Paradosi
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The Abyss (chapter 11)
🕑 Added 2024-10-15 19:00:15 +0000 UTC“Your hand’s changed,” Nejire commented as they were taking the train to Osaka to attend Sir Nighteye’s funeral. She was holding his free hand firmly as she traced a finger along his palm.
He glanced at her from the anatomical text he was reading. “The Quirk Factor was based around his hands, so it makes sense.” The past few days had seen the awkwardness gone anyway as he’d grown used to them.
It had also seen September turn into October, the days already becoming colder. Which was fine with him, as he had always preferred winter to summer since it meant his Quirk was more subdued.
“These kinds of things don’t just happen every day, Nobuto. You shouldn’t be so flippant about it,” she scolded. “You’ve been spending too much time around our resident dinosaur.”
Admittedly, Enkh-Altan did seem to be the most unbothered about the story he told. His friend knew that in their world one needed strength if they were to change anything.
“You’re right,” he told her. Though he still had his suspicions about a certain walking stalk of broccoli after seeing him fight in the sky. But then he always had his suspicions; he was a very suspicious person.
He pouted when she pulled the text out of his hands, looking it over. “Can’t you just find these kinds of books on your phone?”
“It’s not the same,” he admitted. “It makes it easier to paint a picture about what I’m reading when I’m holding it in my hands.”
She blew him a raspberry before she surrendered it back into his hands. She then proceeded to use his shoulder as her own personal backrest, her nose in her own phone.
Even if her poor understanding of personal boundaries could leave him exasperated, he found he much preferred it to the cold shoulder she had given him for a day or two after. And then there was his sister, who had taken it even harder.
In many ways, he was still the village boy in over his head. It was just that he now had nuclear weapons for hands in addition to the slavering monster he kept leashed.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get to finish reading by the time the train crawled to a stop either.
Nejire’s somber mood returned the closer they neared the site of the funeral, but that was only human. A small crowd awaited them there; Pros for the most part, though he ferreted out a few civilians here and there as well.
Nejire went to harass Aizawa’s students almost immediately. All four that had participated in the raid as part of their Hero Work-Studies were there, and also Tokoyami.
He was about to make his way to Mirio when a tap on the shoulder had him turning around to find the #3 Pro Hero. The easy smile kind of clashed with the red wings as tall as a man hanging on either side of him, granting him an air of menace.
“You’re so young. I admit it surprised me to hear that someone still in school somehow got the better of the League of Villains as well as Overhaul.”
Nobuto crossed his arms. “Aren’t you only a few years older than I am?” Though as far as he was aware, the Pro had not attended U.A. or Shiketsu or any hero school.
“I’m an old soul,” Hawks argued.
He found it hard to read the man and his golden eyes, but he found himself relaxing anyway. Hawks was one of the Pros he liked the most, the way he controlled his Quirk being something beautiful to behold, and he told him as much.
That actually had the Pro embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not all that. It’s not all it’s cracked out to be either, being at the top of the ranks. Even before All Might had retired, if you were called in, you were called in, even if you happened to be taking a bubble bath at the time. And then there’s the paperwork.”
“They get us started early on that at U.A.,” he snarked.
Hawks laughed. “I bet. I’ll be honest with you, Algernon—well—I suppose I shouldn’t assume. Are you considering a change?”
“The reason I’d picked Algernon hasn’t changed, and I still have my Quirk, even if it isn't as flashy.”
The Pro nodded. “Hawks is kind of boring in comparison.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Was it Flowers for Algernon or something else that inspired you?”
Nobuto scratched at his nose. Hawks wasn’t entirely off the mark. “You know your literature.”
“I always say everyone should have a few hobbies. I just wish we heroes had some free time to kill.” The Pro ran a hand through his ash blond hair. “Anyway, I just wanted to say that you’ve sure stirred up a hornet’s nest over at the Safety Commission. They knew you’d be here and sent me to get you. I don’t think that surprises you much.”
“I’m only surprised it took them a few days,” he admitted. “I guess we should get to it?”
Hawks waved it off. “They can wait a little longer.” His golden eyes turned to where Nighteye was interred. “We only talked once or twice, but I should at least pay my respects.
Nobuto watched him go for a few thoughtful moments before he joined Mirio standing vigil nearby.
“I’m sorry for not visiting earlier,” he ventured.
Mirio slapped him on the back instead. “You sound like you’re breaking some bad news to a board of directors. Nighteye’s last words reminded me that heroes should grieve strongly, but quickly.” Mirio’s smile was soft. “The best way I can honor his memory is using everything he taught me. Losing my Quirk’s just one more challenge to overcome.”
He sighed. The goofball could probably find the silver lining in being stranded on the moon.
Nobuto had hoped the antidote would have returned his Quirk, but it hadn’t worked. The assumption was that it only worked if applied within a short time period, and he had no reason to disagree with the Safety Commission’s assessment there.
“Did Chisaki show any remorse in his final moments?” Mirio asked more quietly.
Nobuto’s fingers twitched at the question. “Something like that.” When had lying become as easy as breathing from him? “He was an orphan boy that had been taken in by the old boss of the Shie Hassaikai, Eri’s grandfather. Chisaki believed he owed him a life debt.”
Mirio rubbed at his chin. “Strange way to pay off a life debt,” he concluded.
“With a Quirk like his, it’s not surprising the power went to his head.”
Mirio laughed. “I should preemptively tell you that you don’t owe me a life debt.”
He gave him a punch on the shoulder for that. “At least it should give Eri some closure. Now it’s just the memory of him that will haunt her.”
“You should come visit her when they finally clear her for guests. They said she’s had a fever for a few days, but she’s since woken up.” The goofball looked pensive for a moment. “They’re just worried about her being unable to control her Quirk.”
“It’s a dangerous Quirk,” Nobuto commented. “Still, so long as she learns to control it, there’s no reason she can’t live her life to the fullest.” Or close enough to it. He managed, after all.
“Then stop by and tell her that! Eri could use all the support she can get.”
“Fine,” he finally told the nag. “I’ll bring Nejire along as well. She’d hug her tight and never let her go.”
He always thought that Nejire would be a wonderful mom, but that was neither here nor there. A glance at her showed her trying to see who had the longer hair between her and Froppy, and it seemed the froggy girl’s dark green hair was just a shade longer. Nejire still had her beat in sheer width, however.
Amajiki meanwhile was standing there trying to be invisible in his embarrassment as Nejire continued harassing the younger girls.
“Speaking of Nejire, I should probably rescue Amajiki and her victims.”
He still felt like he could say something more, but the words escaped him. The baby-faced muscleman seemed to see something on his face as well.
“I’ve come to terms with it,” Mirio offered. “And who knows, if Eri ever gets that Quirk of hers under control, maybe she can undo it. Even I can admit it’s going to be a little hard to save a million people without a Quirk,” he finished with a self-deprecating laugh.
“Now who’s selling who short. You could probably do it missing an arm and leg.” He clapped Mirio on the shoulder. “I always thought you picked the best Hero Name among us. Lemillion. It’s a statement and a promise.”
The goofball laughed again. “I think I’ll keep the arm and leg, but thanks.” He was smiling when Nobuto left, and that was good enough.
He ended up approaching Amajiki first, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Enkh-Altan wanted me to tell you that he still wants to hear the story about how you ended up kicking so much ass down there, Suneater.”
He always found it funny how Amajiki of all people picked a name like that.
“It wasn’t that impressive. They were C-Ranked villains at best.” His purple eyes turned on Nobuto’s hands warily. “I’m still not sure about carrying a dead man’s hands around,” he mumbled more quietly.
“They’re not actually his hands,” Nobuto replied with a sigh. “The Quirk Factor’s just based around the hands.”
Admittedly, he wasn’t sure how true that actually was. It could have just been a mistaken assumption on Chisaki’s part that the Quirk can only be activated through his hands.
“Also, that’s rich coming from you,” he continued. “You eat sushi and then you become sushi. Sushieater would have been a better name, or Sushiman.”
“I have a strict no cannibalism policy,” Amajiki told him seriously. “And I can manifest more than that,” he finished grumpily.
Nobuto had let him be and just approached Nejire and her victims when the start of the funeral service was called, saving them anyway. She was now the picture of solemn beside him.
He hadn’t ended up saying any words when the time came. He’d only spoken to the Pro once, and for good reason. He had no interest in knowing his own future, and he wanted others knowing it even less. Self-fulfilling prophecies were just the worst.
“Nobuto~” He eyed Nejire with some exasperation as she tugged the two girls back. “I know you’ve already met, but I wanted to properly introduce you to the two new members of the Ryukyu Hero Agency with how much we gossip about you.”
“What kind of gossip?” Uravity and Froppy were both sporting blushes when he turned his eyes back on them from Amajiki, who had walked off to stare at a wall.
“Hmm, to start it’s something of an open secret now that we punished Momo in a very lewd way. It seems she’s not the only voyeur in her class,” she mused. “I’m starting to wonder what Aizawa’s teaching them.”
His Quirk told him that he should probably head her off before they explode from embarrassment, even if he could tell she meant well, trying to distract from the misery.
“Now, these are Ochaco Uraraka and Tsuyu Asui,” Nejire bowled over him instead. “Or Tsu to her friends. Can Nobuto call you Tsu, Tsu? Maybe there’s some kind of friend of a friend policy?”
Now that it wasn’t the dead of night, he could more easily make out her big eyes and button nose. On her classmate he could make out small pads on each of her fingertips; how she activated Zero Gravity, presumably.
“Okay,” the froggy girl croaked out.
He decided it was time to bring some sanity back to the conversation. “I do like your Hero Names, so I might just stick with those. The Rainy Hero: Froppy for a frog-themed hero is about as good as you get.”
Hawks chose that time to approach again, Tokoyami hot on his heels. “Despite being a bunch of bureaucrats, they tend to get cranky when I make them wait.” He turned to Tokoyami. “Patrol again tomorrow night. They’re really running me ragged.”
The heteromorph nodded seriously, bowing to both of them respectfully before he and his classmates left. Nejire left in Mirio and Amajiki’s direction after he gave her a nod.
“Good kid,” Hawks commented. “Thinks way too much of me though.”
“You’re only the #3 Pro Hero,” he snarked. “Or is it #2 now?
“They’re still dragging their feet on announcing the new rankings. And you should listen to your elders, Algernon. People who think too much of you start expecting the impossible from you.”
The Pro caught himself with his wings as he leaned back with a yawn. They were waiting for one of the Safety Commission’s sleek black cars to retrieve them.
“You know how overworked Recovery Girl is? Even at her age, they have her running around the country,” Hawks complained. “I hope you’re not the type to be too cranky when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because you have to put someone back together. It might be me one night. I don’t expect that I’ll have the luxury of looking forward to old age with how things are going.”
He was going to turn into Aizawa, wasn’t he? Nobuto tried not to imagine it.
“If you want bedside manners, find a pretty nurse,” he shot back.
Hawks nodded sagely, and the car they were waiting for soon showed up. “I think we should stop for a sandwich,” the Pro broached. “Osaka has a place to die for.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
He didn’t have time to be confused when they climbed out maybe fifteen minutes later, a very red feather suddenly at his throat, sharp enough that it had already cut him.
Finally, Hawks was lazily floating in the air above him, surrounded by a storm of red feathers.
“There’s three scenarios here,” the Pro began. “Either what you said is true, in which case you’ve proven that you will act in whatever way you think is best, or what you said isn’t true, in which case you’ve proven that you will act in whatever way you think is best, except now you’ll lie even to those closest to you. The third option is you’re not who you say you are, in which case you’re not who you say you are. You understand the conundrum you’ve put them in?”
Hawks still might as well be a brick wall to the touch of his Quirk, so he couldn’t even tell if this was meant to be a test or something worse. It didn’t help that his heart was beating like a drum in his chest, making it harder to think clearly.
“I did them a favor,” he started. “If I had played by the rules, Shigaraki would have Overhaul and his work. The Safety Commission would have been made to look incompetent again, at a time when the public mood is already beginning to turn against them.”
He tried to keep his temper in check, but that those paper-pushers would be pointing fingers at him when they had a thousand-and-one skeletons in their closet was just rich.
“You’re not wrong, but the problem remains. They don’t trust you, and with a Quirk like Overhaul’s, they already made the decision to nip the problem in the bud.” The storm of feathers descended on him. “I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” he heard.
Nobuto hastily touched the feather as it tried either to slit his throat or outright behead him, making it fall apart. Blood was already dripping down his chest seeing as his throat had already opened slightly, and that was just one feather.
Hawks was too far for his Quirk to impress upon him, and there were so many feathers that he could barely see him anyway.
He did the only thing that came to mind, ducking and touching his hands firmly to the ground. Overhaul activated, and the street was ripped apart, sending debris everywhere. Trying to form a barrier to stop the feathers, the result was less than ideal. He had the Quirk for all of a few days, and he wasn’t expecting to have to fight Hawks of all Pros.
Throwing himself into an alleyway as his muscles burned from the strain, he hoped all the debris might at least hide him, but he saw flashes of red all around him anyway, one of them throwing him painfully into a wall.
Blindly, he reached out and touched his hands to the wall, tearing it apart and forming a cocoon around himself. Even if he succeeded, he could still hear the feathers furiously trying to cut through anyway, his breathing heavy and panicked.
He would not die. He would not die. He would not—
The nauseating mantra had returned with a vengeance. What were even his options here? He had seen Hawks at work, and the Pro had no reason to get close to him.
He broke down the rest of the wall behind him, both to put more material between him and the feathers and to get inside the building. He heard them following him after a few breaths, and cloaking himself in his Quirk wasn’t doing anything. How was he supposed to fool a feather?
He was hesitant to try and collapse the walls around him as well, both because it could just end up doing Hawks’s job for him and because he wasn’t a monster. Still, some of the floor wouldn’t be missed.
It delayed the storm of red long enough that he could find the exit, but it seemed Hawks had expected that. Shit.
As feathers descended on him from both sides and he madly tore another part of the street apart to defend himself with, he was clever enough to know that he was just digging himself his own grave at this point.
What a bad joke.
Not knowing what else to do as the feathers sliced through the concrete, he raised a middle finger at them. If he was going to go out, he would go out with some style.
But as the storm of red feathers was about to make sashimi out of him, they abruptly stopped, leaving him to watch as they cleared the debris instead and let him see the sky. He saw Hawks descend, and his hands already twitched towards his sunglasses.
After a few moments, he decided against it.
As much as he wanted to indulge that spiteful part of him, he was not currently drowning in feathers. The Pro even looked somewhat apologetic. Had it been a test?
The blood still dripping from his throat wanted to disagree.
“I think it’s safe to assume you’re not Overhaul,” Hawks told him.
As he stumbled to his feet with some help from the feathers, Nobuto knew he needed to put all his frustrations away for the moment, and approach this carefully. There wasn’t a chance that the Safety Commission wasn’t watching him carefully right now.
He put a hand to his throat and closed the wound. It didn’t take much fine control to do that much.
“And here I thought they had Quirks for this kind of thing,” Nobuto snarked.
Some amount of frustration and rebelliousness was still important.
“They’d also seen what he was capable of. It wouldn’t help figuring out it was him if he proceeded to murder everyone there and brought down the building around him for good measure.” Hawks gave him an annoyingly cheerful smile for it. “This area had been evacuated an hour prior, and considering you hadn’t done that here despite having the means…”
“Door number three is out then,” he interrupted. “That still leaves door number one and door number two. Which do you think it is?”
Hawks gave a lazy shrug. “They can figure that out themselves. I get the rest of the day off, and I’m going to take advantage.”
Nobuto crossed his arms again. “If I ever have to put you back together, I’m going to put you back together with neon pink wings. That’s a promise.”
“More reason to keep myself out of trouble then. Ah, and I still want to grab a bite to eat. Come on.”
Hawks was right about the sandwiches being good, even if his head wasn’t in the best place right now. There were two suits waiting for them when they arrived at their destination, one thin and one burly.
“Don’t take what they say to heart too much,” the Pro told him. “They can work you to the bone and then some once you’re out of school, but until then try and enjoy life.”
He watched as Hawks rose into the air again, quickly losing him in the urban sprawl.
At least they didn’t make him wait, as a few minutes later he found himself in a nondescript room, a severe woman with blonde hair pulled back and blue-green eyes staring at him.
He didn’t resist saying something clever after. “Madam President. Algernon, at your service.” He bowed low. “At least I think I’m him. It’s hard to say sometimes.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t rise to the bait. “The hard drive Midnight had mentioned, we will begin with that. What did you find?”
He sighed. “Not much. It’s just jumbled together Japanese, like a bad haiku.”
She tapped her nails on the table, staring into his sunglasses. “You will work on acquainting yourself with the Quirk. With luck you will be able to produce something actionable in time.”
“Way ahead of you on that,” he commented.
“Your poor showing against Hawks says otherwise,” she shot back. She continued before he could remind her just how long he’s had it. “Midnight brought up the concern with us first, but even if she hadn’t, the idea that you had been compromised was not a stretch.”
Nobuto frowned at that. Suddenly his sister being so distant made more sense.
“You will no longer be acting on these half-baked plans of yours either,” she continued. “To that effect, you will no longer be working under Midnight’s Hero Agency, but directly under us. Temporarily, as you will need your own Hero Agency once we decide you are ready.”
This wasn’t a fight he could win. Not yet. So he just nodded like a good boy.
The head of the Safety Commission relaxed slightly for it. “I won’t pretend this isn’t a good thing for us. If you can get a handle on that Quirk even half as good as its previous owner, you will save us a lot of grief. You could easily become one of this country’s greatest heroes.”
And now she dangled the carrot. It was all very practiced, but he supposed she didn’t need more than that. “I’ll keep that in mind, Madam President.”
She stared at him for a moment longer before she left, her heels the only sound in the quiet room. He had left shortly after himself.
Outside, he took a deep breath as he let himself think freely again. Maybe he was being overly paranoid, but he already had a grudge against the Safety Commission, and this hadn’t improved his view of them.
He sighed again, shaking his head. Spiraling right now would be unproductive.
Nobuto didn’t give a damn about those pencil-pushers, but he did care about his sister. He’d been taking her for granted, and that wasn’t what he wanted.
Maybe this time he’d find the right words…
Comments
Paradosi
Midnight demands 10,000 hugs and a unicorn.
flyfrog
Poor midnight. Need to make it up to her.
