MHA: The Blue Sun Chapter 84: Children Are Unpredictable

….

[Next Day]

Dabi's private facility in the U.A.

The contrast of what he was part of today would be enough to give a man emotional whiplash.

Just hours ago, he had seen the Number One Hero, and his colleagues mourned in sadness.

Now, he was lying on his back in the sun-drenched garden behind their newly repaired U.A. apartnt.

Tomorrow morning, they would board the buses for the Sumr Training Camp at the Beast's Forest.

Where, the quiet, ticulous trap he had been setting for the League of Villains would finally snap shut.

It was quite close to a mini war.

But for now? And for the next twenty-four hours, the war could wait.

Dabi rested his head on Rumi's lap, his eyes closed against the bright afternoon glare.

Rumi's fingers carded lazily through his white hair.

Her other hand held a thick paperback novel she had barely turned a page of in the last half hour. She was too busy watching the two small girls playing in the grass a few ters away.

Eri and Himiko orbited the garden like twin satellites, their laughter ringing out in the warm air.

It was a profound thing to witness.

Himiko, or Toga, as they had quietly agreed to call her when the official paperwork eventually needed to be filed; had been so cautious during her first few weeks.

The temporal rewinding of Eri's quirk had stripped away the teenage serial killer, leaving behind a four-year-old girl with no conscious mory of the blood and madness that had defined her previous life.

But today, running barefoot through the grass alongside Eri, she was just a child.

Her golden eyes were bright with unburdened joy, her small hands reaching out to catch the dandelion seeds drifting on the breeze.

"We did good, you know." Rumi murmured, her voice a low, rumbling purr that vibrated against Dabi's neck.

Dabi cracked one turquoise eye open, looking up at her from her lap. "We haven't completely ruined them yet, if that's what you an."

"Shut up, dummy. Take the win." Rumi smiled, a soft, unguarded expression that she reserved strictly for this periter. "Look at them. They're happy."

"Yeah." Dabi agreed quietly, letting his eyes slide shut again.

….

The peace held for another ten minutes before a sharp, excited gasp shattered it.

"Eri-chan! Look!" Himiko's voice pitched upward in delight. "A bird!"

Dabi opened his eyes again, turning his head slightly to watch.

A small, brown sparrow had fluttered down over the wall, landing on the edge of a stone birdbath. It was quick, erratic, and entirely unimpressed by the two small humans staring at it.

Rumi's posture shifted instinctively, her legs tensing beneath Dabi's head. "Should we stop them before they scare it into the street?"

"Let them try to catch it." Dabi murmured, not moving. "That bird's faster than the two of them put together. They will spend five minutes running in circles, wear themselves out, and save us the trouble of making them exercise later."

A beat passed as another failed grab sent the bird darting away.

"Think of it as free cardio."

As predicted, the chase began.

The sparrow fluttered from the birdbath to a fence post, then to a low-hanging branch of a cherry blossom tree, playing a ga of keep-away that the girls pursued with absolute, unblinking determination.

They crept forward with exaggerated, cartoonish stealth, only to giggle and break into a run the mont the bird took flight again.

Eventually, the sparrow seed to grow tired of the ga. It fluttered up to a slightly higher branch; out of reach of small hands, but still well within the garden.

Eri and Himiko stood directly beneath it, both panting softly.

"Co down." Eri called up to it seriously, like the bird might respond to polite requests.

"We just want to pet you." Himiko added, equally solemn.

The sparrow tilted its head, chirped once; a sound that was almost mockingly cheerful, and then, defying every known law of avian survival instincts, it fluttered down.

It didn't land on the grass, but directly on top of Eri's silver hair.

Eri froze completely, not breathing or moving a single muscle, her large red eyes darting frantically to the side to look at Himiko without moving her neck.

Himiko, to her credit, imdiately understood the assignnt.

She slapped both hands over her mouth to muffle a squeal of delight and nodded furiously, urging Eri to be careful.

With agonizing slowness, moving in milliters, Eri raised both hands toward her own head.

Her small fingers brushed against the soft, warm feathers.

The bird ruffled its wings but didn't fly away.

Gently, Eri cupped her hands over the creature and brought it down to eye level.

"It's so soft." she breathed, wonder filling her voice.

Himiko leaned in so close their shoulders touched.

"Look at its eyes." she said quietly. "They're like tiny black beads."

Then Eri, displaying a level of generosity that Dabi knew most adults didn't possess, carefully held her cupped hands out to her friend–

"Your turn."

Himiko took the bird as if she were being handed a fragile piece of glass. Her entire face lit up with a joy so pure it was almost blinding.

She brought the bird closer to her chest, cradling it perfectly.

"It's so fluffy," Himiko whispered, gently brushing her cheek against the bird's head. "I love its fur."

Eri shook her head lightly.

"Not fur." she corrected in a soft voice. "Birds have feathers. Fur is for dogs and cats."

"Oh. Right. Feathers." Himiko smiled, continuing her gentle petting.

Then, Eri rembered they had an audience.

"PAPA! MAMA!" Eri shouted, instantly forgetting the need for quiet. She spun around and sprinted toward where Dabi and Rumi were resting, leaving Himiko standing alone with the bird. "LOOK WHAT WE CAUGHT!"

Eri practically collided with Dabi's ribs, grabbing his arm and pulling with all her negligible body weight. "Co see! Co see! We caught a real bird and it didn't fly away!"

Dabi sighed, letting himself be dragged upright into a sitting position. "I see it, kiddo. You've got the makings of a master hunter."

"It landed right on my head!" Eri bounced on her toes, vibrating with adrenaline. "And now Himiko-chan is petting it! Co look!"

Rumi was already standing, dusting grass off her shorts with a fond smile. "That's incredible, sweetie. You must have been very gentle for it to trust you."

"I was! Now, hurry!"

Eri dragged Dabi by the hand back toward the cherry tree.

?!!But as they closed the distance, Dabi's Spider-Sense flared.

Dabi's eyes snapped to Himiko.

She was still holding the bird, but her posture had entirely shifted. The innocent, childlike wonder had drained from her fra, replaced by a rigid, trembling tension.

Her golden eyes were no longer looking at the bird as a pet. They were dilated, fixated on the pulse throbbing at the creature's fragile neck.

The bird felt the shift.

It began to thrash, chirping in sudden, frantic panic, its wings beating desperately against Himiko's small hands.

But Himiko didn't let go, her grip tightened.

And then, moving with a jerky, almost involuntary compulsion, she brought the thrashing bird up to her mouth.

"Himiko, what are you–" Rumi started, her voice faltering as she stepped forward.

Before the sentence could finish, Himiko bit down.

There was a sickening, wet crunch. The bird let out a single, sharp shriek of agony.

Dabi imdiately understood what was happening.

Himiko's quirk had awakened, and the biological imperative of Transform; the bone-deep, genetic hunger for blood seed to have clawed its way to the surface of her four-year-old mind.

She didn't understand the craving.

She only knew that she loved the bird, and her twisted genetics told her that consuming its blood was how you showed love.

Dabi closed the distance smoothly and placed his large hand gently over Himiko's.

Himiko froze, as she slowly lowered her hands.

The bird was still alive, twitching and bleeding from the small puncture wounds where Himiko's newly elongated canine teeth had pierced its wing and shoulder.

A drop of crimson blood ran down Himiko's chin.

The taste of it hit her tongue, and the absolute, horrifying reality of what she had just done crashed into her conscious mind.

Eri's laughter had stopped. Her face showed worry, confusion.

The fog of the instinct broke. Himiko looked at the bleeding, dying bird in her hands, then looked up at Dabi, then at Rumi, and finally at Eri, who was staring in wide-eyed, silent shock.

She dropped the bird. It hit the grass with a pathetic flutter.

Himiko stumbled backward, her small hands flying up to cover her blood-stained mouth.

She was hyperventilating, her chest heaving.

Even without her adult mories, the visceral trauma of her original childhood remained encoded in her soul.

She knew with absolute certainty what ca next.

A freak – she had done sothing horrible, sothing twisted, and now the adults would look at her with disgust and revulsion.

She was certain they would yell at her, punish her, and throw her out into the cold, because monsters like her didn't deserve a ho.

Himiko squeezed her eyes shut, curled her arms over her head, and curled into a tight, defensive ball, bracing for the inevitable strike.

….

However, the strike never ca.

Instead, there was only the soft rustle of fabric as Dabi knelt slowly into the grass, bringing himself completely down to her eye level.

Himiko flinched, her eyes squeezed tight, her small shoulders shaking violently as she waited for the screaming to start.

I am sorry, I am sorry....

"Hey." Dabi said.

His voice wasn't raised or angry, but it carried the sa quiet, steady, impossibly calm tone he used when reading them a bedti story.

Confused, terrified, Himiko peeled one golden eye open.

Dabi was right there, but there was no disgust on his face.

He looked at the sar of blood on her chin with the exact sa mild concern he would have shown if she had spilled chocolate milk on her shirt.

He reached out.

?!Himiko flinched again, but Dabi simply pulled the sleeve of his expensive, comfortable sweater down over his hand, and gently wiped the blood away from her mouth.

"It's okay, Toga." Dabi said softly, using her family na deliberately, grounding her in reality. "Take a breath, and nobody is going to hurt you."

The dam broke.

Tears began to spill from her eyes in silent, endless rivers, tracking down her pale cheeks as her chest hitched with suppressed sobs.

She didn't understand.

Why wasn't he yelling? Why wasn't he disgusted?

Before she could process it, a small pair of arms wrapped fiercely around her from the side.

Eri.

Eri buried her face in Himiko's shoulder, hugging her with a desperate, crushing grip.

"It's okay…" Eri whispered, her own voice thick with tears. "You weren't trying to hurt it. You just wanted to love it, so it's okay, Himi-chan."

Dabi shifted forward, wrapping his large arms around both of the trembling girls, pulling them into a wide, protective embrace.

Himiko buried her face in Dabi's chest, finally letting out a ragged, shattering sob, her tiny hands gripping his sweater like a lifeline.

A few feet away, Rumi had already moved into action. She had scooped up the injured bird with incredible gentleness, inspecting the damage.

"The wing is punctured, and it's bleeding, but the bone isn't broken…." she said quietly, her professional hero assessnt overriding her maternal panic.

Hearing Rumi's voice, Eri pulled back from the hug.

She looked at the blood, then at Himiko, who was still weeping.

Eri's face hardened, and a look of absolute, unshakeable determination settled over her four-year-old features.

"Mama." Eri said, holding her hands out. "Give it to ."

Rumi hesitated for a fraction of a second, glancing at Dabi, before carefully transferring the trembling bird into Eri's palms.

Eri closed her eyes without panicking, refusing to think about the dark, windowless room where Overhaul had told her she was a curse or the things she had been forced to destroy.

Instead, she thought about Himiko crying because she believed she was a monster, and about finding a way to fix what had been broken.

A soft, warm light began to emanate from the small horn on the right side of Eri's forehead.

Right before their eyes, the blood staining the bird's feathers vanished as puncture wounds closed and torn muscle knit itself back together, reversing to a state that existed before the injury. Even the ruffled feathers settled into place, smooth and pristine as though nothing had ever happened.

In less than three seconds, the golden light faded.

Eri opened her eyes, and she was breathing a little heavily, a bead of sweat on her brow, but she was smiling.

The bird chirped loudly, shaking itself out, completely revitalized and perfectly healthy.

Eri turned to Himiko and held the bird out.

"See?" Eri said, beaming.

"It's all better now. You can pet it again."

At that mont Dabi understood; Children are unpredictable.

.

….

[To be continued…]

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