Going Beyond the Past

Chapter 71: A Day in the Life

"Hey, Apathia!"

Leinei glanced over her shoulder as she was walking down the hallway of Gunga Villa's third floor where her bedroom is. She mostly stuck to herself minus the few conversations she had with Dabi when he decided to grace everyone with his presence, but overall the last two weeks of her undercover work had been uneventful past that first night.

Keigo's presence had been even more scarce than Dabi's, and that unnerved her more than anything. It was for appearances, to show the disapproving yet supportive brother angle, to the heretical sister who had to fake her own death to get away from the clutches and cruelty of the oppressive hero society that was strangling their country. She still was craving one of his signature hugs and assurances that this will be all over soon, that she could go home, that all of this could be in the past just as soon as they got enough information.

"What's up?" she asks, stopping as a few of the other Army's members jog up to her. She crosses her arms over her chest, taking the small group in as they stare at her starry eyed. "Can..I help you with something?"

"Ah..well..."

The three of them shuffle, sharing looks with each other before a male steps forward, maybe two years her senior. He has messy black hair, some of which falls around his yellow eyes while the rest is cut close to his head to accentuate his already angular cheeks. He smiles sheepishly at her, his cheeks a little flushed as he holds out a gloved hand to her. She raises an eyebrow, her eyes flickering between his outstretched hand before up to his face.

"I'm Zori. You..you're Hawks' sister right?"

"Yeah. Also Dabi and Geten's right hand. What do you guys want?"

"Well...ah..is it okay if I call you by your regular name? It's a little unnerving to call you by your villain name when we all know it."

"I guess. We're all friends here anyway," she sighs, shaking her head as he pulls his hand away. "Seriously, you all have a few minutes to explain why you're accosting me in the hallway when I have a book in my room with my name on it."

"Ah well...you see-"

"We wanted you to train us!" the woman behind him says, stepping forward with flushed cheeks and hopeful eyes. "W-we know you trained at UA, and since we hear Dabi talk so highly of you, and you've been on the news and-"

"What Alisa is saying is that you are way too qualified to be teaching a bunch of civilians how to properly hold their own against heroes, but if you don't mind, we'd love to learn," Zori says, hijacking his conversation with Leinei back from Alisa, who steps back sheepishly. "And we'd love to see if you could help us with our own awakenings, so we can hone our meta abilities better to be of even more use to Shigaraki and ReDestro."

Leinei is quiet, glancing between the trio before her. Alisa brushes her white hair behind her ear, gray eyes hopeful as she stares at the younger girl. The third, a taller fellow with a bored resting bitch face and his hands in his pockets, tilts his head with brown hair falling in his face. Zori, the leader she's deduced, is rubbing the hem of his white gloves, an obvious nervous tick. These are just civilians. Civilians are so wrapped up in this mess...why? How is that crusty, desperately in need of some moisturizer incel this charismatic to draw in so many people to follow him?

"Yeah, sure. I don't really have much else going on for now. If you wanna give me a few minutes to grab my stuff, I can meet you three in one of those sparring rooms."

"That would be amazing, thank you," Zori says in a sigh of relief, letting his hands fall from each other. "See you down there, Leinei."

She nods, watching them turn and walk away. Zori and Alisa talk excitedly amongst themselves, the third nodding quietly before they round the corner and start walking down a flight of stairs. Her hands fall to her sides before clenching into fists, her jaw tightening until her teeth ground against each other. How can they be so happy? With all these plans, all this talk of war...and they act like it's another day at the schoolyard?