Apparently, Aizawa concludes after spending a few other days watching them interacting, Todoroki's visits not only gave Arata a name, but also restored a sense of identity in her.
The friendship bond they have established gives her some sort of security and comfort. Their previous Tell-Me-A-Secret game probably helped her to slowly trust them too.
Since then, communicating with her feels less like talking to a lifeless doll anymore. She started to grasp that they are doing their best to help her. Recently, more often than not, she complies to their requests, albeit with a certain degree of caution.
As a result, there is a lot more they managed to discover about her. One is through a quirk apprehension test. Like what they have suspected, she has a Praying Mantis quirk—similar to Hanakiri, although Arata's looks more like a common mantis than a flower mantis. Despite this discovery, nobody has an idea to what extent their quirks are similar to each other.
Another thing they have learned is her knowledge.
"Just how do you perform on par with normal high schoolers?" Aizawa massages his temples as he scans her test results.
She even did better than Ashido and Kaminari in some subjects. It rubs him the wrong way that a girl from a closed-off commune can get a higher score than a few of his students.
Is there something wrong with my teaching skills?
Arata looks up from a stack of papers and wrinkles her forehead. "Because I actually read a lot? The Shirayuki and my m— Hanakiri stored most of their books underground, and I needed something to pass the time, so..." she trails off, opting to continue working on the questions the police asked her to complete.
From his peripheral vision, Aizawa could see she intentionally leaves some of the fields blank. He lets out a tired sigh and waves at the unanswered portion. "You know sooner or later you will have to tell us about what has happened, right?"
"I don't understand why the police don't ask the Shirayuki themselves," she replies, dipping her head lower to the papers.
It is only at times like this her actions lean more to defiance. Aizawa crosses his arms lazily in front of her.
"They did yesterday," Aizawa replies, his tone flat and devoid of emotion. "But, your family refused to give a statement. We have no choice but to get an answer from you. The information isn't enough for the police to issue an official request."
Several minutes of silence stretch between them, filled only by the scratch of Arata's pen against paper. Aizawa rolls his eyes. Arata is ghosting him on purpose again. Just as he turns to leave, her voice stops him in his track.
"The Shirayuki are not my family," she whispers bitterly. "That's the most important thing I learned in life."
Aizawa pivots slowly, facing her once more. "Have you finally decided to tell us?"
Arata hesitates, her eyes reflecting the internal debate raging within her. "Will you let me go freely if I tell you everything?"
"Can't say about that. It's not a pro hero's job to make those decisions," Aizawa answers. "But, you're a potential threat to us by keeping things under wraps like this."
Hurt glimmers in her green eyes at his words, and she asks, "Is this because I'm the daughter of Hanakiri?"
"No," Aizawa states firmly, his dark eyes fixed on her. "It is because you are an unregistered resident of Japan whose intentions are unclear."
As a perplexed expression crosses her face, Aizawa continues with his usual monotone voice.
"Arata, the world doesn't solely revolve around your bloodline issues. While some may fear who you might become, others don't. I couldn't care less about your parentage, because you have no choice in it. What I care about is the choice you make going forward—whether you're going to do the right thing or not—starting now."
She taps her pencil to the table in a slow rhythm, mulling over Aizawa's words carefully. Aizawa sees it as a chance to push her in a precise direction.
"I'm sure T— Shoto thinks the same way," he corrects himself quickly. Todoroki hasn't said anything about his surname to Arata, and Aizawa wants to leave things that way. Let her know when Todoroki himself decides to.
"I won't do things just to follow a friend's wishes," she remarks, throwing a look at him. For a second there, Aizawa catches a spark of iron flash in her eyes.
Aizawa exhales. All these times he has been monitoring her, he kept wondering how a frail girl had survived almost eight years of captivity underground on her own. But now, the answer is laid plainly in front of him. Her delicate frame belies an inner strength—a resilience that has sustained her throughout her misery.
"What I'm trying to say is, both Shoto and I are trying our best to help you," he explains, trying his best to avoid further misunderstanding between them. "So, don't bear whatever has happened by yourself... because you are not alone anymore."
"..."
"Think about it." Aizawa glances at her stupefied look as he walks out of the room. "Don't forget he will visit in a couple of hours."
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"I thought you didn't like the cold." Shoto extends his hand a little to feel the cool gusts. After a few visits in the natural summer heat, he doesn't expect her to start turning the air conditioner on.
"I needed something to tell me that I wasn't back with the Shirayuki," Arata forces out an honest answer.
Shoto turns his head to her curiously. She has never brought this topic up on her own before. He has tried to talk her into it a few times, but they usually ended with an immediate change of topic. It is clear to him that she doesn't wish to discuss it. So, what brings this change of attitude?
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, frank as usual.
"... I don't know." Her green eyes dart from the wall to his face, and stay there. In those few seconds, he can see doubt and hesitation flickering in them, showing a crack in her facade.
"Ara," Shoto calls her gently. "You don't have to go through this alone. You have a friend now."
"Funny." Arata throws him a look. "Earlier, Aizawa-san said the same thing."
Shoto shrugs his shoulders. "They say great minds think alike."
For a moment, there is only silence in the room.
"I— I don't know where to start... My memories are a bit blurry too, so…"
"Just talk." Shoto's grey-cyan eyes are trained on her the whole time, quietly encouraging her. "I'm listening."
Arata takes a deep breath, trying to arrange her thoughts.
"You know, it was… alright before," she mutters with a somber tone. One look at her face and Shoto realizes she is worlds away. "We lived above the ground and sometimes the other Shirayuki held me and built a snowman with my mother and I. They would braid my hair and tell me that it was the prettiest hair despite all of us having the same hair color, except for my mother's."
"Wait, 'the same hair color'? And you were fine with the cold?"
"Yes, I used to look like them with white hair. They said I looked like my father, except for my green eyes. Then… as I grew older, black hair started to grow, replacing the white. I began to grow into something… different from what they wanted me to be. That's… when everything started to change."
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"No, no, no! It couldn't have been just a molting phase!" Hanakiri bit her lips in panic while her fingers kept flipping around Arata's hair strands, dark roots peeking through the snowy white. "You can't take after me! You're everything that he needs!"
"Okaa-san, it hurts…" Arata squeaked in pain when she gripped some of them too hard, but she didn't seem to pay her any mind. "Okaa-san?"
"You can't have my quirk." Hanakiri mumbles to herself, biting her thumb, while her other hand flips through the pages of a leather-bound book. "You can't. They will blame me. We— We were so sure you'd have a snow quirk! But… what if we were wrong? What if you… if you… What will happen to us?"
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In the darkness of their confined space, Arata stirred, her nostrils filled with the stale air that permeated their dark surroundings. "Okaa-san, where are you?" she whispered, her small voice cutting through the gloom. Her eyes blinked rapidly, struggling to adjust to the lack of light as she crawled blindly, guided by the sound of her mother's sobs.
She found her mother curled up in a corner, a broken figure amid the shadows. "Okaa-san, why are you crying?" Arata asked, her trembling hands reaching out to offer what little comfort she could.
"Okaa-san? I'm scared, too. It's so dark here..."
Their sobs intertwined, a duet of fear and desperation, drowning out the harsh reality of their situation. But their moment of solace was short-lived. The screech of the metal door opening sent a chill through the room, and Arata screamed in terror as hands grasped her by the nape, dragging her away from her mother's embrace.
"I'm s— sorry, Sweetie…" her mother wailed, her heartbreaking plea resounding the basement. "I'm so, so sorry! I have no choice!"
Her small body was hauled up, legs kicking futilely as she was pulled across the rough floor. The hands released their hold, and Arata fell, her elbows knocking against the hard ground with a soft thump.
"It's not too late for her, Hana-san." Their clipped tone made the small hairs on her nape rise. The white-haired figure standing in the doorway, their grey eyes glaring brilliantly under the light. "She hasn't manifested her quirk yet. Let us tip the balance and expose her to the snow."
Arata's last sight before the snow engulfed her vision was of those cold, piercing grey eyes. The frigid temperature cocooned her small body, a cruel contrast to the warmth of her mother's embrace. Her screams were muffled by the piling snow, a desperate cry that went unanswered. The dry air stung her nose and the cold crept into her bones.
In that moment, Arata felt an endless chill that numbed not only her body but also her spirit. It was as if time had paused, and she was trapped in a never-ending winter, a prisoner of the snow. Until the world around her faded to white.
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Shoto's breath catches in his throat as his mind travels back to the time where he trapped Arata under an ice cage. In an instant, guilt snakes around his chest like a vine, tightening with each passing moment. His gaze drops to the hospital floor, the tips of his ears burning with shame he can scarcely bear.
"I can't undo what I did back then," he says, his voice thick with remorse. "But I am truly sorry."
Arata, her green eyes tired but kind, offers a broken smile. "You didn't know, Shoto-san," she says, rubbing her eyes, the red rims a testament to her exhaustion. "I don't blame you… Besides, I hit you first. I'm sorry I hurt you too."
"How could Hanakiri let them treat you like that?" he murmurs, his eyes darkening at the thought. "Did it happen often?"
Arata's gaze becomes distant as she pulls her knees to her chest, her small frame shaking slightly.
"Often enough that the blisters were never really gone," she admits. "Everything stung, and I couldn't stop shivering, even after they leave me alone at night… The Shirayuki only stopped when my quirk finally manifested, and realized it wasn't what they wanted. Everyone was brokenhearted and crying, but I— I was just glad that it was over.
"I was relieved that I could continue living with my mother, just the two of us. It didn't even matter that we lived in the underground, that we lived away from the sunlight and could only watch the TV, read, or talk to her. As long as I had her, it didn't matter. But, bit by bit… my mother changed."
"Changed how?" Shoto asks.
"She stopped responding to anything anymore... She barely spoke, and she didn't even eat unless I put food in her hand. She was just there, staring at the basement wall with an empty gaze, like a doll. I felt like… I didn't know her anymore. And then, one day… she disappeared."
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Arata stirred from her slumber, a clamor and shrieks roused her from her dreamless sleep. She rubbed her droopy eyes, the sleep still heavy in her limbs. "Okaa-san?" she murmured, her voice soft and groggy, fighting to open her eyes.
No reply came, except for the eerie wailings that greeted her. Pushing herself up, Arata noticed a gaping hole in the thick door that separated the basement and the hallway. Haunting cries and metallic scent hung heavy in the air, seeping through the opening. With cautious steps, she made her way toward the door, her eyes adjusting to the dim light of the basement.
The hallway beyond was empty, yet the sounds and smells were more palpable, as if they had taken on a life of their own. Arata pressed her small hands to her nose, her eyes narrowing as she tried to peer through the darkness.
"Okaa-san, where are you? What's happening?"
No answer.
Driven by curiosity and a sense of foreboding, Arata climbed the steps, each one feeling heavier than the last. As she neared the top, the sounds and smells became more distinct—the metallic scent of blood, the sharp tang of fear, and the sickly sweet odor she didn't recognize.
As she reached for the open door at the end, her feet slipped. A startled yelp escaped her lips, and she caught herself, feeling a cool, wet substance coat her palms.
Trembling, she raised her hands to eye level, her breath catching in her throat. "What… what is this?" she whispered, her eyes widening at the sight of the glistening liquid that sent a shiver down her spine.
And then, she looked up. Before her was a figure from her worst nightmares—a Shirayuki who had once forced her to endure the freezing snow cage. But something was horribly different.
"N— No… No, it can't be…"
Their grey eyes, once bright with menace, were now clouded and empty. Their pure white hair, floating eerily on a crimson pool. As realization struck, a chill more frigid than any snow pierced her spine, and a scream tore from her throat.
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"He wasn't the only one," Arata murmurs, her voice heavy with the weight of memory. "She… wiped out all of the elders that night and then, she just… left when morning came."
Arata buried her head in her hands, her bangs falling like a curtain over her face. "It was horrible, so many Shirayuki died… B— But the first question that popped up in my head was not why she did it or how could she have the heart to do it… My question was, why did she leave me? If she escaped, how could she leave me there?"
"Ara…" he starts, his grip tightening around the blanket, but words are stuck in his throat.
"I thought about it so many times, over and over," she croaks out, balling her fists, anguish and frustration shaking her shoulders. "I couldn't understand. I didn't understand when I was seven, and I still don't understand now! How could she leave me behind? How come she never came back for me?"
His gaze intense as he observes the crestfallen expression on her face. Her green eyes, bleak with desolation, hold a thousand unspoken words, ache and longing etched in their depths.
Shoto doesn't know what to say. His heart aches for her; the pain choking her voice cuts through him like a knife. He wants to ease her suffering, to make it disappear. He's supposed to be her rock, but he feels the ground shaking beneath him too.
She's hurting… and he can only watch from the sidelines, grappling with the harrowing storm within himself.
"Aren't I… her daughter?" she whispers, voice small, broken and shattered. As if she has cried all her tears, her heart too weary to summon more.
Her words hang between them, a stark contrast to the sunny rays of sunshine streaming through the window. The brightness of the day only serves to highlight the darkness of Arata's past, casting a shadow over the room.