Commission: Siblings (Part 1)
Dragonspawn (My Hero Academia SI)
- Thread starter Blackout
- Start date
Non-Canon Omake: A Darker Path (Part 2)
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
I know I said this AU was going to be a one-shot, but I got hit with a bit of a writer's block for Chapter 43 of the main story and the plot bunnies divulge inspiration in mysterious ways. Don't expect a third installment anytime soon.
I coughed as I stumbled through the black fog, and out into the darkness. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, my surroundings eventually resolving themselves to the shape of an empty warehouse.
Well, nearly empty.
"Did you bring what I asked you for?"
I spun around, training my eyes on the seated, faceless man sitting across from me. All For One. The mastermind of Japan's underworld.
"Yes." I bit out between gritted teeth and pulled out the envelope that had been burning a hole through my pocket. "It's here."
…
"Come now, don't be shy. Bring it here." He said, his tone almost grandfatherly as he held out his arm. "Don't make me come all the way over there."
My heart seemed to have moved itself between my ears as I approached, every step feeling like the clap of thunder in the dark, silent warehouse. All For One took the envelope from me, his calloused, scarred skin brushing against mine. I recoiled as if I'd been struck, but he made no outward reaction as he pulled the envelope open and placed a small stack of papers on his lap, studying them intently.
I watched him, trying to control my breathing. What was he doing? Did he have a Quirk that let him read it? Or was he just enjoying my-
It came without even the slightest bit of forewarning, though it wasn't as if I could have done anything at all even if there had been. It was as if the hand of god himself had hit me. I was vaguely, distantly aware of the fact that I was flying backwards, my back hitting the concrete floor painfully, my limbs in a tangle as I tumbled to a halt. My eyes hurt. Everything hurt. My ears felt clogged.
I was painfully aware of my own fragility, my mortality. How easily, with just a little bit more force, I could have cracked my skull open. I could have snapped my spine, paralyzed for life. I could have been a red smear on the wall.
I could die at any moment, should he desire it.
And. There. Was. Nothing. I. Could. Do. About. It.
I emptied the contents of my stomach onto the cold, hard floor, my arms shaking as I pushed myself to a kneeling position.
"Ryuuzaki, Ryuuzaki, I am disappointed. I thought we had a deal." His tone sounded distant, almost surreal. "Did you really think these… amateurish forgeries would ever pass the muster?"
There was nothing I could do. I was at his mercy.
I tried to raise my eyes to him, to at least meet my death head on, but found that I couldn't move my neck.
The moment seemed to stretch onto eternity as I knelt on the concrete floor, frozen by fear. Until finally, the slightest, disappointed sigh escaped from between All For One's lips.
"Have you nothing to say for yourself?"
Couldn't fight. Couldn't run. But maybe, I could talk. With titanic effort, I forced my leaden tongue to cooperate.
"I… can get you the documents. The right ones."
"Begging? Intriguing." He said, leaning back on his chair. "Why should I even entertain the notion?"
"You must want those documents pretty badly, to go through all this trouble." I forced out. "And… you haven't killed me yet."
"Perhaps I simply enjoy watching the terror of your last moments." He said with a smile that would be burned into my memory for as long as I would live.
There really wasn't anything I could say.
"I suppose it should only be expected." He finally spoke, shaking his head. "The fierceness of youth often leads to folly. You have one more chance. But best be quick about it. The exams are fast approaching."
-----
My hand felt heavy as I raised it to knock on the door three times, then took a step back. I couldn't help fidgeting as I waited, until at last the door creaked open.
"What is it? I'm-"
Ryuko's mug clattered onto the floor, spilling coffee on her doorstep, as she craned her neck back to look up at me.
"...Ryuuzaki?"
Her voice sounded so small and hopeful it almost made me turn around.
"...Yeah." I replied, swallowing heavily. "Hi."
Several emotions flashed through her face in quick succession, as she seemed unsure whether she wanted to run up and hug me or break down crying.
"...Do you want to come inside?" She asked after a moment to compose herself.
"Yeah."
A few moments later I was sitting in Ryuko's living room on one side of a U-shaped couch, whilst she sat on the other trying to decide if she should say something first.
"Can we just talk?" I finally said. "Just… talk, like we used to?"
"Of course!" She said, before falling silent again, her brow furrowed. I could tell exactly what was going through her head: she'd imagined this conversation so many times that now that it was happening she was struggling to decide which way to go.
"Have… your self-defence classes been going well?" She asked hesitantly. A safe, ordinary topic. As if everything was normal and nothing had happened for the last two and a half years. But it was what I'd asked for. "I heard you've been taking on extra sessions recently?"
She'd know, she paid for them.
"Yes. They've been going fine."
Self-Defence for the Quirkless. What a fucking joke those were, when people could shoot lasers out of their eyes or move objects with their mind. But they'd help me become a Hero. So I'd gone. Training and lifting weights was a good distraction, if nothing else.
"What schools have you been-"
Ryuko's mouth snapped shut as she realized her mistake, but it was too late.
"I am going to UA." I stated evenly.
Let whatever happens, happen.
"Of course." She gave me a brittle smile. "I'm going to go… get us some drinks from the kitchen. Do you still like hot chocolate?"
"Hot chocolate is fine." I said as I watched her get up. As soon as she closed the door behind her I pushed myself off the couch and walked up to the door, pressing my ear against it. Once I heard her footsteps disappear into the kitchen I gently pushed open the door and tip-toed into the hallway, making my way to her office. I closed the door behind myself as I walked up to her desk, looking around.
Of course I'd known that Ryuko would be ecstatic just to hear that I wanted to talk to her again. That she'd do anything just for the chance that I might forgive her. That if I showed up on her doorstep, she'd drop everything- even leave her work documents lying around on her desk rather than locking them up in a safe as she was supposed to.
My heart was pounding in my chest and my hands felt clammy.
I was about to do something that could not be simply taken back. But I had no choice. The entrance exams were in three days. If I wanted to- If I was ever to-
I screwed my eyes shut as the memories flooded back. The smell of my own blood. The warm sensation of it pouring down my chest. The desperate scramble to transform and fight back. A gun barrel pressed against my eye.
The sheer fucking helplessness, as life slowly faded out of my body and that man just laughed.
Never again. Not me. Nor anyone else.
I opened my eyes and pulled out my phone, activating the camera and snapping shots of the documents one by one, before slipping it back into my pocket and walking back to the living room before Ryuko got back.
-----
"Most impressive." All For One purred as he leafed through the prints, before putting them back into their folder and laying it on a side table. "You have done as I asked."
"What are you going to do with them?"
"Oh, nothing." He smiled. "In fact, they are quite worthless to me."
"What?! But- then- why did you-" I stammered. "I don't understand."
"You still haven't caught on? Tut tut, I am quite disappointed." All For One said, wagging his finger. "It's not about what they're worth to me. Instead, you should be focusing on what they're worth to you." He smiled broadly. "These are, after all, evidence of your crimes."
A pit opened at the bottom of my stomach.
"Should you begin to have second thoughts about our arrangement, or entertain the notion of trying to double cross me again… consider this before you act foolishly: could someone who was known to have stolen confidential information and sold it to a villain become a Hero?"
My heart skipped a beat. I'd just delivered him the perfect blackmail. He could ruin my life with a snap of his fingers.
No, not just mine.
...What would happen to Ryuko if this came out?
"I-I didn't want-" I stammered.
"I am afraid, my dear Ryuuzaki, that what you want is no longer of particular relevance."
In the blink of an eye he was in front of me, his fingers like living steel as he grasped each side of my head, his broad smile the last thing I saw as my vision faded away.
"Now, let's see what we can't do about your little problem, shall we?"
-----
"Did you come here just to distract people? That girl appears to be trying to focus."
"N-n-no, of course not!"
Tenya Iida scoffed at the stammering green-haired boy in front of him. The nerve of some people! These were the entrance exams of UA, the most prestigious hero school in Japan. People's entire futures could be decided by the next few minutes.
"Aaaand… start!" Present Mic's booming voice rang out from the watchtower overlooking the testing grounds. "What are you guys waiting for? The test has begun!"
Silently berating himself for being distracted and missing the countdown as everyone else charged off towards the gates to the fake city, Iida spun in place, resolved to make up for it. He sprang forward- only to smack face-first into the back of another contestant, bouncing back as if he'd run into a wall, falling to the ground.
"My deepest apologies!" Iida exclaimed as he sprung back to his feet in a rush, getting a good look at who he'd run into.
It was a girl his age, pale skin and red eyes, with short, messy white hair and two small horns poking out the top. She was tall, with almost a full head over Iida, and broad-shouldered, with considerable muscle mass visible beneath her light green tracksuit that spoke of years of hard training.
But her face told another story entirely. Her expression was vacant, her eyes unfocused as she gazed out at the fake city where even now the first contestants were engaging the villain robots.
"Excuse me, miss?" Iida asked, concerned. "Are you alright? I didn't hit you too hard?"
She jolted, as if only now even noticing him. "No… I'm fine..." She spoke as if in a daze. "It's alright..."
Iida cast her a worried look, but there didn't seem to be anything else he could say or do. "That's good. My apologies, again."
He activated his Quirk, the engines on his calves rumbling as he sped off into the city.
-----
Iida kicked the one-pointer in half in one smooth motion, sending it's pieces flying. As he paused to take a breath and let his engines cool down, he heard a commotion coming from up the street.
Raising his gaze, he saw that ít was the girl from before. She was walking slowly, almost hesitantly through the streets, her head slowly turning left and right as she watched the other contestants battling the robots. She seemed almost detached from reality, as if she couldn't actually believe she was there.
As if she couldn't believe the towering three-pointer robot charging at her was real.
"Watch out!" Iida cried out in alarm, his feet already moving, but there was no way he could make it in time.
The girl watched the robot approach as if still in the grips of disbelief, as if she didn't know what to do. Iida's legs burned with exertion as he sped up, but he was too far away. He saw her close her eyes as the robot loomed over her, gritting her teeth.
Then, just as it was about to slam into her, there was a shining flash of light that cast shadows from every object across the street, blinding Iida's view. When it faded, Iida had to blink a few more times to make sure what he was seeing was real.
Where the girl had been now stood a huge white-scaled dragon, one of her four clawed limbs holding the three-pointer's arm, while a pair of wings unfurled behind her and a thick, muscular tail sat coiled around her feet, while her heads towered far above the robot.
Yes, heads.
Three long, serpentine necks pushed out side by side from between her shoulders, ending in three subtly different reptilian heads each adorned with snarling, fanged maws and a set of jutting horns. The right head had curved, ram-like horns while the left had a single, straight forward-pointing one and the middle head possessed a set of long backwards-facing horns.
The three heads swayed on their necks, three pairs of glowing red eyes looking at each other in what seemed to be confusion. The three-pointer, unable to break free of the clawed grip holding its arm, swung its other fist towards the dragon's solar plexus, but in doing so seemed to shake her out of whatever state of confusion she'd been in, all six eyes training on the robot.
The right head swept forward, wrapping around the arm like a snake, the metal groaning under the pressure. It snarled as it sunk its teeth into the shoulder joint, a hissing noise audible to Iida as bubbling green liquid poured from between the teeth, sending up wisps of smoke as it ate away at the metal. With a simple tug the entire arm came free, crashing onto the pavement as the head uncoiled itself.
The left head opened its jaws next, and Iida could feel the hairs on his skin stand up a split-second before, with a booming crack and a brilliant flash of light, a lightning bolt emanated from its throat and struck the robot. It pierced through its chest, sparks blowing all over as joints seized up and the sensor lights on it's head flickered.
Then, finally, the middle head looked down on the three-pointer and opened its mouth to breathe out a jet of orange flame that covered the entire robot from view, the asphalt visibly melting around it. When it faded, it looked like the robot had melted like a wax figure, molten metal sloughing and drooping down to the street to pool at its feet.
Three draconic heads snorted in unison, before swiveling around to look for more enemies.
Last edited:
Chapter 43
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
Himiko Toga. Age sixteen.
Quirk: Transform. Can take on the appearance of anyone whose blood she ingests.
Suspected of a string of eleven murders and three attempts, as well as numerous cases of stalking, breaking and entering, and illegal usage of a Quirk.
Eyewitnesses describe her behaviour as erratic and unhinged, as well as a strange fascination with blood and the act of consuming it. She has been known to develop fixations on specific people whom she wishes to become and will attempt to drain blood from, frequently with fatal consequences.
That was what I'd put together from what the police were willing to tell me, and what I'd been able to research online. After realizing that someone had impersonated Itsuka we'd contacted the authorities immediately and within minutes Nevarro Mall had been shut down and swarmed by police officers and Pro-Heroes.
But it had been to no avail. The disguises were immaculate down to the smallest details, even clothing or smell. Even if I'd known to look for an impersonator, if it hadn't been for the way she acted, I would never have noticed the difference.
And now she was coming after me. The detective who had interviewed me had agreed when I told him it seemed to be because of what happened at Kashyyyk. She must have developed an interest in me after seeing me take a bite out of that Nomu and hearing about Stain's arm.
Which meant that there was an insane shapeshifting serial killer hunting me with the goal of exsanguinating me and literally becoming me.
-----
"In light of what happened last week, we will be entering a heightened state of security." Vlad King announced as we stood in orderly rows at the bus station, rucksacks at the ready. Well, everyone except me of course. I had to stand behind everyone else, and had no luggage.
"Is the camp being cancelled?" Tokage asked, raising her hand.
"No. You would have been informed before now if that was the case. And we cannot afford to jeopardize your education. But additional measures are being taken." Vlad King explained, holding out a small box he had held tucked underneath his arm. He popped it open, revealing a stack of some kind of small electronic devices. "Class President, distribute these to the class."
President, not presidents. Because I couldn't really… do it.
They really should have chosen someone else.
"What are these things?" Awase asked as Itsuka began passing them to everyone. They resembled small walkie-talkies, with a touchpad screen and a large, prominent button on the side.
"These are what are called panic buttons." Vlad King explained, holding up one as an example. "They contain a powerful tracking beacon that will be able to provide your location even from underground. Wear it on your belt or in your pocket, but either way you are to carry it on your person."
Itsuka handed me mine, larger than the others and with a lot of padding. There was a clasp on the back side of the device, and I attached it to the strap of my wrist communicator.
"When pressed three times in rapid succession, the panic button will send out a distress call and provide your location to all paired devices. Myself and other teachers will also be carrying them." He demonstrated by quickly thumbing down on the button several times and the one on my wrist began vibrating and beeping, the touch screen lighting up to show a top-down map of the surrounding area and a blinking red dot with Vlad King's name and location. "Furthermore," he continued, his voice echoing from twenty devices, "it will also transmit audio, allowing everyone to know what's happening." He shut off the device with a click.
"Is that…" I trailed off, unsure how to voice my thoughts.
"Yes, these were made at the suggestion of your sister." Vlad King nodded. "Finally, there is one more function that you all need to be aware of. Each tracking beacon is encoded with your ID, and will constantly communicate with paired devices. Should two instances of the same ID be detected, the distress signal will automatically activate."
"Meaning if one of us is wearing this and is impersonated, it will be immediately detected." I mused.
"Is that how it works?" Yanagi asked. "Does the Quirk really copy everything the target is wearing? I thought it worked by consuming blood?"
"Well she was wearing Itsuka's clothing, so…"
"According to the Quirk Registry and eyewitness accounts Himiko Toga's Quirk does indeed copy the target's clothing." Vlad King explained. "Whether it would replicate a tracking beacon they were carrying is unknown, but it's a feature that is better to have and not need it, than not have when it could save lives. Now, any more questions? Good. Load your luggage to the bus and we'll get going."
"Would be a pretty useless infiltrator if she didn't copy clothes." Kuroiro mused.
"Well…" Tsuburaba began, only to get swatted upside the head by Itsuka.
"Man, how do you always get involved with the crazies?" Kaibara asked as the class crowded around the storage compartment of the bus. "Seriously, this is the second villain coming after you."
"I don't do it on purpose, you know."
"You know, I don't even get what the big deal is." He continued. "You're a dragon, what's some maniac with a knife going to do to you? Ow!" He hopped on his foot after Yui had kicked him in the shins. "I'm just saying!"
"Well stop that, then." Itsuka said, before turning towards me. "You alright?"
"..."
A jagged blade descending down towards my eye while I couldn't so much as twitch my toes, a madman's gleam in its wielder's eyes as it came down, down, down-
"It's nothing." I shook my head, before turning towards Vlad King. "I assume I'll be flying?"
"Yes. Same rules as last time." He replied. Itsuka looked peeved that I'd changed the topic, but there wasn't anything she could do other than give me a stern glare.
"You know… isn't it a little unfair that she has to fly alone while the rest of us have fun in the bus?" Pony questioned.
"I understand your view, but from a practical standpoint, we simply do not have any alternative methods of transportation for her." Vlad King said, raising an eyebrow. "Unless, of course, you have an alternative in mind, Tsunotori?"
"I mean… one of us could go with her?" She ventured. "Ride on her back, I mean. Even as a matter of safety, wouldn't it be better to have two people out there rather than one… just in case?"
"I volunteer." Yoarashi announced, raising his hand before bowing sharply. "My Quirk is the safest choice for it."
"Your reasoning is sound. Approved" Vlad King admitted, before turning towards me. "If you are okay with it."
I tilted my head in curiosity, weighing my options. Yoarashi and I, well… we hadn't quite seen eye to eye, the last few months.
I freely admitted that a part of it was that I'd grown closer to Itsuka, Pony, Yui, and even Tokage. He'd found his own circle of friends as well, most prominently Tetsutetsu. We were polar opposites when it came to temperament, so perhaps it was only natural that we'd drift apart and find more like-minded people to associate with. But in spite of that he was the first friend I'd made at UA, all the way back at the exams. His enthusiasm was infectious, and he had a way of encouraging me to act. I liked to think I in turn provided a voice of reason to rein him in.
Had, at any rate.
Ever since our argument over my decision to intern under Endeavour… it wasn't like he'd ever been hostile towards me, I didn't think Yoarashi had it in him.
We just… weren't as close. Classmates, not friends.
And now he was offering to spend up to several hours alone with me?
"It's fine by me." I nodded.
And yet…
"Hey, Yoarashi." I said as the others piled into the bus. "When we first met at the exams, what did you apologize to me about?"
"I, uh." He stumbled verbally, and I could see a bit of red creeping up his neck. "I meant to speak of your sister's heroic spirit, but used crude language that could be construed to be referring to her… attractiveness." He said, a little flustered, before hastening to continue. "Which is not to say she's not beautiful-"
"Alright, alright, that's enough." I shook my head, with a bit of amusement. It was definitely him. "I just had to be sure."
"Why?" Yoarashi sounded bewildered, before his expression darkened. "Of course. What a horrid villain, to place such fears and doubts among us."
I just grunted in agreement as I lowered myself to the ground to let him climb on my back. He pulled out one of the harnesses from my vest and fastened it around his waist, as I leapt into the air and flew after the bus.
"I suppose you already know what I wanted to talk about." He finally said after a while, as we were flying above the highway. "I'd heard that you'd declined to return to Endeavour's agency in the future."
I sighed.
"I haven't even gotten my Provisional License yet, so I don't see a reason to focus on it so much."
"Do you really think you'll have trouble with the exams?"
"I don't expect them to be something you can just smash through." I explained. "It's meant to judge if we can be trusted to act independently, so I expect they'll be judging us on less tangible qualities than just raw combat prowess."
"Qualities that Endeavour doesn't have?" He asked pointedly.
"Yoarashi…"
"So have you finally realized he's not a true hero?" He pressed.
"There's nothing to realize because I never expected him to be a role model. He could teach me skills that no-one else could."
"You say that like it's a transaction. Heroism is supposed to be an ideal, not a career."
"It is both. I want to help as many people as I can, but to do that I need to be the best I can be, I need to take advantage of the opportunities presented to me. I got what I wanted from Endeavour and left him behind."
"But you still associate with his son." He pointed out.
"Is that what this is really about? Are you actually jealous?" I asked incredulously. "Shoto Todoroki is not Enji Todoroki."
"And yet he acts the same way." Yoarashi scowled. "Arrogant. Spoiled. Cold. Unfit to be a Hero."
"Only from a distance." I shook my head. "If you think you hate Endeavour based on a brief interaction, how much do you think he does after spending most of his life with the man?"
Yoarashi was silent at that for a moment.
"I saw more than enough of him at the Entrance Exams."
"And people can change. Just look at Tokage." I nodded down towards the bus, weaving its way through the road traffic below us. "Or hell, look at me. Do you really think that I'd- that I would have been able to have this confrontation, four months ago?"
He had no words to reply to that, and so we fell into a sullen silence. I simply focused on flying steadily following along as Vlad King drove us further and further away from Musutafu, city lights and suburbs giving way to fields and forests as time passed and we left the city behind.
The view was, it had to be said, incredible. The countryside stretched out below us, endless hills and mountains lined with trees, turning to bare rock near the top, wisps of clouds traveling between them. Streams and creeks, lush valleys and even the occasional spots of snow.
It would have been so easy to get lost in the sights and lose track of the bus. I could tell that Yoarashi was feeling it too, leaning forward on my back with wide eyes.
"Do you mind if I…?" He finally asked, all traces of bitterness forgotten.
I glanced down.
"Don't let Vlad King see you." I mumbled. "And don't go near my wings."
Slowly, almost gingerly he unclipped himself from the harness and stood up, the wind buffeting him as he held on to my vest. Then, he let go.
For one anxiety-ridden heartbeat I was worried something had gone wrong and I'd have to explain how exactly my passenger fell off of secure restraints, until I felt the shift in the air. He pulled it around himself like a tiny hurricane, channeling the wind through the holes in his knee pads, holding himself steady a few meters above me.
For a few moments he stayed there, marveling at the world below. I could see the wonder in his eyes as he descended down again, clipping himself in place.
"It's not the same as flying over the training fields, is it?"
"No. It isn't." He said breathlessly. "Is this how it feels every time?"
"Yes." I nodded. "Sometimes… I wish I didn't have to come down again."
Refocusing myself, I could see the bus down below pulling to a sightseeing stop, a fenced extension on the side of the mountain road with a view across the valley below.
"Looks like we're stopping." I said, starting to descend.
I landed with a heavy thump, bowing down to let Yoarashi hop off my back. The others were piling out of the bus, looking probably about as confused as we were.
"What is this place?" Itsuka asked Vlad King, who stood at the bus doors after everyone had exited. "It doesn't seem like a normal rest stop."
"It isn't. We're here to meet someone."
"And so here we are!" I flinched as a female voice called out from behind us. Who? How? Nobody had been there when I landed.
I spun around to face whoever it was, only to take a step back in confusion.
"Rock on with these sparkling gazes!"
"Stunningly cute and catlike!"
"We're the Wild Wild Pussycats!"
There were four people standing where previously there had been nothing but a patch of bare dirt. One was a young boy of maybe five years, with a sullen expression and a spiked cap on his head. The other three were posing dramatically: two were older women, one with neck-length red hair and a stern demeanour, while the other had long blonde hair and was grinning widely. Both wore matching uniforms coloured red and blue respectively, consisting of a ruffled skirt, fur-lined boots, a fake tail, a headset that resembled feline ears and thick paw-like gloves.
The last one was…
"Hado Senpai? What are you doing here?"
"I told you to call me Nejire, sillies!" Nejire announced as she bounced excitedly in place, her usually horn-like tufts hair now stylized to look like cat ears as they bobbed up and down. "And I'm completing my internship, of course!"
...That was right. Of course she would have found another place to intern at, after things… didn't work out with Ryuko.
"Hey! Don't ignore us!" The blonde woman waved her hands in the air in outrage, alternating between glaring at us and Nejire. "It's not right to give the intern more attention than the Pros, you know!"
"Sorry!" Nejire replied cheerfully, giving her a salute. "I will do better in the future, Ma'am!"
"You'd better!"
"Ahem!" The red-haired woman cleared her throat. "If you're finished, I believe introductions are in order. I'm Mandalay and this is Pixie-bob; we're part of the Wild Wild Pussycats, a four-man Pro-Hero team contracted by UA to provide you with training this summer!"
"That's right." Vlad King said. "For the duration of the Camp, you are to follow their instructions as if they came from me."
"I notice you said four-man team but there's only two of you…?" Yanagi questioned.
"An astute observation!" Mandalay smiled as she walked over to the edge of the railing, pointing across the valley below. "Tiger and Ragdoll, our other two members, are preparing things at our base camp at the foot of that mountain. That's also your destination. It's about twenty minutes past nine, so I'm thinking… you have until noon to make it there. If you're late, no lunch for you."
"Two and a half hours?" Kaibara mused. "That's not so bad.'
"I'm sorry to say, but it won't be that easy for you kittens!"
"rrrrrRRRRR!"
I whipped my head around at the sound of the growling noise to see a huge quadrupedal beast looming behind Kaibara, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It reared back before striking downwards with massive, clawed limbs.
"Your training has already begun!"
Two things happened in rapid succession. The first was Tokage's disembodied hand zipping past and grabbing a hold of Kaibara's collar, yanking him out of harm's way. The other was me barreling through where he'd stood an instant before, shoulder-checking the beast with all of my might. It quite literally disintegrated under the impact, coating me in a layer of… dirt and mud?
"No hesitation!" Pixie-bob sounded impressed as she yelled over from the school bus, while the rest of the class was still coming to grips with what was happening. "I'm guessing you guys have seen some action!"
I craned my neck around, scanning for Nejire and the others, but they must have left while we were distracted. Which meant that the only people standing in the stop area were us students.
"Don't think that'll save you, though!" Pixie-bob yelled as the bus drove away, leaning out the door to run her hand on the ground. That was right. She'd shaped dirt. Her Quirk was terrakinesis.
Which meant that I didn't need to look up the mountain slope to know what was coming down, and was already moving towards a solution.
"Fukidashi! Yui! We need a wall!"
"A-ah! Right!" The speech balloon-headed boy cleared his throat. "Kaboom! Crash! Bang!"
The Japanese characters grew in size as they floated out of his head and crashed down between us and the upslope, sinking into the ground and forming a makeshift wall. In the meanwhile Tokage had grabbed Yui with her other hand and flew her down the line, tagging each letter with her Quirk and causing them to grow to massive proportions.
I reached the wall just as the landslide hit it, rising to my hind legs and bracing the wall with my whole body, trying to hold back the tons upon tons of earth even as sprays of dirt and mud buffeted me through the gaps formed by the characters.
"Shiozaki! Komori! Help her!" I heard Itsuka yell, and moments later vines lashed past me, laced with already-rapidly growing spores. Each tendril found one of the gaps and forced their way into it, plugging it in a matter of seconds with a mass of mushrooms.
For a few more moments the makeshift wall creaked and groaned, until at last the pressure relieved, the momentum of the landslide halted. I fell back on all fours, breathing heavily.
"We need to move. Now." I could hear the sound of shifting dirt and growling as more and more monsters formed out of the dirt, surrounding us. "We need a plan. Any bright ideas?"
Itsuke stepped next to me as the class formed into a defensive circle.
"Well…"
-----
"So, which class do you think is going to make it here first?" Mandalay asked as she walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands with a cloth as she sat down on the front porch.
"You need to even ask my opinion?" Vlad King raised an eyebrow.
"It doesn't matter." Eraserhead said calmly. "So long as they are giving it everything they've got, it's irrelevant how well they do compared to others."
"Of course." Mandalay rolled her eyes. "I forgot how boring you two can be." She pressed a hand to her headset. "Pixie-bob, how are they doing?"
...
"1-A is at the halfway point already?! It's only a few minutes from noon, that's a new record!" She turned to face Vlad King, slapping him on the shoulder. "And you were so certain your class was going to clean house!"
"Just ask her where 1-B is." Vlad King replied impassively.
Mandalay rolled her eyes, but complied. "And what about the others?"
...
"...That can't be right." She shook her head. "What do you mean they're almost-"
A whistling noise drew everyone's attention to the skies above, as a winged beast with a large horn ran through its chest plummeted to the ground, splashing the camping site's yard in mud. Moments later a second shape followed on a much more controlled descent, a large white-scaled dragon with several people riding on her back and many more passengers… glued directly on to her scales. Bubbles of solidified air and rocks levitated by some unseen force floated around her protectively, while a collection of hovering, disembodied body parts and a boy propelled by streams of wind followed behind.
"Now please undo your Quirk, Awase." The dragon hissed as she landed on the grass. "This is uncomfortable."
"You're uncomfortable?!" One of the other students, a blonde-haired boy questioned from where they were glued on to the dragon's side by his back. "You should have let me borrow your Quirk, then."
"You can't even fly in a straight line, we are not trusting you to carry people while under attack." The dragon grumbled in reply, before shaking herself like a dog. "It's like wearing a dozen baby carriers at once."
"Are you calling us babies?" Someone asked.
"Comparatively, yes."
Vlad King simply turned towards Mandalay, his fangs poking out as he smiled slightly at her shocked expression. "I told you you were underestimating them."
Quirk: Transform. Can take on the appearance of anyone whose blood she ingests.
Suspected of a string of eleven murders and three attempts, as well as numerous cases of stalking, breaking and entering, and illegal usage of a Quirk.
Eyewitnesses describe her behaviour as erratic and unhinged, as well as a strange fascination with blood and the act of consuming it. She has been known to develop fixations on specific people whom she wishes to become and will attempt to drain blood from, frequently with fatal consequences.
That was what I'd put together from what the police were willing to tell me, and what I'd been able to research online. After realizing that someone had impersonated Itsuka we'd contacted the authorities immediately and within minutes Nevarro Mall had been shut down and swarmed by police officers and Pro-Heroes.
But it had been to no avail. The disguises were immaculate down to the smallest details, even clothing or smell. Even if I'd known to look for an impersonator, if it hadn't been for the way she acted, I would never have noticed the difference.
And now she was coming after me. The detective who had interviewed me had agreed when I told him it seemed to be because of what happened at Kashyyyk. She must have developed an interest in me after seeing me take a bite out of that Nomu and hearing about Stain's arm.
Which meant that there was an insane shapeshifting serial killer hunting me with the goal of exsanguinating me and literally becoming me.
-----
"In light of what happened last week, we will be entering a heightened state of security." Vlad King announced as we stood in orderly rows at the bus station, rucksacks at the ready. Well, everyone except me of course. I had to stand behind everyone else, and had no luggage.
"Is the camp being cancelled?" Tokage asked, raising her hand.
"No. You would have been informed before now if that was the case. And we cannot afford to jeopardize your education. But additional measures are being taken." Vlad King explained, holding out a small box he had held tucked underneath his arm. He popped it open, revealing a stack of some kind of small electronic devices. "Class President, distribute these to the class."
President, not presidents. Because I couldn't really… do it.
They really should have chosen someone else.
"What are these things?" Awase asked as Itsuka began passing them to everyone. They resembled small walkie-talkies, with a touchpad screen and a large, prominent button on the side.
"These are what are called panic buttons." Vlad King explained, holding up one as an example. "They contain a powerful tracking beacon that will be able to provide your location even from underground. Wear it on your belt or in your pocket, but either way you are to carry it on your person."
Itsuka handed me mine, larger than the others and with a lot of padding. There was a clasp on the back side of the device, and I attached it to the strap of my wrist communicator.
"When pressed three times in rapid succession, the panic button will send out a distress call and provide your location to all paired devices. Myself and other teachers will also be carrying them." He demonstrated by quickly thumbing down on the button several times and the one on my wrist began vibrating and beeping, the touch screen lighting up to show a top-down map of the surrounding area and a blinking red dot with Vlad King's name and location. "Furthermore," he continued, his voice echoing from twenty devices, "it will also transmit audio, allowing everyone to know what's happening." He shut off the device with a click.
"Is that…" I trailed off, unsure how to voice my thoughts.
"Yes, these were made at the suggestion of your sister." Vlad King nodded. "Finally, there is one more function that you all need to be aware of. Each tracking beacon is encoded with your ID, and will constantly communicate with paired devices. Should two instances of the same ID be detected, the distress signal will automatically activate."
"Meaning if one of us is wearing this and is impersonated, it will be immediately detected." I mused.
"Is that how it works?" Yanagi asked. "Does the Quirk really copy everything the target is wearing? I thought it worked by consuming blood?"
"Well she was wearing Itsuka's clothing, so…"
"According to the Quirk Registry and eyewitness accounts Himiko Toga's Quirk does indeed copy the target's clothing." Vlad King explained. "Whether it would replicate a tracking beacon they were carrying is unknown, but it's a feature that is better to have and not need it, than not have when it could save lives. Now, any more questions? Good. Load your luggage to the bus and we'll get going."
"Would be a pretty useless infiltrator if she didn't copy clothes." Kuroiro mused.
"Well…" Tsuburaba began, only to get swatted upside the head by Itsuka.
"Man, how do you always get involved with the crazies?" Kaibara asked as the class crowded around the storage compartment of the bus. "Seriously, this is the second villain coming after you."
"I don't do it on purpose, you know."
"You know, I don't even get what the big deal is." He continued. "You're a dragon, what's some maniac with a knife going to do to you? Ow!" He hopped on his foot after Yui had kicked him in the shins. "I'm just saying!"
"Well stop that, then." Itsuka said, before turning towards me. "You alright?"
"..."
A jagged blade descending down towards my eye while I couldn't so much as twitch my toes, a madman's gleam in its wielder's eyes as it came down, down, down-
"It's nothing." I shook my head, before turning towards Vlad King. "I assume I'll be flying?"
"Yes. Same rules as last time." He replied. Itsuka looked peeved that I'd changed the topic, but there wasn't anything she could do other than give me a stern glare.
"You know… isn't it a little unfair that she has to fly alone while the rest of us have fun in the bus?" Pony questioned.
"I understand your view, but from a practical standpoint, we simply do not have any alternative methods of transportation for her." Vlad King said, raising an eyebrow. "Unless, of course, you have an alternative in mind, Tsunotori?"
"I mean… one of us could go with her?" She ventured. "Ride on her back, I mean. Even as a matter of safety, wouldn't it be better to have two people out there rather than one… just in case?"
"I volunteer." Yoarashi announced, raising his hand before bowing sharply. "My Quirk is the safest choice for it."
"Your reasoning is sound. Approved" Vlad King admitted, before turning towards me. "If you are okay with it."
I tilted my head in curiosity, weighing my options. Yoarashi and I, well… we hadn't quite seen eye to eye, the last few months.
I freely admitted that a part of it was that I'd grown closer to Itsuka, Pony, Yui, and even Tokage. He'd found his own circle of friends as well, most prominently Tetsutetsu. We were polar opposites when it came to temperament, so perhaps it was only natural that we'd drift apart and find more like-minded people to associate with. But in spite of that he was the first friend I'd made at UA, all the way back at the exams. His enthusiasm was infectious, and he had a way of encouraging me to act. I liked to think I in turn provided a voice of reason to rein him in.
Had, at any rate.
Ever since our argument over my decision to intern under Endeavour… it wasn't like he'd ever been hostile towards me, I didn't think Yoarashi had it in him.
We just… weren't as close. Classmates, not friends.
And now he was offering to spend up to several hours alone with me?
"It's fine by me." I nodded.
And yet…
"Hey, Yoarashi." I said as the others piled into the bus. "When we first met at the exams, what did you apologize to me about?"
"I, uh." He stumbled verbally, and I could see a bit of red creeping up his neck. "I meant to speak of your sister's heroic spirit, but used crude language that could be construed to be referring to her… attractiveness." He said, a little flustered, before hastening to continue. "Which is not to say she's not beautiful-"
"Alright, alright, that's enough." I shook my head, with a bit of amusement. It was definitely him. "I just had to be sure."
"Why?" Yoarashi sounded bewildered, before his expression darkened. "Of course. What a horrid villain, to place such fears and doubts among us."
I just grunted in agreement as I lowered myself to the ground to let him climb on my back. He pulled out one of the harnesses from my vest and fastened it around his waist, as I leapt into the air and flew after the bus.
"I suppose you already know what I wanted to talk about." He finally said after a while, as we were flying above the highway. "I'd heard that you'd declined to return to Endeavour's agency in the future."
I sighed.
"I haven't even gotten my Provisional License yet, so I don't see a reason to focus on it so much."
"Do you really think you'll have trouble with the exams?"
"I don't expect them to be something you can just smash through." I explained. "It's meant to judge if we can be trusted to act independently, so I expect they'll be judging us on less tangible qualities than just raw combat prowess."
"Qualities that Endeavour doesn't have?" He asked pointedly.
"Yoarashi…"
"So have you finally realized he's not a true hero?" He pressed.
"There's nothing to realize because I never expected him to be a role model. He could teach me skills that no-one else could."
"You say that like it's a transaction. Heroism is supposed to be an ideal, not a career."
"It is both. I want to help as many people as I can, but to do that I need to be the best I can be, I need to take advantage of the opportunities presented to me. I got what I wanted from Endeavour and left him behind."
"But you still associate with his son." He pointed out.
"Is that what this is really about? Are you actually jealous?" I asked incredulously. "Shoto Todoroki is not Enji Todoroki."
"And yet he acts the same way." Yoarashi scowled. "Arrogant. Spoiled. Cold. Unfit to be a Hero."
"Only from a distance." I shook my head. "If you think you hate Endeavour based on a brief interaction, how much do you think he does after spending most of his life with the man?"
Yoarashi was silent at that for a moment.
"I saw more than enough of him at the Entrance Exams."
"And people can change. Just look at Tokage." I nodded down towards the bus, weaving its way through the road traffic below us. "Or hell, look at me. Do you really think that I'd- that I would have been able to have this confrontation, four months ago?"
He had no words to reply to that, and so we fell into a sullen silence. I simply focused on flying steadily following along as Vlad King drove us further and further away from Musutafu, city lights and suburbs giving way to fields and forests as time passed and we left the city behind.
The view was, it had to be said, incredible. The countryside stretched out below us, endless hills and mountains lined with trees, turning to bare rock near the top, wisps of clouds traveling between them. Streams and creeks, lush valleys and even the occasional spots of snow.
It would have been so easy to get lost in the sights and lose track of the bus. I could tell that Yoarashi was feeling it too, leaning forward on my back with wide eyes.
"Do you mind if I…?" He finally asked, all traces of bitterness forgotten.
I glanced down.
"Don't let Vlad King see you." I mumbled. "And don't go near my wings."
Slowly, almost gingerly he unclipped himself from the harness and stood up, the wind buffeting him as he held on to my vest. Then, he let go.
For one anxiety-ridden heartbeat I was worried something had gone wrong and I'd have to explain how exactly my passenger fell off of secure restraints, until I felt the shift in the air. He pulled it around himself like a tiny hurricane, channeling the wind through the holes in his knee pads, holding himself steady a few meters above me.
For a few moments he stayed there, marveling at the world below. I could see the wonder in his eyes as he descended down again, clipping himself in place.
"It's not the same as flying over the training fields, is it?"
"No. It isn't." He said breathlessly. "Is this how it feels every time?"
"Yes." I nodded. "Sometimes… I wish I didn't have to come down again."
Refocusing myself, I could see the bus down below pulling to a sightseeing stop, a fenced extension on the side of the mountain road with a view across the valley below.
"Looks like we're stopping." I said, starting to descend.
I landed with a heavy thump, bowing down to let Yoarashi hop off my back. The others were piling out of the bus, looking probably about as confused as we were.
"What is this place?" Itsuka asked Vlad King, who stood at the bus doors after everyone had exited. "It doesn't seem like a normal rest stop."
"It isn't. We're here to meet someone."
"And so here we are!" I flinched as a female voice called out from behind us. Who? How? Nobody had been there when I landed.
I spun around to face whoever it was, only to take a step back in confusion.
"Rock on with these sparkling gazes!"
"Stunningly cute and catlike!"
"We're the Wild Wild Pussycats!"
There were four people standing where previously there had been nothing but a patch of bare dirt. One was a young boy of maybe five years, with a sullen expression and a spiked cap on his head. The other three were posing dramatically: two were older women, one with neck-length red hair and a stern demeanour, while the other had long blonde hair and was grinning widely. Both wore matching uniforms coloured red and blue respectively, consisting of a ruffled skirt, fur-lined boots, a fake tail, a headset that resembled feline ears and thick paw-like gloves.
The last one was…
"Hado Senpai? What are you doing here?"
"I told you to call me Nejire, sillies!" Nejire announced as she bounced excitedly in place, her usually horn-like tufts hair now stylized to look like cat ears as they bobbed up and down. "And I'm completing my internship, of course!"
...That was right. Of course she would have found another place to intern at, after things… didn't work out with Ryuko.
"Hey! Don't ignore us!" The blonde woman waved her hands in the air in outrage, alternating between glaring at us and Nejire. "It's not right to give the intern more attention than the Pros, you know!"
"Sorry!" Nejire replied cheerfully, giving her a salute. "I will do better in the future, Ma'am!"
"You'd better!"
"Ahem!" The red-haired woman cleared her throat. "If you're finished, I believe introductions are in order. I'm Mandalay and this is Pixie-bob; we're part of the Wild Wild Pussycats, a four-man Pro-Hero team contracted by UA to provide you with training this summer!"
"That's right." Vlad King said. "For the duration of the Camp, you are to follow their instructions as if they came from me."
"I notice you said four-man team but there's only two of you…?" Yanagi questioned.
"An astute observation!" Mandalay smiled as she walked over to the edge of the railing, pointing across the valley below. "Tiger and Ragdoll, our other two members, are preparing things at our base camp at the foot of that mountain. That's also your destination. It's about twenty minutes past nine, so I'm thinking… you have until noon to make it there. If you're late, no lunch for you."
"Two and a half hours?" Kaibara mused. "That's not so bad.'
"I'm sorry to say, but it won't be that easy for you kittens!"
"rrrrrRRRRR!"
I whipped my head around at the sound of the growling noise to see a huge quadrupedal beast looming behind Kaibara, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It reared back before striking downwards with massive, clawed limbs.
"Your training has already begun!"
Two things happened in rapid succession. The first was Tokage's disembodied hand zipping past and grabbing a hold of Kaibara's collar, yanking him out of harm's way. The other was me barreling through where he'd stood an instant before, shoulder-checking the beast with all of my might. It quite literally disintegrated under the impact, coating me in a layer of… dirt and mud?
"No hesitation!" Pixie-bob sounded impressed as she yelled over from the school bus, while the rest of the class was still coming to grips with what was happening. "I'm guessing you guys have seen some action!"
I craned my neck around, scanning for Nejire and the others, but they must have left while we were distracted. Which meant that the only people standing in the stop area were us students.
"Don't think that'll save you, though!" Pixie-bob yelled as the bus drove away, leaning out the door to run her hand on the ground. That was right. She'd shaped dirt. Her Quirk was terrakinesis.
Which meant that I didn't need to look up the mountain slope to know what was coming down, and was already moving towards a solution.
"Fukidashi! Yui! We need a wall!"
"A-ah! Right!" The speech balloon-headed boy cleared his throat. "Kaboom! Crash! Bang!"
The Japanese characters grew in size as they floated out of his head and crashed down between us and the upslope, sinking into the ground and forming a makeshift wall. In the meanwhile Tokage had grabbed Yui with her other hand and flew her down the line, tagging each letter with her Quirk and causing them to grow to massive proportions.
I reached the wall just as the landslide hit it, rising to my hind legs and bracing the wall with my whole body, trying to hold back the tons upon tons of earth even as sprays of dirt and mud buffeted me through the gaps formed by the characters.
"Shiozaki! Komori! Help her!" I heard Itsuka yell, and moments later vines lashed past me, laced with already-rapidly growing spores. Each tendril found one of the gaps and forced their way into it, plugging it in a matter of seconds with a mass of mushrooms.
For a few more moments the makeshift wall creaked and groaned, until at last the pressure relieved, the momentum of the landslide halted. I fell back on all fours, breathing heavily.
"We need to move. Now." I could hear the sound of shifting dirt and growling as more and more monsters formed out of the dirt, surrounding us. "We need a plan. Any bright ideas?"
Itsuke stepped next to me as the class formed into a defensive circle.
"Well…"
-----
"So, which class do you think is going to make it here first?" Mandalay asked as she walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands with a cloth as she sat down on the front porch.
"You need to even ask my opinion?" Vlad King raised an eyebrow.
"It doesn't matter." Eraserhead said calmly. "So long as they are giving it everything they've got, it's irrelevant how well they do compared to others."
"Of course." Mandalay rolled her eyes. "I forgot how boring you two can be." She pressed a hand to her headset. "Pixie-bob, how are they doing?"
...
"1-A is at the halfway point already?! It's only a few minutes from noon, that's a new record!" She turned to face Vlad King, slapping him on the shoulder. "And you were so certain your class was going to clean house!"
"Just ask her where 1-B is." Vlad King replied impassively.
Mandalay rolled her eyes, but complied. "And what about the others?"
...
"...That can't be right." She shook her head. "What do you mean they're almost-"
A whistling noise drew everyone's attention to the skies above, as a winged beast with a large horn ran through its chest plummeted to the ground, splashing the camping site's yard in mud. Moments later a second shape followed on a much more controlled descent, a large white-scaled dragon with several people riding on her back and many more passengers… glued directly on to her scales. Bubbles of solidified air and rocks levitated by some unseen force floated around her protectively, while a collection of hovering, disembodied body parts and a boy propelled by streams of wind followed behind.
"Now please undo your Quirk, Awase." The dragon hissed as she landed on the grass. "This is uncomfortable."
"You're uncomfortable?!" One of the other students, a blonde-haired boy questioned from where they were glued on to the dragon's side by his back. "You should have let me borrow your Quirk, then."
"You can't even fly in a straight line, we are not trusting you to carry people while under attack." The dragon grumbled in reply, before shaking herself like a dog. "It's like wearing a dozen baby carriers at once."
"Are you calling us babies?" Someone asked.
"Comparatively, yes."
Vlad King simply turned towards Mandalay, his fangs poking out as he smiled slightly at her shocked expression. "I told you you were underestimating them."
Trivia Questions for Nejire
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
So, I'm starting work on the next Chapter or two (haven't decided if I want to do it in one go or split it.) and, as you might have guessed, it's going to feature Nejire quite a bit. As you might also know, she likes to ask questions. A lot of questions. And, over the last two years, I've gotten a lot of questions about how Ryuuzaki's Quirk and dragon biology work.
And while I have plenty prepared already, I thought why not combine the two? So if you have any lingering questions nagging at the back of your mind like "How does Ryuuzaki keep bugs and other junk out of her eyes when flying?", "How does Ryuuzaki ever manage to sleep with her super-hearing?", "Can Ryuuzaki breathe fire out of her nostrils?" or even something like "What is Ryuuzaki's favorite colour?" well, now's your chance to get them answered. I will include any questions you have in the story, as long as they would be in-character for Nejire to ask and for Ryuuzaki to answer.
And while I have plenty prepared already, I thought why not combine the two? So if you have any lingering questions nagging at the back of your mind like "How does Ryuuzaki keep bugs and other junk out of her eyes when flying?", "How does Ryuuzaki ever manage to sleep with her super-hearing?", "Can Ryuuzaki breathe fire out of her nostrils?" or even something like "What is Ryuuzaki's favorite colour?" well, now's your chance to get them answered. I will include any questions you have in the story, as long as they would be in-character for Nejire to ask and for Ryuuzaki to answer.
Interlude 5 - A Long-Awaited Meeting
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
Ryuko Tatsuma watched the bustle of the downtown Tokyo restaurant from her window as she waited, keeping her hands from her lap to stop herself from tapping on the table. Down below was the main dining hall, with clusters of circular tables surrounded by customers eating, drinking, chatting, enjoying themselves. Above the main floor, set on ascending levels along the length of the walls, were soundproof booths for meetings or simple privacy.
Such as the one Ryuko was sitting in, watching through the one-way windows. Waiting.
She spotted the hostess first, the same one who had guided her to her seat, making her way up the stars. And behind her…
There he was.
A man of average height in his early forties, with a vibrant yellow-blonde head of hair showing the early signs of balding and a well-trimmed, slightly bushy mustache on his upper lip. He wore a well-fitting business suit and large, square glasses on his nose, giving him a distinguished yet approachable bearing.
They passed from Ryuko's field of view for a moment, before the soundproof door to the private booth opened, the clamour of the dining floor leaking in as the two of them entered.
"Here you go." The hostess said with a smile as she stepped to the side to let him in, before stepping back out again. "Please, if you need anything, use the tablet to make an order."
The door closed behind her with a distinct thump, and then it was just the two of them.
Ryuko rose from her seat and gave a respectful bow, before offering her hand. "Ryuko Tatsuma. I am glad that you were able to come."
"Hideaki Kaminari." He responded with a warm smile, returning the bow and shaking her hand. It was calloused, and warm to the touch. "How could I refuse, when the Number Ten Hero asks to meet me?"
"Please, as I said over the phone, I am not here in any official capacity as a Pro-Hero, simply a private citizen."
"Oh, of course." He waved it off. "But even so, it is something that will inevitably affect my judgement."
"As you say. Still, I hope it was not an inconvenience for you."
"Not at all. It will do good for my eldest to look after the store for a while, get him used to the responsibility."
"Stepping up into the family business?" Ryuko asked, ignoring the sudden lump in her throat.
"Indeed. I've run an electronics store for twenty years, and one day it will go to Kenta. My other children have never shown an inclination towards my trade."
"I see." Ryuko replied, pausing for a moment to keep herself composed. "Would you like anything to eat or drink, before we get to business?"
"I think I would like to know what's going on, if that's alright with you." He shook his head. "I must confess, the question has been bothering me since you contacted me."
"Then I won't put things off any longer." Ryuko said, pulling an envelope from her pocket and retrieving a photograph from within, offering it over the table to Kaminari. "Do you recognize this person?"
He held up the picture, glancing up at Ryuko before looking back down again and shaking his head. "No, sorry. I assume she is a relative of yours?"
"She is my mother, Ryutsuki Tatsuma." Ryuko frowned, before pulling out another picture. "This is her twenty-six years ago."
"Ryutsuki…" He mused as he looked at the picture for a few seconds, before snapping his fingers, an arc of current sparking between them. "That's 'Tsuki! My apologies, I did not remember immediately. It has been twenty… six years? I had just graduated high school. We met at a bar, had some drinks, hit it off and… well, if you are asking about that, I assume you know where things..."
There was a pregnant pause as he trailed off, his face going pale as his eyes darted between her and the picture.
Ryuko watched his face crumple in horror as he processed the implication of her words, and the confirmation of his intuition, written large across her face.
"I am sorry." She began haltingly. "There is no good way to put this."
Then and there, looking him in the eye, she found that all those hours of rehearsing this moment fled her, leaving her stumbling over her own words.
"But it is most likely that.. You are my father."
Kaminari fell back on his seat in shock, eyes wide and distant.
"You.. are my daughter?"
"A DNA test would verify it for certain, but the weight of evidence is already considerable." Ryuko explained, looking at her hands. "The dates line up with what my mother has said, and when taking into account our respective Quirks…"
"Of course- You breathe lightning- I never even imagined-" He babbled, before falling silent for a long while, looking off into the distance.
"I believe you." He finally said, taking a deep breath. "I just don't understand- She said she was using protection. Even if it failed, why would she never contact me about- about my daughter?"
"Because it wasn't an accident." Ryuko explained, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "She lied about the birth control. She was being forced into an arranged marriage. So to force her father to break it off, she…" Ryuko choked up, gesturing with her hand.
"She deliberately got pregnant with you?" Ryuko could only nod at Kaminari's horrified face. "I don't even know what to say. Why not simply lie and say it was an accident?"
"She told me she was afraid you would figure it out. She didn't want to have to lie to your face on a daily basis. Then, of course, by the time I was old enough to ask questions she couldn't go back and claim it was an accident. So she told me you had wanted nothing to do with me."
"While I never even knew of your existence..." Kaminari looked like he'd been slapped across the face. "What… what happened after that?"
"My grandfather kicked us out into the streets, where I grew up." She admitted and he flinched, but she kept going. Better to get it out there. "It was- it was rough. We were very poor, and my mother was unprepared for taking care of a child."
"I was just a student, but if I'd known I would have-" He buried his head in his hands. "I am so sorry."
"Me too." Ryuko sighed.
"Please, go on." Kaminari asked, wiping at his eyes.
"When I was five or so, things started to get better as Mom met Dad-" Ryuko winced, looking up at Kaminari. "Sorry. I don't doubt that you would have been a good father, given the chance. But I thought you'd abandoned me while he adopted me as his own, and raised me from the age of six."
"Then I have much to thank him for." Kaminari smiled weakly, though it was clear the knowledge stung. "Your mother, on the other hand, less so."
"That makes two of us." Ryuko mumbled. "I'm doing alright now. Good, even. After they got married, things got better. She was happier. But I'll never forget what it was like to be scared about not having food on my plate tomorrow " She shook her head. "To her credit, my mother never loved me any less for how I came to be. And she was a dumb teenager in a bad place. But even so… she brought me into this world as a tool against her father, knowing she couldn't adequately take care of me, and lied about it for decades. It will take time until I can even decide if I can forgive her." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "And in public I have to pretend everything's okay between us, for my sister's sake- half-sister biologically, of course. But we never bothered with that term. She's under enough stress as it is, trying to follow in my footsteps at UA. I need to find the right time and place to break the news to her."
"Ryuuzaki Tatsuma, right?" Kaminari asked, perking up a little from his funk. "Denki, my middle child, spoke to me about her. He's also in UA's Heroics course."
Ryuko jolted in her seat, taken aback. "That is… quite a coincidence. 'Zaki never spoke of anyone by your last name."
"Oh, I wouldn't expect her to have, they're in different classes." He shook his head, with a bit of… amusement? "It's just, you were a big inspiration for him, a Top Ten Hero with electric abilities. That's how I knew about your Quirk. He had more than a few posters of you in his room, if I didn't know better I'd quite suspect that that boy had a crush on you at some point."
Oh.
Oh dear.
Kaminari chuckled to himself, pulling out his phone. "You deserve to meet your half-brothers. I should let them know the good news and arrange something-"
"I would like that. But if Denki knows my sister, it may be best to tell them together." Ryuko said, raising her hand. "Like I said I'm not ready to tell her yet." She explained, carefully picking her next words. "And I'd like to take things at their own pace, at least for now."
"Of course. Of course." Kaminari said, leaning back in his seat, putting away his phone. "I got ahead of myself there. We are, after all, still strangers. It is simply so… I have a daughter." He spoke as if he was trying to get himself used to the word. "I have twenty-six years to make up for. I feel like I have to do something. know that things can never go the way they should have, but I'd like to have some kind of relationship, as much as you are willing."
Ryuko couldn't help but shake her head. And here she had been worrying herself sick that she'd have to be the one pushing for contact, not the one putting on brakes.
"I understand. I do want to meet my half-siblings. But I hope that you can understand why it's hard for me. I held a lot of anger and resentment towards you, that built up over two decades. And though it's not directed at you anymore, those emotions, that pain I felt… it didn't simply go away when I learned the truth. And every time I think about what could have been, it hurts. It will get better, and I want to work on it, but all the same… it hurts."
By the end of it, Ryuko's hands were on her lap, gripping the fabric of her jacket.
Kaminari bowed his head, unable to look her in the eye.
"I understand."
"You… said you had more children aside from Denki?" Ryuko offered a change of topic.
"Indeed. Aside from Denki I have two more sons, Kenta, nineteen, who works in my store part-time, and Shiro, six, who just started Elementary School this year."
Three. Three brothers she'd never even known about. Or half-brothers. But so was Ryuuzaki, technically. But even if she got to know them, it would never be the same. But if her mother hadn't lied, would it have been?
Would she and 'Zaki have had the same, close relationship? She wanted to think so, but the courts might well have awarded primary custody to the parent with stable income and housing. And she knew her upbringing had been a major motivation in Ryutsuki's decision to have another child.
Would 'Zaki have ever even existed, in this alternate world?
"I know they'd be thrilled to know they have a half-sister, but if you do not feel comfortable with that yet, I won't tell them until you're ready." Kaminari went on. "I would, however, like to tell my wife the truth. She is my partner in everything, and I do not think I could keep a secret of this magnitude without her finding out. It would be better if I went to her with it first."
"That is reasonable." Ryuko said, rubbing her eyes. "I only ask that you not spread it any further than that."
"You have my word on it." He assured her.
"Thank you." Ryuko took a long breath, leaning back in her seat. "I think it might be best if we left it at that for today. We've given each other a lot to think about and process."
She could tell Kaminari was reluctant, but he bowed his head in acceptance.
"I won't lie and say I wouldn't like to keep going, but that may be the shock of it all talking. I feel this overwhelming urge to make things right, even if I know I can't." He said, looking at his hands, opening and closing them, before looking back up at Ryuko. "Thank you for coming to me with this. I couldn't blame you if you had decided not to. And though it hurts to know what you went through, it gives me joy and comfort to know that you had and have people who loved you, and that you were able to grow into a strong, successful woman. I would be proud of you as my daughter."
Ryuko closed her eyes for a moment, before reaching over to take a hold of Kaminari's hand and squeeze it . "Thank you. That means a lot to me."
Kaminari returned the squeeze, and made to stand up. "I guess this is it. I'd like to meet again, soon, but I'll leave it to you to decide when you are comfortable. Goodbye for now, Ryuko."
"Goodbye… Hideaki."
She'd held her composure together until now, but when the door closed behind him she let go. It didn't take long for the tears to come.
She cried. She laughed. She sobbed.
But when she was finished, she felt better than she had in a long while. She stood up and wiped her face, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders as she walked to the door.
It was a good day.
Such as the one Ryuko was sitting in, watching through the one-way windows. Waiting.
She spotted the hostess first, the same one who had guided her to her seat, making her way up the stars. And behind her…
There he was.
A man of average height in his early forties, with a vibrant yellow-blonde head of hair showing the early signs of balding and a well-trimmed, slightly bushy mustache on his upper lip. He wore a well-fitting business suit and large, square glasses on his nose, giving him a distinguished yet approachable bearing.
They passed from Ryuko's field of view for a moment, before the soundproof door to the private booth opened, the clamour of the dining floor leaking in as the two of them entered.
"Here you go." The hostess said with a smile as she stepped to the side to let him in, before stepping back out again. "Please, if you need anything, use the tablet to make an order."
The door closed behind her with a distinct thump, and then it was just the two of them.
Ryuko rose from her seat and gave a respectful bow, before offering her hand. "Ryuko Tatsuma. I am glad that you were able to come."
"Hideaki Kaminari." He responded with a warm smile, returning the bow and shaking her hand. It was calloused, and warm to the touch. "How could I refuse, when the Number Ten Hero asks to meet me?"
"Please, as I said over the phone, I am not here in any official capacity as a Pro-Hero, simply a private citizen."
"Oh, of course." He waved it off. "But even so, it is something that will inevitably affect my judgement."
"As you say. Still, I hope it was not an inconvenience for you."
"Not at all. It will do good for my eldest to look after the store for a while, get him used to the responsibility."
"Stepping up into the family business?" Ryuko asked, ignoring the sudden lump in her throat.
"Indeed. I've run an electronics store for twenty years, and one day it will go to Kenta. My other children have never shown an inclination towards my trade."
"I see." Ryuko replied, pausing for a moment to keep herself composed. "Would you like anything to eat or drink, before we get to business?"
"I think I would like to know what's going on, if that's alright with you." He shook his head. "I must confess, the question has been bothering me since you contacted me."
"Then I won't put things off any longer." Ryuko said, pulling an envelope from her pocket and retrieving a photograph from within, offering it over the table to Kaminari. "Do you recognize this person?"
He held up the picture, glancing up at Ryuko before looking back down again and shaking his head. "No, sorry. I assume she is a relative of yours?"
"She is my mother, Ryutsuki Tatsuma." Ryuko frowned, before pulling out another picture. "This is her twenty-six years ago."
"Ryutsuki…" He mused as he looked at the picture for a few seconds, before snapping his fingers, an arc of current sparking between them. "That's 'Tsuki! My apologies, I did not remember immediately. It has been twenty… six years? I had just graduated high school. We met at a bar, had some drinks, hit it off and… well, if you are asking about that, I assume you know where things..."
There was a pregnant pause as he trailed off, his face going pale as his eyes darted between her and the picture.
Ryuko watched his face crumple in horror as he processed the implication of her words, and the confirmation of his intuition, written large across her face.
"I am sorry." She began haltingly. "There is no good way to put this."
Then and there, looking him in the eye, she found that all those hours of rehearsing this moment fled her, leaving her stumbling over her own words.
"But it is most likely that.. You are my father."
Kaminari fell back on his seat in shock, eyes wide and distant.
"You.. are my daughter?"
"A DNA test would verify it for certain, but the weight of evidence is already considerable." Ryuko explained, looking at her hands. "The dates line up with what my mother has said, and when taking into account our respective Quirks…"
"Of course- You breathe lightning- I never even imagined-" He babbled, before falling silent for a long while, looking off into the distance.
"I believe you." He finally said, taking a deep breath. "I just don't understand- She said she was using protection. Even if it failed, why would she never contact me about- about my daughter?"
"Because it wasn't an accident." Ryuko explained, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "She lied about the birth control. She was being forced into an arranged marriage. So to force her father to break it off, she…" Ryuko choked up, gesturing with her hand.
"She deliberately got pregnant with you?" Ryuko could only nod at Kaminari's horrified face. "I don't even know what to say. Why not simply lie and say it was an accident?"
"She told me she was afraid you would figure it out. She didn't want to have to lie to your face on a daily basis. Then, of course, by the time I was old enough to ask questions she couldn't go back and claim it was an accident. So she told me you had wanted nothing to do with me."
"While I never even knew of your existence..." Kaminari looked like he'd been slapped across the face. "What… what happened after that?"
"My grandfather kicked us out into the streets, where I grew up." She admitted and he flinched, but she kept going. Better to get it out there. "It was- it was rough. We were very poor, and my mother was unprepared for taking care of a child."
"I was just a student, but if I'd known I would have-" He buried his head in his hands. "I am so sorry."
"Me too." Ryuko sighed.
"Please, go on." Kaminari asked, wiping at his eyes.
"When I was five or so, things started to get better as Mom met Dad-" Ryuko winced, looking up at Kaminari. "Sorry. I don't doubt that you would have been a good father, given the chance. But I thought you'd abandoned me while he adopted me as his own, and raised me from the age of six."
"Then I have much to thank him for." Kaminari smiled weakly, though it was clear the knowledge stung. "Your mother, on the other hand, less so."
"That makes two of us." Ryuko mumbled. "I'm doing alright now. Good, even. After they got married, things got better. She was happier. But I'll never forget what it was like to be scared about not having food on my plate tomorrow " She shook her head. "To her credit, my mother never loved me any less for how I came to be. And she was a dumb teenager in a bad place. But even so… she brought me into this world as a tool against her father, knowing she couldn't adequately take care of me, and lied about it for decades. It will take time until I can even decide if I can forgive her." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "And in public I have to pretend everything's okay between us, for my sister's sake- half-sister biologically, of course. But we never bothered with that term. She's under enough stress as it is, trying to follow in my footsteps at UA. I need to find the right time and place to break the news to her."
"Ryuuzaki Tatsuma, right?" Kaminari asked, perking up a little from his funk. "Denki, my middle child, spoke to me about her. He's also in UA's Heroics course."
Ryuko jolted in her seat, taken aback. "That is… quite a coincidence. 'Zaki never spoke of anyone by your last name."
"Oh, I wouldn't expect her to have, they're in different classes." He shook his head, with a bit of… amusement? "It's just, you were a big inspiration for him, a Top Ten Hero with electric abilities. That's how I knew about your Quirk. He had more than a few posters of you in his room, if I didn't know better I'd quite suspect that that boy had a crush on you at some point."
Oh.
Oh dear.
Kaminari chuckled to himself, pulling out his phone. "You deserve to meet your half-brothers. I should let them know the good news and arrange something-"
"I would like that. But if Denki knows my sister, it may be best to tell them together." Ryuko said, raising her hand. "Like I said I'm not ready to tell her yet." She explained, carefully picking her next words. "And I'd like to take things at their own pace, at least for now."
"Of course. Of course." Kaminari said, leaning back in his seat, putting away his phone. "I got ahead of myself there. We are, after all, still strangers. It is simply so… I have a daughter." He spoke as if he was trying to get himself used to the word. "I have twenty-six years to make up for. I feel like I have to do something. know that things can never go the way they should have, but I'd like to have some kind of relationship, as much as you are willing."
Ryuko couldn't help but shake her head. And here she had been worrying herself sick that she'd have to be the one pushing for contact, not the one putting on brakes.
"I understand. I do want to meet my half-siblings. But I hope that you can understand why it's hard for me. I held a lot of anger and resentment towards you, that built up over two decades. And though it's not directed at you anymore, those emotions, that pain I felt… it didn't simply go away when I learned the truth. And every time I think about what could have been, it hurts. It will get better, and I want to work on it, but all the same… it hurts."
By the end of it, Ryuko's hands were on her lap, gripping the fabric of her jacket.
Kaminari bowed his head, unable to look her in the eye.
"I understand."
"You… said you had more children aside from Denki?" Ryuko offered a change of topic.
"Indeed. Aside from Denki I have two more sons, Kenta, nineteen, who works in my store part-time, and Shiro, six, who just started Elementary School this year."
Three. Three brothers she'd never even known about. Or half-brothers. But so was Ryuuzaki, technically. But even if she got to know them, it would never be the same. But if her mother hadn't lied, would it have been?
Would she and 'Zaki have had the same, close relationship? She wanted to think so, but the courts might well have awarded primary custody to the parent with stable income and housing. And she knew her upbringing had been a major motivation in Ryutsuki's decision to have another child.
Would 'Zaki have ever even existed, in this alternate world?
"I know they'd be thrilled to know they have a half-sister, but if you do not feel comfortable with that yet, I won't tell them until you're ready." Kaminari went on. "I would, however, like to tell my wife the truth. She is my partner in everything, and I do not think I could keep a secret of this magnitude without her finding out. It would be better if I went to her with it first."
"That is reasonable." Ryuko said, rubbing her eyes. "I only ask that you not spread it any further than that."
"You have my word on it." He assured her.
"Thank you." Ryuko took a long breath, leaning back in her seat. "I think it might be best if we left it at that for today. We've given each other a lot to think about and process."
She could tell Kaminari was reluctant, but he bowed his head in acceptance.
"I won't lie and say I wouldn't like to keep going, but that may be the shock of it all talking. I feel this overwhelming urge to make things right, even if I know I can't." He said, looking at his hands, opening and closing them, before looking back up at Ryuko. "Thank you for coming to me with this. I couldn't blame you if you had decided not to. And though it hurts to know what you went through, it gives me joy and comfort to know that you had and have people who loved you, and that you were able to grow into a strong, successful woman. I would be proud of you as my daughter."
Ryuko closed her eyes for a moment, before reaching over to take a hold of Kaminari's hand and squeeze it . "Thank you. That means a lot to me."
Kaminari returned the squeeze, and made to stand up. "I guess this is it. I'd like to meet again, soon, but I'll leave it to you to decide when you are comfortable. Goodbye for now, Ryuko."
"Goodbye… Hideaki."
She'd held her composure together until now, but when the door closed behind him she let go. It didn't take long for the tears to come.
She cried. She laughed. She sobbed.
But when she was finished, she felt better than she had in a long while. She stood up and wiped her face, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders as she walked to the door.
It was a good day.
I am working on the next chapter of the main story and incorporating all of the questions you've provided, but in the meanwhile have this little Interlude.
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Updated Tatsuma Family Tree + Quirks
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
Since it was requested, here's the updated family tree for easier reference.
Ryuunosuke Tatsuma
Age: Deceased
Quirk: Dragonoid
Type: Mutant
Description: Draconic humanoid with increased strength, speed, durability, size, wings and the ability to breathe fire.
Kaede Tatsuma
Age: Deceased
Quirk: Shifter
Type: Transformation
Description: Can transform body into any shape, as long as it retains the same mass as the original body.
Ryuo Tatsuma
Age: 34
Quirk: Draconic Senses
Type: Mutant
Description: Greatly enhanced senses of sight, hearing and smell.
Passive Quirk: Scaled skin, reptilian head, claws, increased size/strength.
Ryutsuki Tatsuma
Age: 43
Quirk: Dragon
Type: Transformation
Description: Can turn into a western dragon capable of flight and breathing fire.
Passive Quirk: Reptilian eyes, sharp teeth.
Kenshin Tatsuma (né Matsuoka)
Age: 44
Quirk: Rhinoceros
Type: Mutant
Description: Rhino-like humanoid with horns and increased size/strength.
Hideaki Kaminari
Age: 44
Quirk: Electrokinesis
Type: Emitter
Description: Can manipulate and store electricity, but cannot generate more without an external source.
Miyako Kaminari
Age: 41
Quirk: Dynamo
Type: Emitter
Description: Can generate and store energy over time, before unleashing it in a shockwave.
Kenta Kaminari
Age: 19
Quirk: Dynamo
Type: Emitter
Description: Can generate and store energy over time, before unleashing it in a shockwave.
Denki Kaminari
Age: 15
Quirk: Electrification
Type: Emitter
Description: Can generate electricity from his body and manipulate it to a limited degree.
Shiro Kaminari
Age: 6
Quirk: Electroshift
Type: Transformation
Description: Can transform parts of his body into living electricity.
Ryuko Tatsuma
Age: 25
Quirk: Storm Dragon
Type: Transformation
Description: Can turn turn into a nimble and agile western dragon capable of flight and breathing lightning.
Passive Quirk: Reptilian eyes, sharp teeth
Ryuuzaki Tatsuma
Age: 15
Quirk: Horned Dragon
Type: Transformation
Description: Can turn into a large and powerful rhino-like western dragon capable of flight and breathing fire.
Passive Quirk: Sharp teeth, horns, increased size/strength
Ryuunosuke Tatsuma
Age: Deceased
Quirk: Dragonoid
Type: Mutant
Description: Draconic humanoid with increased strength, speed, durability, size, wings and the ability to breathe fire.
Kaede Tatsuma
Age: Deceased
Quirk: Shifter
Type: Transformation
Description: Can transform body into any shape, as long as it retains the same mass as the original body.
Ryuo Tatsuma
Age: 34
Quirk: Draconic Senses
Type: Mutant
Description: Greatly enhanced senses of sight, hearing and smell.
Passive Quirk: Scaled skin, reptilian head, claws, increased size/strength.
Ryutsuki Tatsuma
Age: 43
Quirk: Dragon
Type: Transformation
Description: Can turn into a western dragon capable of flight and breathing fire.
Passive Quirk: Reptilian eyes, sharp teeth.
Kenshin Tatsuma (né Matsuoka)
Age: 44
Quirk: Rhinoceros
Type: Mutant
Description: Rhino-like humanoid with horns and increased size/strength.
Hideaki Kaminari
Age: 44
Quirk: Electrokinesis
Type: Emitter
Description: Can manipulate and store electricity, but cannot generate more without an external source.
Miyako Kaminari
Age: 41
Quirk: Dynamo
Type: Emitter
Description: Can generate and store energy over time, before unleashing it in a shockwave.
Kenta Kaminari
Age: 19
Quirk: Dynamo
Type: Emitter
Description: Can generate and store energy over time, before unleashing it in a shockwave.
Denki Kaminari
Age: 15
Quirk: Electrification
Type: Emitter
Description: Can generate electricity from his body and manipulate it to a limited degree.
Shiro Kaminari
Age: 6
Quirk: Electroshift
Type: Transformation
Description: Can transform parts of his body into living electricity.
Ryuko Tatsuma
Age: 25
Quirk: Storm Dragon
Type: Transformation
Description: Can turn turn into a nimble and agile western dragon capable of flight and breathing lightning.
Passive Quirk: Reptilian eyes, sharp teeth
Ryuuzaki Tatsuma
Age: 15
Quirk: Horned Dragon
Type: Transformation
Description: Can turn into a large and powerful rhino-like western dragon capable of flight and breathing fire.
Passive Quirk: Sharp teeth, horns, increased size/strength
Chapter 44
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
"You have exceeded expectations, Class." Vlad King announced with a smile that balanced on the edge of smugness. "Well done."
We had reconvened after a brief lunch break consisting of scarfing down packed meals outside, gathered in front of the main building. The Pussycats' base was composed of a cluster of small buildings and cottages, as well as a hot spring compound some distance away.
"We were expecting you to take the aerial route, but not how you were able to form an aerial fortress with multiple layers of protection like that." Mandalay explained while Pixie-Bob pouted, before perking up a little and holding up a finger. "However, our ultimate goal is getting you guys up to speed, so the fact that you're doing better than expected is only a good thing!"
"You've clearly got coordination down… but you can't always rely on others!" A new voice announced as two more Heroes in the Pussycats uniform emerged from the main building. One was a young woman with long green hair and a perky smile that reminded me of Nejire, while the other, the one who had spoken, was a large, muscular man with a triangular beard and short brown hair… wearing the same frilly dress as the other three. "You have to be able to stand on your own feet too, so that others can rely on you when needed!"
"Indeed." Vlad King agreed. "These are Ragdoll and Tiger, the other half of the Pussycats."
"Hi!" The young woman said with a wave of her pawed gauntlet. "I'm Ragdoll, nice to meet you! I'll be here to oversee and keep track of you guys!"
"And I am here to punch and kick you sorry lot into shape." The man, who had to be Tiger, growled.
"Indeed. Originally the plan was to begin the proper training tomorrow, but since you completed the challenge in record time, that leaves us plenty of time to get started today."
"Oh come on!" Kaibara grumbled. "Our reward for being quick is more training?"
"Quiet!" Vlad King snapped, directing a withering glare across our class. "Or are you actually tired after being carried the whole way through?"
Nobody dared to speak up in response.
"Teamwork is a vital skill to learn, and delegating a task to those most qualified to do it is an important part of it." Eraserhead spoke up, mumbling in a tired voice through his ever-present scarf. "But it's not logical to allow one person to always carry the burden, or it will jeopardize the growth of the rest."
"That is right." Vlad King said. "Now, for most of the semester we focused on bringing you up to speed on skill and technique, but in this camp our main focus will be on improving your raw power by strengthening your Quirks."
"Strengthening our Quirks?" Tokage asked, raising her hand. "What do you mean?"
"Quirks are like muscles. Overuse and strain them, and when they recover they will be stronger than when you started. And that is exactly what we will be doing."
"But there's twenty of us, and forty when 1-A gets here, all with different Quirks that need different kinds of training." Yanagi questioned. "How will you be able to supervise us all?"
"That's where we come in!" Mandalay announced. "My Telepathy will allow me to talk to all of you at once and offer advice."
"My Earthflow will create the perfect training ground for each of you, customized to your needs!"
"My Quirk is Search!" Ragdoll picked up, throwing her hands into the air. "I can tag up to one hundred people and receive all the necessary information about them! I can keep track of your location and figure out weaknesses you need to work on!"
"And my Pliabody makes me into a perfect punching bag." Tiger grunted. "If you manage to land a hit on me, that is."
"We have already devised your individual training plans. Projection-types will be working on raising your maximum output, while physical-types will focus on strengthening your body." Eraserhead explained. "We'll be splitting you into groups based on compatibility…"
-----
"You know, I've always wondered, does your front horn impede your vision?"
"My eyes are on either side of my head, so I can mostly see past it. It's like a human nose, my brain edits it out unless I concentrate on it."
"Huh." Nejire hummed, idly reaching over my head to poke at my front horn. "How does it stay so sharp? Do you shave it?"
"Like my claws and teeth, it's constantly growing in layers, pushing up from the stem until the old surface layer falls off, with a new, sharpened point beneath it." I grunted with exertion, as I drove my shoulder into the boulder in front of me, rolling it another few meters up the slope. "That's why I don't bother to try to dull them, even though it'd be more convenient."
The mud sloshed beneath my feet as I struggled for traction, pushing a stone boulder nearly as large as myself up a makeshift hill created by Pixie-Bob in the shape of a long but relatively narrow ramp, with much steeper slopes on the other sides. I staggered as my foot sank into the wet soil, starting to slide down the slope before slamming my tail down with a splash, giving myself enough purchase to start pushing again.
Claws are not ideal for finding footing in mud, who knew? Which was probably the point.
"So... what about when you ram things with it? Do you ever get a concussion?"
"No. I have a thick skull, and my brain is surrounded by spongy, shock-absorbent tissue like you'd find in rams or woodpeckers."
"Then would your horn grow back if it broke?" Nejire asked curiously, hanging in the air a few meters above me, before gently floating down to sit on my back. "What about your tail, would it grow back like a lizard?"
"Yes, the horn would grow back as long as the stem isn't damaged. I lost a tooth in the I-Expo incident a couple months ago and it's grown back just fine." I turned my head to show it to her as I continued the slog up the hill, muscles burning with exertion. "As for my tail, I am not a lizard. I don't know and I don't intend to find out."
There was a long pause.
"Can I ask you a question in turn?"
"Shoot."
"Not that I mind answering questions, but why… are you here? I mean with me, specifically."
"Oh, that's easy! While I wait for Tetsutetsu to recover so I can shoot at him some more, Mandalay asked me to go around distracting you guys with questions while you train!"
"Wait wha-" I spluttered in surprise just as I lost my footing again and face-planted into the mud.
"Because if you can do the training while focused, you should be able to do it while holding a conversation, too." She smiled happily as I scrambled back on my feet, propping up the boulder to keep it from escaping.
"Noted."
"Hey, how do you keep yourself clean anyway?" She said, hanging upside down in the air while mud dripped off of me. "You probably can't fit into a shower…"
I sighed.
"UA has giant-sized showers, and some car washes have branched out to offer alternative services too. In a pinch, a pressure washer will do too."
"But how do your scales stay so fresh and shiny?" She pressed on, running a hand over my scales. "Do you use any kind of products?"
"Only regular soap, in bulk orders." I shrugged my shoulders. "That's just how my scales are."
"Aww." Nejire pouted, looking like she was hoping for some big secret. "Oh! Do you have to worry about reptilian diseases? I know lizards and snakes can get scale rot."
"I am not a lizard or a snake. I am a dragon." I replied. "And I wouldn't know, I've never gotten sick. So either I'm just lucky, dragons have a great immune system, or my body temperature kills off bacteria."
I shook myself and squared my shoulders, getting back to pushing with a grunt. The slope wasn't that steep, but the muddy ground and the sheer size of the boulder made the task torturously slow.
Hrrm.
I unfolded my wings from where they were tucked against my shoulders, pressing them into the mud. With the stability of six limbs, I was able to make good time up the slope.
"Oh, you can use your wings to walk?!" Nejire squeed.
"Yes?" I tilted my head. "They're supposed to carry my weight in flight, they kind of have to be stronger than they look."
"Can you use those bat claws on the wings for anything? Oooh, could you hang upside down like a bat?!"
"...If I found something heavy enough to hold my weight, sure." I tilted my head. "As for your other question, the dewclaws are basically like any of my other fingers." I said, wiggling them. "The phalanges, well, I can bend them a little but mostly just open and close. I can't apply the same kind of force with them as my forelimbs, but the claws on the end are just as hard and sharp, and I can swing them pretty fast so I think they could do some real damage. I just don't really often find myself in a situation where that'd be useful. I guess if I needed to cut down some vegetation? Or maybe shredding a net if someone tried to bind my wings?"
I shrugged my shoulders, muscles bunching beneath the scales. Intrigued, Nejire floated closer and put a hand on my shoulder experimentally, feeling the muscle mass. "Wow! Do you work out? Do you lift weights?"
"Yes. And yes."
"Ooooh. What's the biggest thing you've lifted?"
"...I don't know. I think I could probably lift this boulder for a bit, if I had the right leverage." I mused, watching up the slope. Only a little more to go. "I could jam my horn into it but I'm worried the crack would spread and split the whole thing in two."
"Aww." Nejire pouted again for a few seconds before picking up a new train of thought. "What about a car, how far could you throw one? Snipe showed us footage of Ryukyu catching and throwing a car back at a villain in a class."
"The giant villain in Tython Park? I remember that." I shook my head. "I'm not Ryuko, I'm not built to stand on two legs and use my forelimbs the way she is. I guess I could try, though."
"Oh." She fell silent for a moment. "So how do you lift weights then?"
"I asked Cementoss to make me a pulley system. I grab the handle with my teeth and pull."
"That's so cool!" Nejire said, poking at her cheek. "I've seen things like that in zoos, where they let teams of people try to compete against a bear or a lion. Do you think you could beat the rest of your class in a tug of war?"
"...Not my entire class, I don't think? Any of them individually, sure, but not all at once." I mused. "Shishida and Monoma using his Quirk or mine, well, they aren't as strong as I am but working together… They might be able to do it. Plus Shiozaki and Awase would be able to assist a lot."
"Wait, why wouldn't Monoma using your Quirk be as strong as you?"
"Because, unfortunately-" There was an audible wheeze. "I am not in as good of a physical condition as our dear Vice-President."
I jolted as I heard the voice coming from behind my back, realizing I'd been too distracted to notice the approaching footsteps. I paused in my efforts, turning my head to see Monoma, Fukidashi and Tsuburaba jogging up the side of the hill, far steeper than the ramp but composed of hard-packed dirt as opposed to mud.
"It is good to see you, Hado-Senpai." Monoma forced out as he steadied his breath while walking up to tag me in the shoulder, a slight tingle spreading from his touch. "It is unlike you to be surprised, Tatsuma. A testament-" He had to pause to gasp for a bit more air. "-to the rigorous nature of your training, I am sure. I doubt I would have stayed conscious this long, if I attempted it."
"Mhm." I replied, flicking my ears in embarrassment. "But yeah. My Quirk… it doesn't just grant you an arbitrary amount of power, it corresponds to your physical level. But it's not really a fair comparison. I've been training for a long time. It comes easily to me. And I can afford to focus on strength training."
"We can see that." Tsuburaba shook his head in disbelief, looking up at the massive boulder and then at the trail it had made in the mud, descending hundreds of meters down the ramp.
Monoma's task was to lap around the training field, constantly swapping out new Quirks. This way he should be able to improve upon his time limit and perhaps even maximum Quirk capacity. And if the jog doubled as physical training, all the more efficient. Tsuburaba couldn't create air shields if he was short of breath, so it only made sense to improve upon his stamina and have him accompany Monoma. And as for Fukidashi…
"[Grow!]"
The katakana symbol floated off of his speech-bubble head, glowing softly as it landed in the dirt. There was another letter beside it, this one faded and old, and it turned into wisps of smoke as Fukidashi touched it.
"Are these things actually working?" He asked nervously, glancing over at me. "I can't always predict what they're going to do, if anything."
"Relax, it's only been a few hours." I shrugged. "And besides, even if it doesn't do anything it's still good training for you."
The principle idea was that if he created onomatopoeias of "growing" and spread them around the training field, it would aid the rest of us in strengthening our Quirks. And if nothing else, making rounds with the other two to refresh the onomatopoeias as they ran out of whatever energy was powering them was good exercise for him.
Warping reality just by talking. And people complained about my Quirk being overpowered.
"Hey, have you ever copied a Quirk you didn't know how to use?" Nejire asked Monoma, floating closer.
"Not exactly. My Quirk nudges me in the right direction, and I've never encountered a Quirk I couldn't figure out after a bit of trying. But there are certain Quirks I can't make use of, even knowing how they work."
"Oh! What kind?" Nejire bobbed up and down in the air. "Is it Mutant-types? Or can you grow the extra body parts?"
"I can. Rather, it's stockpiling Quirks. A Quirk that accumulates power over time and releases it when activated is useless to me, as I can only hold on to them for a few minutes."
"Oh! So like Okumura's Quirk!"
"I have no idea who that is but I shall take your word for it." Monoma bowed his head smoothly as he began descending down the slope again.
"So your Quirk works on the air in your lungs, right?" Nejire turned to Tsuburaba. "Have you ever tried to see what happens if you inhale helium or smoke?"
"Uh…"
I just shook my head as I watched them jog down, Nejire chattering non-stop as she floated after them. Then, with renewed effort, I pushed the boulder the final stretch to the summit, only fifty meters or so. The peak consisted of a small plateau, with a dip in the middle that I shoved the boulder into, holding it in place while I caught my breath.
I paused there for a moment, just enjoying the warm summer wind and watching the training fields down below. Out in the distance I could see a large tornado, and just barely, a collection of rocks hovering defiantly within it, Yoarashi and Yanagi's Quirks clashing against each other. Sweeping my gaze across the field, the other end of it was covered in huge mushrooms and vines, and if I squinted, horns, metallic scales, puddles of glue and most gruesomely of all, piles of discarded body parts. Mandalay had instructed Komori, Shiozaki, Pony, Rin, Bondo and Tokage to push the limits of their Quirks by competing over who could produce the most material. And if the mushrooms reaching over treetops were any indication, Komori seemed to be winning.
In the meanwhile, Kaibara and Kendo were being handled by Tiger, alternating between a punishing exercise regimen and simply relentlessly beating them down in hand to hand combat. Even as I watched, Kaibara tried to deliver a spiralling kick into the man's stomach, only for his entire body to bend and absorb the blow before returning a haymaker to the boy's jaw, although cushioned by his puffy paw-gloves. Finally, the massive crater marked where Nejire had been training Tetsutetsu until he'd apparently asked for her best shot and, after she had happily complied, been blasted into the next week and had to recover in the villa.
Satisfied, I turned downslope and took a deep breath.
"Coming down!" I bellowed with a voice that made several flocks of birds spring into the air from the surrounding treeline. "Stand clear!"
All but instantly, the ground began to bubble and creak as the mud solidified into hard dirt in a matter of seconds. I then gave the boulder a hard nudge, sending it rolling downhill, slowly picking up speed as it went out of view, followed by a resounding thump. I plodded down after it, descending down past the treetops to see it resting against a massive earthen wall Pixie-Bob had raised as a backstop.
A safe distance away, Yui, Awase and Shishida were training with a pile of pebbles: Yui would enlarge two, Awase would weld them together and Shishida would pull them apart. Or more accurately, shatter them to pieces, and then Yui would shrink the debris.
Honenuki, looking absolutely exhausted, pulled himself up from where he'd been lying down and walked over to the beginning of the slope.
"Ready to go again?" He said, wiping sweat off his forehead.
"I'll have to."
He nodded in understanding, reaching down to touch the dirt. Spreading from his hand, the entirety of the massive slope once again turned to mud, glistening under the sun. I saw him wince under the strain.
I shoved the boulder towards the slope, making a slurping noise as it sunk a little into the mud. However, before I could begin another trek towards the peak, I jumped out of my scales again as an ethereal voice spoke out in my head.
Class 1-A has cleared the Forest of Beasts! All trainees convene on the main building!
Scanning around the clearing, from the expressions on their faces I could tell the others had heard the same message.
"I'm never going to get used to that…" Awase muttered.
"Ah, but this, too, is a manner of training. Working with Lady Mandalay prepares us to deal with all manner of Quirks, no matter how weird or unusual."
"Don't you start with that, Shishida."
Honenuki released his Quirk and slumped a little in relief, the dirt resolidifying as he staggered towards us.
"Hey, are you alright?" I asked with what I hoped was a concerned tilt of my head. "I can give you a lift if you need one."
"You just pushed a boulder up hundreds of meters of muddy slope eleven times in a row, and you're asking me if I'm okay?"
"Yeah, well… I have an advantage in that regard." I looked away. "And besides, I'm the Vice-President. It's my job."
"Fair enough." Honenuki smiled as I lowered myself to let him grab onto some of the larger scales and pull himself on my shoulders with a groan of effort.
"You know 1-A's going to be there, right?" Awase pointed out.
"I don't mind." Honenuki said, holding up a finger. "In fact we should strive to normalize accepting help if you need a break."
"There's that flexibility again…"
We arrived at the villa as 1-A was emerging from the treeline, school uniforms scratched and torn, faces dirty and sweaty.
"At noon? What a joke." Someone mumbled bitterly as they limped their way towards the Pussycats, waiting by the door.
"Oh man, you guys got here already?" The blonde kid with the electric Quirk, Kaminari, spoke out in dismay. "At least you guys are as scuffed as we are."
"What? No, we got here hours ago." Kaibara said. "We made it to lunch."
"We started training already since you were taking so long!" Monoma started laughing, leaning back and spreading his arms. "How's that for-"
That was as far as he got before Kendo put a hand on his shoulder and yanked him away, muttering in a low, threatening voice.
"No way!" Kirishima exclaimed. "We were going at it full steam for eight hours! You're telling me you guys did it in three?"
"Yeah, what the hell?" One of the girls yelled out. Mina, I think.
"We have a dragon." Tokage grinned, hands on her hips. "Your argument is invalid."
"You carried these NPCs along?" Bakugo asked me with a dark expression, holding his thumb sideways to point at the rest of my class. "I knew they wouldn't have made it on their own. You're gonna weigh yourself down babying them."
"Yeah, well, even weighed down I beat your time by five hours. So what does that say?"
That was unfair to him. My Quirk was well-suited to this, and rather than weigh me down my classmates had, if anything, assisted me in taking down the winged mud golems.
On the other hand, I wasn't feeling very charitable after he'd just called my friends and classmates Non-Player Characters.
"Just watch me." He snorted.
There was a definite tension in the air as we walked up to the main doors, angry glares and hushed mutters from both sides. I felt like punting Monoma into the sun. This was exactly what we had been trying to avoid.
I understood Vlad King's logic in having the classes compete against each other, motivating each other to go Plus Ultra, but it was a tight balancing act to keep healthy, friendly competition from sliding into a bitter, teeth-grinding rivalry.
"We actually expected you to take even longer!" Pixie-Bob announced from the doorway. "Just 'cause someone else performed even better doesn't lessen your achievements, as long as you gave it Plus Ultra! Now come inside and get some chow into your bellies kittens, because tomorrow- ah, what's with that look?"
The Pro-Hero shied back a step as she saw forty pairs of eyes light up at the mention of food.
"I'm so hungry I could eat an entire cow…"
"My stomach is on fire!"
"Do you think they'll have curry?"
"Well, we have rice, and pork, and- Eek!"
That was, apparently, all it took to trigger a stampede, a horde of extremely hungry and tired teenagers flooding past Pixie-Bob towards the sweet, sweet promise of dinner.
I on the other hand, simply eyed the front doors suspiciously. They were the kind that you would have found in- in- in my time. Most places in this day and age, I could at least wiggle through, but there was no way I was getting inside without knocking down a wall or two.
"Sorry. It's an older building, not made to modern standards of inclusiveness." Mandalay explained apologetically. "But we have something set up for you outside."
That "something" turned out to be a large, open tent off to the side of the main building, with a rug laid out alongside several large metal pots, steam rising from underneath the lids.
"This is also where you'll be sleeping." Mandalay explained. "It's not much, but it's the best we could come up with."
"I understand." I mumbled as I plodded over and sat down on the rug. "Thank you for your thoughtfulness."
It was what it was.
Even so, as Mandalay was leaving, it was hard not to feel morose. Sitting there alone, with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me. I hooked a claw under the lid of one of the pots and popped it open, a mouth-watering scent filling my nostrils. But even as I tipped it over into my mouth, crunching on meat and bone, I found that I didn't feel all that hungry.
But in the end, I supposed I deserved it. It was, after all, my fault.
-----
I froze, pausing in my pacing as I heard the footsteps approaching, the rustle of grass like thunder in my ears. The tent was quiet as the grave, the only noises coming from the outside.
I considered my options. Sit down and pretend I was asleep. That would make noise, and almost certainly alert whoever was outside. Or stay still and hope they go away? But then if they did come in it'd be immediately obvious I wasn't sleeping like I was supposed to.
The footsteps were too light to be Vlad King, Eraserhead or Tiger. The strides were too long to be any of my classmates, unless they had a lot of skip in their walk. It wasn't Pony, because I definitely wasn't hearing hooves. And the other person I knew who walked like that was…
"Hi!" Nejire said with a wave as she lifted the flap of the tent, stepping inside. "Ragdoll asked me to check up on you."
She was surreptitious about it, but I caught her glancing at the floor of the tent, the grass trampled with numerous claw prints. The tent had been presumably meant to house large gatherings, but even so it was only barely wider across than I was long. There wasn't that much room to pace around.
I sighed. Of course, Ragdoll's Quirk kept track of us. Obviously she'd know I wasn't sleeping like I was supposed to.
"I. Um. I couldn't sleep. Yeah." I mumbled. It sounded like an obvious lie even to my own ears. "I was trying to- I was trying to-"
I was tired. I was angry.
So I just blurted it out.
"I was trying to turn back into a human."
That was the first time I ever saw Nejire's smile fade away. There was an instant of shock and horror, before it was replaced by dead seriousness.
"I thought you couldn't?"
"Yeah, well, so did I. Hoped, at least. But it turns out it's more of a matter of won't rather than can't."
"What do you mean?"
"A few weeks ago, I was on I-Island for the I-Expo- I don't know if you've heard about what happened, but-"
"I saw a news article about it." She stated gingerly, sitting down.
"Right. I came into contact with David Shield. He's a leading expert on Quirks, and he agreed to look at mine to see- to see what was wrong. It turns out nothing. My Quirk is just fine. The reason I can't transform is because… I don't want to be human. Not enough."
There was a moment of silence.
"I was attacked. Some- some time ago." I looked at the ground, unable to meet Nejire's eyes. "I was hurt. Bad. Since then, I've been stuck like this. But my Quirk could heal any wounds. If I really wanted it to."
She sat there in silence for a long moment, her knees pulled up to her chest, processing this information.
"I'm... sorry."
"Me too."
"I know you've probably thought of this already but wouldn't Eraserhead's Quirk solve your issue?"
"Think of it like this. If you fired a blast into the air and he erased your Quirk, would the blast disappear?"
"No, it wouldn't." Nejire mused, a hand on her chin. "I guess that makes sense, he can erase your Quirk but not it's effects."
"Yeah. All it does is paralyze me, because my entire biology runs on Quirk Factor."
"What about Mind Control Quirks, then?"
"We tried them too. Talked to some specialists. The way they explained it… those kinds of Quirks typically fall on an axis of control versus power. Control means how intricate your control is, how complicated of a task you can give to someone. Poor control means your target is a flesh puppet, a zombie, while high means completely retaining their personality and mental capacity, just subservient to you. Power means your ability to force them to do against their will, ranging from a strong suggestion to making them do- well. Things. Murder. And such. And a Quirk that afforded both the control to trigger a transformation, and the power to overcome my mental block… it doesn't exist. Not outside of villains, at least."
I sat down, lowering my head to the ground. "We've tried everything. Ryuko and my parents spent so much money. UA has had to go out of its way to accommodate me. And my friends… they came to apologize to me, you know. For not realizing I was left to eat alone at dinner, today. They were tired and hungry and thought I'd stayed behind to talk to Mandalay. It didn't occur to them… until afterwards. They apologized to me. Me. As if any of this was their fault, their responsibility."
"You feel like you're a burden on others."
"I know I'm a burden. Everyone else has to cater to me, because I can't bear to be human again. Because I am too afraid. Every time I try, I just… I can't do it. I feel like such a coward."
Once again, Nejire was silent for an uncharacteristically long time, her voice subdued when she finally responded.
"This morning, when an earth beast threatened one of your classmates, you moved on instinct to protect them, charging the danger head-on." She pointed out quietly, fingers steepled and with her index fingers pointing upwards. "Is that something that a coward would do?"
"That's different. I was- I am a dragon. That's the point. There's nothing brave in being invulnerable."
"Then how about I-Island? Or Kashyyyk?" She asked quietly, and I flinched. "From what I've heard, you fought enemies more than capable of hurting you, even as a dragon. You already faced danger, real danger, and done more than could be expected of you. You're not a coward."
"That's different." I mumbled.
"How so?" She pressed, leaning forward. "What makes it different?"
"I don't- I don't know, okay?!" I yelled, raising my voice. "I don't know why I could do it then!"
I pressed myself to the ground again, feeling tired. "How do you do it? You've done hero work during your internships, right? How do you deal with it?"
"I don't- I just don't really think about the danger." She winced. "I know that's not what you wanted to hear. I wish there was some trick I could tell you to make it better, but there isn't. I don't worry about things. You do. What works for me, won't necessarily do for you. We are- well, we are different people."
I just slumped down even further. "So there's just something wrong with me."
"No! That's not-" Nejire caught herself, regaining her composure and lowering her voice. "Today, when you talked to Monoma, you told him he shouldn't compare himself to you because your circumstances are different, and due to that you have an easier time with physical training. Was that a lie? Should Monoma feel bad about not being as fit or strong as you?"
"Of course not!" I replied indignantly. "But-"
"So then why doesn't that same logic apply to yourself? Why is it okay to beat yourself up about struggling with something that's difficult for you?" At some point she'd stood up, speaking animatedly. "We are all different, unique people. Our Quirks, our talents, our skills, our bodies, our life experiences, our personalities, our struggles, our weaknesses, our strengths, those are all just pieces of our individualities. That's what makes people so fascinating to me: after eighteen years I still keep meeting new, wildly different people with their own disparate stories to tell. There's just so much to the human experience!"
She paused sheepishly, glancing at the entrance flap to the tent before continuing at a more subdued volume.
"What I'm trying to say is that Monoma struggles with a weak constitution. You struggle with your nervousness, anxieties and traumatic experiences from your past. Neither of these are your faults. So why should your problems be considered less valid? Is it because it's not a physical issue?" She paused for a moment, steepling her fingers over her knees. "Well, I have a hard time learning anything I'm not immediately interested in. People and their lives? It's fascinating beyond belief to me. But boring stuff like procedures and math equations and other things I'm supposed to memorize just come in through one ear and go out through the other. I try my hardest with academic subjects, and my friends- well, mostly Amajiki -help me with studying wherever they can, but I still struggle. Does that mean there's something wrong with me?"
"...No." I said slowly. "It doesn't."
"Right? And neither is there with you." Nejire said with a smile, tilting her head. "You want to know why I'm able to succeed at what I do? I know and accept myself. I want to be the kind of person who meets new people, learns about them and helps them whatever way I can. Because that's what makes me happy. That's the kind of Hero I want to be, and strive towards. So I guess the only real piece of advice I can offer is this: look into yourself and find out what motivates you, what gives you strength to push on and what makes you happy. You've already done great things, so look back and figure out what got you through those. And in the meanwhile, don't beat yourself up about struggling, okay? Everyone goes through it. You'll get there."
We had reconvened after a brief lunch break consisting of scarfing down packed meals outside, gathered in front of the main building. The Pussycats' base was composed of a cluster of small buildings and cottages, as well as a hot spring compound some distance away.
"We were expecting you to take the aerial route, but not how you were able to form an aerial fortress with multiple layers of protection like that." Mandalay explained while Pixie-Bob pouted, before perking up a little and holding up a finger. "However, our ultimate goal is getting you guys up to speed, so the fact that you're doing better than expected is only a good thing!"
"You've clearly got coordination down… but you can't always rely on others!" A new voice announced as two more Heroes in the Pussycats uniform emerged from the main building. One was a young woman with long green hair and a perky smile that reminded me of Nejire, while the other, the one who had spoken, was a large, muscular man with a triangular beard and short brown hair… wearing the same frilly dress as the other three. "You have to be able to stand on your own feet too, so that others can rely on you when needed!"
"Indeed." Vlad King agreed. "These are Ragdoll and Tiger, the other half of the Pussycats."
"Hi!" The young woman said with a wave of her pawed gauntlet. "I'm Ragdoll, nice to meet you! I'll be here to oversee and keep track of you guys!"
"And I am here to punch and kick you sorry lot into shape." The man, who had to be Tiger, growled.
"Indeed. Originally the plan was to begin the proper training tomorrow, but since you completed the challenge in record time, that leaves us plenty of time to get started today."
"Oh come on!" Kaibara grumbled. "Our reward for being quick is more training?"
"Quiet!" Vlad King snapped, directing a withering glare across our class. "Or are you actually tired after being carried the whole way through?"
Nobody dared to speak up in response.
"Teamwork is a vital skill to learn, and delegating a task to those most qualified to do it is an important part of it." Eraserhead spoke up, mumbling in a tired voice through his ever-present scarf. "But it's not logical to allow one person to always carry the burden, or it will jeopardize the growth of the rest."
"That is right." Vlad King said. "Now, for most of the semester we focused on bringing you up to speed on skill and technique, but in this camp our main focus will be on improving your raw power by strengthening your Quirks."
"Strengthening our Quirks?" Tokage asked, raising her hand. "What do you mean?"
"Quirks are like muscles. Overuse and strain them, and when they recover they will be stronger than when you started. And that is exactly what we will be doing."
"But there's twenty of us, and forty when 1-A gets here, all with different Quirks that need different kinds of training." Yanagi questioned. "How will you be able to supervise us all?"
"That's where we come in!" Mandalay announced. "My Telepathy will allow me to talk to all of you at once and offer advice."
"My Earthflow will create the perfect training ground for each of you, customized to your needs!"
"My Quirk is Search!" Ragdoll picked up, throwing her hands into the air. "I can tag up to one hundred people and receive all the necessary information about them! I can keep track of your location and figure out weaknesses you need to work on!"
"And my Pliabody makes me into a perfect punching bag." Tiger grunted. "If you manage to land a hit on me, that is."
"We have already devised your individual training plans. Projection-types will be working on raising your maximum output, while physical-types will focus on strengthening your body." Eraserhead explained. "We'll be splitting you into groups based on compatibility…"
-----
"You know, I've always wondered, does your front horn impede your vision?"
"My eyes are on either side of my head, so I can mostly see past it. It's like a human nose, my brain edits it out unless I concentrate on it."
"Huh." Nejire hummed, idly reaching over my head to poke at my front horn. "How does it stay so sharp? Do you shave it?"
"Like my claws and teeth, it's constantly growing in layers, pushing up from the stem until the old surface layer falls off, with a new, sharpened point beneath it." I grunted with exertion, as I drove my shoulder into the boulder in front of me, rolling it another few meters up the slope. "That's why I don't bother to try to dull them, even though it'd be more convenient."
The mud sloshed beneath my feet as I struggled for traction, pushing a stone boulder nearly as large as myself up a makeshift hill created by Pixie-Bob in the shape of a long but relatively narrow ramp, with much steeper slopes on the other sides. I staggered as my foot sank into the wet soil, starting to slide down the slope before slamming my tail down with a splash, giving myself enough purchase to start pushing again.
Claws are not ideal for finding footing in mud, who knew? Which was probably the point.
"So... what about when you ram things with it? Do you ever get a concussion?"
"No. I have a thick skull, and my brain is surrounded by spongy, shock-absorbent tissue like you'd find in rams or woodpeckers."
"Then would your horn grow back if it broke?" Nejire asked curiously, hanging in the air a few meters above me, before gently floating down to sit on my back. "What about your tail, would it grow back like a lizard?"
"Yes, the horn would grow back as long as the stem isn't damaged. I lost a tooth in the I-Expo incident a couple months ago and it's grown back just fine." I turned my head to show it to her as I continued the slog up the hill, muscles burning with exertion. "As for my tail, I am not a lizard. I don't know and I don't intend to find out."
There was a long pause.
"Can I ask you a question in turn?"
"Shoot."
"Not that I mind answering questions, but why… are you here? I mean with me, specifically."
"Oh, that's easy! While I wait for Tetsutetsu to recover so I can shoot at him some more, Mandalay asked me to go around distracting you guys with questions while you train!"
"Wait wha-" I spluttered in surprise just as I lost my footing again and face-planted into the mud.
"Because if you can do the training while focused, you should be able to do it while holding a conversation, too." She smiled happily as I scrambled back on my feet, propping up the boulder to keep it from escaping.
"Noted."
"Hey, how do you keep yourself clean anyway?" She said, hanging upside down in the air while mud dripped off of me. "You probably can't fit into a shower…"
I sighed.
"UA has giant-sized showers, and some car washes have branched out to offer alternative services too. In a pinch, a pressure washer will do too."
"But how do your scales stay so fresh and shiny?" She pressed on, running a hand over my scales. "Do you use any kind of products?"
"Only regular soap, in bulk orders." I shrugged my shoulders. "That's just how my scales are."
"Aww." Nejire pouted, looking like she was hoping for some big secret. "Oh! Do you have to worry about reptilian diseases? I know lizards and snakes can get scale rot."
"I am not a lizard or a snake. I am a dragon." I replied. "And I wouldn't know, I've never gotten sick. So either I'm just lucky, dragons have a great immune system, or my body temperature kills off bacteria."
I shook myself and squared my shoulders, getting back to pushing with a grunt. The slope wasn't that steep, but the muddy ground and the sheer size of the boulder made the task torturously slow.
Hrrm.
I unfolded my wings from where they were tucked against my shoulders, pressing them into the mud. With the stability of six limbs, I was able to make good time up the slope.
"Oh, you can use your wings to walk?!" Nejire squeed.
"Yes?" I tilted my head. "They're supposed to carry my weight in flight, they kind of have to be stronger than they look."
"Can you use those bat claws on the wings for anything? Oooh, could you hang upside down like a bat?!"
"...If I found something heavy enough to hold my weight, sure." I tilted my head. "As for your other question, the dewclaws are basically like any of my other fingers." I said, wiggling them. "The phalanges, well, I can bend them a little but mostly just open and close. I can't apply the same kind of force with them as my forelimbs, but the claws on the end are just as hard and sharp, and I can swing them pretty fast so I think they could do some real damage. I just don't really often find myself in a situation where that'd be useful. I guess if I needed to cut down some vegetation? Or maybe shredding a net if someone tried to bind my wings?"
I shrugged my shoulders, muscles bunching beneath the scales. Intrigued, Nejire floated closer and put a hand on my shoulder experimentally, feeling the muscle mass. "Wow! Do you work out? Do you lift weights?"
"Yes. And yes."
"Ooooh. What's the biggest thing you've lifted?"
"...I don't know. I think I could probably lift this boulder for a bit, if I had the right leverage." I mused, watching up the slope. Only a little more to go. "I could jam my horn into it but I'm worried the crack would spread and split the whole thing in two."
"Aww." Nejire pouted again for a few seconds before picking up a new train of thought. "What about a car, how far could you throw one? Snipe showed us footage of Ryukyu catching and throwing a car back at a villain in a class."
"The giant villain in Tython Park? I remember that." I shook my head. "I'm not Ryuko, I'm not built to stand on two legs and use my forelimbs the way she is. I guess I could try, though."
"Oh." She fell silent for a moment. "So how do you lift weights then?"
"I asked Cementoss to make me a pulley system. I grab the handle with my teeth and pull."
"That's so cool!" Nejire said, poking at her cheek. "I've seen things like that in zoos, where they let teams of people try to compete against a bear or a lion. Do you think you could beat the rest of your class in a tug of war?"
"...Not my entire class, I don't think? Any of them individually, sure, but not all at once." I mused. "Shishida and Monoma using his Quirk or mine, well, they aren't as strong as I am but working together… They might be able to do it. Plus Shiozaki and Awase would be able to assist a lot."
"Wait, why wouldn't Monoma using your Quirk be as strong as you?"
"Because, unfortunately-" There was an audible wheeze. "I am not in as good of a physical condition as our dear Vice-President."
I jolted as I heard the voice coming from behind my back, realizing I'd been too distracted to notice the approaching footsteps. I paused in my efforts, turning my head to see Monoma, Fukidashi and Tsuburaba jogging up the side of the hill, far steeper than the ramp but composed of hard-packed dirt as opposed to mud.
"It is good to see you, Hado-Senpai." Monoma forced out as he steadied his breath while walking up to tag me in the shoulder, a slight tingle spreading from his touch. "It is unlike you to be surprised, Tatsuma. A testament-" He had to pause to gasp for a bit more air. "-to the rigorous nature of your training, I am sure. I doubt I would have stayed conscious this long, if I attempted it."
"Mhm." I replied, flicking my ears in embarrassment. "But yeah. My Quirk… it doesn't just grant you an arbitrary amount of power, it corresponds to your physical level. But it's not really a fair comparison. I've been training for a long time. It comes easily to me. And I can afford to focus on strength training."
"We can see that." Tsuburaba shook his head in disbelief, looking up at the massive boulder and then at the trail it had made in the mud, descending hundreds of meters down the ramp.
Monoma's task was to lap around the training field, constantly swapping out new Quirks. This way he should be able to improve upon his time limit and perhaps even maximum Quirk capacity. And if the jog doubled as physical training, all the more efficient. Tsuburaba couldn't create air shields if he was short of breath, so it only made sense to improve upon his stamina and have him accompany Monoma. And as for Fukidashi…
"[Grow!]"
The katakana symbol floated off of his speech-bubble head, glowing softly as it landed in the dirt. There was another letter beside it, this one faded and old, and it turned into wisps of smoke as Fukidashi touched it.
"Are these things actually working?" He asked nervously, glancing over at me. "I can't always predict what they're going to do, if anything."
"Relax, it's only been a few hours." I shrugged. "And besides, even if it doesn't do anything it's still good training for you."
The principle idea was that if he created onomatopoeias of "growing" and spread them around the training field, it would aid the rest of us in strengthening our Quirks. And if nothing else, making rounds with the other two to refresh the onomatopoeias as they ran out of whatever energy was powering them was good exercise for him.
Warping reality just by talking. And people complained about my Quirk being overpowered.
"Hey, have you ever copied a Quirk you didn't know how to use?" Nejire asked Monoma, floating closer.
"Not exactly. My Quirk nudges me in the right direction, and I've never encountered a Quirk I couldn't figure out after a bit of trying. But there are certain Quirks I can't make use of, even knowing how they work."
"Oh! What kind?" Nejire bobbed up and down in the air. "Is it Mutant-types? Or can you grow the extra body parts?"
"I can. Rather, it's stockpiling Quirks. A Quirk that accumulates power over time and releases it when activated is useless to me, as I can only hold on to them for a few minutes."
"Oh! So like Okumura's Quirk!"
"I have no idea who that is but I shall take your word for it." Monoma bowed his head smoothly as he began descending down the slope again.
"So your Quirk works on the air in your lungs, right?" Nejire turned to Tsuburaba. "Have you ever tried to see what happens if you inhale helium or smoke?"
"Uh…"
I just shook my head as I watched them jog down, Nejire chattering non-stop as she floated after them. Then, with renewed effort, I pushed the boulder the final stretch to the summit, only fifty meters or so. The peak consisted of a small plateau, with a dip in the middle that I shoved the boulder into, holding it in place while I caught my breath.
I paused there for a moment, just enjoying the warm summer wind and watching the training fields down below. Out in the distance I could see a large tornado, and just barely, a collection of rocks hovering defiantly within it, Yoarashi and Yanagi's Quirks clashing against each other. Sweeping my gaze across the field, the other end of it was covered in huge mushrooms and vines, and if I squinted, horns, metallic scales, puddles of glue and most gruesomely of all, piles of discarded body parts. Mandalay had instructed Komori, Shiozaki, Pony, Rin, Bondo and Tokage to push the limits of their Quirks by competing over who could produce the most material. And if the mushrooms reaching over treetops were any indication, Komori seemed to be winning.
In the meanwhile, Kaibara and Kendo were being handled by Tiger, alternating between a punishing exercise regimen and simply relentlessly beating them down in hand to hand combat. Even as I watched, Kaibara tried to deliver a spiralling kick into the man's stomach, only for his entire body to bend and absorb the blow before returning a haymaker to the boy's jaw, although cushioned by his puffy paw-gloves. Finally, the massive crater marked where Nejire had been training Tetsutetsu until he'd apparently asked for her best shot and, after she had happily complied, been blasted into the next week and had to recover in the villa.
Satisfied, I turned downslope and took a deep breath.
"Coming down!" I bellowed with a voice that made several flocks of birds spring into the air from the surrounding treeline. "Stand clear!"
All but instantly, the ground began to bubble and creak as the mud solidified into hard dirt in a matter of seconds. I then gave the boulder a hard nudge, sending it rolling downhill, slowly picking up speed as it went out of view, followed by a resounding thump. I plodded down after it, descending down past the treetops to see it resting against a massive earthen wall Pixie-Bob had raised as a backstop.
A safe distance away, Yui, Awase and Shishida were training with a pile of pebbles: Yui would enlarge two, Awase would weld them together and Shishida would pull them apart. Or more accurately, shatter them to pieces, and then Yui would shrink the debris.
Honenuki, looking absolutely exhausted, pulled himself up from where he'd been lying down and walked over to the beginning of the slope.
"Ready to go again?" He said, wiping sweat off his forehead.
"I'll have to."
He nodded in understanding, reaching down to touch the dirt. Spreading from his hand, the entirety of the massive slope once again turned to mud, glistening under the sun. I saw him wince under the strain.
I shoved the boulder towards the slope, making a slurping noise as it sunk a little into the mud. However, before I could begin another trek towards the peak, I jumped out of my scales again as an ethereal voice spoke out in my head.
Class 1-A has cleared the Forest of Beasts! All trainees convene on the main building!
Scanning around the clearing, from the expressions on their faces I could tell the others had heard the same message.
"I'm never going to get used to that…" Awase muttered.
"Ah, but this, too, is a manner of training. Working with Lady Mandalay prepares us to deal with all manner of Quirks, no matter how weird or unusual."
"Don't you start with that, Shishida."
Honenuki released his Quirk and slumped a little in relief, the dirt resolidifying as he staggered towards us.
"Hey, are you alright?" I asked with what I hoped was a concerned tilt of my head. "I can give you a lift if you need one."
"You just pushed a boulder up hundreds of meters of muddy slope eleven times in a row, and you're asking me if I'm okay?"
"Yeah, well… I have an advantage in that regard." I looked away. "And besides, I'm the Vice-President. It's my job."
"Fair enough." Honenuki smiled as I lowered myself to let him grab onto some of the larger scales and pull himself on my shoulders with a groan of effort.
"You know 1-A's going to be there, right?" Awase pointed out.
"I don't mind." Honenuki said, holding up a finger. "In fact we should strive to normalize accepting help if you need a break."
"There's that flexibility again…"
We arrived at the villa as 1-A was emerging from the treeline, school uniforms scratched and torn, faces dirty and sweaty.
"At noon? What a joke." Someone mumbled bitterly as they limped their way towards the Pussycats, waiting by the door.
"Oh man, you guys got here already?" The blonde kid with the electric Quirk, Kaminari, spoke out in dismay. "At least you guys are as scuffed as we are."
"What? No, we got here hours ago." Kaibara said. "We made it to lunch."
"We started training already since you were taking so long!" Monoma started laughing, leaning back and spreading his arms. "How's that for-"
That was as far as he got before Kendo put a hand on his shoulder and yanked him away, muttering in a low, threatening voice.
"No way!" Kirishima exclaimed. "We were going at it full steam for eight hours! You're telling me you guys did it in three?"
"Yeah, what the hell?" One of the girls yelled out. Mina, I think.
"We have a dragon." Tokage grinned, hands on her hips. "Your argument is invalid."
"You carried these NPCs along?" Bakugo asked me with a dark expression, holding his thumb sideways to point at the rest of my class. "I knew they wouldn't have made it on their own. You're gonna weigh yourself down babying them."
"Yeah, well, even weighed down I beat your time by five hours. So what does that say?"
That was unfair to him. My Quirk was well-suited to this, and rather than weigh me down my classmates had, if anything, assisted me in taking down the winged mud golems.
On the other hand, I wasn't feeling very charitable after he'd just called my friends and classmates Non-Player Characters.
"Just watch me." He snorted.
There was a definite tension in the air as we walked up to the main doors, angry glares and hushed mutters from both sides. I felt like punting Monoma into the sun. This was exactly what we had been trying to avoid.
I understood Vlad King's logic in having the classes compete against each other, motivating each other to go Plus Ultra, but it was a tight balancing act to keep healthy, friendly competition from sliding into a bitter, teeth-grinding rivalry.
"We actually expected you to take even longer!" Pixie-Bob announced from the doorway. "Just 'cause someone else performed even better doesn't lessen your achievements, as long as you gave it Plus Ultra! Now come inside and get some chow into your bellies kittens, because tomorrow- ah, what's with that look?"
The Pro-Hero shied back a step as she saw forty pairs of eyes light up at the mention of food.
"I'm so hungry I could eat an entire cow…"
"My stomach is on fire!"
"Do you think they'll have curry?"
"Well, we have rice, and pork, and- Eek!"
That was, apparently, all it took to trigger a stampede, a horde of extremely hungry and tired teenagers flooding past Pixie-Bob towards the sweet, sweet promise of dinner.
I on the other hand, simply eyed the front doors suspiciously. They were the kind that you would have found in- in- in my time. Most places in this day and age, I could at least wiggle through, but there was no way I was getting inside without knocking down a wall or two.
"Sorry. It's an older building, not made to modern standards of inclusiveness." Mandalay explained apologetically. "But we have something set up for you outside."
That "something" turned out to be a large, open tent off to the side of the main building, with a rug laid out alongside several large metal pots, steam rising from underneath the lids.
"This is also where you'll be sleeping." Mandalay explained. "It's not much, but it's the best we could come up with."
"I understand." I mumbled as I plodded over and sat down on the rug. "Thank you for your thoughtfulness."
It was what it was.
Even so, as Mandalay was leaving, it was hard not to feel morose. Sitting there alone, with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me. I hooked a claw under the lid of one of the pots and popped it open, a mouth-watering scent filling my nostrils. But even as I tipped it over into my mouth, crunching on meat and bone, I found that I didn't feel all that hungry.
But in the end, I supposed I deserved it. It was, after all, my fault.
-----
I froze, pausing in my pacing as I heard the footsteps approaching, the rustle of grass like thunder in my ears. The tent was quiet as the grave, the only noises coming from the outside.
I considered my options. Sit down and pretend I was asleep. That would make noise, and almost certainly alert whoever was outside. Or stay still and hope they go away? But then if they did come in it'd be immediately obvious I wasn't sleeping like I was supposed to.
The footsteps were too light to be Vlad King, Eraserhead or Tiger. The strides were too long to be any of my classmates, unless they had a lot of skip in their walk. It wasn't Pony, because I definitely wasn't hearing hooves. And the other person I knew who walked like that was…
"Hi!" Nejire said with a wave as she lifted the flap of the tent, stepping inside. "Ragdoll asked me to check up on you."
She was surreptitious about it, but I caught her glancing at the floor of the tent, the grass trampled with numerous claw prints. The tent had been presumably meant to house large gatherings, but even so it was only barely wider across than I was long. There wasn't that much room to pace around.
I sighed. Of course, Ragdoll's Quirk kept track of us. Obviously she'd know I wasn't sleeping like I was supposed to.
"I. Um. I couldn't sleep. Yeah." I mumbled. It sounded like an obvious lie even to my own ears. "I was trying to- I was trying to-"
I was tired. I was angry.
So I just blurted it out.
"I was trying to turn back into a human."
That was the first time I ever saw Nejire's smile fade away. There was an instant of shock and horror, before it was replaced by dead seriousness.
"I thought you couldn't?"
"Yeah, well, so did I. Hoped, at least. But it turns out it's more of a matter of won't rather than can't."
"What do you mean?"
"A few weeks ago, I was on I-Island for the I-Expo- I don't know if you've heard about what happened, but-"
"I saw a news article about it." She stated gingerly, sitting down.
"Right. I came into contact with David Shield. He's a leading expert on Quirks, and he agreed to look at mine to see- to see what was wrong. It turns out nothing. My Quirk is just fine. The reason I can't transform is because… I don't want to be human. Not enough."
There was a moment of silence.
"I was attacked. Some- some time ago." I looked at the ground, unable to meet Nejire's eyes. "I was hurt. Bad. Since then, I've been stuck like this. But my Quirk could heal any wounds. If I really wanted it to."
She sat there in silence for a long moment, her knees pulled up to her chest, processing this information.
"I'm... sorry."
"Me too."
"I know you've probably thought of this already but wouldn't Eraserhead's Quirk solve your issue?"
"Think of it like this. If you fired a blast into the air and he erased your Quirk, would the blast disappear?"
"No, it wouldn't." Nejire mused, a hand on her chin. "I guess that makes sense, he can erase your Quirk but not it's effects."
"Yeah. All it does is paralyze me, because my entire biology runs on Quirk Factor."
"What about Mind Control Quirks, then?"
"We tried them too. Talked to some specialists. The way they explained it… those kinds of Quirks typically fall on an axis of control versus power. Control means how intricate your control is, how complicated of a task you can give to someone. Poor control means your target is a flesh puppet, a zombie, while high means completely retaining their personality and mental capacity, just subservient to you. Power means your ability to force them to do against their will, ranging from a strong suggestion to making them do- well. Things. Murder. And such. And a Quirk that afforded both the control to trigger a transformation, and the power to overcome my mental block… it doesn't exist. Not outside of villains, at least."
I sat down, lowering my head to the ground. "We've tried everything. Ryuko and my parents spent so much money. UA has had to go out of its way to accommodate me. And my friends… they came to apologize to me, you know. For not realizing I was left to eat alone at dinner, today. They were tired and hungry and thought I'd stayed behind to talk to Mandalay. It didn't occur to them… until afterwards. They apologized to me. Me. As if any of this was their fault, their responsibility."
"You feel like you're a burden on others."
"I know I'm a burden. Everyone else has to cater to me, because I can't bear to be human again. Because I am too afraid. Every time I try, I just… I can't do it. I feel like such a coward."
Once again, Nejire was silent for an uncharacteristically long time, her voice subdued when she finally responded.
"This morning, when an earth beast threatened one of your classmates, you moved on instinct to protect them, charging the danger head-on." She pointed out quietly, fingers steepled and with her index fingers pointing upwards. "Is that something that a coward would do?"
"That's different. I was- I am a dragon. That's the point. There's nothing brave in being invulnerable."
"Then how about I-Island? Or Kashyyyk?" She asked quietly, and I flinched. "From what I've heard, you fought enemies more than capable of hurting you, even as a dragon. You already faced danger, real danger, and done more than could be expected of you. You're not a coward."
"That's different." I mumbled.
"How so?" She pressed, leaning forward. "What makes it different?"
"I don't- I don't know, okay?!" I yelled, raising my voice. "I don't know why I could do it then!"
I pressed myself to the ground again, feeling tired. "How do you do it? You've done hero work during your internships, right? How do you deal with it?"
"I don't- I just don't really think about the danger." She winced. "I know that's not what you wanted to hear. I wish there was some trick I could tell you to make it better, but there isn't. I don't worry about things. You do. What works for me, won't necessarily do for you. We are- well, we are different people."
I just slumped down even further. "So there's just something wrong with me."
"No! That's not-" Nejire caught herself, regaining her composure and lowering her voice. "Today, when you talked to Monoma, you told him he shouldn't compare himself to you because your circumstances are different, and due to that you have an easier time with physical training. Was that a lie? Should Monoma feel bad about not being as fit or strong as you?"
"Of course not!" I replied indignantly. "But-"
"So then why doesn't that same logic apply to yourself? Why is it okay to beat yourself up about struggling with something that's difficult for you?" At some point she'd stood up, speaking animatedly. "We are all different, unique people. Our Quirks, our talents, our skills, our bodies, our life experiences, our personalities, our struggles, our weaknesses, our strengths, those are all just pieces of our individualities. That's what makes people so fascinating to me: after eighteen years I still keep meeting new, wildly different people with their own disparate stories to tell. There's just so much to the human experience!"
She paused sheepishly, glancing at the entrance flap to the tent before continuing at a more subdued volume.
"What I'm trying to say is that Monoma struggles with a weak constitution. You struggle with your nervousness, anxieties and traumatic experiences from your past. Neither of these are your faults. So why should your problems be considered less valid? Is it because it's not a physical issue?" She paused for a moment, steepling her fingers over her knees. "Well, I have a hard time learning anything I'm not immediately interested in. People and their lives? It's fascinating beyond belief to me. But boring stuff like procedures and math equations and other things I'm supposed to memorize just come in through one ear and go out through the other. I try my hardest with academic subjects, and my friends- well, mostly Amajiki -help me with studying wherever they can, but I still struggle. Does that mean there's something wrong with me?"
"...No." I said slowly. "It doesn't."
"Right? And neither is there with you." Nejire said with a smile, tilting her head. "You want to know why I'm able to succeed at what I do? I know and accept myself. I want to be the kind of person who meets new people, learns about them and helps them whatever way I can. Because that's what makes me happy. That's the kind of Hero I want to be, and strive towards. So I guess the only real piece of advice I can offer is this: look into yourself and find out what motivates you, what gives you strength to push on and what makes you happy. You've already done great things, so look back and figure out what got you through those. And in the meanwhile, don't beat yourself up about struggling, okay? Everyone goes through it. You'll get there."
So, I did end up splitting the Chapter into two for pacing purposes. If your question wasn't featured don't worry, it will come up next Chapter.
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Ryuuzaki's Theme
Chapter 45
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
"Hey, wake up!"
I blinked, bleary-eyed as I raised my head from where it had been resting on my tail. A blurry figure stood in the doorway, casting a shadow against daylight streaming in from behind. After a moment of squinting it resolved itself into the shape of Nejire, beckoning me to follow her.
"There you go! Come on!"
Slowly, I uncurled myself and rose to my feet, lumbering out through the door. The outside was blindingly bright, and I simply focused on following Nejire as my eyes adjusted.
"What kind of dragon are you?"
...What?
Caught off guard by the question Nejire had throw over her shoulder as she skipped on ahead, I just blinked at her a few times.
"A horned dragon." I finally mumbled sleepily, my tongue feeling leaden. "Obviously."
"Hey, are those spikes on your tail thagomizers?"
"I don't know."
"Stegosaurus have thagomizers. Are you a Stegosaurus?"
"No-"
"Do you ever wonder what dinosaur meat would taste like?" She poked at her cheek. "Or dragon meat?"
I couldn't even begin to formulate a response as she kept going.
"Do you think it would come pre-seared, or would it be impossible to cook? What about your blood? What would it taste like? Would it be pleasantly warm, or burn your tongue?"
I stopped. At some point, Nejire had stopped being in front of me, and was now standing at my side. Slowly, I turned my head, and saw her staring at me, leaning close to my face.
I could see the too-wide smile etched on her features.
She was still grinning as she stuck the knife in her hand into my eye. I screamed.
I snapped to my feet in an instant, my heart racing in blind panic, a heat blooming in my throat. It took me several seconds to recognize the familiar confines of my tent, illuminated by the soft glow emanating from my chest, and then nearly a full minute to calm myself and force the warmth back down my throat and to fade away.
It was just a dream. A nightmare. It wasn't real.
But no matter how many times I tried to tell myself it couldn't happen, I was having a hard time believing it.
-----
"The pampering ended yesterday!" Pixie-Bob announced proudly, one hand on her hip as she gestured towards the tables laden with foodstuff and ingredients. "From today onwards you will be cooking your own food!"
All forty of us were gathered at the pavilion outside the villa at the crack of dawn, the first rays of sunlight starting to poke out over the horizon. The tension from yesterday was still there, beneath the yawns and drooping heads, but subdued for the moment.
"Yes?"
"Um, what about…" Komori trailed off, lowering her raised hand and glancing up over her shoulder at me, towering over the crowd behind everyone else. I couldn't quite fit into the pavilion, standing half-in half-out, careful not to raise my head too high or I'd poke a hole in the ceiling.
"Tatsuma's meals will be delivered from UA." Mandalay said with a note of amusement. "You won't have to worry about that."
"Well that's unfair." One of the boys from 1-A, Kaminari, complained while folding his arms. "Why does she get off scot free?"
"Haven't you seen her at the cafeteria, dude?" Kirishima elbowed him in the side before anyone else could respond. "She eats more than the rest of us combined."
"I'll still help with the rest of your food… as much as I can." I muttered.
"What do you mea- oh." Kaminari began before pausing, looking me up and down. "Oh."
"Well then!" Itsuka clapped her hands together. "Why don't we split up by class, each make our own dish and then share our results so we have two different options?"
"That's just-"
"Come on guys! Let's show 'em what we've got!"
"We're going to destroy some taste buds!"
"-going to make it into a competition." I said, hanging my head as 1-A marched over to one end of the pavilion.
"It'll be fine." Itsuka tried to sound reassuring, but her guilty smile betrayed her. "Everyone's hungry and tired. I don't think now's the time to try to foster cross-class cooperation."
"I guess." I pouted.
"Right then, let's get going." She said, gesturing at the tables looking up at me. "What do you think we could make of these?"
"...Probably curry?" I ventured, stepping closer to peer down at the jars of spice laid out on a basket. "Yeah, these look like the ingredients for a curry pot. You guys know how to make curry, right?"
"..."
Silence.
"Wait, none of you know how to cook curry?" I asked a little incredulously as I turned around to look at the rest of my classmates, only to be met with a crowd of shaking heads.
"Nope."
"Nada."
"Never done it before."
"Well-" Tetsutetsu began, before he received an elbow to the side from Itsuka, followed by a stern glare. "Oh, yeah, haven't tried it."
I just gave the two of them a long, confused look, before moving on.
"Well, okay then." I rubbed my face, my claws making a scraping sound against the scales. "Shishida, Yanagi, Tokage, why don't you guys go and ask Mandalay where we can get some firewood and distribute it under the pots? Tetsutetsu, Bondo, you should do the same for water. Itsuka, can you get a couple of people to start unwrapping the meat from the packaging and cutting it up? Nothing fancy, just make it into small bits. Pony, Shiozaki, can you gather the spices together? I'll show you how to mix them. Yui, please go ask Yayorozu for a lighter and some paper to use as kindling."
"Can't you light the fire?" She asked. "You're a dragon."
"I wouldn't be so much 'lighting the fire' as 'turning the wood into ash'. I don't have that level of fine control."
"Maybe try breathing through your nose to make a smaller flame?"
"I can't breathe fire through my nostrils, they're not connected to my throat so I don't choke on long bones. Can you just do it, please?"
"Well, alright."
"Right, then." I turned towards Pony and Shiozaki. "You'll want to take the ground pepper and..."
-----
The crunch of bone shattering between my jaws was as satisfying as it was unfortunately loud, causing the others to recoil whilst I threw back my head and swallowed.
"You know I can eat elsewhere, right?"
"Absolutely not." Itsuka replied immediately, waving her spoon authoritatively. "Besides, with your hearing you probably suffer the worst from it."
Her, Tokage, Pony and Yui were sitting around one of the tables eating curry, while I laid down next to it, my back half extending out beyond the pavilion.
"I guess…"
"How do you get sleep with your hearing, anyway?"
I just about jumped out of my skin at hearing Nejire's voice from right behind me, whipping my head around to see her floating in the air upside down, munching on a sandwich.
"Oh, sorry. I guess you're used to tracking people by footsteps."
"Just… please don't suddenly surprise me from behind." I muttered, shifting around so that I could face both her and the rest of my friends at once. "And I fold my ears against my head when I sleep, which muffles the sound just enough. I still sleep pretty lightly, though."
I reached a claw into the metal pot, fishing out the last piece of meat and shoving it into my mouth.
"How many calories do you need to eat a day? How well-cooked do you prefer it? What kind of meat is that?"
"I don't know, lots." I mumbled after swallowing the last of it. "Anything goes as long as it's not dry. And this is pork."
"What's your favorite meat? Anything exotic?"
"I guess that depends on what you would consider exotic. Since I only eat meat, Lunch Rush and the company Ryuko contracted for my meals outside of school try to alternate between different types. Pork, beef, chicken, mutton, and fish, mainly. Sometimes venison, calamari, reindeer shrimp, horse or goat."
I picked up a rag to wipe the grease from my claws, but accidentally shredded it to strips instead.
I sighed.
"If I had to pick a favorite either chicken or reindeer, but to be honest my sense of taste isn't that good. The texture is more important to me than taste."
"Wait, really?" Tokage interjected. "I would have thought you'd have an enhanced sense of taste considering, you know."
"Well sue me, I can't be good at everything."
"What about spicy food? Are you immune to it?" She pressed.
"To a small degree, yeah. I just don't like it."
"What kind of dragon are you?" Tokage asked with a raised eyebrow.
"That's stereotyping, you know." I replied with mock indignation. "You don't see me chasing after princesses or hoarding treasure."
"Don't lie to me, I've seen your hoard."
"What are you talking about?" Pony asked.
"She hoards pre-Quirk video games and media." Tokage explained, turning around to lean over the back of her chair.
"I collect them as a hobby."
"A distinction without a difference. It's a hoard."
I just rolled my eyes at her.
"Do you really eat only meat?" Nejire asked after a bit. "Never vegetables?"
"I'm, uh, what's the word?" I leaned back, wracking my brain for the right term.
"Obligate carnivore?" Tokage suggested.
"Yeah, uh, that. I can ingest vegetables, or almost anything really, but there's no point in it. I need meat and bone."
"I see. Does breathing fire affect your taste?"
"Everything tastes like smoke for a while after, yeah."
"Interesting." She said, before starting to head towards the other tables. "Well, I'll get going. See you guys around!"
"You know…" Tokage began slowly, flicking her bangs off her face. "Have you guys ever noticed how often Hado-Senpai hangs out around us? Specifically, Tatsuma?"
"I think you're overthinking it, she's just friendly. To everyone." I nodded my head towards where Nejire was making rounds around the pavilion, popping into conversations, asking a few questions and moving on.
Just then, a stir rippled across the pavilion, people shifting in their seats and murmuring about something. I followed it to its source, and-
"Did that kid just punch Midoriya in the crotch?" Tokage wondered. "Damn. Who is he, anyway?"
"I don't know, I've seen him hanging around the Pussycats." Itsuka said. "Maybe he's one of their kid? I wonder what Midoriya did to earn that."
"He probably didn't. The kid seems to be pissed off in general."
"Anyway, I don't know, I think I can see where Setsuna is coming from." Pony returned to the previous topic, idly kicking out her hooves as she sipped juice from her cup. "Sure, Hado-Senpai talks to others too, but she spends way more time around you than anyone else."
"Well… being a dragon is interesting to ask about?"
"I still think it's a little weird." Tokage insisted.
"Well maybe I just made a friend." I said, crossing my forelimbs defensively. "Is that so hard to believe?"
"I guess. Sorry." Tokage sighed. "Forget I said anything."
-----
"You call that a punch? I've seen better technique at retirement home bingo night disputes! Come on!"
The tree shattered beneath my scaled fist, the trunk quite literally exploding into splinters from the force of the impact, showering harmlessly against my hardened scales. The canopy toppled to the ground accompanied by crackle and rustle of branches and leaves, but I was already moving again, swinging my tail.
"Too slow!" Tiger berated me as his body stretched out in an almost cartoonish manner, evading what should have been a clean hit. "Far too slow!"
My tail slammed into the ground with earth-shaking force, sending out a plume of dust, the sun-baked dirt cracking and heaving as the impact radiated outward. I whipped it sideways in an attempt to sweep Tiger's legs but he simply bent over the blow like an accordion and dashed close, launching a flurry of devastating punches.
Well. I'm sure they would have been devastating to anyone else. For me they felt like light taps, if that. At least I could take solace in the fact that though I couldn't hit him, his hits couldn't do anything to me.
"Is this what passes for Plus Ultra at UA these days?! Show me that 'go beyond' you guys keep talking about!"
A small consolation, that was.
I threw myself forward in an attempt to tackle him, but he ducked beneath me and I bit the dirt, sliding on the ground for a bit before I sunk my wing claws into the ground, flipping myself onto my feet again. My claws carved out sprays of dirt as I charged once again, and missed, again, my horn piercing right through the trunk of a large pine tree. I tried to yank it out but instead pulled the entire tree from the ground, roots and all. Growling in annoyance I wrapped my claws around it and snapped it in two, the halves thumping onto the ground.
"Is that it?" Tiger asked, arms folded.
I mumbled a wordless reply in between trying to catch my breath, the superheated air shimmering in the sunlight.
"Are you tired already?! Come one you big lizard, what is all that muscle good for you if you can't keep it moving for longer than five minutes?!"
"I-" huff "-am not a lizard."
"Then act like it!"
That would set the tone for the remainder of the training session. Lots of yelling, punching, running, and enough collateral damage to make the lightly forested training field look like an active warzone. Eventually, as my vision started to swim from sheer exhaustion, I started to wonder which would come first, the end of the training session or me passing out.
It would turn out to be neither, as with a loud rip Tiger's right paw-glove tore open against some of my sharper scales, spilling out padding. He looked at it as if had personally offended him, but finally paused in his pummeling.
I just about collapsed on the spot, the world seeming to spin around me until stabilizing. It was true that Tiger's strikes couldn't hurt me… but chasing after him was hard work. I had plenty of power, but also a lot of mass to shift.
"Disappointing. Follow me, I will get a spare from the equipment shed."
"You could just not punch me?" I whined as I struggled to my feet and trundled after him as he marched off.
"And be a mouse, not a cat?"
...How was I supposed to respond to that?
Nothing came up, so that was what I said. We walked in silence for some time, passing through the training fields. 1-A had joined us today, and I could see the steam rising from where Todoroki was sitting half-submerged in a barrel of water, constantly alternating between the two sides of his Quirk, while Bakugo's explosions were audible from the other side of the valley. Midoriya and Ojiro had joined Itsuka and Kaibara for training with Ragdoll- exactly what it was, I wasn't sure.
"What do you… need the gloves for anyway?" I asked after a while, following a few steps behind Tiger. "It's not like I'm being hurt."
"They are not for your sake." He explained gruffly. "Even with Pliabody, I surely couldn't keep punching a wall for hours on end."
"Ehehhehh… I guess that's true." I laughed nervously, rubbing the back of my neck with my claws. I was silent for the rest of the way to the shed, a small, squat building situated behind the villa, with a small door that just about let me poke my head in as Tiger went inside.
Large, tall shelves were laden with equipment, everything from basic equipment like shovels and ropes to rescue training mannequins and spares of the Pussycats' costumes. I swept my eyes across the room while Tiger stretched out a hand to reach the highest shelves, grabbing a box of spare gloves. After a moment, I noticed several photographs tacked to the wall by the door, seemingly mostly taken from award ceremonies and Billboard ranking events, but one in particular drew my attention.
I could recognize Mandalay, Pixie-Bob and Ragdoll, all very young and wearing school uniforms- I guessed it had to be their Hero School graduation. But what puzzled me was the fourth person in the picture: a tall, athletic woman with short-cut brown hair completed the quartet, while Tiger was nowhere to be seen.
"Ah." I jumped a little as I heard Tiger's voice from behind me. "That picture was taken before I transitioned."
My eyes darted quickly between him and the photograph.
"Oh." I replied in a very small voice, ears burning as they drooped with embarrassment while I pulled my head out of the shed. Tiger followed a second later, putting on a new glove as we began making our way back towards the training fields.
But that photograph just refused to leave my head. I kept glancing at Tiger as we went, probably not nearly as surreptitiously as I thought.
"You have questions." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. "Ask them."
"How… did you know?"
"How did I know?" He asked. "I always knew, on some level, and started to consciously acknowledge it as I grew up. I realized my body had always felt wrong to me, like I was meant to be something else than what I was born with. I felt as if the real me was trapped beneath the surface." He was silent for a few moments. "When these feelings persisted, over the years, consistently… I knew. Does that answer your question?"
"It does. Thank you."
No, that wasn't it. Even if my memories had grown hazy… I had never felt like that back then, I didn't think. A girl trapped in a guy's body.
But then, had I felt like a guy trapped in a girl's body either, these last fifteen years?
...
It had felt weird. It had felt new. It hadn't felt like... what I was used to. But had it felt like the bad kind of weird? Had it felt wrong? Had it felt like… I was supposed to be a guy instead?
The questions felt almost foreign to me. I had consciously and subconsciously pushed such thoughts away, for years. But then, didn't that itself say something? If the answer was an unambiguous yes, shouldn't it have bothered me a lot more? Shouldn't it have been impossible to push away?
When forced to confront these questions I found… I wasn't as certain as I had thought.
"If you have other questions of that nature, speak to someone you trust. They will understand."
I had my doubts about that, but nodded nonetheless.
"Now… let us resume."
-----
"I feel like I could sleep until winter." I yawned, my teeth glinting in the light of the setting sun as it began to disappear beyond the hills that surrounded the valley the training camp lay in.
"No kidding." Pony agreed as we left the pavilion, stretching her arms.
"Must be nice..." I heard bitter muttering, and raised my head to see Eraserhead leading away 1-A's remedial training group: Kirishima, Sato, Kaminari, Ashido and Sero. Most of them bar Kirishima were casting envious glances in our direction.
I just sighed. It wasn't our fault nobody from our class had failed their final exams, but I could understand their frustration. From what I'd heard they'd been up until 0200 in the morning last night.
"Don't get ready to hit the hay just yet." Itsuka called out to us. "We have some free time before bed, and Hado-Senpai said she had something planned."
"Oh?"
She led us to one of the outlying buildings some distance away, what might have once been a barn, since left in disrepair. It didn't even have a door, just some rusted bits that might once have been hinges, but at least it was big enough for me to partially step inside.
We found Nejire sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor that creaked as I applied my weight on it, but I guessed there must not have been a cellar underneath because they didn't give. I also saw Shiozaki, Komori and Yanagi- with Itsuka, Pony, Yui and Tokage that accounted for all of 1-B's girls.
"Ah, you're here!" Nejire exclaimed as we all sat down, forming a circle with Nejire on one end and me at the other, my back towards the door- as my tail couldn't quite fit inside. "Mandalay asked me to come up with some camp activities to pass the time!
"So, what are we doing?"
"Truth or Dare!" She announced, placing an empty bottle on the floor before her, in the middle of the circle. "You spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on has to either answer a question truthfully or complete a task!"
"That…" I hesitated.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, without any restrictions." Itsuka noted.
"I thought you might have reservations, so I came prepared!" She pulled out a paper, also laying it on the floor. "I found some pre-made questions and dares online, and ran them by the Pussycats and your teachers to make sure they're A-OK! So you can ask for anything, but they can veto it unless you ask something from the list."
I quickly scanned over the list. They were pretty mild stuff, for the most part, and if we were allowed to veto any specific, personal questions…
"I guess it would be alright." I said, looking around the room. "But what about everyone else? Have you asked if they want to play as well?"
"I thought it'd be more comfortable with a smaller group, plus this way everyone gets a turn more frequently! The Pussycats are doing other activities with the others, don't worry!"
I… couldn't fault that logic. I tried to imagine answering some of those questions in front of the entire camp… It would be uncomfortable.
But dammit, it was never going to get better if we didn't try!
I sighed. Maybe I was just getting too worked up about it.
"I still think this game is a sinful waste of time." Shiozaki said, crossing her arms.
"C- come on, Ibara. It's just a game for fun " Komori said, shirking back as the room's attention shifted onto her. "P-please?"
"Well." Shiozaki's expression softened as she looked at the shorter girl. "Maybe this once."
"Alright then, I'll start!" Nejire set the bottle on the floor, pointing towards herself. "I choose Truth! Ask me anything!"
"Isn't this game just a naked attempt to satisfy your own curiosity after running out of ideas for questions, by making us ask each other things instead?" Yanagi questioned the older girl, her neutral expression never wavering.
"Of course it is!" Nejire replied cheerfully without hesitation. "Now! Truth or Dare!"
She gave the bottle a spin, making a couple of full turns as it gradually slowed down and settled on Tokage.
"Truth, I guess." She said, folding her arms.
"What is your deepest fear?"
"Well… I suppose it would have to be that my Quirk suddenly stopped working."
She tried to hide it, I could tell she really did, but I caught the slightest of glances she threw my way when she said that.
"Like, one day, I'd do this-" She raised her hand in front of her face and flicked herself in the forehead, causing her head to gently float off of her shoulders. "-and it would suddenly malfunction and I couldn't regenerate anymore."
"...Never thought about it that way." Yanagi mused. "I guess that would be pretty unnerving to think about."
Tokage floated over a finger to flick the bottle, which eventually landed on me.
"Truth."
She thought about it for a few moments, before flashing me a shit-eating grin.
"Can you lay eggs?"
"Vetoed." I replied without pause.
"Aww, but I wanted to know!" Tokage pouted, before glancing at the list. "Fine. Your first kiss outside of family, then?"
"..." I mumbled inaudibly, grinding my teeth in annoyance.
"Come on, it's not a hard question."
"It… assumes I've kissed someone outside of family."
"Really? You?" She paused, thinking about it. "Well I mean I guess I can see it, but still?"
"It wasn't for a lack of opportunity." Yui grinned, my glare bouncing right off of her. "She was quite a heartbreaker in middle school, rejecting every boy in our year."
"They were only interested in me because of Ryuko, anyway." I mumbled sullenly as I reached over to gently nudge the bottle with the side of my claw.
"But I didn't get a proper answer!" Tokage crossed her arms. "I deserve another question."
" 'Nobody' is a valid answer." Nejire chided her gently. "You'll get another turn."
"But I wanted-"
"Sssh." Itsuka shushed her as the bottle stopped on Pony.
"Truth or Dare?"
"Let's go with Dare."
I thought about it for a while. I didn't want to be an asshole, but the point of the game was to have fun.
"I dare you… to talk like a pirate for the rest of the game."
"Aye aye, First Mate Tatsuma!" Pony replied with an obnoxious accent and a very enthusiastic salute, prompting giggles around the whole group. "A pirate's life for me, yarr!"
The next player turned out to be Komori, wringing out her hands nervously.
"Honesty or labour, landlubber?"
"Truth."
"Who be the cutest boys in our class?" Pony asked, while Itsuka was trying and failing to not laugh out loud. "Best ye speak quickly and truly, me cutlass be thirsty."
"U-uhm." Komori blushed, taken aback. "C-cutest? Well… Yoarashi is… handsome."
"Yoarashi?" Tokage mused with a teasing smile. "Tall and dark, huh?"
"Yoarashi is the opposite of 'dark'."
"I meant appearance, not his personality." Tokage shrugged at me.
"Well if we were talking about what's going on upstairs with him..."
"Yui…" Itsuka began.
"I'm just saying, he's a bit of a blockhead."
"A bit." Yanagi supplied.
"Shush, you." Shiozaki poked her with a vine. "Cease making fun of people and let Komori continue."
"Other than him, m-maybe Monoma?" She blushed. "I like his hair…"
"Yeah, too bad about what's beneath it~"
"Yui." Itsuka's tone could have frozen running water, but it simply bounced off of the smaller girl.
Komori span the bottle, landing on Yui this time.
"Truth, let's keep it going."
"W-well, let's hear it from you, then!" Komori exclaimed, crossing her arms. "Who is the handsomest guy… out of the entire Heroics Department?"
"Todoroki." Yui said without hesitation. "Have you seen that guy?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely. We passed by him sitting in that water barrel, freezing and thawing it." Tokage smiled. "Those abs…"
"You were ogling him?" Shiozaki asked incredulously.
"You can't tell me you wouldn't have taken a look yourself, Shiozaki."
"I would never-"
"I'll be spinning the bottle now." Yui announced. "Oh look it's you again Pony. Truth or Dare?"
"Avast ye scurvy dog, I-" Pony began, before she started coughing uncontrollably, and Itsuka thumped her in the back a few times for good measure. "I'm going to lose my voice at this rate."
"It's fine." I said. "The rest of the game was probably too much."
"Thanks." She croaked. "Anyway, I pick Truth."
"Have you ever eaten grass?" Yui asked.
"Yes."
"What did it taste like?"
"Bad." Pony offered no more elaboration as she spun the bottle, which landed on me.
"What's the worst mundane sound to your ears?"
"Mosquitoes. Definitely mosquitoes." I shuddered at the thought. "The little bastards can't actually feed off me because they'd be boiled alive, but until then I'm stuck with that infernal buzzing in my ears. I can't even swat them without breaking everything."
I gave the bottle a tap before folding my forelimbs again, feeling annoyed to even have to think about it. When it landed on Tokage I didn't hesitate: I knew exactly what I was going to ask.
"How about your first kiss, hmm?"
"You're supposed to ask Truth or Dare first." Shiozaki pointed out, but Tokage waved her off.
"It's fine." She smiled confidently up at me. "I don't mind. It was a girl in Middle School first grade, by the name of Misaki. We hit it off, and decided to experiment."
I grumbled silently as she reached over to spin the bottle, annoyed that she'd found the question so much easier to answer than me.
"Shiozaki! Truth or Dare!"
"Truth. I have nothing to hide."
"Well then." Tokage grinned. "Best boyfriend material in our class? Or girlfriend, but that might get awkward."
"Honenuki, or Shishida."
"Oh?" Tokage raised an eyebrow.
"They are nice and courteous. I can appreciate a thoughtful gentleman." The eyebrow kept going higher, and Shiozaki huffed. "Unlike some people I don't just focus on physical appearance.
"Well alright then~"
Shiozaki spun the bottle, with the next round going to Itsuka.
"I'll choose Dare, since everyone seems to be going for Truths."
"I see. Hm… I dare you to eat a raw egg."
"Sure, but where are we going to get one of those?"
"Oh!" Nejire exclaimed, getting up. "I think the Pussycats had some in the walk-in freezer. I'll go check- you guys can keep playing, though!"
"Alright." Itsuka spun the bottle again, this time landing on Yui.
"Dare."
Itsuka was about to say something when Pony leaned over to whisper something in her ear, smiling.
"Okay okay. I dare you… to go outside and eat a fistful of grass."
Yui rolled her eyes as Tokage snorted, but got up, walking past me before returning moments later, her mouth stuffed with grass.
"Munch munch." She said, chewing exaggeratedly. "You are right. It tastes bad."
Before she could spin the bottle again Nejire returned, carrying an egg which she handed over to Itsuka, who cracked it open and poured it into her mouth, shivering in disgust.
"Ew. I'm not doing that again."
The next turn landed on me, much to my consternation.
"...Let's go with Truth." I said, looking at Itsuka.
"Since we're seemingly on the topic of grossness." Yui began. "How many bugs have you eaten while flying and what do they taste like?"
"Way too many to keep count. They're too small to really taste like anything "
"Ew ew ew ew ew." Pony gagged. "I did not need to think about that."
"The "truth" part of the game goes both ways." I pointed out with a smug tilt of my head.
"Do you ever get bugs in your eyes while flying?"
"It's not your turn, Hado-Senpai." Yanagi pointed out, visibly struggling to not laugh at Pony.
"It's fine. I have a translucent third eyelid that protects them from debris while flying." I said, blinking slowly as a way of demonstration while I reached over to give the bottle a tap.
"Well that's freaky."
"Don't say that!"
"Alright, Nejire next. Truth or Dare?"
"Dare! We haven't been getting enough of those."
"Well I'm putting a stop to the running theme." I crossed my forelimbs, checking the list of approved questions. "I dare you to pull off your socks using your teeth."
"Huh, did I put that there?" She blinked, before shaking her head and smiling. "Anyway, here I go!"
After a few moments of honestly impressive flexibility, Nejire had two socks in her mouth, wiggling her toes in the air.
"I still think floating should be considered cheating." Yanagi complained.
"Nothing in the rules about using your Quirk!" Nejire smiled, as she spun the bottle, landing on Itsuka.
"Truth."
"Alright! What's something you did when you were little that you don't want your parents to know about?
"Well. Um. When I was really young, one of the earliest things I remember… I tried curry for the first time and then went to play in the living room with Haru, our dog. When my dad came to check on me, he found that Haru had pooped on the carpet." She blushed, not meeting any of our eyes. "It wasn't the dog."
"Oh god." Pony seemed to be trying to decide whether to be disgusted or laugh. "Oh god."
Next up was Komori, who picked Truth.
"If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?"
"I guess… my confidence." She said, causing my ears to perk up. "I-I wish I could be more self-assured like you guys."
She thought I was self-assured?
Itsuka put a comforting hand on Komori's shoulder. "Hey, you're not doing too bad.
"B-but I stutter! Constantly, w-when I'm n-nervous."
"Um. I, uh, stutter too." I spoke up. "Occasionally. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
I wasn't sure if those were the right words, or even good ones, but they seemed to be of comfort to her, and she gave me a small smile.
"T-thanks." Komori said, spinning the bottle until it landed on me.
Again?
"Truth." I muttered. Something was getting weird.
"S-so, how did you learn to swear in Finnish?"
My entire thought process came to a screeching halt.
"During your match against Tokoyami in the Sports Festival, remember?"
"Oh yeah!" Pony said. "I remember that. It was pretty weird, but I forgot to ask you about it."
"H-how did you guys hear it?" I stammered, flustered.
"Jiro from 1-A has super-hearing like you." Yanagi supplied.
Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit.
"Uh…" If I vetoed it now it'd look suspicious. "Um, I- when I was little I taught myself swear words in foreign languages so that I could cuss openly and not get caught. Well, um, it turns out the intonation makes it pretty obvious what you're saying."
Great job. Maybe they'll mistake your horrible lying for being embarrassed.
Tokage was giving me a weird look as I passed the round to Pony.
"Truth."
"What would you do if you became invisible?" I threw out the first idea that came to mind. "Like Hagakure from 1-A?"
"Oh! We had to write an essay about this in middle school. I wrote about breaking into a zoo and watching the animals when they think nobody is there… and then I got deducted points because it was illegal. Even though that's the point. Middle school was stupid."
A few more rounds passed while I tried not to look anyone in the eye, until it landed on me again, this time from Shiozaki.
"Truth." Alright. That does it.
"I would like to inquire, are you or are you not secretly dating Shoto Todoroki?"
The question was delivered with such a straight face that it took me a moment of uncomprehending blinking to even realize that no, she wasn't joking, that was just how Shiozaki was.
"No!" I yelled out, the volume causing a few birds to take flight from nearby trees. "What makes you think that?"
"Oh come on, everyone can see it. You think nobody's noticed how often you talk to him?" Tokage scoffed. "He's handsome, talented, rich... what's not to like?"
"Is it really so impossible that a girl and a boy might just be friends?"
"You're absolutely right." Yanagi stated, as impassive as ever. "We shouldn't limit our view of this to the perspective of a boy and a girl." She turned towards Tokage. "What of you two? The sparks between you were visible from orbit since day one, and then you two come back from the same internship suddenly friends, hmmm?"
"Wait what no."
"That is not what you were supposed to take away from what I said." I said, tossing my head indignantly.
Simmering in my umbrage, I tried to focus back on what I'd been thinking about before the question. Namely, how I'd been getting more questions than anyone else.
And… someone else hadn't been getting any. Someone besides me, so that any questions that would have gone to them would be passed to me. Someone whose Quirk was...
"Poltergeist." I muttered.
"Did you say something Ryuuzaki?" Itsuka asked, but I just shook my head.
"No."
I shook my head and spun the bottle, but before it made a full turn I deliberately stopped it with a claw, leaving it pointing right at Yanagi.
"Oh look." I said, looking at her pointedly. "Truth or Dare."
"That wasn't even-" Pony began, but I just gave her a look, tilting my head, before turning back to Yanagi.
"Truth or Dare."
"Truth."
"Have you been using your Quirk on the bottle?"
"Of course I have been." She said, entirely unashamedly.
"Yanagi." Itsuka sighed in disappointment. "Why?"
"Nothing in the rules about using your Quirk." She echoed Nejire from earlier.
"Well we're making it one now. No Quirks, no manipulating the bottle."
"Alright, alright."
She gave the bottle a spin… only for it to end up pointing on me again.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Well it is a one in nine possibility! I didn't use my Quirk, I swear. I can spin it again-"
"It's fine, let's just get it over with. Truth."
"Okay. Hm." Yanagi mused for a moment. "Have you ever been to an eating contest?"
"I have, actually. When I was four and first activated my Quirk I didn't figure out how to turn back for a few months." Nejire suddenly couldn't look me in the eye, while Pony choked on her potato chips, prompting Tokage to hammer her in the back. "Mmm. Yeah. Anyway, during that time Ryuko took me to an eating contest. Obviously, I ate them out of the house and won first place. They actually tried to take away my trophy on grounds of cheating, but this was before the Villain Factory incident, and Transformation-type Quirks that were stuck on were a legal grey zone at the time. So I got to keep my award and instead just got a lifetime ban from eating contests across Japan."
"You won an eating contest at age four?" Pony asked.
"I was about the size of a pony."
"Oh." She said, looking a little disappointed. "I had this mental image of a tiny dragon puppy with stubby little legs."
"Don't you mean even stubbier?"
"I will sit on you."
Yui raised her hands in a gesture of surrender as I reached over to spin the bottle again. As it settled on Nejire, an idea began to form in my head.
"Truth or Dare?"
"Dare!"
"Alright. I dare you… to say 'fuck'."
Nejire blinked at me a few times, before jolting back in her seat, red creeping up her neck.
"I use my veto!"
"It's in the list, Hado-Senpai." Yui shook her head, a grin building up on her face as she pointed at the entry. "It's the rules, sorry."
"I didn't-" She spluttered, face beet-red. "I can't-"
"I do not condone any of this." Shiozaki protested, but I could tell she was struggling not to laugh.
"Come now, Hado-Senpai." Yanagi joined in. "It was you who suggested we play this game, no?"
"F-f-" Nejire stammered, burying her face in her hands out of embarrassment. "F-fuck! There! H-happy?!"
The entire group erupted into laughter, with Tokage nearly falling out of her seat, tears in her eyes. Even Nejire joined in after a moment, giggling softly.
As we all laughed, Pony idly reached up to scratch behind my ears.
Stupid tail. Stop wagging.
-----
The bar without a name was sparsely lit, the light of the overhead fixtures filtering through cigarette smoke as it illuminated the room. A long l-shaped bar counter and a row of circular seats dominated one corner of the room, the rest occupied by handful of tables and a jukebox, resting against the red brick
"-and that's the plan. If you have any objections, raise them now and Kurogiri will be happy to send you back to whatever trash dump we picked you up from. No? Good. Now, these two-" Tomura Shigaraki reached into his pocket and laid two photographs onto the counter, for the others to see. "-are our main targets. We capture them alive. You kill them, you answer to me."
"And the others?" The cloaked giant rumbled, his huge form towering over the rest of the small group assembled in front of Shigaraki.
"Do with them as you wish."
"Fffleeeesh..." The tall man in a spiked straightjacket mumbled, spittle dripping from his open mouth.
"Jeez, don'tcha think that's a little harsh?" Another asked, twirling a short cane, his face hidden behind an oval-shaped white facemask with black markings, and a wide-brimmed hat. "These are kids we're talking about."
"They're supposed to be elite Heroes-In-Training. UA's cream of the crop." A short figure replied, wearing a black uniform with a green military-style gas mask on his head. "If they can't handle a little villain attack… well, they should have thought of that first."
"That's right! Those kids are getting what's coming to them!" The man in a dark bodysuit with a full-cover cloth facemask shouted, before suddenly leaning back, looking horrified. "What's wrong with you? That's disgusting!"
"We'll put those Heroes in their place." A large, long-haired figure explained, pressing their sunglasses up their noise. "And create a world of true freedom."
"This is just a signal fire." A tall, black-haired man added, gesturing wildly with his horrifically scarred arms. The burns covered almost all of his visible skin, with only small patches of healthy skin around his face and hands, surrounded by metal surgical staples. "We'll make them understand that this peace of theirs rests in our hands."
"Are you certain that it is wise for you to go, Tomura Shigaraki?" Kurogiri questioned as he cleaned a shot glass with a cloth, his yellow eyes gleaming amidst the black mist. "Risking yourself like that is-"
"We tried your little proxies before, and look at where that got us. You can't advance without taking risks." Shigaraki replied in a biting tone, before turning towards the last member of the group, a disheveled, slimly-built man with rust-brown hair clad in a dusty grey jacket. "Speaking of our past endeavours..."
"Yeah, yeah." Katsuke Fujiwara muttered. "I go off on my own again, you'll kill me to death."
"Mmm. Not this time. On the contrary."
"...What do you mean?"
"Indulge your little vendetta. You are of no more use to me, and that lizard has cost us one operation already. So go, my little guided missile, and inflict as much misery upon the heroes as you can. But this time-" Shigaraki took something out of his pocket and tossed it out to Fujiwara, who caught it and looked it over.
"This time, finish the job."
It was a medical injection needle, filled with thick red liquid.
I blinked, bleary-eyed as I raised my head from where it had been resting on my tail. A blurry figure stood in the doorway, casting a shadow against daylight streaming in from behind. After a moment of squinting it resolved itself into the shape of Nejire, beckoning me to follow her.
"There you go! Come on!"
Slowly, I uncurled myself and rose to my feet, lumbering out through the door. The outside was blindingly bright, and I simply focused on following Nejire as my eyes adjusted.
"What kind of dragon are you?"
...What?
Caught off guard by the question Nejire had throw over her shoulder as she skipped on ahead, I just blinked at her a few times.
"A horned dragon." I finally mumbled sleepily, my tongue feeling leaden. "Obviously."
"Hey, are those spikes on your tail thagomizers?"
"I don't know."
"Stegosaurus have thagomizers. Are you a Stegosaurus?"
"No-"
"Do you ever wonder what dinosaur meat would taste like?" She poked at her cheek. "Or dragon meat?"
I couldn't even begin to formulate a response as she kept going.
"Do you think it would come pre-seared, or would it be impossible to cook? What about your blood? What would it taste like? Would it be pleasantly warm, or burn your tongue?"
I stopped. At some point, Nejire had stopped being in front of me, and was now standing at my side. Slowly, I turned my head, and saw her staring at me, leaning close to my face.
I could see the too-wide smile etched on her features.
She was still grinning as she stuck the knife in her hand into my eye. I screamed.
I snapped to my feet in an instant, my heart racing in blind panic, a heat blooming in my throat. It took me several seconds to recognize the familiar confines of my tent, illuminated by the soft glow emanating from my chest, and then nearly a full minute to calm myself and force the warmth back down my throat and to fade away.
It was just a dream. A nightmare. It wasn't real.
But no matter how many times I tried to tell myself it couldn't happen, I was having a hard time believing it.
-----
"The pampering ended yesterday!" Pixie-Bob announced proudly, one hand on her hip as she gestured towards the tables laden with foodstuff and ingredients. "From today onwards you will be cooking your own food!"
All forty of us were gathered at the pavilion outside the villa at the crack of dawn, the first rays of sunlight starting to poke out over the horizon. The tension from yesterday was still there, beneath the yawns and drooping heads, but subdued for the moment.
"Yes?"
"Um, what about…" Komori trailed off, lowering her raised hand and glancing up over her shoulder at me, towering over the crowd behind everyone else. I couldn't quite fit into the pavilion, standing half-in half-out, careful not to raise my head too high or I'd poke a hole in the ceiling.
"Tatsuma's meals will be delivered from UA." Mandalay said with a note of amusement. "You won't have to worry about that."
"Well that's unfair." One of the boys from 1-A, Kaminari, complained while folding his arms. "Why does she get off scot free?"
"Haven't you seen her at the cafeteria, dude?" Kirishima elbowed him in the side before anyone else could respond. "She eats more than the rest of us combined."
"I'll still help with the rest of your food… as much as I can." I muttered.
"What do you mea- oh." Kaminari began before pausing, looking me up and down. "Oh."
"Well then!" Itsuka clapped her hands together. "Why don't we split up by class, each make our own dish and then share our results so we have two different options?"
"That's just-"
"Come on guys! Let's show 'em what we've got!"
"We're going to destroy some taste buds!"
"-going to make it into a competition." I said, hanging my head as 1-A marched over to one end of the pavilion.
"It'll be fine." Itsuka tried to sound reassuring, but her guilty smile betrayed her. "Everyone's hungry and tired. I don't think now's the time to try to foster cross-class cooperation."
"I guess." I pouted.
"Right then, let's get going." She said, gesturing at the tables looking up at me. "What do you think we could make of these?"
"...Probably curry?" I ventured, stepping closer to peer down at the jars of spice laid out on a basket. "Yeah, these look like the ingredients for a curry pot. You guys know how to make curry, right?"
"..."
Silence.
"Wait, none of you know how to cook curry?" I asked a little incredulously as I turned around to look at the rest of my classmates, only to be met with a crowd of shaking heads.
"Nope."
"Nada."
"Never done it before."
"Well-" Tetsutetsu began, before he received an elbow to the side from Itsuka, followed by a stern glare. "Oh, yeah, haven't tried it."
I just gave the two of them a long, confused look, before moving on.
"Well, okay then." I rubbed my face, my claws making a scraping sound against the scales. "Shishida, Yanagi, Tokage, why don't you guys go and ask Mandalay where we can get some firewood and distribute it under the pots? Tetsutetsu, Bondo, you should do the same for water. Itsuka, can you get a couple of people to start unwrapping the meat from the packaging and cutting it up? Nothing fancy, just make it into small bits. Pony, Shiozaki, can you gather the spices together? I'll show you how to mix them. Yui, please go ask Yayorozu for a lighter and some paper to use as kindling."
"Can't you light the fire?" She asked. "You're a dragon."
"I wouldn't be so much 'lighting the fire' as 'turning the wood into ash'. I don't have that level of fine control."
"Maybe try breathing through your nose to make a smaller flame?"
"I can't breathe fire through my nostrils, they're not connected to my throat so I don't choke on long bones. Can you just do it, please?"
"Well, alright."
"Right, then." I turned towards Pony and Shiozaki. "You'll want to take the ground pepper and..."
-----
The crunch of bone shattering between my jaws was as satisfying as it was unfortunately loud, causing the others to recoil whilst I threw back my head and swallowed.
"You know I can eat elsewhere, right?"
"Absolutely not." Itsuka replied immediately, waving her spoon authoritatively. "Besides, with your hearing you probably suffer the worst from it."
Her, Tokage, Pony and Yui were sitting around one of the tables eating curry, while I laid down next to it, my back half extending out beyond the pavilion.
"I guess…"
"How do you get sleep with your hearing, anyway?"
I just about jumped out of my skin at hearing Nejire's voice from right behind me, whipping my head around to see her floating in the air upside down, munching on a sandwich.
"Oh, sorry. I guess you're used to tracking people by footsteps."
"Just… please don't suddenly surprise me from behind." I muttered, shifting around so that I could face both her and the rest of my friends at once. "And I fold my ears against my head when I sleep, which muffles the sound just enough. I still sleep pretty lightly, though."
I reached a claw into the metal pot, fishing out the last piece of meat and shoving it into my mouth.
"How many calories do you need to eat a day? How well-cooked do you prefer it? What kind of meat is that?"
"I don't know, lots." I mumbled after swallowing the last of it. "Anything goes as long as it's not dry. And this is pork."
"What's your favorite meat? Anything exotic?"
"I guess that depends on what you would consider exotic. Since I only eat meat, Lunch Rush and the company Ryuko contracted for my meals outside of school try to alternate between different types. Pork, beef, chicken, mutton, and fish, mainly. Sometimes venison, calamari, reindeer shrimp, horse or goat."
I picked up a rag to wipe the grease from my claws, but accidentally shredded it to strips instead.
I sighed.
"If I had to pick a favorite either chicken or reindeer, but to be honest my sense of taste isn't that good. The texture is more important to me than taste."
"Wait, really?" Tokage interjected. "I would have thought you'd have an enhanced sense of taste considering, you know."
"Well sue me, I can't be good at everything."
"What about spicy food? Are you immune to it?" She pressed.
"To a small degree, yeah. I just don't like it."
"What kind of dragon are you?" Tokage asked with a raised eyebrow.
"That's stereotyping, you know." I replied with mock indignation. "You don't see me chasing after princesses or hoarding treasure."
"Don't lie to me, I've seen your hoard."
"What are you talking about?" Pony asked.
"She hoards pre-Quirk video games and media." Tokage explained, turning around to lean over the back of her chair.
"I collect them as a hobby."
"A distinction without a difference. It's a hoard."
I just rolled my eyes at her.
"Do you really eat only meat?" Nejire asked after a bit. "Never vegetables?"
"I'm, uh, what's the word?" I leaned back, wracking my brain for the right term.
"Obligate carnivore?" Tokage suggested.
"Yeah, uh, that. I can ingest vegetables, or almost anything really, but there's no point in it. I need meat and bone."
"I see. Does breathing fire affect your taste?"
"Everything tastes like smoke for a while after, yeah."
"Interesting." She said, before starting to head towards the other tables. "Well, I'll get going. See you guys around!"
"You know…" Tokage began slowly, flicking her bangs off her face. "Have you guys ever noticed how often Hado-Senpai hangs out around us? Specifically, Tatsuma?"
"I think you're overthinking it, she's just friendly. To everyone." I nodded my head towards where Nejire was making rounds around the pavilion, popping into conversations, asking a few questions and moving on.
Just then, a stir rippled across the pavilion, people shifting in their seats and murmuring about something. I followed it to its source, and-
"Did that kid just punch Midoriya in the crotch?" Tokage wondered. "Damn. Who is he, anyway?"
"I don't know, I've seen him hanging around the Pussycats." Itsuka said. "Maybe he's one of their kid? I wonder what Midoriya did to earn that."
"He probably didn't. The kid seems to be pissed off in general."
"Anyway, I don't know, I think I can see where Setsuna is coming from." Pony returned to the previous topic, idly kicking out her hooves as she sipped juice from her cup. "Sure, Hado-Senpai talks to others too, but she spends way more time around you than anyone else."
"Well… being a dragon is interesting to ask about?"
"I still think it's a little weird." Tokage insisted.
"Well maybe I just made a friend." I said, crossing my forelimbs defensively. "Is that so hard to believe?"
"I guess. Sorry." Tokage sighed. "Forget I said anything."
-----
"You call that a punch? I've seen better technique at retirement home bingo night disputes! Come on!"
The tree shattered beneath my scaled fist, the trunk quite literally exploding into splinters from the force of the impact, showering harmlessly against my hardened scales. The canopy toppled to the ground accompanied by crackle and rustle of branches and leaves, but I was already moving again, swinging my tail.
"Too slow!" Tiger berated me as his body stretched out in an almost cartoonish manner, evading what should have been a clean hit. "Far too slow!"
My tail slammed into the ground with earth-shaking force, sending out a plume of dust, the sun-baked dirt cracking and heaving as the impact radiated outward. I whipped it sideways in an attempt to sweep Tiger's legs but he simply bent over the blow like an accordion and dashed close, launching a flurry of devastating punches.
Well. I'm sure they would have been devastating to anyone else. For me they felt like light taps, if that. At least I could take solace in the fact that though I couldn't hit him, his hits couldn't do anything to me.
"Is this what passes for Plus Ultra at UA these days?! Show me that 'go beyond' you guys keep talking about!"
A small consolation, that was.
I threw myself forward in an attempt to tackle him, but he ducked beneath me and I bit the dirt, sliding on the ground for a bit before I sunk my wing claws into the ground, flipping myself onto my feet again. My claws carved out sprays of dirt as I charged once again, and missed, again, my horn piercing right through the trunk of a large pine tree. I tried to yank it out but instead pulled the entire tree from the ground, roots and all. Growling in annoyance I wrapped my claws around it and snapped it in two, the halves thumping onto the ground.
"Is that it?" Tiger asked, arms folded.
I mumbled a wordless reply in between trying to catch my breath, the superheated air shimmering in the sunlight.
"Are you tired already?! Come one you big lizard, what is all that muscle good for you if you can't keep it moving for longer than five minutes?!"
"I-" huff "-am not a lizard."
"Then act like it!"
That would set the tone for the remainder of the training session. Lots of yelling, punching, running, and enough collateral damage to make the lightly forested training field look like an active warzone. Eventually, as my vision started to swim from sheer exhaustion, I started to wonder which would come first, the end of the training session or me passing out.
It would turn out to be neither, as with a loud rip Tiger's right paw-glove tore open against some of my sharper scales, spilling out padding. He looked at it as if had personally offended him, but finally paused in his pummeling.
I just about collapsed on the spot, the world seeming to spin around me until stabilizing. It was true that Tiger's strikes couldn't hurt me… but chasing after him was hard work. I had plenty of power, but also a lot of mass to shift.
"Disappointing. Follow me, I will get a spare from the equipment shed."
"You could just not punch me?" I whined as I struggled to my feet and trundled after him as he marched off.
"And be a mouse, not a cat?"
...How was I supposed to respond to that?
Nothing came up, so that was what I said. We walked in silence for some time, passing through the training fields. 1-A had joined us today, and I could see the steam rising from where Todoroki was sitting half-submerged in a barrel of water, constantly alternating between the two sides of his Quirk, while Bakugo's explosions were audible from the other side of the valley. Midoriya and Ojiro had joined Itsuka and Kaibara for training with Ragdoll- exactly what it was, I wasn't sure.
"What do you… need the gloves for anyway?" I asked after a while, following a few steps behind Tiger. "It's not like I'm being hurt."
"They are not for your sake." He explained gruffly. "Even with Pliabody, I surely couldn't keep punching a wall for hours on end."
"Ehehhehh… I guess that's true." I laughed nervously, rubbing the back of my neck with my claws. I was silent for the rest of the way to the shed, a small, squat building situated behind the villa, with a small door that just about let me poke my head in as Tiger went inside.
Large, tall shelves were laden with equipment, everything from basic equipment like shovels and ropes to rescue training mannequins and spares of the Pussycats' costumes. I swept my eyes across the room while Tiger stretched out a hand to reach the highest shelves, grabbing a box of spare gloves. After a moment, I noticed several photographs tacked to the wall by the door, seemingly mostly taken from award ceremonies and Billboard ranking events, but one in particular drew my attention.
I could recognize Mandalay, Pixie-Bob and Ragdoll, all very young and wearing school uniforms- I guessed it had to be their Hero School graduation. But what puzzled me was the fourth person in the picture: a tall, athletic woman with short-cut brown hair completed the quartet, while Tiger was nowhere to be seen.
"Ah." I jumped a little as I heard Tiger's voice from behind me. "That picture was taken before I transitioned."
My eyes darted quickly between him and the photograph.
"Oh." I replied in a very small voice, ears burning as they drooped with embarrassment while I pulled my head out of the shed. Tiger followed a second later, putting on a new glove as we began making our way back towards the training fields.
But that photograph just refused to leave my head. I kept glancing at Tiger as we went, probably not nearly as surreptitiously as I thought.
"You have questions." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. "Ask them."
"How… did you know?"
"How did I know?" He asked. "I always knew, on some level, and started to consciously acknowledge it as I grew up. I realized my body had always felt wrong to me, like I was meant to be something else than what I was born with. I felt as if the real me was trapped beneath the surface." He was silent for a few moments. "When these feelings persisted, over the years, consistently… I knew. Does that answer your question?"
"It does. Thank you."
No, that wasn't it. Even if my memories had grown hazy… I had never felt like that back then, I didn't think. A girl trapped in a guy's body.
But then, had I felt like a guy trapped in a girl's body either, these last fifteen years?
...
It had felt weird. It had felt new. It hadn't felt like... what I was used to. But had it felt like the bad kind of weird? Had it felt wrong? Had it felt like… I was supposed to be a guy instead?
The questions felt almost foreign to me. I had consciously and subconsciously pushed such thoughts away, for years. But then, didn't that itself say something? If the answer was an unambiguous yes, shouldn't it have bothered me a lot more? Shouldn't it have been impossible to push away?
When forced to confront these questions I found… I wasn't as certain as I had thought.
"If you have other questions of that nature, speak to someone you trust. They will understand."
I had my doubts about that, but nodded nonetheless.
"Now… let us resume."
-----
"I feel like I could sleep until winter." I yawned, my teeth glinting in the light of the setting sun as it began to disappear beyond the hills that surrounded the valley the training camp lay in.
"No kidding." Pony agreed as we left the pavilion, stretching her arms.
"Must be nice..." I heard bitter muttering, and raised my head to see Eraserhead leading away 1-A's remedial training group: Kirishima, Sato, Kaminari, Ashido and Sero. Most of them bar Kirishima were casting envious glances in our direction.
I just sighed. It wasn't our fault nobody from our class had failed their final exams, but I could understand their frustration. From what I'd heard they'd been up until 0200 in the morning last night.
"Don't get ready to hit the hay just yet." Itsuka called out to us. "We have some free time before bed, and Hado-Senpai said she had something planned."
"Oh?"
She led us to one of the outlying buildings some distance away, what might have once been a barn, since left in disrepair. It didn't even have a door, just some rusted bits that might once have been hinges, but at least it was big enough for me to partially step inside.
We found Nejire sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor that creaked as I applied my weight on it, but I guessed there must not have been a cellar underneath because they didn't give. I also saw Shiozaki, Komori and Yanagi- with Itsuka, Pony, Yui and Tokage that accounted for all of 1-B's girls.
"Ah, you're here!" Nejire exclaimed as we all sat down, forming a circle with Nejire on one end and me at the other, my back towards the door- as my tail couldn't quite fit inside. "Mandalay asked me to come up with some camp activities to pass the time!
"So, what are we doing?"
"Truth or Dare!" She announced, placing an empty bottle on the floor before her, in the middle of the circle. "You spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on has to either answer a question truthfully or complete a task!"
"That…" I hesitated.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, without any restrictions." Itsuka noted.
"I thought you might have reservations, so I came prepared!" She pulled out a paper, also laying it on the floor. "I found some pre-made questions and dares online, and ran them by the Pussycats and your teachers to make sure they're A-OK! So you can ask for anything, but they can veto it unless you ask something from the list."
I quickly scanned over the list. They were pretty mild stuff, for the most part, and if we were allowed to veto any specific, personal questions…
"I guess it would be alright." I said, looking around the room. "But what about everyone else? Have you asked if they want to play as well?"
"I thought it'd be more comfortable with a smaller group, plus this way everyone gets a turn more frequently! The Pussycats are doing other activities with the others, don't worry!"
I… couldn't fault that logic. I tried to imagine answering some of those questions in front of the entire camp… It would be uncomfortable.
But dammit, it was never going to get better if we didn't try!
I sighed. Maybe I was just getting too worked up about it.
"I still think this game is a sinful waste of time." Shiozaki said, crossing her arms.
"C- come on, Ibara. It's just a game for fun " Komori said, shirking back as the room's attention shifted onto her. "P-please?"
"Well." Shiozaki's expression softened as she looked at the shorter girl. "Maybe this once."
"Alright then, I'll start!" Nejire set the bottle on the floor, pointing towards herself. "I choose Truth! Ask me anything!"
"Isn't this game just a naked attempt to satisfy your own curiosity after running out of ideas for questions, by making us ask each other things instead?" Yanagi questioned the older girl, her neutral expression never wavering.
"Of course it is!" Nejire replied cheerfully without hesitation. "Now! Truth or Dare!"
She gave the bottle a spin, making a couple of full turns as it gradually slowed down and settled on Tokage.
"Truth, I guess." She said, folding her arms.
"What is your deepest fear?"
"Well… I suppose it would have to be that my Quirk suddenly stopped working."
She tried to hide it, I could tell she really did, but I caught the slightest of glances she threw my way when she said that.
"Like, one day, I'd do this-" She raised her hand in front of her face and flicked herself in the forehead, causing her head to gently float off of her shoulders. "-and it would suddenly malfunction and I couldn't regenerate anymore."
"...Never thought about it that way." Yanagi mused. "I guess that would be pretty unnerving to think about."
Tokage floated over a finger to flick the bottle, which eventually landed on me.
"Truth."
She thought about it for a few moments, before flashing me a shit-eating grin.
"Can you lay eggs?"
"Vetoed." I replied without pause.
"Aww, but I wanted to know!" Tokage pouted, before glancing at the list. "Fine. Your first kiss outside of family, then?"
"..." I mumbled inaudibly, grinding my teeth in annoyance.
"Come on, it's not a hard question."
"It… assumes I've kissed someone outside of family."
"Really? You?" She paused, thinking about it. "Well I mean I guess I can see it, but still?"
"It wasn't for a lack of opportunity." Yui grinned, my glare bouncing right off of her. "She was quite a heartbreaker in middle school, rejecting every boy in our year."
"They were only interested in me because of Ryuko, anyway." I mumbled sullenly as I reached over to gently nudge the bottle with the side of my claw.
"But I didn't get a proper answer!" Tokage crossed her arms. "I deserve another question."
" 'Nobody' is a valid answer." Nejire chided her gently. "You'll get another turn."
"But I wanted-"
"Sssh." Itsuka shushed her as the bottle stopped on Pony.
"Truth or Dare?"
"Let's go with Dare."
I thought about it for a while. I didn't want to be an asshole, but the point of the game was to have fun.
"I dare you… to talk like a pirate for the rest of the game."
"Aye aye, First Mate Tatsuma!" Pony replied with an obnoxious accent and a very enthusiastic salute, prompting giggles around the whole group. "A pirate's life for me, yarr!"
The next player turned out to be Komori, wringing out her hands nervously.
"Honesty or labour, landlubber?"
"Truth."
"Who be the cutest boys in our class?" Pony asked, while Itsuka was trying and failing to not laugh out loud. "Best ye speak quickly and truly, me cutlass be thirsty."
"U-uhm." Komori blushed, taken aback. "C-cutest? Well… Yoarashi is… handsome."
"Yoarashi?" Tokage mused with a teasing smile. "Tall and dark, huh?"
"Yoarashi is the opposite of 'dark'."
"I meant appearance, not his personality." Tokage shrugged at me.
"Well if we were talking about what's going on upstairs with him..."
"Yui…" Itsuka began.
"I'm just saying, he's a bit of a blockhead."
"A bit." Yanagi supplied.
"Shush, you." Shiozaki poked her with a vine. "Cease making fun of people and let Komori continue."
"Other than him, m-maybe Monoma?" She blushed. "I like his hair…"
"Yeah, too bad about what's beneath it~"
"Yui." Itsuka's tone could have frozen running water, but it simply bounced off of the smaller girl.
Komori span the bottle, landing on Yui this time.
"Truth, let's keep it going."
"W-well, let's hear it from you, then!" Komori exclaimed, crossing her arms. "Who is the handsomest guy… out of the entire Heroics Department?"
"Todoroki." Yui said without hesitation. "Have you seen that guy?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely. We passed by him sitting in that water barrel, freezing and thawing it." Tokage smiled. "Those abs…"
"You were ogling him?" Shiozaki asked incredulously.
"You can't tell me you wouldn't have taken a look yourself, Shiozaki."
"I would never-"
"I'll be spinning the bottle now." Yui announced. "Oh look it's you again Pony. Truth or Dare?"
"Avast ye scurvy dog, I-" Pony began, before she started coughing uncontrollably, and Itsuka thumped her in the back a few times for good measure. "I'm going to lose my voice at this rate."
"It's fine." I said. "The rest of the game was probably too much."
"Thanks." She croaked. "Anyway, I pick Truth."
"Have you ever eaten grass?" Yui asked.
"Yes."
"What did it taste like?"
"Bad." Pony offered no more elaboration as she spun the bottle, which landed on me.
"What's the worst mundane sound to your ears?"
"Mosquitoes. Definitely mosquitoes." I shuddered at the thought. "The little bastards can't actually feed off me because they'd be boiled alive, but until then I'm stuck with that infernal buzzing in my ears. I can't even swat them without breaking everything."
I gave the bottle a tap before folding my forelimbs again, feeling annoyed to even have to think about it. When it landed on Tokage I didn't hesitate: I knew exactly what I was going to ask.
"How about your first kiss, hmm?"
"You're supposed to ask Truth or Dare first." Shiozaki pointed out, but Tokage waved her off.
"It's fine." She smiled confidently up at me. "I don't mind. It was a girl in Middle School first grade, by the name of Misaki. We hit it off, and decided to experiment."
I grumbled silently as she reached over to spin the bottle, annoyed that she'd found the question so much easier to answer than me.
"Shiozaki! Truth or Dare!"
"Truth. I have nothing to hide."
"Well then." Tokage grinned. "Best boyfriend material in our class? Or girlfriend, but that might get awkward."
"Honenuki, or Shishida."
"Oh?" Tokage raised an eyebrow.
"They are nice and courteous. I can appreciate a thoughtful gentleman." The eyebrow kept going higher, and Shiozaki huffed. "Unlike some people I don't just focus on physical appearance.
"Well alright then~"
Shiozaki spun the bottle, with the next round going to Itsuka.
"I'll choose Dare, since everyone seems to be going for Truths."
"I see. Hm… I dare you to eat a raw egg."
"Sure, but where are we going to get one of those?"
"Oh!" Nejire exclaimed, getting up. "I think the Pussycats had some in the walk-in freezer. I'll go check- you guys can keep playing, though!"
"Alright." Itsuka spun the bottle again, this time landing on Yui.
"Dare."
Itsuka was about to say something when Pony leaned over to whisper something in her ear, smiling.
"Okay okay. I dare you… to go outside and eat a fistful of grass."
Yui rolled her eyes as Tokage snorted, but got up, walking past me before returning moments later, her mouth stuffed with grass.
"Munch munch." She said, chewing exaggeratedly. "You are right. It tastes bad."
Before she could spin the bottle again Nejire returned, carrying an egg which she handed over to Itsuka, who cracked it open and poured it into her mouth, shivering in disgust.
"Ew. I'm not doing that again."
The next turn landed on me, much to my consternation.
"...Let's go with Truth." I said, looking at Itsuka.
"Since we're seemingly on the topic of grossness." Yui began. "How many bugs have you eaten while flying and what do they taste like?"
"Way too many to keep count. They're too small to really taste like anything "
"Ew ew ew ew ew." Pony gagged. "I did not need to think about that."
"The "truth" part of the game goes both ways." I pointed out with a smug tilt of my head.
"Do you ever get bugs in your eyes while flying?"
"It's not your turn, Hado-Senpai." Yanagi pointed out, visibly struggling to not laugh at Pony.
"It's fine. I have a translucent third eyelid that protects them from debris while flying." I said, blinking slowly as a way of demonstration while I reached over to give the bottle a tap.
"Well that's freaky."
"Don't say that!"
"Alright, Nejire next. Truth or Dare?"
"Dare! We haven't been getting enough of those."
"Well I'm putting a stop to the running theme." I crossed my forelimbs, checking the list of approved questions. "I dare you to pull off your socks using your teeth."
"Huh, did I put that there?" She blinked, before shaking her head and smiling. "Anyway, here I go!"
After a few moments of honestly impressive flexibility, Nejire had two socks in her mouth, wiggling her toes in the air.
"I still think floating should be considered cheating." Yanagi complained.
"Nothing in the rules about using your Quirk!" Nejire smiled, as she spun the bottle, landing on Itsuka.
"Truth."
"Alright! What's something you did when you were little that you don't want your parents to know about?
"Well. Um. When I was really young, one of the earliest things I remember… I tried curry for the first time and then went to play in the living room with Haru, our dog. When my dad came to check on me, he found that Haru had pooped on the carpet." She blushed, not meeting any of our eyes. "It wasn't the dog."
"Oh god." Pony seemed to be trying to decide whether to be disgusted or laugh. "Oh god."
Next up was Komori, who picked Truth.
"If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?"
"I guess… my confidence." She said, causing my ears to perk up. "I-I wish I could be more self-assured like you guys."
She thought I was self-assured?
Itsuka put a comforting hand on Komori's shoulder. "Hey, you're not doing too bad.
"B-but I stutter! Constantly, w-when I'm n-nervous."
"Um. I, uh, stutter too." I spoke up. "Occasionally. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
I wasn't sure if those were the right words, or even good ones, but they seemed to be of comfort to her, and she gave me a small smile.
"T-thanks." Komori said, spinning the bottle until it landed on me.
Again?
"Truth." I muttered. Something was getting weird.
"S-so, how did you learn to swear in Finnish?"
My entire thought process came to a screeching halt.
"During your match against Tokoyami in the Sports Festival, remember?"
"Oh yeah!" Pony said. "I remember that. It was pretty weird, but I forgot to ask you about it."
"H-how did you guys hear it?" I stammered, flustered.
"Jiro from 1-A has super-hearing like you." Yanagi supplied.
Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit.
"Uh…" If I vetoed it now it'd look suspicious. "Um, I- when I was little I taught myself swear words in foreign languages so that I could cuss openly and not get caught. Well, um, it turns out the intonation makes it pretty obvious what you're saying."
Great job. Maybe they'll mistake your horrible lying for being embarrassed.
Tokage was giving me a weird look as I passed the round to Pony.
"Truth."
"What would you do if you became invisible?" I threw out the first idea that came to mind. "Like Hagakure from 1-A?"
"Oh! We had to write an essay about this in middle school. I wrote about breaking into a zoo and watching the animals when they think nobody is there… and then I got deducted points because it was illegal. Even though that's the point. Middle school was stupid."
A few more rounds passed while I tried not to look anyone in the eye, until it landed on me again, this time from Shiozaki.
"Truth." Alright. That does it.
"I would like to inquire, are you or are you not secretly dating Shoto Todoroki?"
The question was delivered with such a straight face that it took me a moment of uncomprehending blinking to even realize that no, she wasn't joking, that was just how Shiozaki was.
"No!" I yelled out, the volume causing a few birds to take flight from nearby trees. "What makes you think that?"
"Oh come on, everyone can see it. You think nobody's noticed how often you talk to him?" Tokage scoffed. "He's handsome, talented, rich... what's not to like?"
"Is it really so impossible that a girl and a boy might just be friends?"
"You're absolutely right." Yanagi stated, as impassive as ever. "We shouldn't limit our view of this to the perspective of a boy and a girl." She turned towards Tokage. "What of you two? The sparks between you were visible from orbit since day one, and then you two come back from the same internship suddenly friends, hmmm?"
"Wait what no."
"That is not what you were supposed to take away from what I said." I said, tossing my head indignantly.
Simmering in my umbrage, I tried to focus back on what I'd been thinking about before the question. Namely, how I'd been getting more questions than anyone else.
And… someone else hadn't been getting any. Someone besides me, so that any questions that would have gone to them would be passed to me. Someone whose Quirk was...
"Poltergeist." I muttered.
"Did you say something Ryuuzaki?" Itsuka asked, but I just shook my head.
"No."
I shook my head and spun the bottle, but before it made a full turn I deliberately stopped it with a claw, leaving it pointing right at Yanagi.
"Oh look." I said, looking at her pointedly. "Truth or Dare."
"That wasn't even-" Pony began, but I just gave her a look, tilting my head, before turning back to Yanagi.
"Truth or Dare."
"Truth."
"Have you been using your Quirk on the bottle?"
"Of course I have been." She said, entirely unashamedly.
"Yanagi." Itsuka sighed in disappointment. "Why?"
"Nothing in the rules about using your Quirk." She echoed Nejire from earlier.
"Well we're making it one now. No Quirks, no manipulating the bottle."
"Alright, alright."
She gave the bottle a spin… only for it to end up pointing on me again.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Well it is a one in nine possibility! I didn't use my Quirk, I swear. I can spin it again-"
"It's fine, let's just get it over with. Truth."
"Okay. Hm." Yanagi mused for a moment. "Have you ever been to an eating contest?"
"I have, actually. When I was four and first activated my Quirk I didn't figure out how to turn back for a few months." Nejire suddenly couldn't look me in the eye, while Pony choked on her potato chips, prompting Tokage to hammer her in the back. "Mmm. Yeah. Anyway, during that time Ryuko took me to an eating contest. Obviously, I ate them out of the house and won first place. They actually tried to take away my trophy on grounds of cheating, but this was before the Villain Factory incident, and Transformation-type Quirks that were stuck on were a legal grey zone at the time. So I got to keep my award and instead just got a lifetime ban from eating contests across Japan."
"You won an eating contest at age four?" Pony asked.
"I was about the size of a pony."
"Oh." She said, looking a little disappointed. "I had this mental image of a tiny dragon puppy with stubby little legs."
"Don't you mean even stubbier?"
"I will sit on you."
Yui raised her hands in a gesture of surrender as I reached over to spin the bottle again. As it settled on Nejire, an idea began to form in my head.
"Truth or Dare?"
"Dare!"
"Alright. I dare you… to say 'fuck'."
Nejire blinked at me a few times, before jolting back in her seat, red creeping up her neck.
"I use my veto!"
"It's in the list, Hado-Senpai." Yui shook her head, a grin building up on her face as she pointed at the entry. "It's the rules, sorry."
"I didn't-" She spluttered, face beet-red. "I can't-"
"I do not condone any of this." Shiozaki protested, but I could tell she was struggling not to laugh.
"Come now, Hado-Senpai." Yanagi joined in. "It was you who suggested we play this game, no?"
"F-f-" Nejire stammered, burying her face in her hands out of embarrassment. "F-fuck! There! H-happy?!"
The entire group erupted into laughter, with Tokage nearly falling out of her seat, tears in her eyes. Even Nejire joined in after a moment, giggling softly.
As we all laughed, Pony idly reached up to scratch behind my ears.
Stupid tail. Stop wagging.
-----
The bar without a name was sparsely lit, the light of the overhead fixtures filtering through cigarette smoke as it illuminated the room. A long l-shaped bar counter and a row of circular seats dominated one corner of the room, the rest occupied by handful of tables and a jukebox, resting against the red brick
"-and that's the plan. If you have any objections, raise them now and Kurogiri will be happy to send you back to whatever trash dump we picked you up from. No? Good. Now, these two-" Tomura Shigaraki reached into his pocket and laid two photographs onto the counter, for the others to see. "-are our main targets. We capture them alive. You kill them, you answer to me."
"And the others?" The cloaked giant rumbled, his huge form towering over the rest of the small group assembled in front of Shigaraki.
"Do with them as you wish."
"Fffleeeesh..." The tall man in a spiked straightjacket mumbled, spittle dripping from his open mouth.
"Jeez, don'tcha think that's a little harsh?" Another asked, twirling a short cane, his face hidden behind an oval-shaped white facemask with black markings, and a wide-brimmed hat. "These are kids we're talking about."
"They're supposed to be elite Heroes-In-Training. UA's cream of the crop." A short figure replied, wearing a black uniform with a green military-style gas mask on his head. "If they can't handle a little villain attack… well, they should have thought of that first."
"That's right! Those kids are getting what's coming to them!" The man in a dark bodysuit with a full-cover cloth facemask shouted, before suddenly leaning back, looking horrified. "What's wrong with you? That's disgusting!"
"We'll put those Heroes in their place." A large, long-haired figure explained, pressing their sunglasses up their noise. "And create a world of true freedom."
"This is just a signal fire." A tall, black-haired man added, gesturing wildly with his horrifically scarred arms. The burns covered almost all of his visible skin, with only small patches of healthy skin around his face and hands, surrounded by metal surgical staples. "We'll make them understand that this peace of theirs rests in our hands."
"Are you certain that it is wise for you to go, Tomura Shigaraki?" Kurogiri questioned as he cleaned a shot glass with a cloth, his yellow eyes gleaming amidst the black mist. "Risking yourself like that is-"
"We tried your little proxies before, and look at where that got us. You can't advance without taking risks." Shigaraki replied in a biting tone, before turning towards the last member of the group, a disheveled, slimly-built man with rust-brown hair clad in a dusty grey jacket. "Speaking of our past endeavours..."
"Yeah, yeah." Katsuke Fujiwara muttered. "I go off on my own again, you'll kill me to death."
"Mmm. Not this time. On the contrary."
"...What do you mean?"
"Indulge your little vendetta. You are of no more use to me, and that lizard has cost us one operation already. So go, my little guided missile, and inflict as much misery upon the heroes as you can. But this time-" Shigaraki took something out of his pocket and tossed it out to Fujiwara, who caught it and looked it over.
"This time, finish the job."
It was a medical injection needle, filled with thick red liquid.
Ugh, that took way too long and I had to split it again, so some of the questions will only be making it into Chapter 46.
Commission: Siblings (Part 2)
