Saving grace

The woman before me was holding a metaphorical olive branch. I so desperately wanted reach out and grab her outstretched hand. 'Get a hold of yourself dammit' I cursed myself and my current pitiful state.

I stood up from under the seats that I had been cowering under like a stray dog and did my best to neaten my appearance. Attempting to flatten my wild hair, brush the dust off that I had accumulated due to my time hugging the floor and finally straightening up the clothes I was wearing, which was a set of blue and white striped pyjamas... I had escaped after my bed time after all.

"Would you mind if I got to know you a bit better first?" I asked tentatively, not outright denying her proposal meant I could revisit it at a later time, and that was currently my best choice. I needed to decide within the next hour and a half whether this woman could be trusted.

"Oh of course, how silly of me." She responded with a small laugh "My name's Fumiko Tokoyami, its a pleasure to meet you." Her name struck like lightning. I could have swore I'd heard a name like that before. It was just right on the tip of my tongue and I couldn't quite place it. It had been 4 years since I came to this world and only the gods knew now how long It had been since I had seen the source material for this world. I was an avid fan sure, but time between deployments was spent with more than just my face glued to a screen consuming anime or manga.

"I'm Alex." I responded in kind, and from there a conversation ensued. She told me where she was heading, which just so happened to be Shizuoka as well, why she was on the train (commuting back from work), she worked a rather boring desk job in some office for a company I'd never really bother to learn about. For all intents and purposes, she was a regular woman, even her quirk was nothing special, allowing her a degree of control over the avian feathers that sprouted from her head, even shooting them as projectiles if needed, however it would do nothing more than cause paper cuts or a large scratch if shot at a person. Despite all this, I just couldn't shake the feeling that her name was important.

"Would you mind telling me more about your son?" I asked, hoping that would jog my memory.

"Fumikage? Sure, he's just wonderful, a little dark but gets on well with his friends. He wants to be a hero one day, and with a quirk like his I'm just sure he can make it. At the very least I never have to worry about him being alone, I swear the thing talks to him when I'm not paying attention. Oh it's just the perfect cross between mine and my husbands quirk, his is a puppetry quirk that can make shadows move to a certain degree, nothing special he can't make anything solid, but my little Fumikage has a wonderful dark bird companion that will never leave his side." She practically cooed over her child, and the more she spoke the more it clicked on just who I was dealing with.

This was the mother of a member of the supporting cast, Fumikage Tokoyami. A highly ranked student of the 1-A class, and future hero. With that clarified, my decision became easy. If I couldn't trust the family of a future hero, especially one like Tokoyami, then I doubt there was anyone I could place my faith in.

She continued rambling about her son and husband, I don't even think she had noticed how many words had spilled out of her mouth by the time I decided to open my own. "Miss?" I said, cutting her off mid tangent about her son's soft feathers. "Would it be okay if I stayed with you.. at least for a little while." I put on my best puppy dog eyes, to which I had no idea how convincing it would be. It wasn't a skill I had much practice with, nor one I ever intended to sharpen.

A small smile sprouted from her lips. "Of course, we would be happy to have another friend for Fumikage." We still had an hour to go on the train, and I devoted some time to telling Miss Fumiko about some of the hobbies I had managed at the orphanage, mostly reading, but how I was also a huge fan of running and "playing", and that if I could I would love to be able to learn an instrument one day. The guitar was something I had dabbled with in my previous life. I could play a few songs here and there but nothing ever fancy. It was something I brute forced in an attempt to teach myself but when the war encroached, I found myself limited on time. I had picked it up rather late in my last life.

At some point I nodded off, and before I knew it, I awoke in a futon with a simple blanket, and the soft breath of another young child entered my ears. The room was pitch black, blacked out curtains completely disrupting and light attempting to enter the room, but the familiar sound lulled me back to sleep.

I was safe for now.

A/N: Hi all, I tried my best but I couldn't really find much surrounding The Tokoyami family, (by that I mean nothing at all, no wiki page, no reddit post and no mentions in the manga as far as I'm aware, other than a rough mapping of where the 1-A students live throughout japan) as such I took some creative liberties, if anyone has any official material around the tokoyami family I'd be happy to rewrite the chapter.

Thanks