"You really didn't have to do it, you know?" Rei said as he got off the electric car that Takashi was Driving. It was one of the two modes of transport they owned, and Takashi parked it in a small road that ran across two very well-ordained gates made from iron.
Thirteen years had passed since his birth and he was officially a teenager again, which would make him canonically well over twenty-eight.
"What, and miss my Younger Brother's Graduation day?" Takashi said with a laugh.
"Graduation Day was next week," Rei corrected with a sigh, "And besides, it's still undecided... I'm not too confident they'll accept my Thesis on Neural Sentience." He said uncertainly.
"Come on, you? Failing? That has about as much chance of happening as... me being able to breathe in space." He exclaimed.
"That seems... awfully specific," Rei commented with a pitched voice and squinted eyes.
"You'll be fine..." Takashi waved off his concerns with a worry-less attitude, having absolute confidence in Rei's skills in Academics. "We don't call you the Golden Boy for nothing." He said with a playful smirk.
Rei cringed as his muscles tensed up when he heard that. The Nickname that the people at the Campus, as well as a few people in his life, had given him. "Could you not use that?"
"No, I can't! Good luck with everything!" Takashi called out as he drove off. Rei looking on for a while as his brother slowly disappeared into the distance in the car.
Rei, after a moment of staring blankly, looked downwards and smiled distantly.
"Thanks..." He said to his Brother's wish for his triumph.
He then turned and walked up the few steps that led up to the University with firm steps.
The place was called; Minamoto University of Science and Philosophy. One of the best Academic Facilities in Japan.
Usually, the course a scholar had to take at Minamoto was three to four years, but given his distinct aptitude for the field with innumerable amounts of extra credit works he would submit to the Circle. He was on his way to receiving his Neurophysics Diploma within his first year.
Coincidentally, the branch he went to was located not too far from Musutafu, meaning that he could usually take the train to the academy. But this morning, Takashi insisted that he took him instead.
He was now walking down the halls, with no trace of students or professors anywhere. It was absolutely empty while the woodwork bathed in the morning light coming from the windows.
The reason for the inactivity in the hall was not because he was late. But because he was rather early.
Takashi had once again, woke him up way too early for a thing they were planning to do. He had a habit of doing that, it seemed.
Rei knocked on a door, once, twice then three times slowly.
"Hold on...!" A cheerfully old voice called out abruptly, stopping with a huff when the speaker turned to get up from a chair. After a moment of listening to the soft approaching footsteps of an old man, Rei heard a click, and the door's handle turned.
"Let me guess..." The old man, Professor Yamizaki began to smile from the other side as he pulled the door open, revealing the oh-so-familiar face of the top student in his classes.
"Young Omura," He said, amused with how early in the morning Omura arrived, "I know I told you to be early today, but did you even have the time to eat a proper breakfast, young man?" He raised an eyebrow at the boy.
"Well, my older brother may have had something to do with it..." He admitted with an almost dry voice but it was discernable he was a bit ammused. After a brief and faint smile, his stomach growled quite loudly, "And I suppose, that answers your question."
"That it does. Yes, that it does." He then placed his hand on Rei's shoulder as he shook him slightly. "Well, come along." The old man instructed with a small and delighted laugh as he walked past Omura.
Rei followed him through the halls and room until they arrived at the cafeteria.
"How's your father?" The professor idly asked as he grabbed Rei a plate and offered it to the boy.
"He's okay. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen him as happy as he was these past few days." Rei took the plate in his hand a bit stiffly while he looked to the ceiling in thought.
"May I ask the cause?"
"It's mainly me," Rei said with a tinge of pride accompanied by a smile, "He's... proud to have me going here. Better still that I'm one of the top of the-" He shrugged.
"You don't have to be so modest..." The professor interrupted firmly, "Most of us here; we know that you are the brightest among these aspiring scholars." He complimented.
"Haha... Yeah, thank you." Rei said to him with a slight smile.
Rei was finished gathering what he wanted to eat. He then headed to one of the tables to sit down.
"Did you manage to finish it?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes did."
"Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it." His professor said with a smile as he made his leave, walking out the opened cafeteria door back to his office.
Rei began digging into his meal for that morning while he wanted for the others to arrive.
"Now calling... Omura Rei." The speaker on the wall announced.
Rei got up from his seat to present his Thesis on Life. Life in the sense of its most fundamental building block. And his theory on where Sentience comes from.
Rei knocked on the door that led into a room in which three men and one woman sat behind a long wooden table.
The farthest one to the right was a man seeming to be in his early thirties or late twenties. The middle one to their right was a woman, she was elegantly dressed in a purple suit. Her slight traces of grey hair indicated that she was old.
The middle one to their left was the professor that Rei had chat with that morning. He had was balding with only the hairs to the side remaining. He was dressed in a fairly old style, a small pair of round glasses on his nose.
The last one on the left was a man that seemed to be around the same age as the one before. Though he was dressed in a much more recent style of attire.
"Come in." One of the professors beckoned with a small gesture of his hand.
Rei did as he was asked and headed inside. Walking with not a single drag in his steps.
He now stood in front of them. Hands intertwined behind his back, waiting for their queue.
"Now, to begin. Chapter: 1, plausible. The results you stated here will be put to professional experimentation, should you allow it." The professor looked up from a relatively light book and looked at Rei.
"I'll allow it," Rei said surely with a small nod.
"Chapter: 2, proved to be too complicated for our current equipment here at the University. As of now, the confirmation on it is on standby." The only woman on the table stated. "Before we continue, I have to say. You have quite the imagination young man." She complimented.
"Thank you." Rei closed his eyes with a nod.
"Now Chapter: 3. That's quite a bold claim, Rei." The old man that took him to the cafeteria that morning, breathed out apprehensively through his mouth. "Sentience... it's a tricky lass. You danced with quite a dangerous mistress." He continued. He then stood up and took off his Glasses and Hat.
"But you came out alive, Doctor."
Rei looked up wide-eyed. Did he hear him right, was it as easy as that. "I'm sorry?" He asked with squinted eyes.
"He said congratulations. Dr Omura." The younger ones of the bunch said for him.
"Are you serious?" Rei was a bit lightheaded.
"Well don't go celebrating just yet." The woman teased. "We still have to provide concrete evidence that it's true, to the Board."
"Oh, yeah..." Rei stopped his small rejoice and turned to face them with a happy smile instead.
"Excuse me for a moment, but, may I ask what you're going to do after you prove it?" The farthest one on the left asked.
"Do it again," Rei said immediately.
"Eh?" Was the summed up response he got from his Professors,
"What do you mean by 'Do it again.'?" The one with the glasses asked.
"I mean go through a Semester here again. There's so much I still want to learn." He explained. "And I still have the time to, right?" He stated with a smile.
"Now if that's not confidence in one's abilities. I don't know what is..." The woman complimented him again.
"Now, for the youngest boy in history to ever receive a PhD. Omura Rei, will you please come up to the stage." The professor with the small round glasses called out to him.
Rei got up from his seat and began making his way to the stage. His graduation garnered quite the stir, having been the youngest ever to receive a PhD at Thirteen Years of old. Beating the previous record-holder by about three days.
Even though Rei had attempted to keep it under wraps, it still leaked. Garnering the attention of about three different news channels.
"Congratulations, Young Omura." The Professor said as he shook his hand. The boy had insisted on being called Omura rather than Doctor, saying that it felt Pretentious to be called that.
"Thank you, so much." He nodded as he received his Degree and smiled at the flashes.
Standing with the others to take a photo while they all smiled as well.
"Edison Charles Jr, pleased to meet you," A tall dark-skinned man with vibrant brown hair and small round glasses introduced himself as he shook Rei's hand a bit too long.
"Uh... who are you?" Rei scanned the man up and down with a scrutinizing look before he finally let go.
"Just an avid fan of your work," The man said simply. Reaching back behind him, he pulled out a card for identification and showed it to Rei, "And, it seems I'm also the man, who's going to have to translate your paper for the Board at I-Island."
Rei looked at the paper, and sure enough, the Insignia of the Board, which was a top view of the Artificial island was adorned on the card beside his name.
"Ah yes..." Rei said in recognition when he looked at his face more clearly again, "I had insisted that-"
"You would translate your own paper yourself? Come on kid, let some of us keep our jobs, will you?" Edison finished with a laugh, causing Rei to look to the side and shrug nervously.
"Oh, and uh... you might want to brace yourself." Edison began, looking back above the crowd towards the approaching form of a blonde-haired girl running through the crowd.
"What-?"
"Rei!"
"Melissa?" He said as he was smothered in a sudden hug from the girl, of which he released most of the air in his lungs.
She was wearing a brown blouse over a white shirt. Blue Jeans and a pair of Red boots were also on her person. He noticed that she had now, the big Red glasses from the movie.
"Why didn't you tell me you were in the city?" Rei asked with a bit of a struggle, regaining his breath with short coughs.
"I wanted to surprise you. Congratulations by the way!" She said as she held out her hand for him to shake.
Rei looked on for a moment before he grabbed her palm and shook. "Received," He said with a nod and an almost exasperated smile.
"Is your Papa here with you?" He asked as he began to look around. "Oh, there he is,"
David was waving at them from beside the gate that led into the Ceremony Grounds.
Rei and Melissa began to walk towards him.
"Uncle David." Rei acknowledged as they arrived. David was wearing his casual clothes, A beige colour jacket over a white shirt with khaki pants. Rei also noticed that he too, now had his glasses.
"So, a PhD. Didn't think you'd want that..." David said with a smile.
"Yeah, well I wanted to see how far I could push this thing." He gestured to his head with a laugh.
"Papa, could we tell him the good news?" Melissa eagerly asked her father, to which he nodded.
"What good news?" Rei asked as his attention switched, looking back and forth between them with an intrigued look in his eyes.
"Do you know about the Quirk Singularity?" Melissa turned to face him with a wide smile.
"Yes...?" Rei was confused as to where this was going.
"The elementary particle that makes quirks exist, and evolve as time goes on?"
"Yeah?"
Melissa looked to her father, who had a proud smirk on his face.
"We could manipulate it." She started eagerly, but in a hushed voice, bending forwards to Rei's head.
The revelation caused Rei to jerk his head back in shock, eyes widening suddenly.
"You could... manipulate it?" He asked unsurely.
"Yeah, isn't it great?" She practically bounced in place with how excited she seemed to be.
"You're sure?" Rei asked for the final time to confirm, brows frowning in nervousness.
"Well, we're not quite at the level of control people with quirks have. We are currently researching mapping out their Genetic Strands to understand how they do it." She explained.
"Oh." Rei supposed it made sense. Artificially engineered quirks were a bit of a stretch for him at the moment. "But still, progress is progress right?" He said with a smile.
"Right!" She cheered again, completely agreeing with Rei's statement.
Rei looked to David. "Are you staying in Musutafu?" Rei asked the scientist.
"If you're planning to invite us to dinner. I'm afraid we'll have to decline." He stated sadly.
Rei looked to Melissa for an explanation.
"Yeah, we barely had enough time to attend your graduation, sorry..." She looked sincerely sad about it.
"Oh, well don't be," Rei reassured them. "I won't hold you up, pretty sure Takashi's waiting for me at the gate right now as well."
He then turned to leave. "Bye!" He waved at them as he broke into a jog.
They both waved their goodbyes at him as well.
Rei was back home now. After a long day at the Graduation ceremony, he was exhausted, spent and wanted to just crash into the bed and sleep the rest of the day away.
But he would have to endure it for a moment. For there was an important task at his hand right now.
He opened up his personal browser, an application that he created for the sole purpose of security. It had four hundred layers of encryption. Unless a team of people could speak three hundred different languages and knew a bunch more obscure cypher techniques, it would be uncrackable.
He then opened up a forum and posted a little nugget of information.
"Hope this works..." He muttered as he uploaded the writing.
The website dinged and his piece was up. "Hmm, seems to be-"
His remark was stopped when the website removed his post immediately.
"Hmph, that's rude." He huffed as he attempted to upload the file again.
Only for it to be deleted even faster than before.
He then formulated a plan. "Okay, let's see who's doing that." He said as he cracked his knuckles and began to set up a scheme.
After a while of adjusting, it was ready.
He brought up his word file again and attempted to upload it.
As soon as he did, it got deleted again. But this time, he had placed an almost undetectable, Trogan type virus on the link, enabling him to see exactly who had been the culprit behind his file's disappearance.
But what he saw caught him by surprise.
"The Japanese Law Enforcement?" He said with confusion laced in his voice. It had been the police that was taking down his forum posts about a doctor and an evil supervillain.
"Why would they-" Then it hit him. All Might had requested that all information about the Symbol of Evil to be kept under wraps. Lest the population of Japan fall into a potential panic.
"So they don't want anyone to know?" He said in realization. He then looked to his screen again. "But, he needs to know that he's not dead." He said in disappointment. Unless he had done something that made All Might kill All for One on their encounter here, that would mean the Quirk stealer was currently recovering and regaining strength as he sits on this chair.
"There's gotta be something I can do..." He bent forward, sitting while he held his chin in contemplation. Eyes then widened again when he thought of something.
He then went to a different website. The Fan-mail website for All Might.
And with nothing but hope. He wrote a message, telling All Might about how alive All for One was.
Rei didn't have high hopes for him seeing his mail. Most likely, it would be filtered as spam by his agents and would go unnoticed. He vaguely also remembered All Might saying that he doesn't really read his own fan mail, so that was reassuring.
This fan letter was not taken down by the police, as they did not really expect it to be posted on websites such as this.
After he had set the letter, he finally took off the ceremonial robes he was told to wear and hung them up in his closet. Emerging from his room, he made his way down to their living room.
"Heh heh heh." Rei heard the snorty laughter of His Older Brother coming from the Living room. Rei saw him, sitting bent over towards the coffee table on the living room sofa. He was using his left arm to write something on a paper it seems. Rei silently made his way towards him from behind.
"Pizzasium!" Rei yelled as he suddenly grabbed his older brother on the shoulders and shook him violently.
"Pizzasium, indeed." Takashi simply said as he didn't seem at all fazed by Rei's attempts to jolt him.
Rei laughed with his brother as he peeped over his shoulder to look at what he had been writing. "Woah! You're improving." He nodded with contently closed eyes while he patted his brother on the shoulder a couple of times.
On the coffee table was a neatly written letter towards... someone special to Takashi. But disregarding that, Takashi's handwriting had vastly improved from his first attempts to use his left hand.
"Pretty cool isn't it?" He somewhat boasted as he puffed out his chest and bumped it with his first two-three times, and laughed.
Rei laughed as well with emphasis to keep their noise down, "Very impressive, very impressive." He passed the door that led into the family room and began walking towards the kitchen door.
"I could say the same for you," Takashi commented as he got up and followed Rei. His brother turning around to face him as they made their way inside the kitchen, Rei walking inside backwards.
"A Doctor of one School of Science, while pushing for another degree on two, at Thirteen Years old no less, how do you do it, Rei Omura?" Takashi spoke in a News reporter-like manner, holding a non-existent mic up to Rei's face.
"I work out the brain, get plenty of rest. And I make sure I eat my green vegetables." Rei stated in a playful tone as he opened their fridge and pulled out a salad that was mostly made of spinach, lettuce and tomatoes.
"That has... nothing to do with your profound Academic Prowess!" Takashi responded in a playful, shocked manner. Almost like the News Reporter couldn't believe what they were hearing about this story.
"It does in a way..."
"What discoveries have you made now?" Takashi, now using a spoon as a stand-in mic.
"I've found that by channelling an influx of an Exotic particle I call a Quar, through an Alcubieere HyperSpace. An electron can accelerate to, or near, or even above the speed of light." Rei stated confidently as he spoke close to the spoon that Takashi was holding out. Begining to walk backwards again, he faced his bother as they made for the Dinner table together.
"Which means?" Takashi signalled for him to elaborate with a gesture from the mic.
"I've figured out an efficient method of Space Travel. Also, Saki is going to cough right about... now." Right on queue, the cough of their housemaid could be heard coming from across the hall to their laundry room.
"... How?"
"By suggesting the potential of the occurrence of an event. Quantum Mechanics dictate that it simultaneously does and doesn't occur. And if that cough is what we are going by, were living in the plane where it did."
"Wha-?"
"By that way, all of that was a lie, sort of..." Rei finished after a small pause for thought, interrupting before Takashi could get too anxious.
"Oh thank God, for a second there, I thought you could predict the future, or something..." Takashi exclaimed in relief as they both got their seats on the table. "But... she did cough though..."
"It's my lucky guess," Rei explained as he shoved a mouthful of Lettuce into his mouth, chewing on the fresh fibres, he made pleasant sounds of crunching.
"Okay, I don't believe that... but!" He held up a finger towards Rei. "I do believe that you have an appointment." He said as he reached behind into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out an envelope of some sort, giving his brother a wide toothy smile as he did so.
"What's that?" Asked Rei as he took the envelope from Takashi's hand and inspected it from the back first. "Paper's white wove so it's Office..." He turned it around to inspect the front where the seal would have been.
On the front of the Letter, was the image of a wild Boar, holding a rose in its mouth, engraved in intricate details on the vibrantly coloured, red wax seal.
"Awesome right?" Takashi walked up beside him.
"It's... from Minamoto..." Rei exclaimed mildly in shock. Placing his salad bowl on the dinner table, he opened the envelope to pull out a three folded piece of paper.
It read as followed,
Dear Omura Rei,
We, the circle at Minamoto request for you to give a Lecture about your Papers to our Scholars.
We expect to hear back from you by the 7th of July this year.
If we do not hear back from you by that time, we'll have assumed you to have declined us on the offer, which we will not hold against you.
But please, we would find it most excellent that you do.
Many of your Juniors have heard of your name and many more hold respect and reverence towards it.
So please, write back if you can,
Sincerely,
Professor Lin Rin.
"They want... me?" He turned towards Takashi in a puzzled manner, with one brow raised more than the other, "To give a lecture at Minamoto? As a Professor? I'm... I'm not sure I'm qualified."
"That's a bunch of Hogwash, and you know it." Takashi waved off his denial before poking Rei on his head. "This thing is what we call a 'Big Brain'."
"No, I don't mean that. I know I'm the smartest thing on this floating piece of space rock-"
"Well, you can't be too-"
"Takashi, I know I'm the smartest human ever... but..."
Rei looked outwards towards the view of the ocean from their small kitchen window. "I'm not really the sharpest tool in the Workshop when it comes to, you know? Things like Lectures."
"No... you're like a Swiss army knife."
"That's... a weird analogy." Rei looked at his brother strangely, one eye slightly more open than the other.
"You'll be fine. Besides, we don't call you the Golden B-"
"Ech ech ech sch shh shh..." Rei interrupted his brother's speech by holding up his finger to his lips. "No more of that name from you, please."
Takashi remained silent before rolling his eyes and nodding, prompting Rei to pull back his finger.
"Okay then, Glitter Child it is." Takashi teased as his face morphed into a shit-eating grin.
Rei pulled back up his finger to argue, mouth hanging open. He held this pose for a moment before it unceremoniously deflated. He picked back up his salad bowl from the dinner table and walked with sloppy steps towards their back door.
"Not that either..."
"Hmm?" A young man sitting at a desk behind a computer screen hummed in confusion at the letter. In it, the writer and sender had said that something called an 'All for One' was not destroyed. Giving his employer a tip to check if he had the time.
The man placed the letter down the shredder of the computer. All Might was a Pro Hero, the Top Pro Hero. He did not have time for jokes and pranks his fans were trying to pull on him via his mail.
He wondered why people just didn't seem to get it. That was about the six thousandth Spam mail he had deleted on that day alone.
Had to address a sort of plot hole.
Plus I needed to set up a fairly large time skip.