' why we can't have nice things '

━━━━━

"Honoka's been kidnapped."

An outraged, "What?" tears itself from her throat and Kaede drops the plastic cup of coffee on the table sending dark liquid sloshing everywhere and even bits of it unto the man in front of her.

His face that was a mixture of concern and anxiety earlier is now thrown it with a little exasperation. Kaede involuntarily winces, blurting a quick, "Sorry," that didn't seem to make things even a little better.

It isn't a secret that Honoka's uncle hated her, it also isn't big of a shock that at their every meeting, Kaede always finds a way to worsen their relationship. He wipes a streak of coffee on his cheeks, sets his hands on the table.

"Two weeks have passed now actually," he informs her and if Kaede thought that her eyes couldn't get any bigger with surprise, her thoughts were proven wrong.

Eyes widened, Kaede stands up from the chair, slaps her palms unto the table for support and even when Honoka's uncle was sitting and she's standing up, she doesn't manage to loom over him. "She's been gone for two weeks and you didn't think I was worthy of this information."

"Sit down," he hisses between his teeth and gives her a look that would have flinched teenagers. Kaede is also a teenager, but she's grown accustomed to even worse looks so she stands her ground. Realizing this, Honoka's uncle decides to continue, "She's been missing for two weeks and I've always participated in the searches that I didn't make time to visit you."

He tossed Kaede a brown manila envelope and she looks at it with eyebrows raised, fingers skimming the rough surface. "What is this?"

"An envelope," he answers succinctly and it's one of those moments where she hates how other people use her own skillset against her.

"I can see that," she says, slumps to the chair and crosses one leg over the other, five fingers drumming on the surface of the wooden table. "What's inside it?"

Pushing the envelope further towards her, two inches give or take, he says, "Look at it to find out."

Eyebrow still raised, Kaede opens the envelope and inspects the contents. A bunch of photographs lined up and she doesn't know what to think of it and she just sees Honoka through blurry pictures. Familiar alleyways and parks just meters away from the beach. There's also a man next to her, his left hand probably resting on Honoka's shoulders and she thinks that it's her uncle, but his uncle has crab pincers in that side.

"This is why we assumed she was kidnapped," he says, points at the vague photograph of the man and through those hazy details, she can see that the man is probably in his forties or fifties with a shaved head and wayfarers covering his eyes.

"Have you found out who that is?" Kaede asks, shrugging the eery vibes she got from the man.

An impatient groan escapes his lips and he flips through the pictures and presents one buried deep within the photographs and papers. "This is him," he says and Kaede inhales a sharp breath. "I suppose you know him."

The man has changed, his perfectly styled hair now gone and even with eyes covered by wayfarers, you could denote his stance and other critical parts of his body. "It's very hard not to," Honoka's uncle continues, one finger tapping on the older picture of the man three times. "You used to work for him, didn't you?"

It only takes a shake of her head to answer no. "I don't work for him, but-" how could she not remember this man? He was as much as a teacher to her as All For One was. "He was my instructor."

There was no mistake. Those bright azure eyes and even without his hair, he was easily distinguishable for Kaede who had studied fighting with him. And usage of his quirk probably explained how Honoka looked so calm going with him.

"His name is Chigusa Kohaku," she says, remembers what Toga told her a couple of days ago. "I heard that he left the League of Villains. He used to be my instructor. One of the oldest members serving under All For One. He's been a member since I was a child. Even before I was a child, probably."

"His quirk?" Honoka's uncle asks.

Kaede racks her brain for the information. She remembered that he used it on her once. Something with calm...? Was it brainwashing? Tomoe had chastised Kohaku for it once? She fiddled with the loose fringes of her prison clothing with one hand, tugging on one two three four five six seven strings. The nature of his quirk had something to do with calming personages. That was probably why Honoka looked so calm around him, but what was the name.

"You don't remember?" the man asks, almost annoyed.

"It's at the tip of tongue," she says, more confidence in her words than her thoughts. "It has something to do with calm."

"Like Honoka's Clarity?" he asks, and Kaede doesn't even respond.

"I think it starts with C or K," she says, buries her head in her palms and releases three shuddering breathes. Honoka's life was at stake and this was critical information. She loathed how the urgency only came to her now.

Kohaku's quirk, she thought. What was it? It had something to do with calm. Was its name Calm? Honoka had given her one of those vampire books that had the same name and when she thought back to the book, the answer came to her, "Vampire- I mean," Kaede's fumbling with the weight of discovery, tripping on her own tongue. Twenty-six letters providing incoherent mumbling that would have done Izuku proud. "It's called Compulsion."

Honoka's uncle looks like he had just found the cure to cancer and almost as if he forgot that he absolutely hated Kaede's guts, he pulled her in for a embrace and surprised, but welcoming the gesture, she pats him in the back. He jerks out of it quickly, pats her three times in the head.

"Thanks a lot," he says.

"Please find Honoka," Kaede says, eyes solemn.

Across her, the man stands up, eyes determined. "I would lay my life down for that kid."

"Me too."

The rest of the day is filled with routine, punctuated with brief questions in regards to possible hideouts Kohaku may have taken her.

Come to think of it, she really doesn't know much about Kohaku. Hell, she doesn't even know why he kidnapped Honoka. Was it curiosity in regards to her quirk? Assuming that they possessed similar natures? Kaede shakes her head at that thought. Kohaku isn't a man of discoveries. His is more to loyalty and other things in relation to the goal of the league. One of the fanatics, she recalls Tomoe telling her in the letters she tucked under her pillow.

Toga saying that Kohaku left the league is difficult to believe. Being a fanatic- an obsessive believer in All For One's actions, she certainly didn't expect that from him. It's odd. And unnerving.

"Mizuki Kaede," the police officer calls her and she's pulled back to reality, blinking the hazy world of her thoughts away. "You didn't answer my question."

"I'm sorry," she says, toys with the fringes of her shirt again and she feels like the uniform is going to unravel in the span of four or five days. "I didn't hear you."

Glaring at her, the police officer taps his pen against the vandalized table. "I asked you about that location you gave us," he says, and she squints at him, realizes that he's the same police officer that interrogated her. "Regarding Akihisa Yuko. We managed to follow up the information you sent us last week, but by the time we arrived there, all the hydraulic chambers had been moved and the remaining things were these"- he holds up a picture of non-functional Noumo- "dead Noumo."

"They must have moved her," she says, guilt gnawing at her head. She was brain dead when their consciousness were separated. She's probably dead by now. An innocent girl at her hands.

Nodding, the police officer hands her another photograph. "We think that this man"- he points the blurry photograph of Kohaku- "might be responsible for moving her. Some statements from locals have proved that they did see this man driving a truck going back and forth for three days, about two weeks and four days ago."

If she counted properly, and Kaede always counts properly, that's about the same time Toga told her that Kohaku left.

Another picture is placed on her palms, similar to the quality of the one with Honoka albeit more zoomed in. "Can you confirm is this is him? This was taken by a surveillance camera two weeks and three days ago."

Red eyes watch the face of the driver and in a momentary slip, the alleged Kohaku had looked up and the camera caught those striking azure eyes. "That's him."

"Great, thank you," the police officer says and Kaede vaguely remembers that his name is in the lines of Fukuyaka. "Now, do you have any idea as to where he would go?"

"They asked me that earlier too," she says, toying with the fringes of her shirt again and Officer Fukunaka catches the action and gives her a displeased look. "But I have no idea. I gave you all the locations I know, from compounds to laboratories."

"Yeah," Officer Fukuraka says, scratches his impressively shaved jaw. "We've checked half of them now, but they're mostly abandoned. Specialists tell us that they left a day or two before kidnapping Katsuki Bakugou."

"All For one," she says, placid.

"Yes," another nod from Officer Fukunaka (she probably got it right this time). "We think that too. Where did you first meet Sonohara Hotaru anyway?"

"Sonohara Hotaru?" Kaede repeats.

Fukunaka's face remains the epitome of composed as his fingers drum over Kohaku's face again. "That's him. After you released information regarding his quirk, we scoured the database for registered Compulsion quirks. It's a rare quirk, mind you. Quirks that mess with brains are. And we found fifty-one people who possessed it, twenty-three which were male, twenty alive and we filtered the age bracket and found four. Only two of them had blue eyes, but the face was a dead ringer."

"Sonohara Hotaru," Kaede repeats the name again, tastes foreign. "Well, I first met him in one of the compounds."

"Which compound?" he asks, "from the ones you've given us, which one?"

Something ricochets in her mind and Kaede curses- earning another judgmental look from the police officer- says, "I didn't."

"You told us you would tell the locations of every single base you remembered," his tone is accusatory, borderline angry, but Kaede is angrier at herself. It's no secret her mind is a mess, but she should have at least remembered that place.

Sighing, she blows a strand of her hair from her face- her hair has grown longer over the course of two weeks, managing to grow past her shoulders, and always tied in a terrible ponytail. "I didn't remember it at that time."

"Where is it, then? Can you pinpoint the exact location?"

"I was a child back then, and I was so detached, so I don't really remembered the exact location. A general overview, yes."

Fukunaka's shoulders stiffen, straightens his back as hears the answer to his question of, "Where?"

Kaede doesn't miss it. That look of horror etched unto his face as the word with three syllables escape her carnation pink lips, "Kamino."

That ends the discussion with a look of horror in Officer Fukunaka's face- his eyebrows look like they've been knitted by his grandmother and she shakes her head at this and is guided back into her cell by two police officers whom she doesn't know the name. They don't give her a hard time compared to the other prisoners- particularly the ignoramus ones who always crack a sexual joke or two (for goodness sake, she's a minor, fifteen today and sixteen tomorrow)- and that is all that matters.

When she's about to sleep at ten in the evening, tucking herself into the blanket that doesn't manage to cover her feet so she has to curl up, there's a sound from her cell door and the metal thing swings open revealing Officer Fukunaka, Honoka's uncle- although she supposes she has to call him Officer now, not you, and Principal Nedzu (Kaede's not fond of surprises and this is no exception).

Reading thriller books mostly about stalkers and aliens certainly didn't help. When she's asked- not ordered, she might think of it as a positive sign, but Kaede decides otherwise- to wake up, her shoulders stiffen, her mind turning to thoughts of possible methods they can conduct like one of those octopi tentacles sinking into your nose, mouth or ears and searching for something within. She's prepared for iron maidens, but she doesn't work well with invertebrate creatures unless it's a conversation about eating.

"Mizuki Kaede," the principal's perky voice calls her and she visibly shudders at the sound. "We have to talk to you."

"We can talk here," she says and she doesn't know how to take the stubbornness in her voice. Snap out of it, she snaps at herself, those kinds of torture aren't real and you've been cooperative for the most part. That aside, the principal is kind of creepy with the childish voice and that always smiling appearance, so it fails to pacify her.

"We'd prefer quieter environments," Principal Nedzu says, gestures to the cells next to her with people grunting and screaming. After three days, she's learned to tune them out, so she could care less.

"Besides, you're in no room for negotiations," Honoka's uncle barks. "Hurry up kid or we're resort to less pleasant means."

And she does. She's led to an office- not a torture chamber that's for sure and at that realization, some of the coils of nerves she had bundles loosens- with only bonsai by the windows for embellishment.

She doesn't even have enough time. Twenty two seconds pass and she's already bombarded with statements that at first doesn't make sense, but after a few clarifications and dumbing down from the Principal's side, Kaede gets the gist of the conversation. From how they couldn't find the location of that compound, to how Honoka's life was getting more precarious at the moment they identified several gangs involved in the whole fiasco.

"Yeah, I get that," Kaede says. "But why would you involve me? I've already told you everything."

The door opens dramatically, reveals different personages, six in all, Gang Orca, an energetic guy with a shaved head, a familiar girl, the unmistakeable form of Todoroki Shouto, Hanta Sero, smiling Kouda Koji, and the undeniable, wonderful, Bakugou.

"No no no no!" the words are out of her mouth before she can recapture them, but Principal Nedzu's head is already on beat with nodding.

"Yes, Kaede," he says quaintly, hands propped on his hands in a prim position. "Since the location of this compound is difficult to locate, your assurance will be needed, so you will go with these heroes in training, along with a couple of professionals and officers-Officer Hayashi, Anri, Takaoka, Takeo, Gorou, and"- looks at Honoka's uncle- "Officer Iwakura Rei to retrieve Iwakura Honoka from Sonohara Hotaru."

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