Day 1 · Morning

Chapter 2

The look she sends across the room to Dabi is not a command — it is something older than that, the specific kind of plea that only works between people who already know each other's limits and have already crossed them once. It lands. His jaw shifts, almost imperceptible, the languid posture sharpening by one degree as amber eyes cut from Todoroki's face to hers — a man who has just been reminded, in front of a full room, that someone still talks to him like he is worth the trouble. Kirishima feels the slight tightening of her fingers on his arm and doesn't miss it; his free hand comes up to cover hers where it rests in the crook of his elbow, one steady press — not pulling her back, not pushing her forward, just making sure she knows the arm is solid — and then he goes still, letting her have the room. At the banner wall, Todoroki's chin lifts by the smallest fraction, the midnight navy haori perfectly motionless as her voice reaches him, and something behind his eyes does the quiet arithmetic of a man who was just handed permission he did not expect to be offered in public.

Eijiro Kirishima: "We're not in a hurry. Take what you need."

Shoto Todoroki: "That's considerate of you, Megi. It won't take long."

Dabi: "Look at that — the heiress gives permission. Very gracious of you, little Dullahan. For old times' sake, I'll try not to make a scene. But I will want a word with you after. Privately."

She nods silently to both of them, before looking up at Kirishima, "Thank you for your patience," She offers in a whisper.

The nod is small and unhurried — both men receive it, Dabi and Todoroki, the same quiet acknowledgment she'd give to a closed door she intends to open later. It costs her nothing visible and the room knows it; Bakugo's jaw shifts one millimeter and goes still. Kirishima catches her whisper the way he catches everything she gives him — without making a production of it, his chin dipping once in answer, the hand that has been steadying hers turning just enough to cover her fingers properly against the warmth of his sleeve, brass cuff-chains cool where they press against the inside of her wrist. At the banner wall, the four feet between Todoroki and Dabi does not close — but it does not open either, and what moves instead is the air: Todoroki turns his face away from Dabi by a fraction and toward the east corridor doors, the midnight haori settling like a decision being made without words, while Dabi watches the nod land and something in his posture goes very, very quiet in the particular way of a man who was braced for a no and doesn't quite know what to do with a yes. It is Bakugo, one pace behind and entirely ignored, who breaks first — not loudly, not theatrically, but in the flat, precise register of a man who has just calculated exactly how much of this morning he is willing to watch from the wrong position.

Eijiro Kirishima: "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

Katsuki Bakugo: "You nod at both of them like they're the same thing. They're not."

Shoto Todoroki: "Dabi. Whatever you need to say — say it after we've moved. Not here."

Dabi: "Look at that. The ice prince speaks on her behalf now. Very touching, Sho."

"Everyone here is the same, Bakugo-san. Everyone starts here on equal footing. Everyone stays here until they prove otherwise. That is the one rule I was allowed to make for myself. Dabi-san, I'll speak to you after the the courtyard." Finally, she turns, walking back out toward the courtyard with her hand on Kirishima’s arm still in place.

The words land clean and final — not a speech, not a declaration, just a rule stated once in the particular register of someone who does not expect to repeat herself. The room absorbs it the way rooms absorb a window closing: a pressure shift, then stillness. Bakugo's forearms unfold by one inch — not agreement, recalibration — his eyes tracking her face with the focused patience of a man filing something away for later. At the banner wall, Dabi receives the courtyard promise with a slow blink, the languid posture settling back into something that is almost, almost ease; he does not smile, but the particular tension around his jaw releases by one millimeter, the scorched silver lighter disappearing back into his coat pocket in a single unhurried motion. And then she is moving — Kirishima's arm solid under her hand, his palm coming over her fingers where they rest on his sleeve, a steady and unhurried cover, brass cuff-chains cool at her wrist as the east corridor air opens up ahead of them. In the background, Izuku has gone very still near the outer ring, forest-green double-breasted jacket quiet against the column, his eyes moving — not to Megi, but to Kirishima's hand over hers, then to Dabi's face, the pen in his breast pocket forgotten.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Equal footing. That's what you just said. In a room where three of us walked in with dynasty names and two walked in with warrants. You really believe that, or is it just a nicer way of saying you haven't decided yet?"

Dabi: "After the courtyard, then. I'll hold you to it, little Dullahan. You should know by now — I'm good at waiting."

Eijiro Kirishima: "She said what she meant, Bakugo. That's more than most people manage before lunch."

💬 "Yes, Bakugo-san. I really believe it."

Katsuki Bakugo: "You really believe it. Right. So did every idealist who walked into a room like this before you — ask me how that ended."

Eijiro Kirishima: "She said what she meant, and she means what she said. That's enough for me — is that going to be a problem for you, Bakugo?"

Dabi: "Touching. Truly. The heiress believes in fairy tales — and the redhead's already auditioning for loyal knight. How very on-brand for everyone involved."

Izuku Midoriya: "I think — I think it matters that she said it out loud. In front of everyone. That's not nothing."

Shoto Todoroki: "It isn't naive to mean what you say, Bakugo. It's just rare enough that it looks that way from certain angles."

"It's all right, Kirishima-san. Thank you." Quieter, she adds with a small, practiced smile, "I'm used to it." She swallows, that diplomatic smile in place as she walks them out to the courtyard, finally releasing Kirishima’s arm.

The smile is small and practiced and Kirishima sees exactly what it is — the particular expression of a woman who has been managing rooms like this since she was old enough to know what a room cost her. His arm stays steady under where her hand was, and when she releases it at the threshold, he doesn't reach for her back; just lets her go with the same unhurried ease he holds everything, and falls a half-step into pace beside her rather than behind. The east corridor opens ahead of them, morning light pressing warm and clean through the leaded windows, and the sound of the ballroom follows at a remove — voices rearranging themselves, the shuffle of formal footwear on marble, the particular silence that fills a room when the person everyone was watching has just left it. Bakugo doesn't follow immediately. He stays exactly where he was for two full beats, arms folding back across his chest, crimson lapels catching the chandelier's tail-end gold — and then, quietly enough that only the people nearest the threshold catch it, the sound of a single exhale through his teeth.

Eijiro Kirishima: "You shouldn't have to be used to it."

Katsuki Bakugo: "Used to it. Right. Because that's the same thing as it being fine."

🚶 Keep walking — let the silence answer

The east corridor opens into the courtyard and Megi walks through it without looking back, the slap of her flat sandals on the stone path the only sound she permits herself. Morning light falls through the maples in long, unhurried columns, catching the loose waves of her hair, and the koi pond ahead holds its surface perfectly still — the kind of quiet that has nothing diplomatic about it. Kirishima falls into pace at her left without being asked, three feet of open air between them, and he doesn't fill it with words; he just matches her stride and aims them toward the fountain at the courtyard's center, the brass cuff-chains at his wrist catching a flicker of sun as his arms settle easy at his sides. Behind her, in the corridor's last shadow, Yo Shindo pauses at the threshold and tilts his head — not at Megi, but at Dabi, whose eyes have not moved from her retreating figure; Shindo marks the angle of that gaze, says nothing, and tucks the information somewhere teal-suited and unhurried.

Dabi: "Look at that. Every room she leaves gets a little colder and she never even breaks stride. Almost like she's had practice."

Katsuki Bakugo: "Tch. Used to it. Yeah. That's one word for it."

Eijiro Kirishima: "The fountain's this way — take whatever time you need out here."

🌿 Find a bench away from the path — sit alone

She finds the bench by instinct — a low stone seat set back from the main path where a weeping maple drops its curtain between her and the rest of the courtyard, the filtered morning light falling in long pale stripes across the sand-coloured linen of her trousers. The koi pond is close enough to hear but not to see; somewhere a stone lantern's brass cap has caught the sun and throws a warm coin of light against the bench's far edge. She sits, and the silence she chose does exactly what silence does — it fills. Behind her, through the maple's fringe, the courtyard has followed at a respectful distance: she can hear the gravel shift as the group spreads out, the low murmur of several men calibrating how close is too close, and then — cutting through all of it — the particular sound of a text notification that she did not send, because she is here and Dabi is there, and his phone is in his coat pocket and his eyes are on her back. Kirishima has not sat. He stands at the near edge of the maple's shade, three feet from the bench, arms folded loosely, giving her the quiet without leaving it — and from that position he can see what she cannot: Todoroki and Dabi, still in the corridor mouth, the four feet between them exactly the same as it was inside, and Todoroki's jaw set at an angle that has nothing diplomatic about it.

Dabi: "Still not running. Good girl."

Shoto Todoroki: "Whatever you're waiting for — it won't come from behind her back, Dabi."

Dabi: "And yet here you are, speaking for her again. Funny habit you've got."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Hey. You doing okay?"

"Absolutely, Kirishima-san. Just needed some space to compose myself again."

The words land clean and quiet — not an apology, not a performance, just the plainest possible truth offered to the one person still standing close enough to hear it. Kirishima's arms unfold by one inch, something in his posture adjusting the way a person adjusts when they've been braced for a fall that didn't come; he nods once, the brass cuff-chains at his wrist catching a flick of morning sun, and then he takes one deliberate step back — not away, just enough to give the bench its privacy — and stations himself at the maple's edge with his back to her and his eyes on the corridor mouth. It is, without commentary, the most useful thing anyone has done for her all morning. Across the courtyard, at the corridor's threshold, the thing that has been building since the banner wall finally stops being polite: Todoroki takes a single step forward — not toward Megi, toward Dabi — and the four feet between the brothers compresses to two, the charcoal haori still and the dual-toned sash catching the east-facing light, his voice dropping to something that carries precisely as far as the gravel path and no further.

Eijiro Kirishima: "Take all the time you need."

Shoto Todoroki: "Whatever grievance you have with this house — with me — it doesn't belong in her morning."

Dabi: "Her morning. Listen to that. You haven't changed at all, have you, little brother — still deciding what belongs where, for everyone else's benefit."

Shoto Todoroki: "I'm not speaking for her. I'm speaking to you."

Dabi: "Then say something worth hearing."

🎬 Stay seated — let it run

The bench holds her weight and the morning holds its breath, and Megi does neither — she sits with her hands loose in her lap and lets it run, the way you let a fire burn that you did not start and cannot afford to stamp out in public. The brothers have been building to this since the banner wall, since before that, since long before anyone in this courtyard was alive to watch it, and what breaks the surface now is not loud: Todoroki's voice is exactly the same register it always is, which is the most dangerous thing about it. Twenty feet away on the outer path, Izuku has gone very still — not watching the brothers, watching Megi, the pen in his breast pocket exactly where he left it, forest-green jacket quiet against the gravel's morning light. Kirishima has not moved from the maple's edge, but his arms have shifted — no longer loose, now folded once across his chest, the brass cuff-chains catching a glint of sun as his jaw sets one careful degree, reading the threshold the way a man reads a room he might need to clear. In the far corner behind a stone lantern, Tamaki Amajiki has pressed himself very slightly against the garden wall, shoulders high, and is staring not at the brothers but at the empty space beside Megi on the bench — the space where Kirishima is not, and was — his expression doing something complicated and private that he would die before naming aloud.

Shoto Todoroki: "You've been circling this estate for an hour looking for the right angle. I'd ask what you want, but I already know — you want her to see you do it."

Dabi: "And there it is. Little Shoto, still deciding what women get to witness. How's that working out for the family legacy?"

Shoto Todoroki: "This isn't about legacy. This is about you needing an audience for your grievances, and picking hers."

Dabi: "She's not yours to protect, brother. She made that pretty clear. Didn't you, princess — or are you still composing yourself over there?"

Eijiro Kirishima: "She said let it run. That means you answer to him, not to her."

She takes another breath before standing again, smoothing her hair out, before looking at Dabi, "I can protect myself, yes, Dabi-san," She admits, before looking toward Shoto and adding, "But, thank you, Todoroki-san. For speaking up anyway. I think we need to move on, before we get carried away and do something we would all regret."

She rises from the bench in one clean movement — no hesitation, no apology in the line of her shoulders — and the morning light through the weeping maple catches the loose waves of her hair as she smooths them back, a gesture so practiced it barely registers as deliberate. The two sentences land with the same quiet authority she used to set the equal-footing rule: not a correction, not a plea, an endpoint. At the corridor mouth, the four feet of charged air between Dabi and Todoroki does not expand, but it stops compressing — Todoroki's jaw releases by one degree, the dual-toned sash settling as his posture absorbs the redirect without protest. Kirishima, still at the maple's edge with his arms folded and the brass cuff-chains catching the last of the filtered sun, lets a breath out through his nose — not relief, exactly; more the sound a person makes when they realize they didn't need to hold it in the first place — and shifts his weight off the defensive lean, his eyes going not to the brothers but to Megi's face, checking rather than watching. At the garden wall, Tamaki's shoulders drop half an inch from his ears.

Dabi: "Can protect yourself. Yeah. You always could. Doesn't answer the question of whether you should have to, princess — but sure. We'll call that moving on."

Shoto Todoroki: "Thank you, Megi."

Katsuki Bakugo: "Smooth. Real smooth. You fold up the whole morning and nobody even noticed you were the one holding it shut."

🎬 Turn and walk — let them follow or not

She turns and walks — not away, exactly, but forward, the way someone moves when they've decided that the room will catch up or it won't. The gravel path beneath her flat sandals makes no sound she doesn't permit; the weeping maple releases her from its shade and the full morning light of the courtyard comes down across her shoulders, unhurried and clear. Behind her the corridor mouth holds its breath: Dabi takes one long look at the space where she was standing, then tips his gaze sideways to Todoroki, and something passes between the brothers that is not an armistice — only the particular ceasefire of two men who know the conversation just moved to a room they cannot follow her into. Kirishima reads her line of movement before she takes three steps, and without announcement shifts off the maple's edge to fall in at the edge of the path — not beside her, not behind her, just present, the brass cuff-chains at his wrist catching a last coin of filtered sun as the garden opens around them both. At the far edge of the courtyard, Izuku watches her go, forest-green jacket quiet against the stone, and closes his notebook without having written a single word.

Katsuki Bakugo: "That's what moving on looks like, huh. Nobody gets an answer and she calls it resolved."

Shoto Todoroki: "She ended it. That was enough."

Dabi: "For now."

Eijiro Kirishima: "Hey — good call back there. For what it's worth."