Colors in the Dark

[40] Girls Meet...

Green eyes darted from screen to paper, slim fingers switching between scribbling in loops on paper with a worn pencil and dropping it to slide over keys. Each time they pressed down, a soft click sounded; it was the only other noise in the room aside from the running computer and sound of pencil scrawling across pads of paper.

The young woman pushed a stray lock of black hair from her face, frustrated it came undone from her bun as she continued working. Her mind was racing.

Time is running out- it always it. We don't have time to lose. She was spotted again, but disappeared. And still nothing on them. Not a single trace aside from the usual.

The shelter of the dark office held the stressing pale girl, the small glass windows on the wall behind her cracking slightly before she huffed and put them back together.

I've checked lists upon lists of student names, of news reports, of everything I can get my hands on. Only Ayami, Kumori, Rikiyo, Mahi'ra, Shinobu, and Io are documented. There hasn't been a thing from the police- hopefully they forgot about us- so we might just be in the clear. Once I find the others, that is.

Yori's missing, I haven't seen Kana since the escape. Aru's still with her, and the others... nothing. Disappeared. Made themselves invisible to the world, just as I (Kana, too, but she couldn't have known this would happen, and isn't able to look like I can!) told them to.

...I wish I had known then that I would have no way to reverse that. Because that's what we need to do now. Make ourselves known. She typed furiously, hands beginning to ache as she came up with nothing once more. No matter how many articles and lists she scanned, she could never find a thing. Make yourselves known to me! Please, it's past high time for us to rise up.

Hayako groaned. Come on, you're working as a journalist- perhaps just a to-be, an apprentice, but a journalist nonetheless- and yet you can't find any information on this!? I have to find someone. Tomomi, Naizen, anyone will do! I might have a lead on Ayami's true heritage, but that won't help me with this. Even with my regular rounds- I still can't believe Boss believes my excuses and lets me chase so many fruitless stories while I'm really scouting for information- I still have yet to find any of them wandering Japan's streets.

Should I try to reach out to Dabi again? No, the League might take that as a sign of allegiance and I'd be treading dangerous waters. I could start scoping for vigilantes like I did to first find Ayami, but if I don't get a hit, it'll have been for naught. I could ask the military about any new recruits in the past few years, though I'd need a genuine case for that to work...

Her grip tightened on the pencil once more, and the glass of her computer screen cracked warningly with her frayed emotions. Hayako's arms were trembling with anger and fear, and she tried her hardest not to break anything with her quirk. The scarring on her forearms burned as she strained them.

"Come on," she muttered. "Go on. Find something. She has been out there, she has held us in her puppet strings for so long, she could appear at any moment and kill one of us. She could have done so already, all because I can't dig deep enough. I need to know they're safe, that they're prepared to go down fighting against the root of all evil if it so comes to it. She never hesitated, and each day she's closer to striking. I can't stop now, not ever, until I know she's locked up forever. The world needs to know our story now, after all these years of silence. What happened inside those walls, behind closed doors, locked away and quieted. We need to rise before she does, and make sure it never happens again."