Mirko found herself and Shine just out on some faded brick side-yard.

Shine collapsed almost as soon as they were through the door, eyes rolled back. Apparently the effort of portalling was too much for her.

That did nothing to help Mirko's nerves. She looked around, then, using her one good foot, she half stumbled, half crawled along the yard and dragged Shine after her.

It was way too slow, but all she needed was to get more out in the open. She hoped that West was already looking for them.

She looked back. The mansion looked like a western-styled manor. It was 3 stories, done in deceptively normal colors on the outside, for what it had looked like inside, except somehow it still looked foreboding to her.

But how would no one notice this place? There couldn't be another close house here, could there?

The side yard might be huge if it was a large property, but she was in luck--it was a Victorian style house, big house, small yard, and she reached the front of it sooner than she thought.

At this rate she wasn't going to make it. She was still losing blood, and she couldn't hop like this, but no one had spotted them. The blacked out windows had some purpose...though she spotted some security cameras--but so far nothing.

She looked back towards the broken window. At this angle she could still kind of see it.

She saw Twice and Shigaraki looking out of it. Both of them looked puzzled, but Twice was more frantic. Shigaraki just looked resigned.

She waited to see if they'd either chase her or yell for help, but neither of them was doing that.

It seemed a shame to leave Twice here...

She jerked her head as if to say "come on."

Instead Shigaraki just stepped out of sight and maybe then yanked Twice after him, because he disappeared too.

So much for that.

Suddenly there was a reddish flash, and Mirko looked up.

"Oh my gosh!" Wally was there, and he was not happy. "What happened to you two? Shine?"

"She fainted," Mirko said.

Wally gently picked Shine up like she was a little kid. Mirko kind of resented how tall he was at such a time. It was nothing for him.

"She doesn't look beat up. What made her faint?"

"Just portalling," Mirko said.

Wally cast a wary glance at the house. "You know...I believe it. That's...creepy."

"We don't have a lot of time before they realize we got away." Mirko tried to get to her feet--well, foot.

"Whoa, whoa there, cowgirl, I don't think you should be putting weight on that," Wally said. "I gotta get both of you out of here, but I don't think I can portal either. I might end up like that. So you'll have to hang on to me."

"What?" Mirko said.

"This is no time to be all girly about it, come on." Wally held out an arm. "It's a superhero situation. Just swallow your pride, and let's get out of here.

Mirko rolled her eyes but grabbed on. "If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you."

"Like I'd want to! Hang on tight, this is going to be hard."

Wally tightened his grip on Shine with his other arm, and then he took off.

It was hard to hold on. Mirko almost lost her grip when he banked to the side.

Wally ran them back to UA, though Mirko didn't really want to go there.

To her surprise, most of the extended team was already there, even Camie, and they all rushed over to the nurse's office as soon as Wally let them know about Shine.

Recovery Girl also fixed Mirko's injuries up and nicely didn't ask how she got them.

Shine came to only about 10 minutes later. The kids all crowded around her to ask if she was okay.

Camie and Momo hugged her.

"I'm okay, really," Shine said. "I mean...physically..." She bit her lip. "But it wasn't good."

Mirko hadn't told them what happened. She didn't feel like talking about it.

Miss Joke was even there. Either she'd been visiting or rushed over when Aizawa let her know there was a problem.

"Medea let me know you disappeared," Monoma told Mirko. "She was quite distraught. I told her Mr. West was on the job. We figured you were taken to the same place."

Mirko wasn't sure what would prevent AFO from just taking them back, if he'd known where they were already, but nothing happened.

Maybe he thought they were dead.

"Maybe we should give her some space," Miss Joke said, seeing Mirko was not answering. "It's been a long day."

Monoma shrugged.

A bit later, Medea and Silk arrived. Silk wanted to ask where Compress was mostly. Mirko had no info for her--she hadn't seen him anywhere--but Twice's condition didn't give her a lot of confidence about it.

Silk shook her head.

"So where was this mansion?" Aizawa asked Wally.

"It was kind of set back from the street," Wally said. "But it's like an old movie. I mean, it's not like your big houses around here... They're...what's the word? Oriental? It's not like that. It looks like a house from my country."

"Some people build western-style houses here," Aizawa said. "They like the style."

"I guess so," Wally said. "So it's hard to miss, right? But it wasn't that far from here, just a few cities and highways over. I guess they had to be close to snag Shine and Judy Hopps there. But it's weird-- I'm having a hard time remembering exactly how I found it. I kind of just sensed Shine... We kind of have a 6th sense about each other. It's even stronger now than it used to be."

"Maybe you should keep more of an eye on your wife, then," Aizawa said. "She shouldn't have gone off alone."

"She didn't." Wally looked angry. "They were snatched. Probably because she can't run away like I can. So back off, buddy."

Aizawa blinked. "Oh...uh, sorry."

Wally eased up. "I just...get frustrated with how often this happens."

Aizawa nodded.

At that moment, Dabi and Mabui came striding into the lobby, Mabui trotting to keep up with Dabi.

"What'd we miss? Where are they?" Dabi asked quickly.

"Easy there, soldier. They're in there." Wally pointed. "They're okay."

"Well, good." Dabi relaxed a little.

"Sorry, who is this?" Aizawa eyes Mabui. "Is this your new alien associate?"

Mabui looked up at him with an expression that implied she was at least a foot taller than he was in her mind.

"I prefer the term immigrant," she said coolly.

Aizawa felt a little chilled. "Um...of course."

"This is Mabui." Dabi gestured at her. "Mabui, Mr. Aizawa, the major stiff. We kidnapped his kid a while back, and then we helped rescue his actual legal kid, so I guess it's even."

"I see." Mabui accepted that with way too much ease. Like that sounded normal to her.

"I'm not really supposed to leave the agency or my halfway house without supervision," Dabi said, "but I talked Dad into letting her supervise me. Now we're all here--though technically, we're supposed to be running an errand to the DA's office or something."

"Which we will do, later," Mabui said firmly. "I won't get behind on the work, but of course, I wanted to be sure if Miss Likstar was all right and hear the story."

"I guess we should see if Shine's ready to tell it," Wally said.

* * *

Shine did tell it. She manged to do this relatively calmly. But she was upset that Shigaraki had not come with them. Though she expected it. And that Twice couldn't because she couldn't portal him.

Mirko didn't do much to help explain things. All she would say, very reluctantly, was that it seemed Shigaraki had the idea that they did in fact, sell him out, but she didn't know how. And he had stopped short of killing her.

That surprised the other Heroes. But Dabi said it made sense.

"In fact, I think I get where he's at," he mused, "though he'll never forgive you selling him out. This is just like when I didn't want to kill you."

"It is," Shine admitted. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Why didn't you?" Momo asked Dabi, quite openly now. Discussing his past had become normal to her. "We haven't talked about that really."

"Well, I would never have told you then," Dabi said, shuffling a little uncomfortably, "and I hate getting sappy, but, I guess...it's like, you end up where I was by thinking that everyone will always treat you the same, whatever you do, and you become that thing that they hate, because it sucks less if you're doing it on purpose, I guess. I was angry and bitter and hateful. I thought that would keep anyone from ever asking what was going on behind that. But...when it didn't, I don't know, I hated it at first, but then it started to get reassuring. I felt guilty trying to betray Likstar and West. I knew they were sincere. It was one thing to kill all those fakes, but if I didn't treat even the real deal differently, what was I but just like everyone else? You get it?"

"I think so," Momo said.

"Yeah," Bakugo said, "that makes sense, but that doesn't sound like Mr. Facepalm."

"I don't know. It's been a long time since I've talked to him, but it sounds like he's made some admissions that you guys are legit," Dabi said. "And even that dumb bunny did her best, much as I hate to admit it."

Mirko shot him a dirty look.

"So he probably just wondered what the heck the excuse for killing you would be right now," Dabi said.

"Or maybe he likes them," Camie suggested.

"Yeah, well, Shigaraki doesn't like anyone." Dabi shrugged. "But he's not like AFO. That M-----f---"

"Touya!" Shine interrupted sharply.

"I mean that...uh...walking, talking scientific disaster," Dabi said, "is a whole 'nother level. On his own, Shigaraki is not that scary, really. But with AFO behind him, I don't know. That's my take on it."

"And this if from an ex-Villain," Aizawa said, "so for the rest of us that goes double."

"That doesn't explain how weird that house seemed," Shine said. She fingered the sheet. "I just...think there's someone else working with them. But who?"

* * *

Shigaraki didn't get a whole lot of coherent sentences out of Twice, even after he saw that West had taken the two women away.

But Twice did babble something about clones and Toga that made Shigaraki realize Toga was still nowhere to be found.

He wasn't sure what to make of all of this, but he and Twice went back to where he'd left Ujiko, only to find Ujiko had left.

"I didn't mean to," Twice whimpered.

"Didn't mean to what, Twice?!" Shigaraki was nearing the end of his rope.

"Break it all." Twice put his hands on his head. "They said to... It was scary, and it was so dark..."

Shigaraki looked around.

"Do you mean the equipment?" he said warily.

Twice just nodded. 

"But..." Shigaraki frowned, "but Ujiko said it was..."

Suddenly, he got a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He found Ujiko putting AFO back together, as it were, fixing his chair and stuff.

AFO was in a rage such as Shigaraki had almost never seen him in. They didn't hear Shigaraki come in at first.

"That woman will pay for this!" AFO was saying to Ujiko in cold fury. "The audacity she had to bring up such things! And did you see how she's twisted up the boy? And--" He stopped, sensing Shigaraki was there. "Ah, Tomura Shigaraki." His voice changed to it's usual tone. "Is it done?"

"No," Shigaraki said feebly. "I failed."

Silence.

The closest thing to disappointment AFO had ever shown.

Shigaraki felt crushed...but still uneasy. He frowned at Ujiko.

"Well, you may have failed, but you'll try again," AFO said. "We can manage that easily enough. Just as before. What happened? Did Likstar find you before you could finish the job?"

"I couldn't," Shigaraki said dully.

"Couldn't what?" AFO almost was a little wary.

"I couldn't kill her." Shigaraki wished Master would help him make sense of what happened. "I don't know why."

But then thinking of what Twice said, he frowned at Ujiko again.

Ujiko himself didn't look pleased. "This is worse than I thought," he said.

"Quiet," AFO warned him. "Explain, Tomura Shigaraki."

Shigaraki didn't care to explain, really, but he wouldn't have held back from telling AFO anything.

He tried to block out the image of what happened in his mind.

"I almost did, but then I didn't...and I was sick. I don't know why."

"Surely there must have been a reason you didn't," AFO said.

Shigaraki's mind flashed more images of Mirko and the blood and... He shook his head.

"I don't know. At first...she looked scared."

"And?" AFO didn't understand.

"And then she didn't," Shigaraki said.

"Blasted rabbit," Ujiko muttered.

"I see." AFO didn't see at all. "Well...we'll have to give this matter some thought. Perhaps it is Likstar's doing. She can be quite tricky."

"Likstar wasn't there," Shigarkai said. "Something is wrong with me." He shook his head.

"Well, we'll find the solution," AFO assured him. "For now, you should probably rest."

Shigaraki started to leave, then he said, "Where's Toga?"

"Toga? I..." Ujiko paused. "I think she's around somewhere. Probably hid from the commotion."

Twice perked up. "We should find her."

"Yes, you do that," AFO said.

They exited.

AFO made a sound of anger. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I told you," Ujiko said peevishly. "That rabbit has done more damage than the work of a day will cure. I can't understand it. She's so unpleasant, not the type of person who should be able to undo our work."

"And even after we made it so clear that she was untrustworthy," AFO said. "She has created a weakness in the boy. This is something we cannot let go unchecked."

"We should deal with her severely," Ujiko said, "send some of our new associates after her, maybe."

"No." AFO put a hand to his chin. "If we have her offed by anyone else, it will not have the same effect. The question is already in his mind as to why he spared her miserable life. Her death at someone else's hand will not answer it... We must answer it ourselves."

"But I already tried telling him it was just more destruction," Ujiko whined. "It didn't work. That lizard told him something or other that changed his mind. He's become far too reliant on that League. I always thought letting him have that to himself was a bad idea! He treats them all as equals."

"Hmm...that is an unforseen consequence," AFO said. "I admit, I always thought he would rule with more of an iron fist, as we taught him."

"With nomu he did, and Kurogiri, but unfortunately that subject's termination has caused problems too. The League no longer trusts us," Ujiko said. "It's all Likstar's fault. She started the idea. She's decided they should all leave us, and all our work of the last 20 years will be ruined."

"I know how to assess someone's power," AFO said, "and I have that useful Search quirk also, but I couldn't get a full read on her. All I know is that taste of her power I got was far more than I expected. If it is not a quirk, then I don't like the idea of her having it. And her partner may have just as much. There must be some way to stop them."

"Akume says they will work on that," Ujiko said, "but the Pro and the League are our department."

AFO thought.

"I may have an idea for that." He smiled unpleasantly. "It will take a day or two to set up. I'll have to converse with our new resource department. And make sure that it's really necessary. The boy may snap out of it given enough time. I'll talk to him about it too. He must not forget who he is."

Ujiko nodded. "Let's hope that is all we need."

[Hmm....]

* * *

Shigaraki and Twice didn't find Toga for a long time. When they did, she seemed in a happy mood. She acted like she did after she cut up someone.

Shigaraki was still mulling over what Twice said, and when Ujiko finally reentered his new lab, he had made up his mind.

He turned around in the chair he was in to face Ujiko.

"I want to know something," he said in a cold voice. "Did you tell Twice to destroy this equipment?"

Ujiko frowned... He wasn't the best at making up cover stories, as he was rarely ever caught.

"Well, uh, where would you get that idea?" he asked.

"Twice mentioned clones," Shigaraki said, "and he said he wrecked the equipment."

That was direct.

"Well, you know Twice says all kinds of things," Ujiko said. "He's a crackpot."

Shigaraki suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Ujiko by his collar, one finger up.

Ujiko almost wet his pants.

"Tomura, what are you doing?--"

"Don't call Twice a crackpot," Shigaraki said in a scary tone. "Now answer me. Did you order him to do that?"

Ujiko squeaked. "I might have...but it was necessary."

"Necessary?" Shigaraki said.

His finger hovered.

"I had to show you the truth somehow," Ujiko said. "Twice can clone anything, even nomu. It was a simple matter, a useful test of his powers too."

"Then why did you say it was Mirko?"

"Well, you could say it was her fault. If she wasn't here, I wouldn't have needed to do it," Ujiko said.

But Shigaraki had come a little too far for that to work. "That makes no sense," he said flatly. "She wasn't even in the same part of the house, was she? She was never in here."

He frowned at Ujiko. "But then, she was on the phone...still, perhaps that was just to escape. She never attacked you at all. It was a nomu, wasn't it?"

Toga looked up. "Oh, actually, Shiggy, that was me." She giggled. "Are we telling him now?"

"Toga, shut up," Ujiko said.

Shigaraki tightened his grip. "You shut up."

Ujiko went silent.

"It was a great joke, wasn't it?" Toga didn't seem to see why this might not be funny to anyone else.

Until she got a look at Shigaraki's expression, and then she looked kind of scared.

"What did you do?" he said.

Toga hid behind Twice, who wasn't much better.

"Well, you know, Shiggy," she said nervously, "Ujiko and that other guy said we had to, or we'd be sorry, so we had to, you know? We didn't mean anything by it... I just kind of roughed him up a bit, just for show. He's not my type, I swear."

Ujiko made a face at that.

"So it was you," Shigaraki said.

He frowned. "Did you do anything else?"

"I... You'll be mad," Toga said.

"I'll be mad if you don't tell me right now!" Shigaraki snarled.

"Okay, okay, I might also have kind of...fake phone called for back up," Toga said.

Shigaraki stared at her. "That was you--"

Suddenly he recalled the sly look and the jump... It had been more of a leap...

He hadn't even thought of it till now, but, no, it was clearly Toga.

"You...lied to me," he said.

"Now, don't take it like that." Toga pulled a contrite face. "We didn't want to. They made us. It was so scary. Please don't be mad. It wasn't our fault."

"Yes!" Twice said. "No!"

Shigaraki turned to look at Ujiko with hatred.

"And why did you do that?" he said.

Ujiko gulped. "To be fair, it wasn't really my idea," he said. "All of us are forced to make certain choices."

Shigaraki waited.

"Come now, in the long run, it was doing you a favor," Ujiko said.

"And Likstar, did you lie about her?" Shigaraki said.

"Likstar is harder to imitate. Whatever she said, she meant," Ujiko sniffed.

Shigaraki thought. "She didn't say that much wrong though, not if the rest was fake... She must have been telling the truth... She was confused because it was all fake. You deceived me on purpose, again."

"Not just me." Ujiko was anxious to get out from under the bus. "And will you really dare to kill us? Without AFO's permission? Come now, we're your allies in this. Even if you don't like what we did, it was to help you."

Shigaraki should have, in Twice's opinion, but he let him go.

In fact, he seemed dejected now. "So...it wasn't even real."

Somehow he sounded like a normal person when he said that--but so, so very sad.

Twice might have been crazy, but he had a heart.

"Ah, sir," he said, "it's not your fault. We should never have done it--we had no choice--but it was bad." He rubbed his head. "Ah, stop arguing."

"I don't see why it's so bad. I mean, no harm done, right?" Toga said. "They got away anyway. It's kind of funny, isn't it?"

Shigaraki looked up at her sharply. "It's not funny at all! Do we blame people for things they didn't do in this League?"

Toga gulped. "All right, fine, so it's kind of a bummer. But it's done, right? I never liked them anyway."

Ujiko rubbed his neck. "You may be angry at us, Tomura, but whose 9fault is it, really, that they were even here?"

Shigaraki cast him a horrible look...but said nothing.

He just walked out of the room.

Ujiko shook his head. "That didn't take long. Twice, you buffoon! You let it slip."

Twice whimpered.

"Oh, leave him alone," Toga surprisingly said. "He didn't mean to, and you're super creepy."

Yeah, coming from her...but Ujiko didn't care to push his luck. She was psychotic, and he had no one around to defend him.

He'd better let AFO know the jig was up.

* * *

"He knows, huh?" AFO said later. "Well, it won't matter. It sounds like it will still work in our favor. The ruse served its purpose. I wasn't entirely sure we could trust that lunatic to keep it quiet anyway. We'll have to take care of them too."

"What about All Might and his successor?" Ujiko asked. "They might know where we are now."

"I don't intend to wait around for them," AFO said.

He rubbed his chin again.

* * *

"Rumi," Shine said, when the others had gone off to get food, "you're awfully quiet... What happened?"

Mirko rubbed her neck. "You know, he almost did it," she said, "and I wasn't fast enough to get away."

"I know," Shine said.

"Honestly, I hate you a little bit for just leaving like that," Mirko said. "But they wouldn't come anyway."

"I'm sure you're angry," Shine said. "I am...somewhat angry at myself. I feel I should have seen what AFO was planning...though we're missing something. I don't know what Shigaraki could have thought he saw. Twice might explain it, but Twice...well, I don't know, he couldn't plan that on his own."

"Whatever it was, it must have been convincing," Mirko said darkly. "He totally believed it, I could tell."

"He expected it," Shine said.

"Why? What did I ever do?" Mirko said. "I proved time and again I was legit. It's infuriating." She put her face in her hands.

"Rumi, it has nothing to do with your actions," Shine said. "Surely you know that by now. Someone who doesn't believe anyone will be loyal to them, unless it's through fear, is going to be easily made suspicious. And if you think people will hate you anyway, then that is what you'll do. You...you have to understand, for people like Tenko and me, even, and Dabi too," she tugged her hair, "at least in the early stages of recovery, you're just waiting to hear certain things. You dread it, but you anticipate it. And it's a sick sort of relief when you do, because getting your hopes up felt a lot riskier than just accepting this is how it always will be. Nothing infuriates a broken person so much as the idea of real love."

"But you said that... I'm confused," Mirko said.

"I might have said love is the only thing stronger than fear," Shine said, "but that doesn't mean someone can recognize love when they see it. You have to be patient. Consistently... Believe me, I learned all about that on our long mission. I almost gave up a few times on thinking I'd ever get through to some of those kids."

"But you did," Mirko said hopefully.

"With help from the others, I did," Shine said, "and we're close... If you get through all that, I think you have a bond that can't be severed, myself. But it took time, and you have to prove yourself over and over and over until they get it, and that takes more effort for some people. And they have to learn to forgive themselves for not being able to accept it too. Brokenness works all kinds of ways at you, Rumi. The point is, I'm not taking what Tenko did personally. He's mistrusting me too, but I know he can't help it." She smiled weakly. "I'd advise you not to take it personally either. I'm sure it feels that way right now, but trust me, he's seeing all both of us did through the lens of the past, not the present. And they will encourage him to do that."

"Then it's hopeless," Mirko said, despairing. "If they can just lie about us, what chance does anyone have?"

"You sound like one of us now," Shine said. "You've stopped thinking of this as a mission, you know that?"

Mirko looked up. "Huh?"

"In the past you'd never have used those words," Shine said. "But now, you think of it as saving a person, don't you? Not just about safety anymore. You think you'd do anything if it meant it would get through to them."

Mirko shrugged. "Oddly specific."

"That's how I feel all the time," Shine said. "You've become a little more than a Hero now, Rumi. We are called to something higher than that, to saving people from darkness. Freeing them, healing them. You're part of that now." She smiled. "But you should be part of it all the way. You can't keep trying to do this alone. Humans can't do this for each other single-handedly. We all have our own darkness, too, that we need to escape. To really help someone, you need to be able to transcend yourself."

"You sound weird saying that," Mirko said.

"I know it sounds a bit weird, now that those terms have been used so much by New Age groups," Shine said, "but we had it first, you know. I'm not talking about some airy, vague, watery, in the sky thing. I mean up close and personal, we have to realize that we can't do this alone. It's as real as a kid knowing they can't reach the top shelf without either a ladder or a parent lifting them up. With the help of that, though, they can transcend their usual height. That's all it means."

Mirko tilted her head. "Height? Really?"

Shine laughed. "I swear that was not a short joke."

Mirko smirked slightly. "I don't have the energy to smack you for that."

"Good."

"Yeah, well, I'm willing to try anything at this point," Mirko accepted. "But one thing...if this is true, explain to me why he stopped."

She kind of reddened as she thought about it.

"As a woman, I really think you shouldn't need me to explain that." Shine didn't help.

"Oh, don't be stupid, Likstar." Mirko hid her face a little with her hair. 

"I'm not the stupid one, Rumi. What more proof do you need?" Shine said. "I mean, maybe not just for you, but there's something there for sure. And why not just accept it? Are you afraid of it now? I thought you weren't afraid of anything."

"Shut up!" Mirko said. "And what if...if it was...? That's just worse, isn't it?"

"How? That could be the best news I've heard all day," Shine said.

"That was too close of a call," Mirko said.

"It takes a lot of work to resist brainwashing," Shine said. "You can't imagine how counter-intuitive it is...or maybe you can. You certainly had a hard time resisting the Hero jargon about villains for the first 2 or 3 months, didn't you? I remember how much I wanted to smack you sometimes."

"You didn't act like it," Mirko said.

"I hide it well now, don't I?" Shine said. "But I did think about it. But at least you had our support... Look, if what you're looking for is some reason to believe that this is a good sign, then I quite honestly think it is. But that doesn't mean it won't still cause a lot of pain for all of us." She sighed. "I wish we didn't have to pay literally in blood for every step of progress we make here. People keep dying or getting hurt, and we get just so close to a full turn around, but then it goes out of reach again. Still, each time we get a little closer. If we could get to him again, I think it might finally happen, but now it will be harder than ever to do that."

"So what now, then?" Mirko said. "You have a plan?"

"Nope," Shine said. "I have nothing. This is where I pray and wait for God to do something."

"That's not a good plan."

"And you think you can do better?" Shine scoffed. "I wish it wasn't so, believe me, but it is so. Look, God has gotten us this far. I don't think he's ready to drop it yet. We have to have faith."

Mirko didn't find that a very comforting thought. But she knew it was all Shine would say.

Honestly, at this point she just hoped Shine was right. There wasn't much else to go on.