Chapter Text
Keigo Takami, no longer Hawks, never Hawks again, flies over the sea, hidden in between dark, angry clouds, higher than the radars can catch him, and freezing cold.
Today. It’s happening today. He’s been waiting for 8 years, 8 interminable years , looking at the inmates from the one-way window, hoping she would look up. Hoping she would feel him, somehow, look up and wave, and smile, with that tired, always tired, smile of hers, and say with her eyes ‘you’ve grown a lot, kiddo’ .
She never looked up, hasn’t smiled at him in 8 long years. 8 years since the HPSC stole the only real family he had left in this world from him.
Keigo Takami, not Hawks, never a hero again, dives and crashes against the entrance, feathers coated in explosive material, just as she taught him, just like the first time they did this.
*
12 years ago.
Kaina is 16 when she meets him. And she’s not Kaina anymore, she’s Lady Nagant, and she’s almost a hero.
It’s not her first mission, because it’s barely a mission to begin with. Or so she thinks, back at the time. She’s ordered to investigate illegal quirk usage that actually ended up saving a lot of lives.
The interviews with the locals give her little to no information, something about a flurry of red feathers, but she’s not about to return to the headquarters with nothing, so she does what she does best.
She sets camp on top of the tallest building in the vicinity, and waits, eye never moving from the optic.
It’s not until hour 57 since she started scouting the zone that she sees the red feathers for the first time. Her aim is not yet what it will be, but she’s hunted faster birds.
*
Keigo Takami is small.
Well, that’s a given, the kid is like, 6 years old. It comes with the perks of being a kid, she supposes.
The malnutrition is probably a part of it, too.
She’s not sure how long he has been without eating when she finally finds him, so while the handlers deal with Keigo’s negligent mother, she takes him for lunch.
Lunch he ends up puking.
His eyes go wide as saucers, and before she can react a million red feathers are everywhere, trying to clean the mess as he apologises profusely.
She buys him several shakes, which his stomach holds a lot better.
*
Takami Keigo is the youngest trainee the HPSC has ever taken. How they got his mother to sign the contract, Kaina has no idea. It was different with Kaina, she had no parents to sign a contract for her future, so she did it herself.
Takami Keigo is also eager, and fast, so fast that it earns him a hero name fairly early on.
Before she can notice, Takami Keigo doesn’t answer to any name other than Hawks.
*
Kaina is not 17 yet, when she’s sent to kill her first target.
It’s what we trained you to do.
And
You are a sniper, what did you think you’d be doing?
She fails, not because she didn’t get her target on her visor, but because she couldn’t shoot.
When she comes back, they have her shooting at Hawks’ feathers instead.
That’s how they learn they are like extensions of his own body, and that he can feel everything with them.
*
The chick sticks to her, after that.
In her head, Kaina thinks it’s a little like imprinting. She knows, that in all reality, it’s because she was the only one in this damn place that refused to hurt the kid. She didn’t disobey often, cause as good as the rebellion initially felt, it wasn’t a pleasant experience after the initial high passed. Obedience has been beaten into her from a young age, but there’s a risk with that.
You might get so accustomed that you don’t care anymore.
So she rebels.
She disobeys.
She absolutely refuses to shoot at Keigo or his feathers.
So Keigo, the poor thing, sticks to her side. He hadn’t known safety in his own home, much less here, so it’s normal, Kaina knows this.
It still warms her heart.
*
Kaina is 17 years and 2 months old when she kills her first target.
It’s Christmas.
It has never meant anything anything for her. They didn’t celebrate it at the orphanage and they definitely don’t celebrate it at the HPSC. Keigo, however, looks wistfully at one of the few windows they have in their headquarters, and his wings puff up with the first snowflake.
They found him in the south, even if the traces of accent the handlers have beaten out of him are no longer a clue of it, so he must have never seen snow before.
“Hey kid,” she whispers, and he looks over his bony shoulder, the HPSC diamond almost to his neck. “You want to touch it?”
He nods eagerly, as quiet as he always is, and she breaks another rule, taking him to the rooftop, and another one, shooting the padlock and throwing the door open.
She knows he’s one of the good ones, cause he doesn’t frown, doesn’t grimace, or look behind them, he just coos and runs into the snow outside.
Kaina is already shrugging off her jacket to throw it over the kid's head, keeping watch for their handlers.
*
When “Conditioning training” ends, there’s still a few hours left of Keigo’s birthday, so she slides an Endeavour autograph from under the door, and watches from the end of the corridor as the small bird’s figure peeks behind the door, trying to find her.
She teams up with the #2 again, as ugly as the job is. She didn’t do this because it was easy.
Not that she knows what she started this for.
*
The year goes by quickly, and before she can realize, Keigo is training with the teenagers.
There’s something unnerving about it.
They chose to be here. They were scouted as Keigo was, but most of them were already over 14. That’s basically one year below UA. Not that Kaina thinks that kids this age actually know what the fuck they are doing or that they should be risking their necks against villains, but still, Keigo is seven . He doesn’t reach to the hip of some of these trainees.
By the time Kaina’s kill count is in double digits, Keigo is better than all of them.
*
She’s accepted the unacceptable.
She’s said yes to the inimaginable.
She’s given them everything she is and more .
But this is too much.
“No.”
“It wasn’t a question, Lady Nagant,” Madame President says, nails tapping her wooden desk. Keigo’s heartbeat beats to that rhythm. She didn’t meet the President until she had been with them for 4 years. Keigo hasn’t been here for a year yet.
“I won’t take him with me.”
Keigo flinches. “I promise I won't be a nuisance…”
“This is not about you Kei-”
“It’s Hawks , Nagant. Refer to him by his hero name.” Kaina grits her teeth. “Are we clear?”
“This is not about you being a nuisance, Hawks ,” she says. “It’s about you being seven years old and not coming to a fucking assassination mission.”
“ Nagant!”
“But I can do it!” he says, tiny fists curled. They cut his talons , she realizes.
“Well, kiddo, I can’t,” she tells him with a sad smile. She scowls to look at the President. “I won’t kill anybody in front of him. If you send us together, I’ll fail the mission.”
“You are going to reflect on that while you spend a day in solitary confinement.”
“Sure, my answer will be the same one.”
“With no food.”
“The food here sucks anyway.” Keigo gasps. The President frowns.
“I guess you don’t want water either.”
“I’m fine thanks.”
“Make it the freezer then.”
“My pleasure.” She nods, saluting the President how she was taught before exiting.
*
The moment you break one rule, it’s kind of easy to keep doing it. So she stops following their diet regime, she bleaches her hair, and she even gets herself a library card.
She takes Keigo there, after a mission they finished quickly, and she selects some children’s tales book that she can read to him later. Is he too old for these? Too smart? He seems to enjoy them nonetheless, and when they go to put them back in the chart a title catches her attention.
It’s hero philosophy and anthropology, if the tags are correct.
“Those are forbidden books, Lady Nagant,” Keigo whispers.
“I’ve told you. It’s Kaina,” she sighs. “And how do you know?”
“I memorized the black list of forbidden books,” he says, looking around them. “If the handlers see you reading that, you’ll be in trouble Kaina-san.”
“Just Kaina.”
Keigo nods. “Please put the book down, I don’t want them to hurt you.”
“They won’t hurt me kid,” she says, ruffling his head. Keigo bites his lip worriedly, so she leaves the book back in the cart.
She checks the book out the next day.
*
Keigo remembered those books, many, many years after. He checked them out, once he was old enough to go out on his own, and he had their trust not to escape. He was their saint, their golden boy, their pride and joy. It had taken more than 50 agents to take him back, he was precious.
It had been Kaina, who taught him that you don’t hurt what you love, what you treasure. So Keigo knows by the time he’s back with them that what happens in the HPSC is very far from any and all types of love.
He’s been trained to lie, and lie he does.
*
She’s coming back from a mission when she gets the news about a trainee dying during an exercise.
Kaina’s never run so fast.
By the time she arrives, nobody is crying. They are all standing with their backs straight, arms behind them, spotless HPSC uniform shining under the sterile white lights.
“What happened,” she demands, banging the door open. Madame President doesn’t even flinch. Keigo does. Kaina’s eyes fill with tears when she sees him there, small, between the other trainees, framed by his shiny red wings. A speck of colour among the black.
“Go to your position Lady Nagant.”
“ What happened?!” she asks, pointing her elbow and drawing her quirk out.
The President dignifies her with a side glance. “A miscalculation. The cadet’s skill wasn’t up to our standards.”
“And you let them die?!”
“We didn’t let them die-”
“You put a kid through training so tough that they died .”
“Yes, just as they accepted. Now put your arm down and go to your position.”
“Fuck this shit,” she shoots, missing on purpose, burning some strands of the President’s blonde hair. Before her bullet reaches the woman though, Kaina’s already frozen.
Madame President frowns. “This is incredibly childish behaviour Nagant.” Her quirk forces Kaina to move, legs walking against her will and positioning her in her place. She fights against it, but her arms lift in a salute. “That’s better. Now show some decency and stay in silence. We are mourning the cadet’s death with a minute of silence that you so rudely interrupted.”
Kaina can’t even grit her teeth under the President’s iron control.
She pretends that’s the reason why nobody is crying.
*
“Kaina,” Keigo says, one day, after they have finished training. She hums, not looking up from her bleeding arm. Keigo’s gotten faster. “If you leave, will you take me with you?”
She looks up immediately, looking at the closed door of the dressing room.
“Keigo,” she says slowly. “What do you mean?”
“Aren’t you planning to leave?” he asks, cocking his head to the side. He blinks rapidly, in that owlish manner of his. They haven’t trained it out of him yet.
“Why would you say that?
He frowns. “I noticed you’ve been stealing- uh, saving, bandages. And other medical equipment.”
“Why do you think that means I’m leaving?”
“What else would it mean?” he twists his mouth. “You are graduating soon, you hate this place. It’d make sense.”
She purses her lips. Fuck . If a 7 years old was able to tell, she has to be more fucking careful. Granted, Keigo is more perceptive than most people, but still.
“I’m not leaving kid.”
Keigo sighs, his wings flutter with the movement. “If you did,” Keigo says carefully, voice low. “would you please take me with you?”
“To your parents?” she asks, brows pinched. He flinches.
“No. Not my parents.”
“Don’t you want to be a hero?”
Keigo looks down, pursing his lips. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to be a hero,” he mutters. “Not if this is what it takes.”
*
Kaina is more a shadow than a person. A robot. She’s cadet number 21. She’s 1’65, and weighs 62 kg. She’s the daughter of two nobodies that didn’t even dignify her with a surname. She’s the fastest shooter in Japan.
Kaina is one of the few trainees that actually graduate from the HPSC Secret Hero Program. She’s had seniors, but most of them either quit, having their memories from their training erased, or died. Not that she hasn’t been doing missions before graduating. She’s killed 24 people by then.
Kaina is also fed up with the HPSC. She’s supposed to debut as a Hero soon, as Lady Nagant, their brilliant beacon, their prodigy, as if that itself isn’t blatant hypocrisy.
Kaina is dressed for the last time in the HPSC uniform when she puts her first bomb in the headquarters.
Kaina is only 18 when she takes Keigo Takami with her.
*
“Thank you,” Keigo whispers, trembling in the pouring rain. They’ve been running for the entire night, and they have finally reached the safe house. It’s somewhere yakuza used to exchange their goods. She had busted those lowlifes a couple months ago, so she knew it would be empty.
She expected it to be less wet, too.
“Here, change into dry clothes,” she says, opening her backpack and throwing a towel and a sweater. He piles his feathers on the floor, and she feels guilty. She probably should have cut holes in it. She has to be better.
“Thank you Kaina.”
“It’s okay, you can stop saying that,” she sighs, changing too. “We wouldn’t have gotten out of there without you, you know that, right?”
Keigo turns his head to the side. Frowning. “You would have been able to get out.”
“You told me where all the agents were. You have a pretty awesome quirk kiddo,” she says, messing his hair. “But it’d be nothing without that sharp brain of yours.”
He looks up, eyes shining.
“Will we be okay?”
“Yes,” she lies.
*
They move a lot.
Not in trains, or more accurately, not in the public coaches. Keigo has an amazing sense of equilibrium, and they make a habit of traveling on the rooftops of the bullet trains. He jumps from time to time, and tries to catch up to the train.
By their first month on the run, he actually manages to.
*
She ends up coming back to Tokyo, where they hire her for a job. It’s not pretty but she can’t feed Keigo off her good will alone, if that’s something that she even had in the first place.
His feathers are hidden in his little backpack, and his hair is dyed black, concealer erasing his markings.
“Listen,” she tells him one morning, crouching in front of him as she applies the make-up. “This is for safety, not because there’s something wrong with your animal traits, is that clear?”
“Yes,” he nods.
“Say it with me,” she says, brushing under his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my animal traits.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my animal traits,” he repeats, eyes wide and yellow. She doesn’t have money for contact lenses yet, and she’s not sure she’ll find ones big enough anyways.
“Again.”
*
There’s photos of them on every TV, there’s posters with their faces on every wall. Keigo stares at them, and she has to tug at his hand to keep walking.
*
They have a close call with the HPSC in what Kaina thought to be an abandoned factory, so she starts breaking into empty apartments. Not very big buildings, and definitely not in the best part of the city.
It’s nice to eat warm food for a while.
“Can we have yakitori today?” Keigo asks, one day.
She looks up from the laundry she’s hanging to dry. He's resting under the window, as she has told him to.
“We don’t have money for-”
“If I got money for it.” Golden eyes shine for a second, and she’s petrified by the sharp stare. “Hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically,” she says, wringing out Keigo’s jacket, water droplets falling on the floor. “Where would you get the money from?”
He looks to the side.
“I can work like you.”
“No you can’t,” she smiles. “Not because you are not capable, but because I don’t trust possible employers.”
“You don’t trust me,” he mumbles, hiding his face in his collar.
“That’s exactly the opposite of what I just said.” She sighs and stands up, walking to sit next to him. “Listen Keigo, right now, our priority is to stay hidden and safe, okay? They will stop searching for us.”
“Will they?” he asks, frowning. “They invested too much in you.”
It’s true. And Keigo has the most amazing quirk she has ever seen. They won’t. They won’t ever stop looking for them. But she shouldn’t say that, her duty is to keep this child safe, even from his own future.
“If you manage to get it by legal means” she says, looking at their temporary roof. “We’ll have yakitori.”
“Define legal,” Keigo says quickly. “The HPSC is legal but it’s not good.”
Kaina laughs, shaking her head. “You’ll figure it out kid, you are smart.”
*
Keigo really is a smart kid, and it’s all being wasted in this runaway life.
So with her next salary, she buys notebooks, pencils and a whiteboard. Between jobs, she gives him homework, and when they are hiding, she reads with him, teaches him hiragana and kanji, what little english she knows, and all she can about math. She follows the books from the libraries religiously, and Keigo is just as obedient with learning this as he was in the Hero Training Program.
At night, she hides in tall rooftops and shoots, and Keigo is tasked with catching her bullets.
It’s fun.
It’s the closest to a real person she’s felt in a long, long time.
*
They move every 2 days. Just in case.
It’s on their 7th home that Kaina makes her first mistake.
She’s sleeping, Keigo’s wings curled around himself as he sleeps quietly by her side, when the window to their home opens.
Her arm is up and pointing at the intruder before he can set foot on the floor, and she’s over Keigo before he can see him.
Stendhal whistles. “If it isn’t the Commission brat.”
Keigo stirs awake. Kaina grabs a strand of hair. “Leave. Now.”
He peeks his head over her shoulder. “It’s the two Commission brats?”
“Don't come any closer,” she warns, ignoring him. Stendhal. Vigilante, bordering the line of actual villain. He was in the HPSC list of future problems. He wasn’t under surveillance last time she took a look at those files. “I will shoot, and you know it.”
“Chill my lady,” he says, no emotion in his tone. She can’t see his face either, with that mask. “I have no interest in fighting kids. Especially those who saw the wrongs of the hero system. You alone have caused more damage to their status quo than I have ever done.”
“So what do you want?”
“Ideally, to sleep tonight,” he says, pointing at a bed behind her and Keigo. “But I think I have birds in my nest.”
She grits her teeth. Fuck.
“I know how hard it is to be on your own,” he says, lifting his hands slowly. “Especially with the heroes on your heels, and a kid behind you.”
“I don't need your pity Stendhal.”
“How much money do you have left?”
She scowls.
“Consider it a payment, if you are not fond of charity. You helped my cause.”
“I don't think you are exactly swimming in money either.”
“I’ll let you stay here. No hero or villain knows of this location and you two would be safe. Consider my offer wisely kid. For better or for worse, you chose not to be alone in this journey.”
Stendhal leaves then, and she takes a deep breath. She keeps her arm pointing at the window, but relaxes. Keigo peeks from his sleeping bag. It’s big for him still, but he will keep growing, or at least she hopes he will, so it was the wisest purchase.
“Kaina?”
She hums, knowing he was probably faking his sleep. It's something he does often, in front of potential threats, the “play dead” thing.
“Is this really okay? Isn't he a villain?”
“Not exactly,” she says. “He's a vigilante.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Intentions, I guess? They do what heroes do, but with the means and ways of villains.”
Keigo hums, shuffling in his bed. “I'm not sure I understand it,” he says. She smiles. He's smart enough to admit he doesn't know everything. “Yet.”
She snorts, shoving him lightly. He chirps, a little grin on his face.
“Sleep a little okay? I’ll wake you up in 5 hours to change, and you’ll keep guard.”
He lights up, wings fluttering inside the sleeping bad excitedly.
She doesn't wake him up. It's okay, she's gone for longer without sleeping.
*
Stendhal, surprisingly, keeps his word. Nobody bothers them till the night after, when he appears again, this time through the door.
“So, you are still here?”
Keigo is gone, returning some books to the library. He promised to be careful, and most of his feathers are here, so she’d know if he was in trouble.
“You said we could stay,” Kaina says, eyeing his weapons. She’s sitting on the floor, revising Keigo’s last homework.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t be coming back,” he shrugs. “But yes, you two can stay. Where’s the chicklet?”
“None of your business.”
“You let him go off on his own?” He opens the fridge and grabs a package of carrots. “It could be dangerous,” he says, as he washes them. Fruits and vegetables. They need more of those. Keigo needs more of those to grow. Fuck.
“If I kept him captive he’d be as much of a prisoner with me as he was with them,” she answers, going back to the notebook, scribbling something neatly on the corners. Keigo’s handwriting is chicken scratch.
Stendhal hums.
“I have some work offers that pay good,” he says eventually, handing her one of the carrots. She takes it. “If you are interested.”
“What about jobs that don’t make heroes go after me?”
“You are already doing those, Lady.”
She looks to the window, biting the inside of her cheek. Fuck.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Of course I am,” she replies bitterly.
“You never signed to be a mom, kid. You are young.”
“I’m not his mom,” she hisses. “And what was I supposed to do, leave him there? To be the next one killed by those-”
“Kaina! Kaina! Look what I go-” Keigo interrupts, climbing through the window. He shuts his mouth immediately, gulping down at the sight of the vigilante.
“Go on, kid. What did you find?”
He looks at her again, and then back at the threat.
“Kaina, huh?”
“It’s a nickname,” Keigo says rapidly. She snorts, rolling her eyes fondly.
“It’s my name. Don’t call me ‘Lady’ anymore. It’s creepy as fuck,” she says, standing up and helping Keigo inside. “What did you find?”
He looks at Stendhal once more, and then lifts a bag. The fried chicken smell makes her squint her eyes. “Found it’s not exactly the word-”
“Keigo,” she says sternly. “Did you pay for this?”
“Well, no-”
“What did I tell you?” She takes the food out of his hands, throwing it over the table. “Legal means.”
He purses his lip, and the backpack with his feathers moves behind him. “But they have a lot! And it’s a big restaurant! I haven’t taken it from the street vendors, I know that’s wrong- you said I had to figure it out!”
“And stealing was the conclusion you reached?”
“I’m hungry!” he yells, tears in his eyes. He stammers, eyes wide, and in a second his wings are back in his back, curling around himself. “I- I’m sorry, I won’t-”
“Keigo,” she sighs. He flinches, and she crouches down in front of him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. But this is wrong. You understand?”
“I’m sorr-”
“I don’t think he did anything wrong,” Stendhal interrupts. “You took this from a big company?” She looks at him angrily, and Keigo opens his wings slightly to nod. “Then it’s okay. They make profit enslaving people in other countr-”
“Shut up right now .” Kaina warns, one of the vigilante’s knives on her hand. “ You , have no say when it comes to him. Are we clear?”
Stendhal nods, and resumes eating. Kaina takes a big breath. Keigo looks up with his huge, huge watery eyes.
“Stealing is wrong,” she says. “Stealing from the poor is wrong. Stealing from the rich is wrong. Taking what’s not yours, regardless of who it belongs to, it’s wrong.”
“Why?” he mutters, afraid. Fuck. Why? How the fuck am I supposed to know? It’s just fucking wrong to teach a kid that stealing it’s okay.
“Because then you are no different from them,” she says, before the silence is longer. “There’s no white or black to anything Keigo. If you’re truly hungry, then do what you have to do to get food. But is this really a need?”
“We have food here,” he mumbles, and she smiles, brushing a tear off his eye before it falls.
“We may not have the best food here, but there’s no need for stealing.” For now, she admits to herself. “You are fast kid, but karma will always be faster, don’t forget that.”
“You do bad things too.”
“For good reasons,” she says. “That doesn’t excuse it, though. But it’s grayer.”
“What are good reasons?”
“For us, for now , surviving,” she tells him. “Keigo, I won’t have real answers for most of the questions you’ll have. And even if I had them, those are for me, you need to figure out your own. There’s certain rules in this world that we have to follow. You don’t have to follow all of them to a T, but for now, please follow those that keep you out of trouble, okay?”
He frowns, his little bushy brows furrowed.
“Justice is complex kid,” Stendhal says, blowing some smoke off. “Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do to you.”
“What did I just say-”
“So I can’t steal from a shop because I wouldn’t like someone stealing from me?” Keigo asks, looking over Kaina’s shoulder defiantly. “That’s selfish.”
“Humans are selfish.”
“But what about heroes? What about Endeavor?”
To his credit, Stendhal doesn’t falter. Instead, he smirks. “See? Even a five year old gets it…” he says, crushing the butt of his cigar to the table. “Heroes do what they do out of selfishness. When they go those lengths to get something out of everyone, motives change. Money, fame, unconditional devotion.”
Keigo nods. “Endeavor-san saved me so he could be on TV?”
For god’s sake , Kaina cries internally, he’s 7. Stop.
“Yes kid,” he grins. “You uncovered the ugly truth of the hero society. There’s no real heroes, cause there’s no real altruism. We’re all humans. Don’t let anyone convince you there’s gods.”
“What about All Might?” Kaina surprises even herself when she speaks.
“‘t’s different.”
“How?”
“All Might’s a symbol. Symbols are not selfish. You can debate what a person does under a flag or in its name, but the flag itself is not good or bad. All Might is the symbol of peace. There’s no selfishness in that.”
“All Might is not human?” Keigo asks.
“Whoever there’s under all that muscle and smile is. But his name isn’t,” Stendhal says, and Kaina pretends to understand. “That’s what heroes are. Symbols. Nothing else. If not, they are human greed. There’s no in between.”
“Those are very absolute terms,” Kaina says, frowning.
“There are whites and blacks kid. If you are brave enough to accept that, that is.”
*
“Kaina,” Keigo whispers that night. “Did you save me because you want others to save you?”
“No kid, there’s flaws to Stendhal philosophy,” she mumbles, half asleep. She lifts one of her arms, and Keigo snuggles under it. “There’s something in this world called love, and some of us do things for that, too. Now close those eyes, they are glowing and I can’t sleep.”
“Oh. Okay,” he says, grabbing her hand with his little talons. “Good night.”
“Good night Keigo.”
*
Kaina becomes confident.
Too confident.
She never leaves Keigo for more than a couple hours with the vigilante, though. Not even entire nights. She only takes jobs that she will have completed in less than 3 hours, and comes back immediately. She doesn’t want Keigo to be a crazy anarchist or whatever Stendhal’s deal is. The kid deserves better. He might not be able to live in the rosy lie other kids do, but she’s not going to set him on a bad path, even if it’s the last thing she does.
Or so she tries. She really tries.
"KEIGO!" she says, slapping the cigarette off his hands.
"I didn't do it!"
“You were about to!
“Chill, Sim-”
“I leave you with him for one fucking hour-”
“Listen I was smoking, kid asked, what was I supposed to do?”
“My father smoked a lot too,” Keigo muses.
“Well your father was a fucking idiot, just as he is," she points at Stendhal. "And are you an idiot Keigo?"
"No..."
"So don't fucking copy them, then," she huffs. "We are leaving."
“What?”
“Pack your books. And the sleeping bag. We are leaving.”
Keigo frowns, lips quivering, but he does as he’s told, feathers grabbing his things in a second.
Stendhal snorts. "And where are you going? The HPSC is still hot on your heels."
"I'll figure it out," she grunts, hoisting Keigo's backpack over her shoulder and taking his hand. "And you- Come any closer to him ever again and I'm cutting each of your fucking limbs one by one with your own stupid sword and feeding them to you!”
*
Keigo had drawn something for Stendhal. Kaina found it in the bottom of his bag, crumbled and half finished. It was the three of them, with santa hats. He had been watching too many western movies with the vigilante.
They celebrate Keigo’s 8 birthday in a mountain cabin. He falls asleep counting stars and snowflakes.
Kaina sees a shooting star. She doesn’t ask for anything, but she’s angry at it, for tempting her with stupid hope. At Stendhal. At the HPSC. At herself. She cries, soundless, wrapping the blanket over her shoulders tighter, making sure Keigo’s warm, making sure she doesn’t wake him up.