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Darkest Before Dawn - 79
🕑 Added 2024-09-26 17:52:14 +0000 UTCChapter 79
“None of your Grimm are very temperature resistant,” Shoto commented during yet another day of brainstorming Quirk ideas in the morning. “Except for the node powered ones,” he added thoughtfully. “Maybe you could add something for that?”
“Something for less direct means… You’re not wrong. Boarbatusks tank, but it’s true that fire and ice deal a lot of damage in comparison to straightforward attacks,” Kazuki mused, leaning back on his chair and looking up as he considered that.
“Kyoka and Kaminari do a fair bit of damage too,” Momo pointed out, to which he nodded. She was right about that too. Granted, the latter always fried his brain too, but that really didn’t take away from the issue. Just because Kaminari wasn’t a danger to him didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t have a similar Quirk that’d be more troublesome.
“I guess I should make a new Grimm or two,” he thought out loud. “It’s been a while.”
“Two?” Shoto asked curiously… or so Kazuki thought. It was hard to read him most of the time, what with how muted his emotions were and how impassive his expression was. He was getting better at that, but not really all that quick. The trick was in his voice though, Kazuki found, even if it was still very subtle.
“I’m thinking of making a more damage oriented Grimm,” Kazuki replied, leaning forward and tapping his pencil on the open notebook on his desk. “That’s the base idea, but I want to try and not sacrifice defense too much.”
“Maybe less mobility?” Momo suggested. “Unless you want to keep everything. That might complicate matters.”
“I think the Beowolf is as good as it gets for an all-rounder,” he commented, dragging the back of his pencil down the list of grimm he had written down. Beowolves were, after all, relatively fast, relatively strong and relatively sturdy. Relatively being the keyword everywhere there. It was his Jack of all Trades, Master of None, as it were. Which wasn’t bad, really, as they’d proven several times. Sometimes covering several bases with something “good enough” was better than a specialized option that’d leave other things unattended. “So, anything you two are working on?”
“Nothing today for me,” Momo answered, frustration spiking in her. “I pushed a little too hard yesterday. I have to take a day off to recover,” she mumbled, clearly displeased. Kazuki could only look on in amusement- “Don’t say it,” the girl growled.
“We told you so,” he said anyway, drawing a sound that was halfway between a groan and a whine from her. “How was it again?”
“I told you not to say it,” Momo whined before her shoulders slumped and her head dropped. Good, she should be ashamed.
“I know what I’m doing, guys. I got it,” he mimicked in his worst Momo impression. “I can literally tell if you are pushing too hard,” he told her, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.
“Shut uuuuup,” the girl continued to protest, uncharacteristically childish. It was kind of adorable though, he’d admit.
“So we are bullying Momo now?” a new voice asked from behind her and he grinned.
“Maybe then she won’t have to hold off training because she pushed too hard,” he commented, glancing over his shoulder and trying to pinpoint Toru’s eyes once more. It was fun to do and he even could tell when he succeeded, or so he thought. She’d get this awkward emotion he could pick up whenever he – he suspected – managed.
“Toru,” Momo muttered, turning to stare at the invisible girl. “I’m warning you-”
“We told you so,” Toru said mercilessly, driving the poor rich girl further into her ashamed state. That’s what she got for worrying everyone. “Anyway, let me cut this conversation short,” the invisible girl continued, moving her arm in what he guessed was a chop gesture. “We’ve been studying and training for way too long,” she added with utmost seriousness. “Thus, I have decided-”
“Since when do you say “thus”?” Kazuki couldn’t help but ask.
“As I was saying,” she continued, and he could almost feel the glare she was directing at him. It made him put on his best innocent smile. “I have decided we need to have a fun outing for once. It’s been forever since the last time we got together for something that wasn’t school related.”
“More like a week,” he commented with a raised eyebrow.
“Forever,” Toru repeated, nodding as if that was what he’d said. “Our poor brains are getting fried here.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” he said, before both of them turned towards the door when it opened a little stronger than usual. In came Minoru, looking a little out of sorts.
“Guys,” the vertically challenged boy said as a greeting. He seemed kind of out of it, from what Kazuki could pick up. It was an odd mix of fear and desperation, but it didn’t feel nearly as bad as such a combination probably should have. “What’s the rescue protocol with collapses where there’s water involved? I couldn’t find it and I couldn’t fucking-”
““Language,”” both Kazuki and Momo chided.
“Just answer the question!”
Kazuki resolutely didn’t look at Toru, even though he couldn’t see the smugness on her face anyway. He just knew it was there though. The silence and the fact that she was facing him gave her away.
“Hm, fairly sure…” Momo mused out loud, pulling out a book and flipping through the pages while Minoru moved to look at her book… as best he could, standing on tiptoes.
“Say, Minoru, we were talking about hanging out-” Toru started, but she got interrupted before she could continue.
“Yes! God, yes! I don’t wanna see another book in my life!”
“You’ll probably need to though.”
“Shut up, Kazuki!” was the rather rude response he got. “Anywhere is fine. Just not studying, please,” Minoru said pitifully. Meanwhile, Kazuki just stared at him, knowing that he’d been beaten. Not like he was against just hanging out, of course, but it was the principle of the matter…
Actually… he didn’t remember why he’d taken that side of the argument.
“Don’t look so smug, Toru.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Kazuki. I’m invisible.”
“I can almost see the insufferable smug expression.”
His only answer was a giggle.
[}-o-{]
“Sitting with us?” he asked, unnecessarily, but it was more of a reflex question, really.
“Yeah,” Chikuchi answered simply.
The General course student had taken to sitting with them at times during lunch. He’d asked if that caused any issues with her classmates, but apparently people liked her a whole lot more than Shinso. He wasn’t too sure what one thing had to do with the other, but he supposed that made sense to them somehow. Maybe they’d decided to focus their hate on the boy and leave her alone?
That suited him just fine, really.
Besides, she had a shoe in for the Hero class, as far as he was concerned. If she didn’t get in, then he was likely to riot. Well, it wouldn’t be that bad, but he sure as hell was going to ask why and if there was anything he could do to help. The girl was working her ass off to catch up with them, both training wise and study wise. There was no way she’d be less hero material than them.
None of that was important at that moment though.
“You really went and did it, huh?” she asked him and he blinked at her while the rest of his group of friends stopped eating and turned towards her. “You really approached the Management students.”
“Yes? I did tell you I would, didn’t I?” he asked back, genuinely confused. He was pretty sure he’d told her when he asked about them. Was he remembering that wrong?
“You did, but I didn’t think you’d just go for it that very day,” Chikuchi told him, somehow angry at him because of that. Although, maybe angry was the wrong word to use. She did seem sort of upset about that. “You could have waited. I’d have checked with others. Could have asked around too. We are close to that course, but I don’t know that much and I’ve been out of the loop for a bit.”
“Did you find out something bad about them?” he asked, a little worried now. Her info wasn’t the only one he’d had for that, but maybe there was something everyone had missed?
“No, but still, Boss, what the fuck?”
““Language.””
“What’s the point of just taking what I told you that very day? At least wait one more day so I can check or something!”
“Chikuchi, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine!”
“It is,” he insisted, now more relaxed and with a smile on his face. “I appreciate the concern, but I’d already checked with the school too. They had good things to say about those students, so I checked with you just in case they had missed something. Didn’t seem to be the case,” he explained to her, trying to be as reassuring as possible.
“They aren’t omniscient, you know?” Chikuchi told him and he chuckled.
“You’d be surprised,” he commented, fairly sure that Nezu was always watching. Or, at least, that was the impression he got. It should have been worrying, he supposed, but instead it was… reassuring, in a way. “It ended up going well, didn’t it?”
“You are a shit Boss, you know?” the girl grumbled. Idly, Kazuki noted that the rest of the table was following their conversation like one would a ping-pong match. “You are supposed to be smart so you can lead.”
“You know that’s a joke, right?” he told her, making her look away. His eyes widened a little at the stab of pain that she seemed to feel then. “What?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Chikuchi mumbled, turning her eyes to her food and starting to eat. Evidently, she wasn’t going to make eye contact with him anymore. Not that he needed it to read her, but still.
‘Ok… How do I go about this?’ he wondered. It wasn’t like he could take back what he said and she’d know he was lying anyway. Still, he didn’t want to hurt her. She was a friend, after all. He might have much more friends than he’d ever dared to hope, but that didn’t mean they were less important to him.
“You can be a great hero on your own, Chikuchi. You don’t need to stick with me like that,” he told her, but that didn’t seem to help much, apparently. ‘Am I missing something?’
“I don’t need to, but what if I want to?” she asked and he had no answer to that, even though he looked for one. “I don’t think I’d have this chance without you, you know? Maybe sticking with you is the way to go.”
“And I wouldn’t have this chance without Nezu, but you don’t see me turning into his employee, do you?” Kazuki replied, trying to make it clear that he wasn’t trying to insult her or something. Still though… what the fuck?
“I’m not forcing myself, you know? This isn’t a chore, or something I’m putting up with because I think it’s convenient or I owe you. I just…” Chikuchi tried to explain, trailing off as words failed her. “I just want to,” she ended up saying, shrugging her shoulders and keeping her gaze locked on the food tray.
Kazuki, for his part, held back on replying to her. Instead, he focused on her emotions. She seemed… a little frustrated. There was still pain there too. However, none of those could quite compare to the combination of anxiety, nervousness, doubt and more that he picked up. An amalgam of emotions that he was familiar with, very much so.
Insecurity.
“Well,” he said, putting on his best mask. He could deal with his own feelings on the matter later. At that moment though, he needed to do something else. “Welcome to the team, I guess.”
He felt a little better when she perked up, a hint of a smile already on her face.
“Haven’t graduated and you are already recruiting for your agency, Kazuki? Damn,” Minoru chimed in then, reminding them that they weren’t alone. He sounded impressed though, Kazuki noted, and then he whistled to add to the dramatics. “Can I join?”
“First of all, language,” he replied, turning and giving his friend a decidedly unimpressed look. “Second of all, you have to call me Boss.”
“In your dreams.”
[}-o-{]
“Hello, Endo. I hope you had a good day,” Inui greeted him, as usual. He almost always said the same thing, Kazuki had noticed long before then. Some probably would have found that annoying, insincere. Not him though, because he had never noticed any annoyance, any boredom or any other sign that’d point to the whole thing being a chore.
“It was nice,” he replied honestly. It had been one more day. He’d gotten up, had breakfast, gone to school, talked with his friends, studied and then he was there. Business as usual, as far as he was concerned. He liked those kinds of days. Anything that wasn’t a bad day was a win, really. “I’m not complaining.”
“About your day,” the man clarified, leaning back and looking at him. “Anything else you do want to complain about?” Inui asked curiously.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you? Or are you acting fine?” the counselor prodded. “You know what we think about that.”
“I do,” he agreed with a nod, taking a deep deep breath in and gathering his thoughts for a moment. “Honestly, acting helps. I can almost push the emotions aside to stay in character, you know? I can almost believe that I feel only what I think I should and nothing else.”
“Almost,” Inui pointed out and he nodded again, a bitter smile on his face, replacing the act.
“Almost,” he repeated as he turned to look outside the window for a moment. “Everyone is very nervous, with the exams coming.”
“And so are you, because of them,” Inui correctly guessed.
“It’s… very shitty, you know? I’m not nervous, for once. I’ve dealt with much more scary stuff than this, but I’m nervous anyway because everyone else is,” he explained, chuckling weakly. “Sometimes I wonder if I just can’t win, man.”
“You’ve won plenty, Endo,” Inui told him. Were it anyone else, Kazuki might have commented or otherwise shown how he doubted that. However, this was Inui. He’d explain himself and he owed the man letting him do that. “You just focus on the negatives rather than the positives. That’s just human nature; everyone does that. Just like we gained our Quirks, we’ve been hardwired through evolution to do that. You might just have a harder time dealing with that than most, considering your Quirk and your…”
“Generally depressing situation?” he finished for him. “No news there, Inui,” he added, feeling his mood plummet by the second. Yet, he didn’t think it’d reach the lows he’d hit several times during sessions such as that. Things were… “I am doing better, I guess. There’s nothing for me to really feel bad about and now I know my Quirk can drag me down even then. So… it sucks, and maybe it’s not much, but I have been doing better.”
“I’m happy to hear that, Endo,” Inui replied and Kazuki wondered how much he meant that. Sadly, his Quirk would never be able to help him know how positive things were. No wonder he had a harder time acknowledging those were even a thing, he supposed. “I’m sensing a but here.”
“Well, there’s several,” Kazuki said dryly, but it was mostly a joke. Mostly being the operative word there. “All the nerves and fear and such have me thinking, should I feel worried about the exams? Maybe I’m being too confident or something? Should I be working harder, studying more, training more?”
“From what you’ve been telling me? You are working enough. Anymore and it’d just be detrimental, I imagine,” Inui answered… but it wasn’t really an answer, Kazuki noticed. He hadn’t said anything regarding the important parts. Alas, he suspected that was very much on purpose. “Do your best, Kazuki. Even if things don’t go as you’d want them to, it won’t be the end of the world.”
“Failing an exam sounds like the end of the world to me though,” he replied, feeling slightly frustrated at the lack of answers. Then again, if it were that easy to get info, people probably wouldn’t be nearly as nervous. “If I fail, that’s gonna screw me over, I just know it. Maybe not here, but in general. If I give the vultures anything, they’ll eat me alive.”
Was that a dramatic way to put it, definitely. It was, however, true too. The press would have a field day if they learned he failed an exam. A final exam at that.
“It’ll be ok, Endo,” Inui told him, but that just made him huff and look away. If only it were that easy to relax. Hell, he’d told the guy that he was confident. He just couldn’t deal with everyone else. “Anything else?” the counselor asked, very much showing that he wasn’t a therapist. Kazuki was pretty sure no therapist should be that much of a pain to deal with.
Or look that amused while at it.
“Well… I have other reasons to be nervous now too, if that helps,” he answered sarcastically, earning himself a raised eyebrow. “I was talking with Uwabami the other day-”
“Again,” Inui chimed like the insufferable guy that he was proving to be at times.
“-and she asked me if I’d like to take part in movies and ads like she does,” he continued, unaffected by the interruption other than an eyeroll. “I told her that I’d like to, if it helped me. It took her no time at all to find something. So… I don’t know what the play is here. Pretty sure whatever deal brought me to this school didn’t include this.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Let me make a call or two and I should have all the answers, alright?”
[}-o-{]
Even after a lot of talking with Inui, he was still feeling very nervous about the movie thing.
Fortunately, Maeda had told him that there was no rush, since things were still being worked on, details were being hammered and edges were smoothed. As it was, he’d been reassured that, if this happened at all, it’d take some time. That was very effective at taking some of his worries away. At least, even if it made him nervous, the thing would spell doom for him if it went badly, not with Uwabami on his side, and it also wasn’t around the corner, which certainly helped.
Taking a deep breath in, he tried to dispel his worries… which wasn’t quite as effective as other times. After all, this wasn’t entirely caused by his Quirk. Kazuki was nervous about it and that meant he couldn’t quite try and push it away like he would his Quirk’s feedback.
Letting the air out of his lungs with a drawn out sigh, he resigned himself to dealing with things, at least until he got home and had things to distract himself. As he did though, he crossed the gates of the school and, predictably, he found someone waiting outside. That wasn’t rare nor worrying, not anymore.
For one, he was getting used to dealing with reporters, even if he’d rather not. For another, the person didn’t look like a reporter to him, so he guessed it was fine. They probably weren’t even there for him. Maybe waiting for another student or someone from the staff? Alas, those guesses were thrown out the window when the man approached him. There were emotions spiking too, fear, pain and anger.
Kazuki immediately realized what was going on.
‘Took longer than I thought.’
“Kazuki Endo,” the man said as a way of greeting him, his expression as if set in stone. “I’m Jurou Mase,” he introduced himself then. The name didn’t ring any bells, but he recognized that surname. It took Kazuki only a moment to find what he was looking for.
‘Grimm victim, lost arm and leg.’
“A relative of Tomiko Mase, I’m guessing,” he said, visibly catching the man off guard, considering the widening of his eyes. It was also a confirmation, if he ever saw one.
“... She’s my sister,” Mase told him, his emotions getting worse. His anger wasn’t too great though, Kazuki noticed with some relief.
“I know it means nothing or less than nothing to you, but I am sorry,” he continued, calming himself and bowing a little. “I hope she’s doing well,” he added, gulping down his own emotions.
Instead of answering, the man stared at him for a long moment that felt like years to Kazuki. In the end, he balled his hands into fists, took a deep breath in… And Kazuki prepared himself to be punched in the face. All in all, a small price to pay, he supposed. They were right outside U.A., so he doubted he’d get many hits in before someone stepped in. Some punches were nothing in the grand scheme of things and if that helped this man and, more importantly, Tomiko feel better, then so be it.
Then, to his surprise, the man relaxed his hands and sighed.
“She is,” the man answered, which was even more of a shock to Kazuki. “She didn’t want to come and she didn’t want me to come either,” he added, visibly reigning in his emotions. “I think I get it now.” Well, that made a lot of sense… not.
However, the man seemed to be calming down, not only outwardly but internally. There was plenty of pain and the frustration clung on, but the anger had all but vanished. So, Kazuki stood there, letting the man gather his thoughts.
“She forgives you,” the man told him in the end, sounding very done with everything. Despite the tone though, his words washed away all the negative thoughts Kazuki had had through the whole day. “And I do too, for whatever it might be worth,” he added wryly.
“It’s worth more than I could tell you,” he replied, smiling at the man. “Thank you, truly.”
“Don’t mention it,” Jurou told him, waving him off and looking anywhere but at him. At least his emotions didn’t show any aggression anymore, so Kazuki took comfort in that fact. “That’s… that’s all I wanted to say. Sorry for taking your time.”
And with that, he just turned and left.
That… had certainly been an interaction, Kazuki supposed. ‘What a rollercoaster of emotions,’ he thought, taking a deep breath in to try and gather his own thoughts. That hadn’t gone as he expected, but that wasn’t really a bad thing. The opposite, in fact. ‘I can only hope all-’ His musings were interrupted when he turned to leave himself and found another man waiting by his side. Another civilian by the looks of it.
Lots of frustration and anger, but there was something odd about them.
“Kazuki Endo,” the man greeted and it gave him a sense of déjà vu. “You say you want to be a hero, but you went on an internship with Uwabami of all people,” he said and that was certainly a shock. “How do you expect your victims to believe you?”
“Uwabami is a hero,” he argued, almost on instinct. If his victims and people close to them had something against him, that was fine, but the people helping him had nothing to do with that. “She’s helped countless people. Maybe she’s not out there all the time and maybe she does other things too, but she’s a hero. She’s a hero to me and to a lot of people.”
“... So you say,” the man replied, clearly not convinced at all. However, his words seemed to give him pause, as he looked Kazuki up and down, as if analyzing him.
He almost wanted to continue arguing, but he had to keep his temper in control.
“Were you a victim, sir?” he asked as politely and well mannered as he could manage. “Or did you know someone?” he added. Because if he wasn’t and didn’t then he’d just defuse and call it a day. He’d already ran out of fucks to give about people that were just out to antagonize him and not even for good reason.
“No,” was the simple, curt answer he got, but that was enough. Now he just needed to… “Maybe you can be a hero. We’ll see.”
“I’ll certainly try,” Kazuki replied, nodding and deciding to just leave. “Have a good day, sir.” There, that was good enough, right? He hadn’t escalated and he hadn’t done anything outright wrong, he was pretty sure.
“My name is Chizome Akaguro,” the man called behind him. “And I’ll be watching you, Beacon, along with the rest of the world.”
“Hope I can give a good showing, then,” Kazuki replied without turning.
[} Chapter End {]
Hey guys! How’s it going?
Just a normal day in the life of Kazuki Endo, guys, nothing to see here.
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
Innocent whistling
Anyway, I have some doubts about some parts of this, as usual. However, for some reason, I don’t feel too nervous about it. Maybe I’m getting more confident?... Or I’m slipping with the quality expectations, which would suck. Let me know if that’s the case.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ
Random Question: What’d you call Kazuki’s seemingly blooming hero team? (Also, how the fuck did that happen?)
See you.
Comments
JACOB HEBERT
Maybe "Foundation"? Idk why that would fit but it feels not bad
