30: Remember Them?

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Things didn't immediately become less awkward.

Both Toshinori and Tomura realized that it was going to take a while for them to figure things out and heal from...everything. Truthfully, Tomura didn't think healing was an option. He just knew he couldn't keep isolating himself, and Ichigo by association. He had to do something

Today that something was taking a walk through the forest with Toshinori and Ichigo. 

"I should have gotten a child leash while I had the chance." He lamented, watching Ichigo, in baby squirrel form, run up a tree. "Come down, its not safe up there!" He called out. 

"You could leave the child be. They have the right form to climb a tree, let them climb it." Toshinori suggested. 

"Yeah but the problem with Ichigo is-" He was cut off by sudden screaming. He held his hands out and caught a tiny baby bird. "They don't always stay in the right form.". It was typical of Ichigo to go up a tree, turn into a human, then turn into a bird in attempt to stop themself from falling. 

"Hey, how many times am I going to have to tell you you're not old enough to have flight feathers?" He scolded. Ichigo made a tiny sad sounding peep noise. "No crocodile tears. I clearly outlined this beforehand, you know the rules, you broke the rules. You can hold my hand for the rest of the walk.". 

"Dadddddd" Ichigo whined, turning back into a human at the drop of a hat. Tomura ignored the whining and fixed their clothes. "Don't wanna." They pouted. 

"Well you broke the rules." Tomura said simply, placing Ichigo on the ground and holding their hand tightly. After he had made sure they had no bruises or anything. Priority number one was safety. 

When he looked up, Tomura noticed Toshinori was giving him a very warm look. 

"You're a good father." He said, in response to Tomura's questioning expression. "Nana, she was never very maternal. She had other priorities. Its refreshing to see someone with such dedication. I wish more parents were like you.". 

"That's a bold thing to say about the man who tried to, you know.". He didn't want to say 'kill' in front of Ichigo, but it was heavily implied. Toshinori still managed to smile. How, Tomura would never understand. 

"I think you'll come to understand, as I have, that we were never against each other. It was simply the manipulation of All For One that put us on opposite sides.". 

See, Tomura wanted to argue that he did a lot. That he planned a lot of those attacks, those raids. 

But he didn't really. His teacher never trusted him enough to let him do it all alone, Kurogiri didn't either. They never gave him enough agency to be more than a figurehead. 

The tentative family continued through the forest, having a mostly peaceful morning walk. Toshinori offered to hold Ichigo's hand instead and give Tomura a break, but they soon discovered that because he was 7'2, Ichigo couldn't easily reach his hand. 

Which sparked the question 'am I gonna be that tall daddy?' from the two year old followed by a soul crushing 'why are you so short daddy? Am I gonna be short like you?'.

But on the topic of the league, he wondered, what the hell were they were doing following his arrest? Surely they just went into hiding, right? 

....

Right? 

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The answer to that question, was  a firm 'no'. 

"Tell us where the fucking kid is or I'm going to slit your throat I swear to fucking god." Toga smiled psychotically. She was tired, the bags under her eyes attested to that, but so did the slightly 'off' tone to her voice.

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