Accept No One's Definition Of Your Life, Define Yourself. (MHA x Reze reader)

My First Proper Taste Freedom

In Russia, there's an fairytale mothers would tell to scold their children.  They tell them there's a secret room in the army's ammunition storage filled with children who don't have parents.  Those children have no freedom, can never go outside, aren't treated as human and used as test subjects for experiments until they die. Everyone originally thought it was just a fairytale until a newspaper ran a story that the secret room really existed. An American journalist had tracked down the truth and for a while it was the talk of the town.  They even published the photos of the children that were in there. But it wasn't long until no one was talking about it anymore.  That was so long ago that most people had now forgotten about it until now. One of the headline stories on the morning news in Japan was that the secret room had been forcibly shut down by Pro Heroes and law enforcement officials that didn't agree with this this unethical program.  They arrested government officials involved in it and the children were sent for rehabilitation, the ones that were in Russia anyway. As for the ones that weren't in Russia, efforts were being made to track them down.

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The warmest day since the end of winter so far was drawing to a close and a noisy stream of chitter-chatter and cars lay over the towering, concrete buildings of Musutafu.  Cars that had been frost-covered moved gleaming along the roads and trees that were once bare now stood emerald green and sakura pink.  Free from the biting cold of the winter air, the inhabitants of Musutafu had ventured out into the streets without thick thermal layers, windows had been thrown wide open to tempt in the warm breeze.  One of the many people currently outside in the bustling streets was teenage girl who had a dispassionate expression on her face.
Her figure was that of a gymnast: lean, lithe and strong.  She had purple, shoulder-length hair tied back in a looped bun, emerald-green eyes and had a slightly unhealthy, pinched look for someone who had grown a lot in a short space of time.  Her denim shorts were creased, her shirt shirt-sleeved and tucked into her shorts, her black choker tight around her neck, the laces of her trainers were starting to show signs of strain, and her messy fringe was tucked neatly under a white sun cap.  Reze's appearance was very well constructed: designed to be as ordinary and unassuming as possible.  It had clearly worked at treat as everyone she ran into thought her to be an ordinary teenager and made her practically invisible within the crowd.  In fact, even when she spoke to anyone, they wouldn't have suspected she was a foreigner due to the flawlessness of her Japanese and how well she buried her true accent. On the whole, Reze wasn't currently in the mood for striking up a conversation with anyone, even when she accidentally bumped into anyone, she didn't even stop to apologise. In this country's standard of etiquette, Reze was being rude and she knew it, but she did care very much at the moment; she had more pressing matters on her mind.

She walked on, following the route that would take her to the train station. Every few steps she glanced back over her shoulder, keeping an eye out for anyone that might be following her. She caught sight of a group of teenagers, round about her age, talking and laughing about something on their phones.
And then, as Reze was spiked by a feeling of envy, her uncertainty leaked away. The sight of them being able to be carefree, joyful and oblivious to the rest of the world in their youth, whilst Reze had never had the kind of luxury was bitter sting in her side. She'd never had friends or been to school, nor did she have any recollection of her parents. What they looked like, what they sounded like, whether they loved her unconditionally, nothing.
Reze felt a dull, sinking sensation in her stomach, and before she knew it the feeling of sorrow that had plagued her most of her life rolled over her once again.
That morning she had been awoken by the alarm at five o'clock so she could pay the man that delivered the Shizuoka Shimbun. She had glanced the front page and seen the news of her handlers back in Russia being arrested. The shock she had felt evaporated when she saw a text on her phone that had been sent by her handlers the day before: We've been caught. Abort the mission and return to Russia as soon as you can. Break us out.
Reze was a super soldier that had been moulded to serve the Russian government. She had received gruelling military training every single day, and her quirk had been experimented to shape her into the perfect weapon.

She was a guinea pig, essentially.

Don't think about that, Reze told herself sternly for the hundredth time today. It was bad enough that she kept revisiting that room in her nightmares, without dwelling on it in her waking hours too.
She turned a corner into the street closest to the station; halfway along a camomile flower was thrusted into her face by a flower vender, which Reze decided to buy.
She continued to gaze at it as she crossed the street, turned into a narrower pavement and headed towards the darkening train station. She reached the platform by half-past six, where she stood waiting for her train and stared moodily at the flower in her hand. She wouldn't be able to read the morning papers or listen to news on the radio as she normally did tomorrow. She would have to think of a fresh way to listen to the news. In the meantime, she had nothing to look forward to but a long, restless journey to the airport, where she would travel back to Russia to free the people she had no love for, the people who had stollen her identity... her childhood... her freedom.
The injustice of it all welled up inside Reze so that she wanted to yell with fury. When she hadn't been conducting espionage during mission in this Hero saturated country, she'd been living as a normal person and nobody had the faintest clue she was a spy. She had killed a lot of people during her life as well, so that ruined her chances of having the clean record needed to go to school or get a professional job (if anyone even found out the things she'd done). The people who had ruined her life were now locked in a jail cell, she had no reason besides blind dedication and indoctrination to her country. How could she throw away her chance to seize freedom so easily? Why was she torn between her loyalties and dreams? How much longer could she endure committing unspeakable acts in the name of empty patriotism?

These furious thoughts whirled around in Reze's head and her insides writhed with anger as a surly, velvety evening fell around her, the air full of the smell of warm, dry cherry blossoms, and the only sounds that of the chattering people on the platform and the loud grumble of the trains rolling in and out of the platforms.
She did not know how long she had stood on the platform, blankly staring at the camomile flower before the electronic sound of an incoming announcement over the loudspeaker interrupted her musings and she looked up. Her train was now at the platform and the doors were beginning to close; the other passengers having long boarded by now.
"The 6:38 Tsubasa Shinkansen bound for Yamagata... will depart momentarily," the voice over the loudspeaker blared across the platform. Moments afterwards, the train wheels began to move and the train departed from the station.
Reze watched it go, her sun cap in her hand, allowing the wind to blow through her hair, her fringe falling into its natural state over her face.

She had made her decision.

Slowly, Reze shuffled along the now deserted platform and out of the station, allowing her feet to carry herself forwards along the dark, cheery blossom-covered pavements of Musutafu.  The sounds of the station died away as she made her way down the streets, eventually, the noises of the city too died away as she turned right down an alleyway which formed a shortcut between the main city quiet district at the edge of the city.  It was mostly empty, apart from the locals, and was darker than the other streets because it had fewer streetlights.  Reze made her way past a glass phone booth, which was reflecting her in the dim light and along another narrow alleyway.  Her footsteps were muffled by garage walls on one side and concrete wall with a vending machine on the other.  She then emerged out of the alleyway, making a b-line for a cafe named: Crossroads.  A fitting name, for it was situated on a crossroad and was where Reze had taken a crossroad in her destiny.  The cafe was a tan, single-storied, square-shaped building with large windows.  It had a blue roof and a vertical sign beside the push-not-pull door and tasteful potted plants under it.  It had a homey but business feeling to it.  Reze moved forwards and pushed the door open, the bell ringing overhead alerting the owner to her presence. The owner was a middle-aged man named Sojiro Sakura, with slicked back hair, which did nothing to hide his receding hairline, and dull grey eyes. His quirk was called 'Brewery', which guaranteed that one could have best coffee they could have, no matter how cheap or expensive, no matter what beans were used and no matter how it was prepared.
"Reze?" Mr Sakura blinked in surprise upon turning around to the sight of her.  "I thought you were leaving today?"
"I changed my mind," Reze said vaguely.  "I'm here to stay."
A small, genuine smile spread across Mr Sakura's face.  "That's good.  I was just getting used to you and it's not like I'm gonna get any new waitstaff."
"I thought I just annoyed you," Reze said, surprised by the older man's comment.
"Both are true," Mr Sakura said honestly.  "Speaking of which, just because you've decided to stay, don't think I'm raising your pay."
"Cheapskate," Reze muttered under her breath as she took an apron of the hooks behind the counter, and tied it around her waist.