Text"Well that was…."
Mina bit her lip as she tried to think of the right word to say. Her hands had tucked themselves behind her head, and she was using them as a sort of rest for neck as she looked up into the evening sky. Her face made an expression that couldn't fully decide what it wanted to be.
Confusion, disturb, amusement interest, morbidity – They all were etched onto her. She didn't have a clue which one she wanted to be the most prevalent though. She didn't even know which one she felt most.
Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her pupils to look towards Izuku.
"….Interesting."
Even before Quirks, the laws and code of conduct when it came to lost, young children was incredibly simple – If you can't help them find their parents, take them to a police officer, or someone else nearby who might be able to help - Someone in an actual authority to be able to help. Like if you found them lost in a supermarket car-park or something, take them to a member of staff.
What wasn't standard procedure was the take them back to your house with you – The sheer number of ways that could end horrendously was staggering. And was also highly illegal.
Yet that was the situation Izuku, Mina and the Pussycats found themselves in.
Just minus the illegality.
Izuku couldn't help but nod in agreement. Their first day as interns for the Pussycats had been… Well, Mina had put it best; Interesting was really the only word that he could think of to describe the entire situation. Even now, he found his hand scratching at the side of his head as his mind tried to make sense of everything.
"Stop that, please." Mina told him, tapping his hand away from his head. "You're pulling your hair out. Literally." A pause. "Y'know, actually…" Her trademark Ashido grin made its way onto her face, and her finger and thumb landed on her chin. "I bet you'd look good with an undercut. If we just grew your hair out a bit more at the top, and then took you to this place I know in town…"
The green haired boy just looked at his girlfriend with a raised eyebrow.
"No?" Mina asked, shrugged, and then sighed at her failed attempt at a distraction. "Well, I tried. Seriously though, you're gonna hurt yourself if you keep scratching like that."
"Yeah… Sorry." Izuku nodded again, forcing his hand away from his head. He shovelled it into his pocket, where it wouldn't be able to scratch at his head.
Both the teenagers had decided to walk back to Yuuei. It would have been faster, and probably smarter, to just get a bus back. Walking around as the sun began to set was just not something that was necessarily smart at any time of the year, for anyone, anywhere in the world. Anything could happen, after all.
Not that the city was a dangerous place to be ether. All Might or no, people weren't just going crazy a hundred percent of the time. Heroes still kept the order the best they could, as did the police. Villains were dealt with as they came. But it was pretty much a worldwide phenomenon that people got… Rowdier at night.
Neither of them cared all too much though. They just didn't want to be cramped up on public transport, and have to deal with potential loudmouths or screaming children or anything else like that that they couldn't just walk away from. Right now, they just wanted… Quiet.
Being a Hero was exhausting. Learning to be a Hero was exhausting enough – Yuuei didn't pull punches when it came to establishing that fact of the lives that its students had chosen to live. But that didn't even compare to what it was actually like on the streets. It left one drained after even just a short patrol. A lot of it was mental exhaustion as well as physical. It made Mina wonder how the Pros did it every day, and made it look like the easiest thing in the world. This internship was going to be good for them in terms of getting used to that, at the very least, she supposed. The interns after the Sports Festival had been light in comparison – This was a real taste of Heroism.
It reminded her of when she and Izuku had beaten Overgrow, all those months ago.
After today, just being able to have the freedom to choose to not deal with the potential bothers they couldn't block out on public transport felt like a blessing.
Though it wasn't the real reason they were walking. At least, Mina knew that was the case for Izuku.
"…You're still thinking about that kid." She stated. It wasn't a question.
After spending as much time with Izuku as she had done, she had gotten a good grasp on how he thought. She couldn't tell what he was thinking all the time, but in a situation like this, it wasn't all that hard to guess. Izuku would be thinking about that child.
How couldn't he?
"…Do you think anyone will approach the Pussycats and claim to be her parents?" He asked, careful to not let his voice give away what he thought about that.
He was nervous, and he was uncertain. After the whole day, it really wasn't hard to see why.
Any child that shook after being informed that Heroes were going to try to find her parents was a child that practically shot alarm bells into the sky armed with fireworks. The girl didn't speak, nor did she ever demonstrate her Quirk, or do… Anything that might give someone any idea who she might be.
The police officers who had come to deal with the captured Villain had run the child through their database, checking for mutations that were similar to the girls. They found a few false starts – Horns, after all, were by no means anything even remotely uncommon in the world of Quirks – but nothing about this girl in particular. Nothing that described her, or could be used to help identify her.
Right now, they were dealing with someone who, according to the Quirk databases, didn't exist.
Was it possible that her horn was her Quirk? If that was the case though, why wouldn't it be in the database? Perhaps aside from the horn, she was Quirkless… But the horn should still be identifiable, right? By definition, a horn was a Quirk, even if it wasn't an impressive one. Of course, it was also possible that outside her horn, her Quirk just hadn't developed yet. Mina's own horns had shown up long, long before her Acid ever manifested itself. The same with her eyes too – Though those she was born with. It was still enough to be added onto the database though. Hers was just updated a lot as she grew up.
So, the fact the database claimed this child didn't exist was… Confusing.
"I hope so." Mina answered her boyfriends' question with a simple answer. There was a heaviness to saying it though.
"Aren't you worried?" Izuku asked, looking at his girlfriend with a far more serious look on his face. "Didn't you see how that kid shook when we just suggested finding her parents?"
"Yeah, but… What're we gonna do?" The pink girl asked. "It's not like we can ask the police to arrest them just because their child is afraid of them. For all we know, she might just be afraid of getting in trouble, and not her actual parents themselves. It's not like it's rare for a kid to run away because they're worried they'll get in trouble." She bit the inside of her cheek, and exhales through her nose. "I don't like it either Izu, but it's not like we can just kick the door down without any reason to."
"I…" Izuku's expression unchanged for a moment, and then he looked to the ground, defeated. He let out a long, slow sigh of his own."…I know. You're thinking about this a lot clearer than I am. You're right."
"It's been known to happen from time to time." Mina joked, trying to lighten the mood a bit as she always did. She slipped closer to Izuku, and slid her hand into his. Close as they were, and intimate as they had gotten in the past, Izuku would normally blush at something like this. He didn't this time. Not even a tiny bit. "You're letting this get to you a lot, aren't you?"
"I… I suppose so." Izuku admitted. "I just… I don't know. There's just…" A pause. "…I guess I just… I still remember what it's like to feel so… Completely hopeless and afraid. And that kid just… She looks like I used to look, all the time. And I want to do something. It's like with Kota."
Mina nodded. She remembered that kid clearly. Come tomorrow, she was going to see him too – Mandalay had mentioned that Kota would be there the next day. Wherever he was before, she hadn't said, but she had mentioned it in an effort to cheer Izuku up a bit. Briefly, he had lit up, but that had come crashing down as his own rapid-firing brain reminded him of the child left with the Pussycats.
The child never spoke, making even the police wonder if she was capable of speaking. But she didn't want to go with them either – For whatever reason.
Technically speaking, Heroes worked on a level above the police. While in essence, they had the same role, the police tended to defer to Heroes in situations regarding Villainy, while the police themselves were more social workers. Heroes could act as police though, in essence – As in, they had all the rights and ability to do things like make arrests with good cause, even if not on active duty.
In this instance, it also meant that they could take responsibility for the child. That was how she had ended up at the Pussycats building, and how she'd be staying there for the time being.
The logic was simple – It was clear to just about anyone who looked at this kid that she was in no state to talk, if she was even capable of it. And taking her to a police station full of people she didn't know might not be the best way to get her to open up. However slightly it might or might not be, the only person she seemed even remotely comfortable with. Why wasn't clear. Maybe because he found her first? Well, whatever the reason, it was decided that at least for now, with regular visits from the police, she would stay where she knew Izuku would be, and hopefully, she would talk to him eventually.
It was all logic Izuku agreed with, and he was on board. But it wasn't hard to see how this weighed on him.
He was a good person. A person who wanted to be a Hero to help others – And now he was in that position where he could help someone, and wanted to… But didn't know how.
Kota was more an ideological issue, only saved when he was in danger.
This kid… This kid was safe. But she was still hurting. She couldn't even give him what Kota had – Words. Something – Anything – To work with.
He didn't know what to do.
"You helped Kota, remember?" Mina reminded him. "I don't think you've failed to save anyone yet."
"I got me and Bakugou captured by Villains. I don't know if I count that as saving either of us."
"One out of what, six cases?" Mina smiled, and squeezed his hand. "You'll think of something. I know you will."
Once more, Izuku sighed. "I hope so."