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sirspazingtonthefourth · 8 months ago

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A Well-Tempered Blade

Chapter 6: Smoke and Mirrors

Summary: Katherine has a lousy quirk. At least, that's what everyone says. After all, who would want to be able to mimic any sound they hear? That's no quirk for a hero. But Katherine's quirk is not mimicry, but something worse; something that would get her labelled a villain the second she revealed it. So to keep her family she hides her quirk, not even telling her closest friends her secret. But secrets must eventually come into the lights, and Katherine's are no exception. 1.8k/16k, no romance, angst? oc

A/N: Yay! More canon characters! Well, one specifically. I'm coming to realize that I didn't do the best job at incorporating more character interactions between the main cast of villains and Katherine, which I'm choosing to chalk up to writing this a while ago and setting the story up to move too fast to take time to see those interactions and relations. But with my excuses out of the way, hope you enjoy!

Content Warnings (will be announced by the chapter): Home invasion, I think? Let me know if I missed any.

Katherine spent the next two weeks more afraid than she had been since she first heard her parents speak about her quirk. Everyone who walked into her cubicle was an officer coming to question her. Every creak in her floor was a team of heroes waiting for her to come home so they could bring her in. She could barely relax enough to sleep.

“Heroes have caught the newest Stain copycat. Thanks to police collaboration with an anonymous source and the Rapids hero agency-” Katherine shut the news report from the day before off. She had seen the news explain the evidence used to track the villain, and the hero efforts that went into his capture. It was a lovely feeling, processing his paperwork.

The fear was beginning to wear off. If she had made it this long without being caught, it would probably be okay. That didn’t stop the guilt, though.

Sure, the man had tried to assault her. But what if he’d had a family? Had she taken him away from them? Were they worried? She’d never know. She’d cut his life short.

But she also felt a cold satisfaction in her achievement. She had kept herself safe. She had stopped an unchecked monster. And she had done it using her quirk. It wasn’t hero work, but how many young women had she saved by using her quirk? How much safer would people be, with that man gone?

She was lost in those thoughts, as she had been since her actions. A small chime went off on her still open computer, bringing Katherine back into the present. It was five o’clock. She had to go. She had another order to fill, and wanted to get started right away: the designs she had discussed with the customer were gorgeous, and impossibly intricate. She’d need all the time she could get for them.

She grabbed her bag, checking that she hadn’t left anything that needed to be brought home, before leaving the cubicle and starting the walk home. The setting sun painted the skyscrapers in a gorgeous orange hue, making it look like the buildings were burning, but without pain or fear. Her phone rang, much to her surprise. She dug the device from her bag and answered, holding it to her ear.

“Hello, Soroyan Katherine speaking, how may I help you?”

“Katherine, please, you’ve got to help me!” Lily practically screamed into Katherine’s ear through the phone. Katherine jerked it away from her ear for a moment, slowly bringing it back as she paused on the sidewalk.

“Please, Lily. Calm down. What happened?” she asked. She could hear Lily taking a deep breath on the other end of the line. Then another.

“Okay. So, you know those files I was supposed to sort? About the recent arrest?” Lily asked, anxiety clear in her shaking voice.

“Yeah, you were telling me about how you were happy to have such a big assignment.”

“Well, I brought them home earlier to work on them at home, so I could get it done early, and I brought them on a USB that I planned to bring back, but on the way some guy bumped into me and I dropped it and then he accidentally kicked it into the road, and-”

“Lily, hey, calm down. I’m on my way. What do you need me to do?” Katherine asked as she turned around, walking back to the agency. She was in for a late night, she knew. But she couldn’t just abandon Lily to do this on her own. She was supposed to be showing the new girl around, and she couldn’t say to herself that she’d done that if she walked away right now.

Shigaraki had done his job well enough, Dabi thought. Could have been a little less obvious about destroying those records, but it would definitely slow Katherine from coming home. That would give him plenty of time to get set up.

He, Toga, and Twice had been watching Katherine for two weeks now. Never again had they seen her use her quirk, even in her own home. She must have really trained herself out of using it. Dabi began planning how to get her to use her quirk. After all, she was of no use to them if she wouldn’t use it.

He signaled Kurogiri that he was ready to go, and the smoke-covered man opened a portal. Dabi stepped through, hands brushing against the rag and jar in his coat pockets. His foot hit the wooden floor just inside the front door, and he took a moment to look around.

He’d seen the place from a distance, but had never actually been inside. He was standing in a small hallway. Two steps forward to the left was a small, clean bathroom. Across the hall from that was the bedroom. He quickly discounted both as hiding places for now.

A few paces past the bedroom the hallway opened into a large room, split into a neat kitchen on the left by a counter and a living room that led onto a small balcony to the right. Past the kitchen was a small table with two chairs. Up against a half-wall across from the table was a rolling chair and computer desk, missing only the laptop.

Traveling straight past the kitchen, dining table, and living room, Dabi came to two closed doors. One stood ahead of him, the other to his right. He opened the door in front of him, his hand coming away from the knob slightly dusty.

It was a guest bedroom, complete with a large window, double bed, and small dresser next to the bed. There was an attached bathroom with a conjoined shower and tub, as opposed to the bathroom in the entry hall with only a shower. It was the perfect place to hide, though Dabi wondered why Katherine hadn’t just taken this bedroom. It clearly didn’t see much use.

He walked out of the guest room, checking the last door he’d found. It was just a laundry closet: Washer and detergent on top, dryer on bottom, ironing board tucked into the little room on the side. With no more rooms to discover, he decided to do one last bit of research about Katherine.

The best place to start would be her actual bedroom, and he strolled right in like he owned the place. He was surprised to be met with an unmade bed and drawn blinds, seeing as how organized and bright everything else had been in the apartment.

Aside from the bed, pushed against the right wall with room on either side, there was a nightstand on the left side with a lamp, charger cord, and alarm clock. Across from the bed were two closets, and Dabi opened the nearest one quietly. No one might be home, but neighbors could still hear things through thin walls.

The first closet held nothing but clothes. A few business suits and casual outfits, two pairs of shoes, and a small dresser with three drawers. A small label on top simply labeled it as ‘UNDERGARMENTS’, and Dabi felt no need to look further. The second closet, though, was more interesting.

He opened it and found several sheaths for different kinds of blades, not a one of them empty. There were throwing stars, daggers, and swords of various cultures. Each one looked exquisite, and bore a tag near the hilt. They were all made by Katherine’s company, Sunēkuai Blades.

He picked up a sheath with throwing stars. They were shaped like a peach blossom, and barely sharp enough to cut butter. He set them down, intrigued by a long box held on a shelf above the other various weapons. He reached up, careful not to move things out of place too much, and pulled the box down.

Inside were photos upon photos. He saw images of a smiling girl with dark hair, clearly Katherine at a young age, and two others: a man and a woman. Her parents. They were all smiling, young Katherine holding a sign that read “It’s my first day of school!”

There were other things in the box, under all the photos. Dabi carefully moved the contents of the box around until he unearthed two katanas. One was in a simple brown sheath, the other in an intricate green and silver one. They had notes tied to them as well, and a picture.

He picked up the plain katana, seeing a picture of a teenaged Katherine and her father in front of a smithy. Katherine looked sweaty in the photo, grinning and holding the very katana in Dabi’s hands. Her father was smiling behind her in pride, a hand behind her back in support. The note simply read “My first blade.” When Dabi opened the katana, he found it as sharp as anyone could ask for, if a bit clumsily made.

The second one was slightly lighter, and seemed to glint even in the dim light of the bedroom. He opened it to find it just as sharp as the first, but with some kind of green streak through it. Opening it the rest of the way, Dabi saw a green snake winding its way down the blade, seeming to spit the point from its fanged mouth. He carefully resheathed it, not wanting to leave a trace of himself if all of this somehow went south.

He glanced at the picture attached to the sheath. It was a picture of teenage Katherine, not much younger than the other photo, with her arm draped over another girl’s shoulder. This new girl had snakes for hair and unnerving yellow eyes with slit pupils. She was smiling alongside Katherine in a park, both dressed in a middle school uniform.

The note simply read, “For Sunēkuai. I think you would have liked this one. Rest well.”

Dabi put everything back almost reverently. A part of him wondered why he would bother. It wasn’t like she would notice, even if he somehow didn’t manage to get her. But he couldn’t bring himself to treat her memories with anything but respect. Perhaps it had something to do with the person herself.

As Dabi had looked through file after file on the young woman, everything had said that her quirk was mimicry. There were no files, or hints of files, that said otherwise. She had hidden her quirk from everybody, and doubtless faced ridicule for it. It spoke to her patience and resolve that she had never revealed herself, even when attempting to get into the hero course at various high schools.

Dabi shook the thoughts from his mind. He had a job to do. A job that would be made much easier if he got on with looking for information and preparing his hiding place. He closed the closet and strode from the room.

#bnha #mha #oc #league of #lov #dabi #bnha dabi #mha dabi #cw: home invasion

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