Kira (Silk) walked up to the top of the shrine, not the same one the Bunny Hero had found. This one was on a hillside that was more open to the elements.

She pulled her traditional garb a little tighter. It was drafty up here.

Walking into the temple-like part, she found who she expected to be waiting.

Kurogiri was in the background, and Lethe was standing off to the side. Right in front of her was someone she only knew from Medea's description as probably the commander. Tall, serious looking man. No visible quirk. Probably didn't have one.

"You came," The Commander said.

Kira nodded. "I came only to get answers," she said.

She looked at Lethe. "You stole something from me. It's never come back. I want to know why."

Lethe looked at her blandly.

Kurogiri was silent.

"How did you know how to find us?" The Commander asked Kira.

"I knew Lethe would leave loose threads," Kira said, "It was easy enough to follow them." She tilted her head. "After all, I am a spy."

"A spy," The Commander said dryly, "I wouldn't say that. I'd say a plant. A plant is different from a spy."

"Only in name," Kira said.

"Oh, no," The Commander said, "A spy is highly trained, usually. A plant can just be any one no one will suspect. But really, you would have been found out eventually, if your ignorance seemed feigned. How did you remember your role?"

"I don't remember it." Kira nodded at Lethe. "I am simply not an idiot. I knew my memories must have been important for him to suppress them so well I cannot access them, and that was before they fully betrayed us. I remember that he did it to stop me from asking questions...so why didn't I remember the rest afterward? It took a while to realize what I had forgotten was why I was at the League at all, other than I knew I came after the Camp Infiltration... From there it was simple steps of logic to deduce I had to be a spy of some sort, or why leave me with just enough memory to operate with them? Why not live up to name and make me a blank slate?"

"Lethe actually can't do full memory wipes," The Commander said, "He's not strong enough yet. He may get there, but the more you lose, the faster you get it back. He's done well under our training though. He's learned to pick out just the memories that will block the most other memories from coming back, tell a narrative...but with you, he didn't know that yet. Still, it worked out. Clever, no?"

"Why risk my loyalties changing, then?" Kira said.

The Commander smiled thinly. "Once you remember, they won't have changed, I assure you. How attached can you be to a facade? And those buffoons are nothing to our Organization...but if you doubt yourself, remember, you chose this mission."

Kira rubbed her temples. "Why?"

"I don't know. Why don't you tell us?" The Commander said.

Lethe came closer to Kira.

But she stopped him, held up her weaving. "How do I know this isn't a trick? I may forget any of this conversation happened."

"You'll have to roll those dice. Or this was a pointless meeting." The Commander sounded bored.

Lethe nodded. "It's simple to release the memories again. In fact, you won't even lose awareness while I do it. You're more alert when you remember than when you forget."

"Very comforting," Kira said. She drew a deep breath.

Lethe reached out. "Think about the part you don't remember."

No red squares appeared this time. This was a different process.

Nothing very drastic happened at all, except that it was like a lightbulb 💡  kind of went on in her mind as she tried to think of it.

She didn't react that much, just stared straight ahead, until her eyes widened.

"If you came here, I assume you think your work is done." The Commander didn't even bother to acknowledge what happened.

Kira nodded.

"Very good, so you've collected something of use, then," The Commander said.

"Da..." she said. Then shook herself and in only the lightest of accents said, "Yes."

"Welcome back, Black Widow," The Commander said.

[Some of you all may be thinking "Marvel rip off!"

But actually, Black Widow is based off a type of Russian female spy who uses methods on the more alluring/seductive side to get intel...and then kills the target with poison.

Black Widow  is also a term for women who kill their husband/lover. Especially multiple times.

I'm combining them to use the term to indicate Silk's style.
Marvel doesn't own the rights to older terms. Sorry not sorry.]

* * * 

"So, Silk left," Shine told Wally just a day after Camie had told them about Moto.

"Maybe she just had an errand to run," Wally said.

"For a whole 24 hours," Shine said.

"Okay, it looks bad," Wally said, "but she was always a little sketchy, wasn't she?"

"Yes...but where did she go to?" Shine wondered, "This will be a blow to the LOV... They're losing members like money at Roulette."

"Was that a joke 'cause she's Russian?" Wally asked.

"No, because of the high losing rate--but also yes," Shine said, "I wonder how Compress is going to take that."

"Compress? Why would he take it worse than anyone else?" Wally asked.

"Babe...you cannot really tell me you missed it," Shine said.

"Missed what--? Oh..." Wally looked surprised. "Wow...well, good for him... I mean, bad for him. But dang too. The whole Russian Spy thing--it's like some weird fantasy that turned bad."

Shine frowned at him.

"I mean, not mine," Wally said, "I've never been into that whole 'I don't trust you' kind of relationship, you know?"

"I didn't think you were, but is it really the time for jokes about it? This is serious," Shine said.

"I'm just trying to lighten the mood," Wally said.

"I know...but," Shine sighed, "I'm sorry. I just don't know. This has been a lot of unexpected twists in two days. And I have a bad feeling it has something to do with those Originals."

"You still think she was a spy?" Wally asked, "For them."

"Whether it was for them or someone else, it doesn't matter. But Occam's razor would apply here. The simplest explanation is she was a spy for them all along, and I'm inclined to think it was true. But how she played so innocent so convincingly is hard to say. I would have sworn she was telling the truth about at least some what she said," Shine said, "unless she's good enough to fool even me."

"Still, there's not a whole lot we can do about it," Wally said, "People are gonna be scheming, but they always are, and we just gotta run ahead of it."

Shine laughed. "Or roll with the punches."

"There's the spirit."

"Ah, we can handle it, but the kids..." Shine sighed, "they are so stressed. I hate to burden them with more, but we can't hide stuff from them anymore. Too late for that."

"I think they'll be okay. They're tough," Wally said.

"But when do they just get to have a normal life for longer than a few weeks?" Shine said.

"Well, it's like war," Wally said, "This whole year has been it for them...but sooner or later, it'll have to end. And maybe they'll live out long, happy lives, but we gotta help them get through all this part first. And once that happens, they'll be the leaders, you know."

Shine smiled. "Important to remember why we're here, you mean."

"I think they've got big things ahead of them." Wally was confident. "They're a special group of kids."

"Aren't they always...? Even the adults are."

"Yeah, we need to just help them become who they're meant to be," Wally said.

"So they'll be ready for us to go..." Shine said, staring into space, "It can't be too much longer, I don't think. Not here. Longest stint has been only around 6 months in the past. I feel like any longer than a year here is too long."

Wally rubbed his neck. "Hmm...it's been, like, 7 months already, hasn't it? That's not a whole lot of time left."

"Nope...I think it's closer to 8 months, actually," Shine said, "but they're not ready yet... I'm not sure that's enough time. There's so much more they need to learn, especially about leadership... I just don't know, Wally."

"Hey, we'll get the knowledge when we need to," Wally said, "Still gotta get through Dabi's trial. That's in like, 3 weeks."

"Oh, boy... Endeavor promised he'd get us in there, but I don't know if I can watch..." Shine sighed.

* * *

The three weeks to Dabi's trial flew by for everyone else though.

No word of Moto ever came to Camie or her class, and she was almost forgotten about, since it turned out, no one was close to her. She'd had influence without having any real relationships--it was sort of weird. Without her to egg them on, the class didn't bug Camie directly as much, but the icy distance remained or the awkward tensions, and she still felt out of place there.

She was seriously just going to transfer schools if this kept up, she thought to herself.

At UA, the kids were busy taking part of this year's final exams before Summer break, which had snuck up on them. 

They were planning to stay at the dorms for the Summer and not do a training camp this time around. Nezu maybe would have---but no one would have possibly agreed to it after last year's disaster, and the criticisms were still high, despite the Meta war dying down.

It was odd how fast it petered out once they were thrown off by losing their communications network.

Aizawa thought that it had saved countless heroes' lives for Shine to come up with that idea. "Have you fought a war before?" he asked her, over some pre-class coffee, which they'd taken to sharing at times while Wally did his morning run. It gave them a chance to confer about Eri too.

"I'm always fighting a war," Shine said her usual odd response, "between Good and Evil."

Aizawa looked at her strangely. "I mean literally."

"It is literal," Shine said, "far more than you realize, and there are more levels involved than you play on. Not to sound braggy, but interfering in physical events is really small game." She shrugged. "But normally we don't do that. It's just part of helping our charges. We're allowed to help you do all you need to do, as long as we don't do it completely for you. We're humans too, so we're not exactly like angels interfering here. If I have an idea, and it feels like it came right from the Source, I use it. That's all that happened here. You could do the same thing too if you tried it."

Aizawa rolled his eyes. "My teaching won't even matter soon enough. I'd be surprised if I keep this class into the next year."

"Maybe you will," Shine said, "but even if not, there's always new kids."

"If UA stays open. Just because things are dying down doesn't mean the criticism against this school has gone away," Aizawa said.

Shine shrugged. "Hmm...I did fight a war once before, Aizawa, but it wasn't with armies...more like a war of a handful of desperate people against monsters...and it wasn't fully over when we left. Just the turning point had begun. I expect it'll be like that here too."

"Left... Oh...right..." Aizawa frowned. "I'd forgotten. You'll be leaving eventually. When is that?"

"I don't know. We don't know until it's time," Shine said.

Aizawa looked down. "The kids have grown attached to you. It might upset them a lot."

"We will not leave until they are ready," Shine said, "Trust me... When the time is right, I mean. They might be sad, but they'll accept it. I'd like to see them more independent first."

Aizawa nodded. "There we can agree."

* * *

At the LOV, Silk's absence created a lot of problems.

No one was there to cook or clean...and even worse, to be the one voice of reason in all their crazy.

Medea took the loss hard. She'd looked at Silk fondly for helping her through the really bad time after Lethe...and the bad times she still had frequently. She wasn't done with nightmares or the occasional panic attack. She had begun to learn how to talk herself through them and deal with it, but progress can only be made so fast, and it helps to know someone will be there to help us.

Mirko had the least to lose with Silk being gone, but the general tension still got to her. As well as her tension with Ren.

He had not taken it too well when she asked him about what Shigaraki had disclosed to her.

"I didn't think he'd snitch of all people."

"There's shouldn't be a reason to snitch. You went behind my back!" Mirko said.

"You know, Rumi, if you were less stubborn and hard headed, maybe I wouldn't." Ren said something he definitely regretted immediately.

"Frick you!" Rumi snapped angrily at him.

"Wait, I didn't mean that," Ren said, "I'm sorry if I crossed a line. I wanted to help."

"It didn't help. Stay out of this, Ren," she insisted, "Just keep yourself safe. I'm not gonna ask any more of you."

"I hope you don't mean that last part," Ren said, "but maybe some space would be good. Let us clear our heads. Come back at it when we've had time to cool off."

"Sure." Rumi wasn't very convincing.

After that, she felt empty...like all her anger was just spending itself out, and without it, she wasn't sure what drive she had to keep trying to fix this.

She and Medea kept training. The girl started to show some real progress.

She told Mirko a little bit more about herself too.

"I could control my quirk better with Lethe around. I guess he kept me calmer," she said, "When I first joined the LOV, I was decent, still with the temper, but after my memory came back I lost stability completely and my quirk did too. I'm about back to where I was with Lethe now...but I want to be better than that. The temper tantrums need to stop."

"Good idea," Mirko agreed. 

Another time, Mirko asked her a question.

"You know how to shoot, right? Where did you learn that?"

Medea tilted her head. "About a year before the LOV, Lethe and I joined a gang... It wasn't much of one, but a couple of guys there had real weapons... I thought it looked fun, so I learned how to shoot. I wasn't bad."

Mirko shrugged. "I guess a backup weapon doesn't hurt."

"I never shot anyone, though," Medea said, "Lethe always said murder was too far. It would get us a real record. People didn't care about petty theft, a few fights between street rats, and that kind of thing, but if we hurt anyone badly, we'd be caught. Suits me. My quirk was always a lot closer to being lethal in my mind. I didn't want to kill people anyway, but we were close to a few casualties, and it scared Lethe. That and some of the people we kept company with, they were kind of creeps. I mean, I can fight off anyone, but no one should be too cocky about being caught off guard. So we left the gang when the heroes busted them. Just slipped away."

"Gangs like that usually involve drugs and other stuff," Mirko said.

"We stayed off that. Anything people get really busted for," Medea said, "Looking back, I'm glad... Lethe isn't dumb, you know... His ideas worked."

A little too well, Mirko thought to herself.

Medea leaned on the wall and looked down, sighing. "Honestly...he protected me well in other areas. He was never mean to me... I thought I was messed up for being afraid of him. Now I know why. It feels like all the good stuff was a lie, but it's worse if it wasn't. Because that means he saw no problem with what he did to me, and he still doesn't. How do you get to be like that?" She was crying now.

Mirko was not good with crying at all.

But she did think of something Shine had said once about people doing evil.

"Maybe if you do something messed up long enough, you start to think it's okay," she ventured, "even if you don't at first. Maybe you can be pushed to do it too. People who have too much power can abuse it a lot."

Medea nodded. "Yeah...I...I don't know if he really thought it was good at first...but he just kept doing it...because he thought it would work...and then he stopped caring if it was good or not. Maybe that's it...but now, he's not even the Lethe I remember. He was a little chilly, but he would never have done what he did to Ibara. He wouldn't take someone's identity like that."

Mirko had no other words to say on it.

"I just wonder if he could ever be un-brainwashed," Medea said, "Maybe he'd be sorry for all this... I still miss him...crazy as it sounds."

"You miss him even though he was psycho?" Mirko said.

"He wasn't a total psycho," Medea said, hugging herself, "Don't you think people are worth missing even if they're a bit crazy? It would be so sad if no one cared about you at all. But I'm afraid now that he really thinks of me as a monster. Why else would he try to change me?"

"The ninja just got to him. You can't take all that at face value," Mirko said.

"Yeah," Medea said. She straightened. "I have to get tougher. The next time I run into Lethe, I want to be able to tell him what he's doing is wrong and not waver for a second, no matter what he says to me. I have to prove to him my quirk is controllable...and if he's still nuts then, I'll give up. But I can't just let them have him. He might be a little s---, but he's my family, and they're a death cult. It's just not what we do, abandoning family like that."

"You know, I don't know if I'd be willing to do that," Mirko said, leaning on the wall also, "If my family did that to me, I'd say 'screw 'em', not worry about them."

"Not even a little?" Medea said, "It's not even affection so much, but when you know someone your whole life, you don't want to see them turn into a monster, do you? Even if you didn't like them."

Mirko thought.

"I guess I can get that."

"Yeah," Medea said, "so...I guess we should get back to training."

"Yeah, well, if you want to be ready for that, you have to work at it even harder," Mirko said.

Medea snorted. "Any harder and you're not gonna be able to keep up with both work and training."

"Give you half a chance, then."

* * *

Compress handled it all the worst, naturally. It took a while for him to be convinced Silk truly was not returning, but after 2 weeks...

He even looked for her, unbeknownst to the rest of the League, but he never found any trace of her.

"Ah, well, what's a few months of fun, really, against all the other parts of life?" he told himself dryly, "It was a good run, but it was never going to be really serious after all. We're two players playing our game, that's all. She was very upfront about it."

Friends with benefits, really. That was all you could call it.

Even so though, Silk was literally the only one he could even talk to without feeling like his brain was going to melt from the crazy, obsessive nature of the rest of the League, and it was dull without her. No one else appreciated his humor.

He was more provoking to Mirko than ever, but she was less easily provoked. It could be that even she could tell that his reason wasn't really her. Even such a blunt, tactless woman as herself was still a woman, and they could read things like that.

Medea was nicer to him also...but he didn't want pity. In fact, he didn't need it. He really wasn't that down. He was just a little put out that she hadn't even done a dramatic finish. A disappearing act was such a cliché way to end a performance...

[And denial is such a cliché reaction to heartbreak, Atsuhiro.]

https://youtu.be/2dvZAiyctU8

By week three, he'd sunk into apathy towards anything except thinking about it.

About that time, Dabi's trial finally took place.

Mirko was actually going to go to it.

"The top Pros can attend easily, plus, I'm kind of a witness to the whole Endeavor thing," she explained to the League.

"So you're going to be part of the reason he gets booked," Spinner said bitterly.

"He'll get booked whether I do anything or not," Mirko said, "If I get the chance to help him out, I will, but it's not likely I'll be asked anything about the later stuff. I'm not gonna lie."

"She can't not go..." Medea said, "It would look weird. No one can know she's worked with the LOV. Come on, Spinner. It's not her fault."

"I know," Spinner griped, "It's just not fair."

"If life was fair, neither of us would be here," Mirko said flatly, "Ah, well, at least Likstar will be there. I can shoot her annoyed looks when anything dumb happens."

[Not even going to try to represent a trial in Japan right, since I would probably mess it up embarrassingly. I also think it's quite possible it would have changed over time, since MHA is set in the future, and Japan's legal system has changed even in the last 20 years in the real world, so we'll say that covers any discrepancy.

Fun fact: If a criminal confesses in court, they often get a lesser consequence because it's seen as mitigating what they did. Also even murderers tend to serve shorter times than in the USA. Not sure how all that would apply to villains, since I doubt they would get a short sentence because of their quirks being so dangerous, but it's interesting.]

The trial took a long time. There was a lot of conflicting evidence to go over.

It was a little hard for Shine and Wally to follow. It didn't work quite like at home.

Dabi seemed to be okay. He didn't seem that nervous... Wally thought he'd kind of given up on any of this really working out.

His lawyer looked nervous.

Endeavor was able to fill them in a bit.

"This is an easy case to prosecute, and plenty of people would like to make an example of him for the rest of the villains out here," he commented, "but on the other hand, a lot of people would also like to use this as a reason to say heroes prevail. I don't know what the court will decide."

Shine and Wally grasped hands and prayed silently through most of it.

There was no jury [another fun fact] but there was a recess while the judge conferred, between taking statements and asking Dabi questions.

Dabi owned up to everything freely and even gave specifics...

The judge must have been interested by his lawyer's claim that Dabi was truly a changed person, because he asked him directly if he regretted what he did.

Dabi answered honestly that he did, but didn't expect to get off any easier because of it. "Why should you believe me?" He shrugged. "People lie all the time."

The judge looked up. "What would you do differently now?"

That part was not a normal question. Shine knew it would be at home.

"What is he doing?" Endeavor asked, "Is he just curious himself?"

"Is Dabi saying that weird?" Wally asked.

"Owning up to his crimes isn't that odd, but the way he's doing it is a bit unusual..." Endeavor said.

"He's not worried," Shine noted, "He's not fighting it... I'm sad for him there...but to them, that must seem so odd. He's not showing any wish to get off lighter..."

"What kind of punishment is he looking at?" Wally asked.

Endeavor frowned. "Quirks have made it harder to accommodate prisoners. A lot of quirks cause trouble. Some think they even cause insanity...so it depends on how the judge rules. If they think his quirk caused him to go insane, and that monitoring it would prevent him from that again, then he may get a shorter sentences with conditions. It's clear to everyone his scars are gone. The DNA test proves he's Touya, but they will probably find it hard to believe he's Dabi...even if he's proving it. All of this makes it hard to determine what they'll decide. If he's charged with insanity, he'll probably be released eventually if he passes inspection."

"But he'll go to prison," Shine said.

"He could...but prison could make him worse," Endeavor said, "Another option for some people like him is sometimes a form of...you'd call it house arrest. A designated building is quarantined and monitored for a length of time. It's not a prison exactly...at least it's not as harsh as prison, but if they leave it, they'll be put in prison."

"It sounds more humane at least," Shine said.

"That's not very likely in this case. He's murdered a lot of people," Endeavor said, "That he stopped before he was caught looks good, but...I don't know. This judge has convicted a lot of people. I read up on him before this. He's not known for being lenient."

Shine and Wally sighed.

"This trial could take days normally, except they won't want to keep him in custody that long without a verdict," Endeavor went on, flatly, "I suppose the judge has already basically made up his mind. This is a formality."

Shoto, who was there for this part, shook his head.

Fuyumi and Natsuo came too, though Natsuo didn't look happy about it.
Hawks was there to be a witness...which had to make him nervous, given what they could ask him about...but he played it off cool. He winked at Fuyumi during his statements.

Shine and Wally got bored eventually.

While on the second recess they talk to the Pros a little bit more about it.

"No way to tell how it's going. The judge is way too stoic," Hawks said.

"Ugh, this is so boring..." Mirko rubbed her head. "The you-know-who was so pissed about it too. They'll blow a gasket if it goes badly."

"But he is being so brave," Shine said.

"Resignation is more like it." Wally shook his head. "I wish there was more that we could do. At home, we could appeal."

"You can appeal here," Hawks said, "but it won't be the same. He's too guilty. But if it helps, I doubt he'll get the death sentence... I mean, he killed a lot of people, but the evidence that he's helped save a lot too is pretty solid, and I think it'll balance out."

"Mercy is not your biggest quality around this world," Shine said.

"We have to try," Hawks said.

"Don't say anything to Fuyumi..." Wally said, "She looks ready to cry."

"I think she did already once," Shine sighed.

After that recess, it went on for a while longer.

But Endeavor was right. The case seemed to be carried off in a hurry. The judge finally announced his verdict.

Everyone leaned forward, even some of the spectator heroes who were just body guards, basically.

The judge spoke about carefully considering the evidence from both sides, and a lot of other stuff that sounded mostly like a preamble.

"We find the defendant guilty..."

No shock there, but they were all on the literal edge of their seats for the sentence.

"...by reason of insanity," the judge went on.

Everyone held their breath.

"We sentence Touya Todoroki to three months of house arrest with rehabilitation, followed by 18 months of monitored community service. If at the end of that time he's committed no more transgressions, the case will be revisited and determined whether he can reenter society as a fully functioning member. If any more violation of the law occurs during that time, he will be retried and given a more appropriate sentence."

There were some gasps, but no one freaked out yet.

The judge dismissed the court and Dabi, who looked dazed, was hauled off.

"Was that good?" Wally asked Endeavor.

Endeavor had his head in his hands.

Fuyumi started crying again.

Natsuo was shaking his head in disbelief.

"That was good," Shoto told them, "almost unheard of...actually. I guess him helping out weighed in the balance a lot."

"It's also something else." Hawks flew up. "If I know how these guys think, they're thinking that if they put him under a lighter sentence, he may either lead them to the League, or the League may try to retrieve him and they can catch them. They were impressed with his testimony and turnaround, but there's some practicality behind it too."

"I didn't even know community service was an option here," Wally said.

"Ah, well, I think it was changed, like, 50 years ago to help put all the criminals with quirks to better use," Hawks said, "but it's a rare sentence. Mostly only if they seem like they've learned from their mistakes...or already had good behavior in prison... This is definitely an unique case. But with Endeavor involved, it was always gonna be."

"Thanks goodness for that." Shine had the final word.