The Zodiacs

Ife had forgotten that Dai was probably pretty out of the loop. Until now she’d just assumed that he knew that she’d swapped internships. Maybe this would have been easier if she thought to write a letter or something like that.

“Yeah, I took a break from my internship to focus more on exams and by the time I was ready to come back … well … Ingenium had his accident.”

This was actually the first time that Ife had talked with somebody about what had happened to her old mentor. Most people already knew so there hadn’t been much of a point to bringing it back up. The memories of first hearing about it on the news came flooding back to her. She’d cried a lot on that day. If she hadn’t had a chance to come to terms with it over the last month she probably would have started to cry again right now.

“I couldn’t exactly go back to working for him now, so I had to find an internship elsewhere.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

It felt like such an... insufficient response to her statement, but it was true. Losing her first mentor had to’ve created a dark mark in her life that would never go away. She would grow from it, would become stronger, but it would always hurt.

His smile was forced, an attempt to try to steer this conversation back towards less painful grounds. Dai doubted he would succeed, but the intention was what mattered, wasn’t it?

 ——> Haru felt the words of contradiction rise in his throat. He was fine if people decided to be flashy and stupid for hope’s sake. Whatever. But not every hero was like that. 

 In fact, a lot of heroes didn’t care about other people at all.    It was about money, fame, notoriety. It wasn’t real.  

   “You—-” His voice struggled to keep his volume down. Yelling was something he did often and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere so far.     “You know not all heroes think like that. They’re not interested in hope—”

“It’s not your place to make that judgement.”

The words felt harsh, but his tone was gentle. Dai did his best to smile as softly as he could as he reached out to place a hand on the teen’s shoulder, though even as he did he fully expected for the other to shrug the affection away. This was something that Haru struggled with and he knew that it wasn’t going to come easily to him to balance the idea in his mind. That Heroes could be interested in flash and pomp without it lessening their desire to save.

   —> This certainly wasn’t the first time someone would imply how many terrible things Masa could do. As if he didn’t already know this. As if many people didn’t already give him a hard time for his quirk. 

   His face revealed nothing. 

  “I don’t appreciate being called creepy.”

“And the funny thing is that most people don’t truly care about what you do or don’t appreciate. The only thing that matters to them is just what you can, or can’t, do for them.”

Her mutation had her sticking out like a sore thumb. Incredibly minute? Skeletal hands and matching ‘antlers’ that had people skirting around her, afraid that a touch from her might kill them? They weren’t wrong, though it was something she could control. And when she had been younger she had been hurt by their scorn.

Now she laughed at it.

“You have quite the creepy little power, don’t you?” A sly smile and a quirk of her brow as she crossed her arms to stare up at the other. “Being able to see the thoughts and feelings of another person without their consent...”

“You must be one of Ife’s classmates.”

The tiny woman had mastered the art of stealth, masking any sound of her approach as she slowly stepped up behind the other. Normally sneaking up on a hero while they were training was a deathwish, but Lila was more than confident in her abilities. That, and she could see a flaw in the girl’s stance as she moved through her poses.

A tap to her side, followed by easily dodging beneath the attack that was sure to come well above her head. Learning to use her height to her advantage was something that Lila had take to heart years ago, and the result was Hagane standing with Lila up against her, chin practically pressed to her chest as one arm was outstretched. The stinger that was attached to the base of her wrist was pointed at the other’s throat.

“I didn’t say you needed any sort of flashy powers or hero gimmick.” Dai spoke softly, knowing that it wouldn’t take much to fully set off the powder keg that was Haru at this moment. “And I understand that you want to save people. That is a commendable trait that you have, and one worth admiring.”

“But being a hero is about more than saving people.” No... Haru would disagree with that, and violently, and Dai sighed at the inevitable argument he could already foresee coming.

When he asked about her internship, Ife froze up for a moment. She didn’t want to admit that her current one wasn’t going so well, but lying would be worse.

“My training is going fine. My internship hasn’t been going as well. Ever since I’ve started my new one I’ve been pretty much stuck behind a desk. I go on patrols every two weeks if I’m lucky. … I sort of think the boss is afraid of me slicing someone in the wrong place, but I’ve got a good enough handle of my quirk that I wouldn’t do that.”

He wasn’t blind to the discomfort that Ife was feeling, but Dai wasn’t sure if it was his place to outright push. He would have allowed for the topic to drop and for conversation to move forward if she hadn’t continued to speak and make reference to an event that he clearly should have known about. Being away from UA meant that he was often out of the loop and it was something he knew he really couldn’t blame himself for, but that didn’t mean Dai didn’t feel some guilt.

One brow gently arched at her words. “Ever since you started your new one?”

“It’s been a bit Ife. How has you training been? Has your internship been going well?”

He had kept in touch with Ife on and off during her years at UA, but Dai had never been able to really stay around for long, and often left for long stretches at time, leaving him a bit out of the loop when it came to important things. 

“I make no promises over what will happen to the next student who mistakes me for a first year.”

Test