The dorm room was dark except for the faint glow of my desk lamp. Taiyashè was sprawled across his bed, barely keeping his eyes open, while I scribbled furiously on the whiteboard and in my notebook.
"Renny-Penny," he muttered, voice heavy with sleep, "it's… midnight. Are we still… doing this?"
I didn't answer. I was too focused. Lines, names, possible suspects, notes from the pro hero interviews… it was all starting to form a pattern, or maybe it was just chaos.
Suddenly, a thud at the window jolted us.
Both of us leapt upright. Outside, someone darted along the edge of the courtyard and — before we could blink — a sticky note fluttered against the glass. Then, almost instantly, she was gone.
I froze. My stomach knotted. That handwriting… it was familiar. Playful, deliberate, hearts on the i's.
"Not again," Taiyashè whispered.
I grabbed the note carefully. It read:
"Hello Renny-Penny, miss you cutie 💖💖"
My hands tingled strangely — not fire. Something deeper. Something… powerful.
Before I could process it, my mind felt like it expanded, pulling in information.
It wasn't just thoughts — it was memories, patterns, files, connections… a flood of data I couldn't have consciously accessed.
I staggered back slightly, gripping the desk. Images and words swirled in my mind:
Three students at Astra who had left notes like this before. Small, seemingly innocuous attempts at messages. Names, quirks, dorms.
A strange anomaly in the archives — someone not enrolled, slipping past security.
The League of Villains files — all of them. Each member, quirks, habits, and profiles.
I blinked, overwhelmed. The information was too much. I had to focus. I forced my gaze on something manageable.
Girls' files. Only the girls.
I scribbled furiously in my notebook:
Himiko Toga — 5'6 and a half, femaleQuirk: Transformation — If she drinks blood, she can transform into that person for a period of time depending on the amount of blood consumed.
More details came, but I ignored them for now. I had to breathe. My head throbbed. My hands were warm. Not fire, but something else — a pulse, a pull, a signal from her mind I hadn't meant to intercept.
Taiyashè's voice broke through the fog. "Renny-Penny? You okay? You're… glowing or something."
I looked up, startled. "I… I don't know. I… read her mind. I think. I got… a lot of info. Too much. Files, quirks… everything."
He whistled softly. "Wow… that's… insane. Are you… okay?"
I swallowed hard. "Yeah… I think so. But…" My gaze flicked to the sticky note. "She's clever. Dangerous. And she's been here before. I can feel it."
Taiyashè leaned over my shoulder. "So… the note-writer might be Toga? That's… League of Villains, right? The odds were slim… but this is like… 1000% chance now."
I nodded, still breathing hard. "For now, we only write the girls' files. It's enough to start connecting the dots."
We stayed silent for a long moment. Outside, the night was calm. But inside, my mind pulsed with the aftermath of what just happened.
Somewhere in the shadows, someone was watching. And somehow… I had just read a part of her mind.