"Any idea why the formerly old man wanted to talk with us?" Himi asks as we walk down one of the many paths around UA's campus.
I shrug. "Dunno, maybe he's going to try to kill us for being villains? I mean, the three of us are meeting him in one of the mini-forests scattered around the school, so…"
Eri's eyebrows furrow at the thought that this might be a trap. "If he's a meany, I'll stab him!" I'm sure she'd be waving her knife around if Himi and I weren't holding onto her hands between us right now, but she still gets the points for enthusiasm! As a reward for such, I signal Himi with my eyes and we share a grin as we lift our unicorn up into the air, swinging her forward while she squeals in surprise before laughing.
Another shared grin with Himi has us picking up the pace, being careful with swinging Eri every few steps so that we aren't pulling uncomfortably on her arms even as she starts drawing her legs up to her stomach to get more air time. "So Eri," I start while we walk, "how have you been doing in Miss Fuyumi's class? Has it been a good week? No problems?"
Eri hums, looking up at the sky on her next swing in thought before speaking when she lands back on the ground. "Miss Fuyumi is nice, and so are most of the other kids."
"Most?" Himi asks as her eyes narrow, mirroring my own. "Who hasn't been nice to you?"
"A boy with a weird quirk," our little unicorn answers easily. "He says it tells him things."
I raise an eyebrow at that. Sentient quirks are rare, but as evidenced by Dark Shadow, far from impossible. "What has his quirk been telling him?"
"Weird stuff," she says matter of factly. "He says that his quirk won't stop being loud about how things are messed up and nothing makes sense. It also told him that I'm not supposed to be at the school yet and that Mr Hobo is a good teacher."
"Ah," I nod understandingly. "So his quirk is both rude and crazy. Does he listen to it? And what's it called?"
"He said his parents call his quirk Cannon Sight, but he likes to call it 'Abit Mean'." She pauses and tilts her head, causing Himi and I to pause our swinging for a moment. "He thinks I shouldn't be in Miss Fuyumi's class either, but I remembered what Mama said!"
I can't help but chuckle at the look in her eyes while Himi whistles innocently while looking up and away, just knowing that I'm going to love where this is going. "And what did she say that applies to that situation?"
"If someone is mean to me, I can just stab them to make them not mean!" Eri beams up at me with shining eyes and a proud look on her face. "If stabbing them once doesn't work, I just have to do it again!"
I give Himi my best approximation of a disappointed-but-not-really look since it's not really bad advice… apart from the fact that Shoko's sister probably doesn't want to deal with her students trying to make each other bleed. Or die. She might also try to take Eri's knife away from her, which might get her stabbed instead, which would make Shoko sad because she does have a good relationship with her siblings.
I nod. "That does work a lot, but just make sure Miss Fuyumi isn't around when you do it so you don't get in trouble. She doesn't hang out with the same people as us so she doesn't like it when people stab each other, ok?"
Eri nods, pulling her hand out of mine to give me a salute. "Yes Papa!"
"I can't tell if the three of you are a happy family or an utterly deranged one." The voice seemingly comes out of nowhere, prompting all three of us to draw our knives and look around for the source. The voice chuckles again and I gasp as a sense of deja vu washes over me. "You know what? I'm going to go with both."
I look straight up at the sky… at least that's what I would be doing if there wasn't foliage in the way. "God? Is that you?"
"Yes, I'm definitely God," the voice says in an amused tone, causing me to nod.
"Well you kind of suck. You know, what with all the war, famine, and discrimination?"
Eri's hand shoots into the air, the knife still held tightly in her grip. "And meanies!"
I nod in agreement. "And the meanies. Probably the worst thing in the history of ever, those meanies."
"Well there's not much I can do about idiots being idiots. If I could then I would have fixed Toshinori a long time ago!"
I can't help but laugh at that, turning my head so I'm actually looking at the man leaning against the trunk of a tree, easily balancing on a thick branch above our heads. "Yeah, that's fair." I side-eye Himi, who's pouting at our heroics teacher next to me. "He was paying too much attention?" Her pout transitions into a small scowl.
"Yes! How am I supposed to get my point across when he's so on guard!"
"Aww," I reach out and pull her into a side hug. "Don't worry Himi, I'm sure you'll be able to stab him some day."
Himi looks at me with tears in the corners of her eyes. "Really? Do you mean that?"
I nod and give her a confident smile. "Of course I do! We are the Usagi Twins, after all. If we put our mind together, there's nothing we can't do!"
"Oh Izu~!"
"Oh Himi~!"
We stare into each others' eyes, our faces slowly drawing closer together, our lips on the verge of kissing, before Himi suddenly whirls around and whips her arm into the air. There's a sudden sound of rushing air and she clicks her tongue in disappointment. "Damn old man, you're way too paranoid!"
Gran Torino lands in front of us and chuckles, holding out a hand pinching the knife Himi just threw at him between his fingers. "It's only paranoia when they aren't out to get you, and you are very much out to get me."
"I mean, he's got you there, Himi." I ignore the pinch in the back of my leg from Eri surreptitiously stabbing me for not taking Himi's side, which I think is patently unfair considering that it's a perfectly fair statement. I shift my leg a little to better hide the Eri sized wound from the man who's supposed to be my godfather, thankfully he's distracted by Himi accepting her knife back from him with all the grace and poise I know she has.
…Before immediately trying to cut his throat.
He's had a week to get used to us though, despite not doing a single heroics exercise, so he reacts well and catches her by the wrist and gives her an unimpressed look. "Really, brat?" Himi just shrugs before pulling her arm back and making the knife disappear somewhere.
"Eh, it was worth a shot."
I chuckle at her antics before refocusing on the man. "So, what did you want to talk about, old man?"
Gran Torino huffs a breath at me. "I'm not old anymore, damn it, don't say I am!"
I stick my tongue out at him, saying with amusement, "Just because your body got younger doesn't mean the date on your birth certificate got changed~."
He scowls at me for a moment longer before it twists into a smile. He claps a hand on my shoulder and laughs. "So, this is what you're like! Wish I got to know you sooner, kid."
I raise an eyebrow at that, but after a moment of thought realize that he's probably talking about how, despite being named Izumi and I's godfather, he never showed up in our lives. Which is definitely strange, considering that he's been making an active effort from what I've seen to connect with Izumi. Not so much with me, but then again I tend to spend most of my time with Himi and/or Eri, with a few of the more tolerable hero students joining us on occasion. Well, Yaomomo spends a lot of time with Himi too, now that I think of it. Ever since we realized that her quirk works better when she consumes blood she's been poking at Himi's brain to figure out how embracing that aspect might affect her, personality wise.
It will probably result in a slight mutation for her teeth or tongue, but with it only being addressed so late after her initial development they likely wouldn't be as pronounced as Himi's fangs, not to mention that Himi's quirk has more of a blood focus than hers.
I shrug before giving him a curious look. "Why didn't you ever show up? Being a godfather seems kind of like a big deal, the sort of thing that would garner more than a few visits. Or, you know, at least one."
The man scowls, directing a glare off into the distance for a moment before his eyes return to me. "You know how I trained Toshinori before he ran off to America?"
I nod. "Yep." I blink and tilt my head to the side, closing one eye as I consider that. "Huh, I don't think that he ever gave a reason for why he did that other than to 'see the world'." I shake my head. "That excuse probably would have worked better if he visited more than a single foreign country."
He snorts and barks out a laugh. "Ha! Yeah, I told the buffoon as much when he came back to Japan." He shakes his head in frustration. "The reason he left Japan was to train where All For One didn't have as much influence."
This time it's my turn to snort. "If that's the case he should have gone to China. All For One hasn't been back there ever since Melon Lord kicked his ass." I don't react to the two frying pans hitting me - one on the head and the other my knee - other than to shift my weight so I don't fall over. Gran Torino ignores that with the experience that comes with having lived for several decades.
"Wish I knew that back when I challenged her," he grumbled to himself. "Damn woman buried me in the dirt for a whole day and said I needed to convince her that I was a bamboo shoot before she would let me go!"
I stare at him blankly for a moment while Himi cackles and Eri giggles. "You know, the more I hear of this woman the more and less I want to meet her."
"Of course you do," he chuckles before shaking his head. "Anyways, the reason I wasn't around is because when I trained Toshinori, he was an absolute dumbass in terms of fighting skill. He had a strong quirk, but he couldn't fight worth a damn. So I made sure to beat the skills into him!"
"Doesn't seem like they stuck," I remark casually and see him deflate a bit.
"Idiot should have kept up the training exercises, but nooo, all he does is go in swinging until his opponent goes down!" He shakes his head again. "Ignoring that, the point is that he named me you and your sister's godfather as a measure to make sure there would be someone around to make sure the two of you were safe."
I raise an eyebrow at him. "He didn't trust Inko for that?" He gives me a deadpan look, making me chuckle and hold up my hands in surrender. "Yeah, but he didn't know how terrible she was at the time, right?"
He doesn't say anything for a moment before grumbling his agreement and sighing. "You're not wrong, but I was talking more in a 'defend from villains' sort of safe." He rolls his eyes. "Not that that would have reassured either of you since you didn't know who I was!"
"So, basically the reason you were never around is because All Might is an idiot?"
"Yep."
We both nod in agreement before he continues. "The reason I called the three of you out here is to get to know you. Can't do that back around the other teachers or the students because they'll get stupid about it since you're a villain."
"And that doesn't bother you?" I ask questioningly. Because he's been exceedingly casual about this, even more so than the hero students, and he doesn't have the excuse of being an idiotic naive teenager. Not that they aren't wary of me, but they're definitely more casual in our interactions than if they were talking to an adult villain.
The hero shrugs. "You have your reasons, and they're damn good ones. And you seem happy, so I'm happy." He suddenly levels a serious look at me, the air around us becoming tense in an instant. "Just know that I won't hesitate when we face each other, brat."
I bare my teeth in a threatening grin. "I would hope you wouldn't, old man. It wouldn't be any fun if you blamed your loss on sentimentality."
We stand there for a few minutes, staring each other down, before Himi rolls her eyes and smacks the back of my head, bringing her hand to her lips and licking up the bit of blood from my frying pan wound. "So, basically you want to get to know your godson and his family?"
The tense atmosphere dies and Gran Torino gives us a wide grin. "Of course I do! I already missed out on far too much. The least I deserve is to give you young'ins relationship advice!"
I can't help but laugh, quickly followed by Himi and joined by Eri, even though she doesn't really get it, before I give the old man a bright smile. "Well then, let's get to know each other. You've got a decade's worth of stuff to learn about me, old man!"