You woke up to your face streaked with dried tears. You supposed that you had been crying in your sleep. You were still a bit shaken from the night before, but you knew you needed to pull yourself together. Thankfully, your lack of processing what had happened to you had made you go numb. You weren't quite sure if that was a good thing or not.
You looked at the business card again before sighing. Should you call? It was early in the morning, but somehow you didn't doubt that he would answer. You reached for your phone, deciding to just call and ask why he'd given you the card in the first place. If he didn't give you a straight answer, then you would just hang up and block.
The phone rang for a few seconds before someone picked up. "Hello?"
You paused. Were you really doing this? You took a deep breath before speaking. "Hello? It's me, from last night. I was calling to ask why you gave me this card."
You heard commotion in the background. It sounded like a little girl crying. You furrowed your brows, trying to listen in further. Before he could respond to your previous question, you decided to ask another one of your own. "What's going on in the background? Is that person okay?"
"Yes," a smooth voice replied. The same one from last night. "That's... my daughter. She's throwing a tantrum right now because of her old babysitter. I'll have to find a new one because of it."
A babysitter? You paused for a while, debating what to say next. You owed this man your life... maybe working for him could repay that debt? You still didn't really know who he was or if you could trust him, and something told you that this was a really, really stupid idea. You spoke anyways. "If you're looking for a babysitter, I can help out with that."
He clearly didn't expect that response. "Why would I hire you?"
You bit the inside of your cheek. "I work with kids currently, so I have experience with it. Besides, you saved my life yesterday. I want to make it up to you."
You really couldn't tell if this was a stupid idea or not. Part of you really only offered because you wanted to make sure that the girl in the background was okay. Maybe if she wasn't, you could find a way to get her out of there. So really, you decided, this was a stupid idea. But you were a pro at coming up with those, so what did it matter to you? You were expecting him to say no, anyways.
Who in their right mind would let a random woman they had met the night before near their own kid?
"You start tomorrow," a voice came through the phone, nearly making you fall off your bed in shock. Maybe this guy was batshit crazy. You didn't doubt it with the mask he wore. "Meet me at the library."
"Sounds good," you told him. "I'm going to hang up now."
You were met with silence, so after a few moments, you did exactly what you said you were going to do and hung up. You really hoped that his daughter was okay. Or maybe it had been exactly what he said it had been- a tantrum and nothing more. It wasn't like you personally knew her yet, anyways. On the bright side, you'd managed to get yourself a job. An actual job. Maybe this meant that you wouldn't have to leech off of Aizawa anymore.
As if on cue, the man knocked at your door. "Hey, kid, you ready?"
You slid your phone back into your pocket, grabbing a pair of clothes. You changed quickly before grabbed your earbuds and a book labelled Parallel Worlds: A Guide to the Multiverse, and went out the door, giving Kuro a pet on the head as you did so.
Aizawa looked concerned for you as you got into the car. He knew that you'd been lying the night before- he just didn't want to press too deep into it. You were already going through enough. The last thing you needed was for someone to pressure you to talk to them. So, he stayed silent, putting the key into the ignition so that he could start the short drive to UA.
You both noticed the police tape blocking off the alleyway you had been in the night before as you drove past. Aizawa looked at you, curious, but you just shook your head. You didn't want to talk about it- both because you were tired and in fear for your life.
You wondered if Sir Nighteye was okay. You'd asked Mirio if he'd heard anything from him, only for him to tell you that he got a weird voicemail from the man, which he insisted that he show you at lunch. Needless to say, you were concerned for a multitude of reasons.
Once you arrived at UA, you followed Aizawa through the staff entrance to the classroom, taking your usual seat at the back. Today in particular Aizawa had you grading papers. You went through each of them carefully, thankful for the distraction. It felt like you couldn't even blink without seeing the dead man from the other night.
Lunch came quicker than you expected it to, but you were ready to see your friends again. You were ready to hear whatever weird message that Mirio had in store for you. You walked up to their table, clearly troubled, but motioned for the blond-haired boy to tell you what was going on.
He shot a worried glance in Nejire and Tamaki's direction. After a brief pause, he excused himself from the table, telling the other two that the both of you would be back in a second. Nejire and Tamaki both looked equally worried, but didn't say anything, letting you be dragged off by the blond.
"I'm worried," Mirio told you once you were far enough away. "The message he left me is really weird. I don't know what to do. I've wanted to go check on him, but I haven't had the time."
He took out his phone, unlocking it and going to his call history. He hit play on the message, and your breath caught in your throat.
"Mirio," Sir Nighteye's voice called. "I've... I've made a mistake. That girl from before- you can't let them find out about her. I'm... I'm so sorry that I've failed you. You deserve better than what I could've given you. You're destined for greatness, Mirio. You'll... you'll be a great hero."
You message ended with a click. You felt panic creep up the back of your spine. "We need to go see if he's okay. Right now."
"We can't go now!" Mirio insisted. "School is still in session. They'd never let us out the front doors."
You remembered the staff entrance and gave ripoff Tintin a grim smile. It was slightly out of place from everything else, and far enough from the front doors that you wouldn't be caught. Sure, you were kind of abusing your knowledge, but this was needed. You needed to make sure that Nighteye was okay. He sounded panicked in the message, and you didn't want him to be in trouble.
You still had the scalpel with you from your first day here. You'd started carrying it around with you again since the incident in the alleyway had happened. You knew that you weren't too good in a fight, but if anything happened, you could hope to at least make a dent in their defenses.
"I know another way out," you told Mirio. "Are you coming or not?"
MIrio nodded, and you set off with him, sticking to the more forgotten hallways to get to the staff entrance. Thankfully, no one was around when you reached it, and the two of you successfully used it to ditch school. The blue-eyed boy brought you to his car, and you got in, feeling breathless. The two of you drove to Nighteye's agency in silence.
When you got there, the first thing that the both of you noticed was that there was no one at the front desk. Weird, he'd told you, because Bubble Girl would normally be there to greet you. But she was gone. It looked like no one had been in the agency for a while, too. There were a few papers strewn across the desk, but none of them seemed very important. You looked through them, trying to figure out what they were about. The first one was just about Bubble Girl and how she came to the agency. Why it was there, you didn't know. The others were all about the quirks of the people who worked in the building. You decided that none of the information was very important.
There was one that caught your eye, though. It had been written over- with the word XE-7 scrawled over it proudly. You realized that the file contained information on Nighteye. You weren't sure why it was there, or what XE-7 meant, but you were determined to find out.
After looking through the front desk's files, the two of you decided to just head for Sir Nighteye's office. You walked silently, neither of you wanting to voice your thoughts on what was going on. The two of you were both scared, and you both knew it. There would be no comforting one another.
You couldn't help the feeling of dread that bubbled in the bottom of your stomach as the two of you made your way there. Something bad had happened- you could feel it. It was the reason why Bubble Girl was missing and why Nighteye hadn't been answering your texts.
"Do... do you think he's okay?" Mirio asked, nervous. This was the first time you'd seen the boy look like this. He was normally so upbeat. It was strange seeing him so serious.
"I don't know," you told him honestly. "I have a really bad feeling about this. Something is off. I just know it."
He nodded, and the two of you delved back into silence. Once you got to his office, you knocked on the door, trying to see if anyone would answer. It was silent. You knocked again, and Mirio shook his head before opening the door.
The room was silent- and dark. Without the lights on, none of you could see what was going on inside. It didn't help that the windows were drawn shut, too. The only light came from the dimly lit computer that was on the other side of Sir Nighteye's desk. You felt around the wall for a light switch, feeling even more anxious as your fingers caught on it. Should you really turn it on? You thought to yourself. You felt like the moment you did, something was going to change forever. It wasn't a good feeling.
You took a deep breath, turning the lights on. It was just... a normal office. The same as you'd seen it before. You breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that there hadn't been a dead body on the floor or something. After yesterday, you'd had enough death to last you for a long while.
Someone was sitting in Nighteye's chair. It was turned away from you and Mirio, facing the computer, and now that you were focused you could hear a video playing from it. Maybe he just hadn't heard you because of the video? you thought to yourself, strangely hopeful.
"Sir?" Mirio called, stepping into the room. "Sir, are you okay?"
There was no response. Mirio moved to walk towards the chair but you stopped him, breathing shakily. The feeling of dread was back, and two times worse this time. You were terrified to see what was sitting in that chair. You didn't want to know.
"Maybe... maybe we should go," you told him. "Maybe Sir Nighteye isn't here."
You both knew that you were lying. So you let Mirio go towards the chair, turning it around. You were both shocked when a body slumped against the desk, unmoving. You reeled back in shock, and you heard Mirio cry out. You left the room, feeling as if you were going to vomit. You heard Mirio in the background shaking the body, trying to wake it up.
There was no mistaking it, you realized as you hurled your lunch onto the floor.
Sir Nighteye was dead.