Birds of a Feather

Come in, come in!

カラス
          Karasu landed in front of the gate surrounding the Todoroki house with her brother as a UA car pulled up with Tokoyami and Shinso. They were all in fairly casual clothes, and Hawks as always in his pro costume.
"Alright. Let's go have a family dinner with the Todorokis." Hawks said with two thumbs up to his three interns. He pushed the gate open and walked in behind them, looking up at the house in front of them. This thing is still intimidating to me, he thought with a sigh. I'll have to get used to it, though. I'd imagine I'll be seeing a lot of it from here on out because of Kara.
"Oh, this is going to be so awkward." Karasu sighed as they walked up to the door, slumping her shoulders forward as Shinso knocked on the door.
"Why would it be awkward? Don't you know all of them?" Tokoyami asked with a raised eyebrow.
Hawks stifled a laugh when he saw his sister react to realising what she had just said. So none of their classmates are aware, then.
"Uh-" she tried to think of a reason. Thankfully, Fuyumi opened the door.
"Kara!" She threw her arms around her in a hug. The two of them had gotten fairly close when she'd stayed with the Todorokis, neither of them had ever had a sister so it was fun to get to experience that.
"Tokoyami, Shinso. This is Shoto's older sister- Fuyumi." Karasu smiled as she stepped. "Fuyumi, these are two of Shoto and I's classmates. Hitoshi Shinso- his hero name is Koe. Fumikage Tokoyami- his hero name is Tsukoyomi. You've met my brother, Hawks."
"Yes! It's so nice to meet you, and to see you again!" Fuyumi grinned at them. "Come in, come in!" She motioned for them to follow her into the house. She slid her shoes off as she reached the stairs up to the platforms that were everywhere in the Todoroki house. "We're getting dinner setup in our dining room, Dad and Midoriya and Bakugo and Shoto are already here. Mom and Natsuo are in the kitchen."
"Where's Shoto?" Karasu asked, trying to be subtle and failing, as she climbed the set of stairs.
"Careful Kara." Hawks said as he followed her onto the wooden floors and nudged her. "You're gonna get yourselves in trouble again."
She gave her brother a look and nudged him back directly in the ribs. "You promised you wouldn't do that," she said under her breath to him.
Hawks laughed as he walked ahead of her towards the kitchen.
"Shoto is in the backyard, I think. Bakugo and Midoriya are in the east wing living room. All three of you are welcome to join them if you'd like," Fuyumi said as she turned to follow after Hawks.
"I definitely will." Karasu said quickly, turning and heading in the opposite direction of Hawks and Fuyumi.
Both Shinso and Tokoyami nodded and followed after her to walk to the living room where Bakugo and Midoriya were waiting for dinner.
"Didn't you live here for a couple weeks?" Shinso remarked as he looked around.
"More or less- before everything with Hawks was sorted out, he had me stay here. I never felt like I lived here, but it was about three weeks so I guess you could say I sort of lived here." She glanced back at them. "I do know the house pretty well as a result of that. The east wing living room in the first door on the left down that hall." She motioned to the right with her wings when they reached the correct hallway.
"How many living rooms do they have?" Shinso raised an eyebrow.
"Four." She turned towards them slightly. "It's insane, I know. Although, two of them aren't really living rooms anymore, they're training rooms with couches." She smiled at her classmates. "Well, I'll see you at dinner," she waved and kept walking down the hallway.
Once she reached the backyard, she sat on the edge of the wooden platform that wrapped around the back of the house. She liked watching Todoroki practice and train, the look of serious concentration on his face was something she found completely beautiful. Like a statue.
Todoroki went through each of his moves carefully and fluidly, almost like he was practising a dance. It was different from his typical powerful moves of punches and kicks that he used, more sophisticated. It looked less like his father's moves than his typical fighting style. It had more of his own self in them. Karasu loved seeing that- his identity was something he had struggled with under the weight of his father, so to see him carving it out for himself made her genuinely happy. His current focus was attempting to combine his fire and ice attacks into virtually one for another ultimate move.
Ultimate moves were something Karasu herself wasn't well versed in. Her extreme ability for speed flight was definitely one, but losing her had limited her 'ultimate move' capabilities greatly. Maybe I should talk to Aizawa about that, she thought. It'd be nice to have a couple close range ultimate moves up my sleeve the next time my dad tries to kill me.
"Kara?" Todoroki looked surprised when he spotted her, lowering his hands. "How long have you been seeing there?"
"Just a few minutes." She said, "you seemed pretty engulfed in your training, I didn't want to disturb you."
"You could never do that." He walked over to her and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. "This is alright, right? I remember you told me you didn't like me holding your hand when we were first dating."
"It's fine now." She kissed his fingers and smiled. "I know if I need my hand back I can take it and you'll still hold on to me." She stood up and kissed his cheek. "Will you show me what you were working on?"
Todoroki nodded and pulled her into the centre of the yard. "Here, spread your wings out so I can stand behind you." He moved around and slid his right arm around her waist to pull her close.
Karasu spread her wings out to fit him against her back and tipped them down so they were touching the ground. Her boyfriend gently slid his left hand from her shoulder to her hand making her blush.
"Currently, I'm focusing on trying to be able to use ice and fire from anywhere on my body," he explained softly as he drew her closer. "So I've been working on circulating heat and cold within my body simultaneously, but separately so they don't get too muddled and cancel each other out." His right hand began to grow colder against her abdomen, and his left hand started to warm as it held hers. "Currently I've been working on keeping my breathing steady to maintain the flow at a manageable and controllable rate."
"It's hard to understand breath control when you're holding me like this." Karasu said, trying not to get lost listening to him as he spoke softly directly into her ear. Honestly, he could read from the dictionary like this and I still couldn't focus on anything.
Todoroki smiled slightly, lacing his fingers through hers. "You were able to keep your focus on multiple things during the war," he pointed out.
"None of them were you whispering into my ear," she gave him a look, kissing his cheek quickly. "I'm sure if I was doing something like this to you while you tried to train you wouldn't be able to focus on it." She squeezed his hand gently. "Hawks is going to debrief Endeavor on this, so while we have a minute- I have something to tell you."
"Hm?" Shoto gently turned her around, looping his arms around her waist.
"On our mission a few days ago, the one Hawks chose to take with just him and the three of us." Karasu rested her hand on his shoulder. "My dad was there. He attacked me and tried to kill me. We didn't know it was him when we got the alert... However, seeing him shook us both and he got away. We potentially think All For One predicted we'd take that mission and sent our father there so that we'd see him and be shaken."
Todoroki nodded, folding his hands together behind her. "He tried to kill you?"
"I'm fairly certain," she sighed and leaned her head forward on his shoulder. "I mean he didn't say 'I'm going to kill you', but he has red feathers up his arms that are like mine but way sharper and he tried to get me in the face with them, so..."
"Are you alright?" He pressed a kiss to her hair gently.
"I mean, it isn't like I've ever really met him. I mean yeah when I was a baby, but I was like six months old when he was arrested. I have no memories of him." She closed her eyes, squeezing his arm slightly. "It's still weird. He's my dad, and he tried to kill me. He wanted me dead- Hawks thinks it's literally because I'm his daughter. But I don't know him at all."
"Then we'll have to make sure he doesn't have the chance," Todoroki lifted her chin so he could look her in the eyes.
"Okay, lovebirds." Hawks stepped onto the platform behind them on the porch. "Dinner's about ready."
カラス
           "It's weird that we're not doing a camp this year." Ashido sighed as she set her fork down at lunch and leaned back in her chair.
"No it's not." Karasu and Bakugo said at the same time.
Todoroki squeezed his girlfriend's leg gently under the table silently.
"We also can't really do exams when we've only been in school for like a month," Midoriya pointed out. "So I wonder what they'll do in place of them."
"Ugh, hopefully not more testing." Kaminari dropped his head forward. "I don't think I could handle more testing."
"Testing is an important part of the academic process!" Iida said, pointing a finger into the air. "It measures our academic growth throughout our schooling!"
"Yeah, that's the problem." Kaminari groaned as he stood up with his tray when the bell to end lunch rang.
Karasu smiled slightly as she lifted her own tray carefully and followed after her classmates. "I'd just like something kind of exciting to happen," she admitted. "I've got enough I'd like to be distracted from."
"School normally doesn't leave much time for us to rest between exams or... big events." Sero commented as they all put their trays up and began climbing the stairs back to class.
"Maybe we could do something with class B and not against them this time." Uraraka mused, looking up at the ceiling in thought.
"That'd be nice. I don't like thinking of them as competition- after the PLW more than ever we should keep feeling like a united front." Yayurozu agreed, folding her hands in front of herself.
          When they reached class, their pro costume suitcases were sitting on their desks already.
A note on the board read 'CHANGE INTO YOUR COSTUMES AND GO TO TRAINING GROUND THETA'.
"Ask and ye shall receive," Shoji commented as he picked up his case.
"Let's get changed and get to work!" Iida announced loudly, grabbing his own case and zooming ahead of the class.
Karasu picked her costume case up and looked over at Shinso. "Ready for your first practical lesson with the hero course?"
"Ready as I can be." Shinso responded, rubbing the back of his neck. "See you out there, Karasu."
"See you out there." She waved at her friend. She grabbed Todoroki's arm and kissed his cheek quickly before she walked into the girl's locker room.
カラス
          Class 2-A stood in front of the doors of Ground Theta- they had never been here before so none of them had any idea what was behind the giant metal doors in front of them.
"You all made good time here." Aizawa said as he stepped through a small crack in the doors. "For your first practical exam of your second year- you'll be making your way through Ground Theta."
"EraserHead," Uraraka stepped forward. "What is Ground Theta?"
"In essence, a maze." Aizawa responded. "You'll have an hour to make it through- I'll be splitting you into two teams. The goal isn't necessarily to reach the end, although there will be a bonus for whichever team has the most of its members reach the end by the time it's over."
"Will the two teams be against each other?" Hagakure raised her hand.
"Yes." Aizawa shoved his hands into his pockets. "This exam will last the full hour or until the entirety of one team has been captured. Teams are as follows," he cleared his throat. "Team 1; lead by Tenya Iida, team members are Mina Ashido, Mashirao Ojiro, Eijiro Kirishima, Rikido Sato, Kyoka Jiro, Fumikage Tokoyami, Karasu Takami, Toru Hagakure, Izuku Midoriya, and Hitoshi Shinso. Team 2; lead by Momo Yayurozu, team members are Yugo Aoyama, Tsuyu Assui, Ochako Urara, Denki Kaminari, Koji Koda, Mezo Shoji, Hanta Sero, Shoto Todoroki, Katsuki Bakugo, and Minoru Mineta."
Thank God I'm not on the same team as Mineta, Karasu thought to herself. Then she realised something- Shoto and I are on opposite teams. Interesting.
Todoroki glanced at his girlfriend. I'll have to avoid Kara as best I can... As much as I can serve as a weakness to her, she's also one for me.
Aizawa handed Iida and Yayurozu each a box. "These are devices that, when attached to someone's wrist or ankle, will activate a cuff that will attach them to the wall of the maze inside. That is how you trap a member of the other team. Each of you will be given about seven or eight of these, so while there is enough for errors you still don't want to waste them. Team 1, your meeting spot is through that door," he pointed to a small door about fifteen feet to the left. "Team 2, yours is through that door," he pointed to a door about fifteen feet to the right. You'll have five minutes to strategise- once those five minutes are up you'll be released from the room and into the maze. Stay focused. Now go."
Each team followed their leader through the doors.
           "Do you have a strategy in mind?" Karasu looked up at Iida as soon as the door closed behind them.
"Two, actually." Iida said as he fixed his helmet over his head. "If the walls of the maze reach to the ceiling or if they don't."
"If they don't?" Ashido asked as she leaned back against the wall, folding her hands behind her head.
"If they don't- well, clearly part of this assignment is for us to practise close quarters combat, yes? So we can't just have Raven and Tailman ferry us over the top of the maze to the end or we won't earn a grade in this exam. What I'll do is have Raven, Koe, and Tsukoyomi set up at the exit to prevent the other team from getting through if they do reach it."
"Sounds good to me." Shinso said as Karasu nodded. "If they do reach the ceiling?"
"If they do, depending on how many paths there are in front of us, we'll head out in teams of as close to equal numbers as we can manage. Whichever team reaches the end first, defend it and prevent as many from the other team from crossing through as you can. Until all of us are through, we'll make sure we leave a few of us to guard the exit."
Above them, an alarm sounded and the doors in the back of the room began to open.
"Once we see how many paths are in front of us, I'll assign teams." Iida said as they all readied themselves.
The doors opened and the lights in front of them came on. There were five paths open before them- and the walls did, in fact, reach the ceiling. Thankfully the paths were wide - looked to be about fifteen feet.
Not much wiggle room for me with my wings fully open, Karasu thought to herself.
"Tsukuyomi, Koe, Raven. You three are a team, take the centre path. Your main goal is still to locate and defend the exit. Deku, you're with me, we'll be taking the one farthest to the right. Invisible Girl and Sugarman, the second one after that. Tailman and Earphone Jack, the second from the left. Pinky and Red Riot, the farthest to the left. Go!"
          "At least there's a dim light so we can see," Shinso commented quietly as the three of them started down their path.
"I have night vision in my glasses." Karasu said, tapping the side of them to activate it.
"I can see in the dark." Tokoyami added.
"Well that's great for you guys." Shinso muttered to himself.
Karasu smiled slightly. "Tsukuyomi, is this enough light to control Dark Shadow?"
"Most likely not," Tokoyami looked at her, "although my own control over him has grown substantially. I'm not worried about losing control of him quite yet."
"Good." She nodded. "We should alternate through which of us check around each corner. We won't always be able to get an accurate look- but it'll at least help us be able to be prepared. I'll take this first corner up ahead."
Shinso and Tokoyami nodded in agreement.
The three of them crept to the turn in the path as quietly as they could, pressed to the inner wall to keep themselves from being visible. Karasu knelt to the ground and extended her left hand along the ground carefully. The bracelet her staff was attached to wasn't a perfect mirror, but it was reflective enough that she could use it.
She slid her hand around the corner, carefully looking at the back of her bracelet. She couldn't make out any shapes in it as she slowly rotated her wrist to be able to get a better look at the entire space around the corner. As soon as she reached what was a weak reflection of the end of the hallway- two shapes came into view. One orange and the other blue- with a glint of that signature red and white on his head.
Shit.
Karasu pulled her hand back. She motioned for her teammates to lean closer and whispered at a barely audible level. "Dynamight and Shoto. Our goal should be to restrain at least one of them before getting away. There's a chance one of them spotted my hand, so I'll go out there first as a distraction. I'll shout 'ready' when you should come out, Tsukuyomi. The longer we can keep them from realising Shinso is here the better- he can imitate one of them and we'll have an easier time of retraining them."
They both nodded in agreement.
Karasu flicked her staff open and took a careful, quiet breath before stepping around the corner.