already...

Then he hit his head on part of the boat and blacked out.