Nanami felt like she woke up before her sleep ended, much like a usual school day. But she could see the sun shining brightly overhead, the sun, however, looked smaller and closer.
"Huh!", Nanami thought as she could hear water splashing on top of itself, much like how she expected waves to sound. But even weirder was that it seemed as if she could hear thoughts out loud. When she got up and looked forward, she saw a beach, it looked exactly like she expected it to look. No one else in sight, till she turned to her right!
"Who are you?", Nanami tried to ask the little girl next to her. However, she couldn't hear her own voice! The little girl pointed at her head as if asking Nanami to think instead of talking.
"So, I think to speak?", Nanami thought and, in fact, she could hear her thoughts out loud.
"Yes", the little girl said… thought, maybe, in a cheery voice.
"Where am I? How did I get here? I think I was doing something, important… I can't seem to remember it though."
"Don't worry, just relax. Isn't the beach, lovely?", the little girl's voice was like that of a little kid, but it was oddly reassuring like an older sister's or a mother's voice. At least, Nanami felt like that and took the advice. Once she looked behind her, she saw a hammock appearing seemingly out of nowhere.
"You are trying to make me relax, but that freaks me out! What is this some future VR technology? How did I end up here?"
"Questions, questions! When was the last time you truly relaxed? You've got a chance now, take it!", the voice was very doting and Nanami felt like listening to it.
"But the insinuation that I can't enjoy something if I get to know about it is insulting", Nanami thought out loud as she laid back on the hammock.
"That's fair, but you earned this. You have worked hard, and you should relax."
"Yeah, I do feel tired though I don't exactly remember why…", Nanami lifted her hand to look at the sun through the gaps between her fingers. A weird picture of a burned hand superimposed itself on her arm for a moment. Though she couldn't care less about that as she saw the sun moving away! "Is the sun moving away? What?"
"It's about to be nighttime I guess, take in all the sunlight you can for now!"
"Nothing about this makes sense, I might as well relax." Nanami looked at the beach as her eyes got heavy. The waves looked as beautiful as they did in her imagination, it was almost dreamy. But as she was about to close her eyes, at the edge of her eyes she saw someone running along the beach and playing with the water. "Wait there is someone else here!"
"Why wouldn't there be?", remarked the little girl.
"Who is that?"
"Why not go and ask her yourself!"
"Her? You know that that's a girl?"
"Yes, I do, you know her too!"
"Huh!"
"WHO ARE YOU?", Nanami thought loudly as if to mirror how she would shout to someone far away. But, in a blink of an eye, the other girl was near her.
"Ah so you are here too!", thought the other girl in a very familiar voice. But, not just that, the other girl looked exactly like Nanami!
"WHAT THE HELL! WHO ARE YOU AND WHY DO YOU HAVE MY FACE? HOW DO YOU KNOW ME?"
"How many times do we have to go over this, I am you!"
"Tetsuya 2.0?"
"I don't know why but that name bothers me… So, what brings you here?"
"I… I would like to know too."
"Hope you get to know too I'll go and rest for now…"
"I always thought that you looked like Tetsuya, never thought much about it.", just as she blinked Tetsuya 2.0 was gone. Now the 'sun' had moved visibly far away, and it started to get dark.
"Let's go!", the little girl said as she jumped off her hammock and headed away from the water.
"I have no idea what you are trying, I feel physically relaxed, but I'm spooked. I mean I knew her, and I remember Tetsuya too, but not where I met him. My memory is filled with holes and I saw someone who looks like me. How the hell am I supposed to relax?"
"Don't think much about it, a massage might help you relax."
"How do you not think much about seeing someone with the same face…", Nanami said as her voice lowered as she noticed a house where they were headed. She was sure she hadn't seen it earlier, but it wouldn't have been the weirdest thing in this place! As they neared the house, Nanami could hear children wailing!
"What is that? What are you doing to children here? Aren't you a kid yourself, what is going on here?", Nanami's voice was undoubtedly full of anger as she rushed in ahead of her 'host' who had led her there. Once inside, she could hear the voice coming from upstairs as she rushed there and frantically opening doors. By the time, she found the correct room, the little girl had entered the house and was on her way up. What Nanami saw, was weird but mostly creepy!
She saw herself and 3 younger kids, looking like her younger self, helping identical-looking toddlers sleep! In a place where she saw the sun moving away from the planet, this had to be the weirdest thing she saw, almost screamed out loud but then no voice came out as her mind had gone blank. It got even weirder when one of the three younger kids told the toddlers, "You are an A-section student, aren't you supposed to be better? Shouldn't you go to sleep earlier than the B-Section kid!", only to be smacked by another kid of her size!
"I… I… What even? Why?", Nanami couldn't form sentences anymore, she was utterly confused!
"Telling you to not worry would just make it worse, let's just go to the spa, for now, I'll explain what I can, let the young ones sleep.", her host had caught up to her. Even though she was a lot younger than Nanami, her voice sounded a lot more mature! To be fair, any voice in that situation would have sounded calmer than Nanami's voice!
"Wha… I… All right.", the things she saw hadn't properly registered yet.
Soon, in fact, almost instantaneously, they were at the spa! Nanami couldn't relax, there was something at the back of her mind telling her that she had forgotten something, and everything about this place strongly fell in the uncanny valley.
"So? How can you explain any of this? How can you make any of this relaxing in any way?", her restlessness was quite justified and overflowing at this point.
"We are in your head."
"That makes even lesser sense! Okay, maybe not but it doesn't make much sense either!"
"Maybe because you were in a hurry…", the little girl said as they got out of the spa and were almost immediately receiving a massage in the next moment! "… but didn't that house look similar, at least the rooms?"
"They… wait what the… that was the…The orphanage?!"
"Yes. It is usually abstract but since you are here you are giving it shape through your, well, subconscious. I am not sure if that's the right word. Pardon me, I'm not a brain scientist or whatever.", Nanami again realised that who she was talking to was only just a kid, albeit a very knowledgeable and mature sounding kid!
"Wait so, without me here you guys are just floating in… my mind? What the hell?"
"It isn't bad actually, I mean it's nothing, I can't judge nothing, can I?"
"And you stay here, if I'm guessing correctly, and babysit, young 'me's and you aren't the only one who is not me? This is very, I don't think there is a word for what this is!"
"I'm not the only one who is not you! There is 'mom' and 'dad'"
"What, you mean you stay with your family in my mind?"
"I mean the little ones are my family, but the other helpers are designated 'mom' and 'dad'."
"So… where are these 'mom' and 'dad', I didn't see them!"
"Who do you think is giving us the massage?"
"Huh?", Nanami turned back and shouted harder than she ever did because of fear! 2 headless people were giving them a massage! "… WHAT IS THIS? WHO ARE THEY?", she screamed as she backed off from them.
"Beats me, they help me and don't do anything else!"
"Why are you doing this? Why did you bring me here? What was I doing before?"
"I was trying to help you relax but your mind is apparently very scary for you. I am sorry, I'm just trying to help, I didn't think you couldn't relax in your own mind after suffering such pain, which is probably what brought you here."
"Pain? I remember being hurt but how?"
"I thought you could relax more if you forgot about your pain, you did relax for quite some time, with breaks in between. Try not to overwork yourself!"
"Nothing about this is relaxing, feeling like not having a part of yourself, seeing everything that I saw today, none of it! Not at all relaxing and… who were those kids, uh little 'me's I guess? Why are they here?"
"Gamma, or the one you called Tetsuya 2.0, grew up here. The others are too."
"I… where do I know them from…", as Nanami tried to strain her memory, she could remember that she knew all of them from somewhere, but she didn't know from where! But she could hear them thinking nearby, in a slightly mature voice for the kids she had seen. She rushed out to see the trio she saw before, but significantly bigger than the ones she saw before, they mostly ignored her, but she could hear them conversing.
"Jeez, they are a handful!"
"Especially that A-section idiot…"
A-section? This triggered memories but nothing complete until she could hear one of the toddlers shout out loud, "DIE!"
"Bakougo! My match! I have to go back to my match!", everything around her started to move away. Other than the little girl who had accompanied her throughout.
"You could've rested a little longer you had some time left!"
"My match was yesterday! I have stayed here for a day at least! What even are you going on about?"
"Do not forget to relax I suppose!"
As everything around her started to get engulfed in what looked like daylight, Nanami asked: "What is your name?"
"My name is Er-", the voice faded as Nanami opened her eyes, the burning sensation from her right hand still as bad as she remembered, and turned to her left where she could see someone who resembled Midnight, trying to lift her hand to declare the result of the match for the second time.
However, Nanami got up just before Midnight could declare the result. Since she was still in bounds and apparently, wasn't knocked out yet, the match was yet to be decided! Everyone was in shock, especially Midnight. Never before had she felt hasty in trying to finish a match! However, most surprisingly for the viewers, Bakougo was the least surprised after seeing his opponent get up, who had presumably knocked herself out!
"You better not knock yourself out, after calling yourself better than me!", he shouted at his opponent.
"Knocking myself out seemed lame, taking the win seems more up my alley!", Nanami replied at the face of her fast-approaching opponent!