Seto brings home strays. The first is a kitten, tiny and white and much too young to be away from it's mother. Ayano tells him so, as kindly as she knows how.

"I think her mom's dead," he mumbles, in the smallest voice possible, and Ayano doesn't know what to tell this little boy who, like the kitten, is too young to know what death is. And yet he does, and she herself is too young to know what to say.

"Smile," is what she settles on, forcing a grin for example, "it's gonna be okay."

He beams up at her and relinquishes the tiny creature to her care, running off to play with the others.

Ayano knows her father will be furious if he finds the cat, so she makes it a little bed out of a shoe box and wraps it in an old shirt, tucking it out of sight outdoors. She hopes the cold won't kill it overnight.

They trust in her too much, because when morning comes the kitten is cold and still, and she has to take the box to school with her so they won't see it, and she throws it away before class starts.

Seto never asks about the kitten, and she hopes it's because he forgot, and not because he checked on it before she did that morning.

…

Seto brings home strays.

Ayano is gone, and Kido is in charge now; she's long grown used to being woken during the night and making her way down to the main room of the base, just to check, and finding him hunched over the table setting the wing of a small bird.

"You know we can't keep it," she reminds him from the doorway, sternness and sleepiness warring in her voice. They haven't the resources, haven't the space for a thousand lost animals, not with him bringing home more every week or so.

"It's an outside bird," he replies, his voice absent minded and his eyes intent on his task. That should be alright, she thinks. Any number of them can live in the tree outside the base; let them fight it out. It's not Kido's problem.

She leaves him there, without saying good night, but it's as good as implied. In the morning he's as bright and cheerful as ever, and shows Kano the bird with a smile on his face. Kano makes a joke and he laughs, and Kido watches them from the table with affection in her heart that never makes it to her face.

…

Seto brings home strays.

And it's one thing to tell him he can't keep a puppy, to tell him there isn't room for its wagging tail and paws that hint it'll be enormous in a few years.

It's another thing when it's a child, a little girl in a blue dress, and Kido's first instinct is (of course) to protect her family.

"She can't stay," she says, throat dry. "What about her parents?"

"Not around anymore," he replies, and he's old enough now to know what dead is but to be tactful enough not to say it, and if Ayano hadn't warned Kido about the kitten she wouldn't understand this situation as much as she does.

And she knows all of that, and she knows what it's like to be a child with nowhere to go.

But what makes up her mind is the little girl's hands, fingers curled around the edge of his jacket. Kido watches her fists tighten in the fabric, and she realizes maybe this time it isn't up to her.

"Alright," she says finally, and it's not until later when they talk about eyes and powers that she realizes how very close she was to not living up to Ayano's legacy.