Chapter Twenty-Two: Questions and Conversations
Aoi had carried her home.
Koharu blinked awake on the girl's back, her face buried in long silver hair that smelt like oranges. The tall girl shuffled her feet as they travelled down the sidewalk. Her hands had looped securely under Koharu's thighs, and her weight shifted slowly under her. Aoi handled her like something delicate— breakable, if not already broken. She couldn't remember the last time she was handled with such care.
She left Koharu at her door with endless apologies and a promise to get some sleep. It was a vow that Koharu was familiar enough with breaking that she felt no shame in plastering on that fake smile and agreeing that she would take care of herself. Aoi had called her a liar, but let her go regardless.
Red eyes haunted her as she tried to shower the morning away: the sweet smell of the cafe that stuck to her skin, of oranges and pear tarts.
The mirror reflected the Koharu she knew. Her hair, even soaking wet, was a vibrant purple against her pale skin. Black eyes poured into her own, flashing orange at her call. Her fingers traced down her unmarred skin as she wondered how it would eventually come to be split open. She hadn't looked significantly older, so in theory, it would happen soon.
What was she? If that had truly been a vision of her future, Koharu had no way to reconcile the truth of her current existence with the one Aoi had shown her. There was no way Koharu was capable of holding up a fallen beam, let alone a fallen building. And if Aoi's vision was to be believed, eventually Koharu's eyes would turn red.
Like Shouta's, she thought— like Eraserhead.
The red of Eraserhead's eyes meant the complete cancellation of one's Quirk. The orange of Koharu's meant the transfer of Quirks from one person to another. In their years of training together, Shouta had never had cause to use his Erasure Quirk against her; Koharu's Quirk offered her no enhancement, no special attacks or increased durability. She was only human. His fists were plenty to take her down.
And yet, she had managed to stand unharmed in a crumbling building, and made it look effortless.
Needless to say, Koharu had a lot of questions.
The first question, the glaring question, was how she did it. The answer, somewhat obvious and wholly unsettling, was that she had transferred someone else's Quirk into her own body. Which meant that somewhere down the line, her Quirk would evolve and she would learn to transfer Quirks to herself as well as others. Perhaps the red of her eyes wasn't even her own, but a reflection of someone else's Quirk, which brought her to her second set of questions—
Who did she take the Quirk from? As far as she could see, there had been no one there but herself and Aoi. Koharu's Quirk had always been vision-based, so how had she maintained the Quirk without being able to see the other person? And who was the other person— the 'we' she had spoken about'? Was she a part of a team? Did she have a partner?
Who else had been there? Who was that familiar 'we'?
Who?
"Hey, Kirishima."
The red-haired boy looked up from his conversation with Kaminari and Bakugou as Koharu dropped her lunch tray down next to his own. His smile was as immediate as his attention. "Hey! I thought you usually ate with Midoriya today?"
Bakugou scowled fiercely at the mention of Midoriya's name, but all three firmly disregarded it in polite company.
"Plans change, gotta keep 'em on their toes," Koharu vaguely replied as she sat down next to Kaminari, greeting with him a nudge out of the seat adjacent to Kirishima. Koharu blissfully ignored his grumbling as she took his place. "Anyway, I've got a question about your Quirk."
Kirishima snickered as he watched Kaminari shooed from his place. The redhead dropped his chin into his palm with a grin. "Go for it."
"Do you think it could help you to hold up, like… a couple tonnes of falling material?"
Beside Koharu, Kaminari balked at her words. "Are you crazy? Just what are you planning, devil?"
Koharu rolled her eyes, and murmured a quick— "One second." She turned in her seat, her full attention on the blond sitting beside her. "First— devil? Really?"
"It's 'cause you look like this!" Kaminari held both of his pointer fingers up at the top of his head, mimicking little horns. "It's the purple hair. You look like the devil emoji!"
"Ah," Koharu said with a nod. "I see. Makes sense. Anyway, it'd be a really shit plan if I just spit it out like that, wouldn't it? Where's the element of surprise? The pizzazz? I wouldn't go blabbing my mouth if I was going to drop a building on Kirishima." She turned back to Kirishima with an expectant look. "Well?"
"You're both idiots," Bakugou announced.
"Hey," Kirishima scolded, watching his friends across from him fondly. Koharu and Kaminari puffed up at his defence. "Just because you're right doesn't mean you have to say it." Their shoulders dropped.
"I fucking hate you all," Koharu said, trying to mean every bit. "Can we get back to the point?"
Bakugou snorted. "You're the one with the shitty attention span and weird questions."
"Shut up," she firmly replied. She pointedly placed her palm out so that Bakugou was blocked from her view. "Kirishima?"
Kirishima scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I don't know, honestly. I mean, I'm pretty strong, but I've never done anything as intense as having a building dropped on me."
"Ugh," Koharu said. She slouched down into her seat. "Alright. Thanks anyway."
Kaminari jabbed his fork in her direction. "You're being super ominous right now. It's freaking me out."
"Just what are you expecting? It's not like I'm strong enough to do crap like that, either." Koharu responded with a small snort. "Anyway, it isn't manly, y'know. I'd rather kick someone's ass face-to-face than drop a building on them."
"The spirit is there, but the sentiment is…" Kirishima wobbled his hand back and forth.
"And you're sure your Quirk doesn't make you a She-Hulk?"
"Nope! Just invisible!"
"Fuck! Thanks anyway."
"Hey, Uraraka."
"Mmm?" Her responding hum sounded over the line.
"You remember your fight with Iida and Bakugou, right?"
Uraraka giggled. "Of course. We kicked their butts!"
"Right," Koharu agreed with a huffed laugh of her own. "When you were fighting Iida, you swung a pillar around like a bat. How's that work?"
"Oh! Well… if I touch something with my fingertips, it's like it becomes weightless! So nothing is really too heavy to use."
"D'you think you could hold up a couple tonnes of falling building?"
"What?" came Uraraka's startled response. "I guess maybe I misspoke… some things are still too heavy for me, and I'll get really nauseous. And unless I'm holding it down, everything would just float away. I might just make things worse in that situation."
"I don't know if that's true," said Koharu with a thoughtful hum. "Even if things would crash down eventually, you could make things float long enough to get people out, and that would be helpful, right?"
She heard the gears turning in Uraraka's head. "Yeah!" She cried with a sudden enthusiasm. "You're right! And if I just keep training, I'll be strong enough for sure!"
"Totally." Koharu nodded, knowing the other girl wouldn't be able to see her over the phone. "I know I'd want you around if a pillar was about to fall on my head."
"Don't be silly," tittered Uraraka. "You wouldn't need my help. Why are you asking, anyway?"
"Ahh, it's nothing. Just something I was thinking about," lied Koharu. "Anyway, what did you get for question four? I don't think I did this right…"
"Oh no! I was hoping you could tell me!"
"Ah, fuck… let's call Yaoyorozu, I bet she'll know."
"Good idea! I'll call her right now!"
"How many cakes would it take for you to catch a building?"
"W-what?!"
"How many cakes?!"
"Hey, Midoriya. I wanted to ask for your help with—"
"Yes."
Koharu laughed and swatted Midoriya's arm. "I haven't even finished the question yet, you goof. What if I'm asking you something ridiculous?"
The boy's cheeks flushed a bright red, and he avoided Koharu's gaze. "S-sorry, you're right, I just assumed you were asking for a favour."
Smiling, Koharu gripped tightly onto the straps of her backpack so she wouldn't ruffle his hair. Midoriya was just so cute sometimes. "What if I was asking you to go beat someone up, or something like that?"
"I would have thought you would rather beat them up yourself?"
"You got me there," Koharu conceded with a grin. "Anyway, it's not a favour, really. It's more of a question."
Midoriya's head tilted to the side. "You're going to ask me about a falling building, aren't you?"
"What?" she gasped. "How did you know?"
"You haven't exactly been subtle in asking everyone about it," he pointed out with a furrow of his brows. "You were even talking to that guy from Class 1-B yesterday, weren't you? The one who yelled at Kacchan?"
Koharu let out an exaggerated happy sigh. "Ahh, I have my own personal stalker. Now I really know I've made it."
"N— no! I'm not— that wasn't—!" Midoriya's face was beet red as he loudly stammered his rebuttals, arms waving in front of his face. "S-s-stalker?!"
"Sorry!" Koharu said, laughing. She caught one of Midoriya's arms as it flung by her face, and shoved it down to his side. "I was teasing. Relax, dummy."
Midoriya's other hand still covered half of his face. "You're really mean sometimes," he mumbled.
She smiled. "I said I was sorry. Can I finish the question now?" At his nod, she explained, "I know that you're always analyzing people's Quirks and fighting styles, right? You're always mumbling about it." Koharu kicked her toe into the ground. "Do you think I could ever hold up a tonne? Could I stop a falling building?"
Midoriya regarded her silently, his gaze on her thoughtful as he considered her question. "Koharu, why are you asking about that?"
That was answer enough. Midoriya knew that she couldn't do it either.
"Does the 'why' really matter?" she said instead of the truth.
"I think it does. Something really seems to be bothering you lately," Midoriya observed, making Koharu flinch. "Are you worried about the Sports Festival?"
Yes. No. There was a lot she was worried about, and somehow the Sports Festival had become the least of it.
She grimaced. "Yeah, I guess so. I really want to do well."
"Do you really think they're going to drop buildings on us?" Midoriya skeptically asked. "I've never seen anything that extreme before. I don't think that you have to worry about that."
"You're right," chirped Koharu. "I'm sure everything will be fine. They'd never do anything so extreme."
"Hey! You look strong! How strong are you?!"
"E— excuse me?"
"Koharu! Don't go around challenging random people!"
"I wasn't challe— hey! S-stop it! Iida, quit dragging me, I won't—!"
"Hey, dumbass."
Koharu looked up from her feet and over her shoulder, surprised to find Bakugou walking towards her with a scowl on his face. "Don't be fucking rude," she said as she turned to face him. "What do you want?"
"Ask me your weird questions."
Koharu raised an eyebrow. She took in the high rise of Bakugou's shoulders, hands shoved in his pockets and a deep sneer on his face. He certainly didn't look like someone up for a chat— he seemed more like a cat ready to fight. "What weird questions?"
Somehow, his face grew darker. "Don't play dumber than usual."
"Why?" she asked instead. "Are you bothered that I asked everyone else but you? Because either way, I'm not sure how you expect to tell me that you could stop a falling building—"
"Don't presume to know what I can and can't do," he furiously interrupted. "I'm only getting started! You have no idea what I'm capable of."
His red eyes were glowing with his passionate declaration. Koharu remembered the red of her own.
"Right," she said, suddenly breathless. "Bakugou, could you stop a falling building?"
"You bet your fucking ass that I could."
chapter end
M — wb! I hope the twist didn't totally throw you off! Aoi's involvement has been planned since the beginning, and I'm really excited to start the story-line. Thanks for your review!
Otakugirl1996 — wb! I'm so glad for readers like you xo thanks for your review!
Fahdza — Thank you so much for your three reviews! I'm so happy that you think Koharu is awesome. Seeing your reviews roll in totally made my day.
BitchBetterHaveMyHoney — One of the first things I thought of while imagining this fic was the inevitable scene of one of Aizawa's students coming to his front door to pick up his little sister for a date and having him answer the door lmao. I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story and that you like Koharu! She's super fun to write. Thanks for your review!