Last edited 15 December 2021
vi. will to power
"Let's hear a battle cry, yeah?" shouted Present Mic. "It's time for this bloody battle royal to start! Light the signal fire! Here we go! Three! Two! One!"
Sesera raised her arm, pointing her baton skyward. Blue-white strands of electricity flickered from its tip.
"Start!"
"Flash Plus Thunder Wave!"
She brought her arm down, and a bright white light rapidly flashed inside the stadium, blinding and disorienting the opposing teams. At the same time, she fired an electric shock to impair their motor functions and make them stiffen up.
Kaminari temporarily broke off from his team's formation to attract the electricity towards himself, but he was unable to block the light. Junior immediately put up a wall of ice, successfully defending against both layers of her attack.
The Class-B girl who came in fourth place used her vines to protect her team, and Sesera narrowed her eyes at the green shield that went up. That girl was an unexpected thorn in the side, pun not intended.
Sesera's team's best-case scenario had been to steal the headbands from everyone except the delinquent and Junior. Then, they'd planned on playing with them a bit, and once the other teams started recovering from her preemptive attack, they'd move up into the air and let everyone else distract the two pains in their asses until the end of the time limit.
It was a very unlikely situation, admittedly, but one could hope.
In any case, an extra team escaping their initial assault was still within the margin of error, so they had no reason to worry. Though the fact left a bad taste in Sesera's mouth, it was more of a personal issue than a strategic one. The rest of the competition was still rendered helpless.
With a wave of her baton, she scattered her marbles and quickly stole the headbands from the disoriented riders.
"Miyaka's preemptive stunner blinds both her opponents and the audience!" said Present Mic. "I'm still blinking out the stars in my eyes, seriously! And to top it all off, she managed to steal the headbands of the teams that fell victim to her attack! Seems like ten million isn't enough for this girl! Talk about Plus ultra!"
Sesera was still arranging her fresh steals around her neck when the booming noises started.
"I knew you'd do that, Pigtails!"
The delinquent recovered from the dazzler faster than she expected. The light from his own explosions probably made him used to all the flashing. He separated from his horse, leaping right for them.
"Yaoyorozu!"
"Understood!"
Sesera lifted her right foot, allowing Ponytail to grab one of the compressor shells that hung from the utility belt she made for herself. Ponytail threw it toward the delinquent, and he swung an arm to slap it away.
But then his expression suddenly changed, and his wrist twisted so that his hand went under the shell, palm facing downwards. He bent over in midair, bringing up a leg to kick it away with a foot.
Sesera bit back the pout forming on her lips. The delinquent's intuition and reflexes never failed to impress—so much so that she contrarily felt pissed off.
The mystery behind Seaweed Head's meek personality despite the nature of his Quirk was starting to unravel.
The latch was released automatically upon impact from the delinquent's kick. The shell split open, spilling clear liquid over the ground, and a sharp, stinging odor wafted in the air.
White tape wrapped around the delinquent's leg as Tape Dispenser Elbows pulled him back into their formation.
"Is that kerosene?" Spiky Hair #2 gawked. "You threw it right at him! He would've blown himself up!"
Ponytail's shoulders reeled back, and she looked slightly offended. "I diluted it enough so that it wouldn't result in anything more serious than a second-degree burn!"
"Argh! Fucking bitches waging fucking chemical warfare!" The delinquent was practically frothing at the mouth, small explosions going off in his hands. "Fuck you!"
Sesera shot back a retort automatically. "Fix your vocabulary first, then we'll think about your offer!"
He growled viciously, pounding his fists on Spiky Hair #2's head. The latter looked like someone who'd already reached enlightenment.
"Kirishima," shouted the delinquent, "forward!"
"Hatsume!" said Sesera.
"Got it!"
The Support girl raised the arm with the cement gun strapped onto it and shot gray globs at the delinquent's team. The mixture hardened quickly after being exposed to air, and Spiky Hair #2 toppled forward after his feet were caught.
Their entire formation would've fallen apart if it weren't for the delinquent catching his front horse by the scruff of his shirt and blasting forward a controlled explosion from his free hand to restore their balance.
Sesera actually groaned this time. Someone really should've told this boy off for min/maxing his reflexes and combat skills. Maybe then he would've had more points to spare for his personality stats.
She stuck the end of her baton to the top of the cement gun and aimed its barrel.
"Shoot!" she told the Support girl.
Globs of cement hit the delinquent right in the torso, catching his arms on the way. With his palms pressed against his chest, he wouldn't be able to use his Quirk so easily to break free. He shouted a slew of curses at her as she pointed the barrel at his horses' feet.
"I'll kill you!" he shouted at her as Spiky Hair #2 multitasked, trying to calm him down while working with Kaminari to break out of the cement.
"Not your number yet!" she shouted back. She placed a hand on Bird Boy's feathery head. "Let's get away from here."
"Roger."
He pulled them around, running to an emptier spot of the field. Their escape was cut short, however, when their formation suddenly lurched backward.
"The ground is—!"
At the Support girl's shout, Sesera tracked the line of softened red cement to the team of Class-B students that had been able to block her initial attack.
"Tsk! It's a little early, but we're moving to the sky!" she said. "Get ready!"
With all the items the Support girl had decked their team out in, Sesera was easily able to pull them up to the sky by the equipment they wore. Even so, tendrils of vines shot up to follow them, attacking from behind.
"Dark Shadow!" Bird Boy called on his Quirk, and its form slipped out from under the cloak Ponytail had Created for him. Dark Shadow went around to the back of their formation and sliced through the vines that came at them with its claws.
"Miyaka! Ice incoming at eight o'clock!" said Ponytail.
Sesera turned just in time to see the icy spikes barreling towards them. Allocating a portion of her focus to constantly keeping power streaming into the tip of her baton had been a risky decision, but the return was proving well worth it.
She managed to shoot out a wide laser with only a negligible time lag, halting Junior's attack in its tracks. A long, loud hiss echoed in the stadium as the heat melted the ice. Thick, white vapor filled the air.
"Team Miyaka doesn't get a moment of rest!" shouted Present Mic. "It hasn't even been three minutes, and everyone's hell-bent on taking them down! Not a surprise, since they've collected most of the points!"
Sesera frowned. "That vine girl is an unexpected pain in the ass. We should take them out."
"They have someone who can liquefy the ground, so I don't think sticking them to it would work," commented the Support girl.
"Their rider can turn his body into steel," Ponytail told them. "With Miyaka's Quirk, I don't think he'll be a problem. We should be fine as long as we stay out of their range."
"Our best option is to keep to the skies then," said Bird Boy. "Aside from maybe Bakugo, no one else should be able to match our aerial mobility."
Ponytail shook her head. "Not quite. Midoriya has Uraraka—they might be able to figure out a way. Todoroki has quite the range as well."
"We go higher." Sesera observed the teams on the ground. "My attacks' effects should be wearing out soon, and those who escaped it will have their hands full trying to deal with the ones who're at zero points."
"Very well then," said Bird Boy. "Dark Shadow."
"Aiyo!"
Bird Boy's cloak rustled, and the shadowy form of his Quirk slipped out from underneath it, holding out the metal plate they'd strapped to his back. Sesera lifted a foot and planted it onto the platform that Dark Shadow laid out for her. They broke up their formation, allowing them all to move more freely in midair.
Once everyone had activated their aerial support gear, Sesera canceled out her magnetic control. She left a handful of marbles attached to each of her teammates as a safety precaution.
They moved to higher airspace, and she fiddled with the headbands around her neck. As per Ponytail's suggestion, she turned them inside out so that the points weren't visible. She also kept the ones with the higher point values twisted together underneath the ones with the lower point values.
Honestly, having so many things around her neck was a bit uncomfortable, but she put up with it. With all the loopholes they were exploiting, she needed to make sure that they wouldn't be called out on a technicality.
"Looks like the other teams are starting to recover from their initial shock, and the playing field's getting messy!" Present Mic's voice was slightly faint as it carried up to where they were hanging out in the sky. "In the meantime, Team Miyaka's gone to unreachable heights! Is that really OK?"
"The designated playing field doesn't have a height limit!" answered Midnight. "It's perfectly legal!"
The Support girl let out a low hum. "This feels a bit like cheating."
"Midnight already said it was fine." Sesera pulled back half of her remaining marbles and let them float around her and her team. She discreetly scattered the rest around the field. "It's not like we're actually breaking any rules."
Ponytail sighed. "Ideally, we can stay up here until the end of the round."
Sesera raised a brow at her. "You totally just jinxed it."
Ponytail sharply turned her head, her eyes widening as she covered her mouth with her hands. "I didn't mean to!"
"Nah, you're fine." Sesera waved a dismissive hand. "I never expected Todoroki or Blasty to make this easy. They'll be coming for us sooner or later, so keep your guards up."
Down below, the teams that were at zero points were rallying around the three remaining teams that still had headbands and were within reach. Just as halftime passed, the delinquent's headband was stolen by a team of guys from Class B, and the warpath he went on to get it back was something to behold.
On the other hand, Seaweed Head's team managed to efficiently avoid all their pursuers with Glasses' mobility, with Junior freezing people's legs to the ground when he could. They didn't seem to be doing much other than defending their own points, and it just conversely made Sesera even warier of whatever plan they had up their sleeves.
The ten-minute mark came and went with Sesera and her team just enjoying themselves as they watched the rampant chaos below. She was starting to think that they actually could just run the timer out, and that was when she knew that something was about to happen.
"Todoroki's making his move," said Ponytail all of a sudden, her voice betraying only the slightest bit of apprehension.
Sesera tightened her hold on her baton as blue-white light flashed from the ground. Walls of ice went up, creating an enclosed area within the field. It was just high enough that it wouldn't be easy for the other teams to cross into it.
"What are they planning?" murmured Sesera.
"They're breaking up." The Support girl had activated her Quirk, and her golden eyes zoomed in on the field below. "Their rider is getting onto the back of the boy with glasses. The boy with the scar is crouching down… They're—we need to get out of the way!"
There was another flash of blue-white light, and a giant ramp of ice suddenly appeared, launching Glasses and Seaweed Head into the air.
"Recipro Burst!"
In a flash, they were gone from the ground.
The next thing Sesera knew, Glasses and Seaweed Head were hovering a few meters over their heads.
"Now, Midoriya!"
Seaweed Head was on Glasses' back, his arms stretched out in front of him and his right hand supporting his left wrist. The nail of his middle finger was pressed against the pad of his thumb.
A torrential amount of power was concentrated into that one small finger, and Sesera idly thought, That's going to hurt, and it's going to hurt a lot.
She widened her stance on her platform, swinging an arm to get her teammates out of the way.
"Switch to Plan B-1!" said Sesera quickly.
She heard Ponytail shout out her name. "Miyaka—!"
"Smash!"
Sesera hastily crouched down and grabbed the edge of her platform to bring it up to use as a shield. Rough winds barreled at her and pushed her back down to earth. From the corner of her eye, she could see a cliff of ice growing from below to catch her in its confines.
"Tsk."
Sesera swung her arm, heating the moisture in the air with microwaves. The sudden temperature difference cut into the pressure pushing at her, and the heat forced the winds to lift and weaken. She was able to halt her fall about eight meters from the ground, stopping just below the tops of the walls of ice that had been set up in the middle of the field.
She hadn't realized Seaweed Head could use his Quirk like that.
Thinking about it, it was a logical and practical use of the superstrength aspect of his ability. But since he barely ever showed off that kind of power even during practical heroics classes, she hadn't been aware of the true extent of his skills in handling his Quirk.
Honestly, with how he repeatedly broke some body part or the other after using even small bursts of it, she was still kind of under the impression that said skills were, well… nonexistent.
On top of that, wind was a surprisingly difficult element for Sesera to deal with. It took way too much brute force to power her way through things like strong gusts and tornadoes, and the chaotic system that was weather modification was more finicky than even light-based illusions.
Creating a plasma channel for lightning to pass through may have been easier than trying to decipher cursive script, but there were too many factors to take into consideration when trying to manipulate atmospheric circulation as a whole. Even the smallest change in one variable could send everything spiraling out of control, and its inherent butterfly effect was one of the few things that even the most advanced systems couldn't predict with reliable accuracy.
Anyone with a better grasp on wind manipulation than Seaweed Head with his head-on blast was going to be her worst nemesis.
Sesera righted herself on her platform. She pointed her baton at the cliff of ice Junior was sending towards her and vaporized it with a wide beam of light.
A haze of steam covered the field.
"Holy cow! What was that, Team Midoriya?" screamed Present Mic. "They just shot their rider up into the sky in order to bring Team Miyaka back down to earth! With less than five minutes left on the clock, the ten million points are back within reach!"
"This kind of roundabout plan isn't like you," said Sesera, lifting a hand to brush away the hair from her face. Her breath came out in faint, white wisps as she spoke—a testament to the coldness of their surroundings. "Seaweed Head's calling the shots, huh? I honestly didn't think you'd be the type to just say 'Yes, understood' to orders."
A few meters away, Junior stood on a floating block of ice that was likely courtesy of Gravity Girl. His eyes were narrowed dangerously at her. "It doesn't matter who came up with the plan. We will get the ten million."
She smiled blithely. "Good luck with that."
A line of ice shot out from his platform, and Sesera flicked her wrist upwards. The marbles she'd scattered in the field gathered and crashed into the bottom-front part of the floating block of ice, flipping it over.
Surprise flitted across Junior's face as he fell backward. He swung his right arm to create a slide to carry him to the ground.
"Release!"
After a couple of years of being Big Sis Rumi's personal kickba—practice partner, Sesera's knee-jerk reaction was to bring up a leg to roundhouse kick anyone who snuck up behind her, but then she remembered how Gravity Girl's Quirk worked.
She would've been screwed if she was touched, so instead, she immediately pulled away. But even then, with a wall of ice at her back and Junior watching and waiting for a chance to attack from below, her escape routes were limited.
Gravity Girl had a hand stretched out for Sesera's head, and it didn't take much brainpower to figure out that she was after the ten million.
Sesera pressed the button on the side of her baton, and it extended to five times its usual length. Gravity Girl's eyes widened in surprise, and Sesera thrust the staff forward, digging the tip into her opponent's stomach.
Gravity Girl managed to nab the fluttering tail end of a few headbands from around Sesera's neck through sheer willpower—with some help from the slight delay caused by Sesera's changing of strategies midway and the small force difference from the staff's sudden loss of weight.
Sesera felt the slightest strain of cloth against her neck before the sound of ripping Velcro grated at her ears.
Bitch—
She would've been lying if she said that spite didn't make her add a bit more strength than necessary to the hit.
Junior caught his falling teammate with a curving hedge of ice and brought her around behind him.
"Good work, Uraraka!" Glasses and Seaweed Head were back on the ground, and they ran towards where Gravity Girl was nearly keeling over.
"Sorry, I didn't get the ten million," she said quickly. She looked faintly green as she pressed a hand to her stomach. Her pain was likely from a combination of Sesera's hit and her own Quirk's backlash.
Seaweed Head accepted the stolen headbands from her, slipping them over his head with the hand that didn't have a mottled purple finger. "Don't be! We're in second place with less than three minutes to go! We're basically guaranteed a spot in the next round already!"
Junior's second-place points from the obstacle course race had afforded his team a high value to start with. Though Glasses had also placed in the top ten, the delinquent's third-place points combined with Tape Dispenser Elbows' sixth-place points had allowed their team to start at second place for the cavalry battle instead.
Thanks to Ponytail's foresight, Gravity Girl only got the lower-ranked ones, but adding them all up still gave her team the boost they needed to step up a place.
Sesera lightly touched the headband on her forehead to assure herself that she still had her ten million points before grasping onto the remaining headbands around her neck.
With some quick mental math, she realized that her team would drop right to fourth if the ten million was stolen by someone from a team other than Junior's or the delinquent's. Unlikely as that was, at this point, she couldn't afford to lose any more of their spare headbands if she wanted to get into the next round with some leeway.
For all his sweet-looking squishiness, Seaweed Head came up with some pretty ridiculous plans. Even at the risk of sounding like the delinquent, Sesera couldn't deny that faint feeling of wanting to step on him until he was mush on the ground blooming inside her.
Nerds really are dangerous, she thought idly.
Gravity Girl looked up at her with narrowed eyes and a pout. "I thought you said it wasn't the extendable one!"
"I had Yaoyorozu make this," Sesera told them before letting go of the now-weightless weapon. The staff floated in midair in front of her. She kicked it away and pulled out her original from where it was strapped to her regulator's pouch.
The other girl made a grumbling sound and pressed the tips of her fingers together. "Release."
The staff dropped to the ground with a metallic clang as a shadow loomed over Sesera's head.
She jerked her gaze upwards only to find a giant slab of ice falling from the sky.
Sesera cursed Seaweed Head under her breath.
This is way too many layers for a single fucking trap.
It took her a few moments to gather the power needed to shatter a block that size. The task distracted her long enough for Junior to shoot out another hedge of ice, and though she tried to move away as fast as she could, he still caught her by the leg.
Sesera's back slammed against the wall of the arena they'd made, and the ice on her leg quickly moved upwards.
"This doesn't have to h—"
Panic seized her as she felt the cold sink in, and she seethed. "Well, fuck you too!"
She stabbed the end of her baton against the ice wall, pushing all her focus into electrolyzing the water molecules in her surroundings. They swiftly broke down into oxyhydrogen, and Sesera only needed a quick flick of the wrist to raise the heat and ignite the gases.
The wall of ice transformed into a wall of fire, and she felt a smug sort of satisfaction at seeing Junior's facial reaction to what she'd done. She would've loved to bask in his mortification for a bit longer, but the rapid changes in the temperature of their surroundings caused a powerful shockwave to ripple through the field, and both sides were blown away.
"My God! What was that?!" screamed Present Mic. "Team Midoriya made their own little arena and were prepared to snatch up the ten million for themselves! Miyaka took them on while outnumbered four-to-one, but the ice field has been blown away, and there is no movement from the ten million! Does that mean she beat them all on her own?!"
It took a few breaths for the smoke from the blast to settle down. Sesera had managed to catch herself just before she was thrown from the field in its entirety, though she had no idea what happened to Junior and his team.
"Miyaka!"
She turned her head toward the voice and saw Ponytail alone on the ground with a panicked look on her face. Plan B-1 consisted of them distracting the delinquent while she dealt with Junior; B-2 was simply the other way around.
"Behind you!" shouted Ponytail.
Pulling on her platform, Sesera did a one-eighty turn in midair to avoid the blast that the delinquent directed at her. Snapping her wrist forward, a long whip of lightning lashed out, and he used his explosions to maneuver and dodge.
He smirked sharply at her. "You don't rule the skies, Pigtails!"
She wasn't in the fucking mood for this.
"Your persistence is starting to get annoying!" shouted Sesera. She pointed her baton at him. "Flash!"
A bright white light erupted from the tip of the metal and blinded him. The delinquent swore, bringing up his arms to block his eyes. In his disoriented state, he wasn't able to keep himself afloat, and gravity pulled him down.
A strip of white shot out from below, sticking to his back. Tape Dispenser Elbows pulled him back into their formation while he was still screaming a slew of curses at her.
Sesera righted herself with a short huff.
"Hey, Referee! Those Class A jerks have been breaking formations since earlier!" shouted a distant voice. "Is that even allowed?"
"It is—on a technicality!" answered Midnight. "It's fine as long as the designated rider doesn't touch the ground!"
"Then what's the point in this being a cavalry battle?!"
"Just over a minute left on the timer!" Even Present Mic's amplified voice had a hard time cutting into all the screaming and cheering that the audience was doing. "Team Miyaka has managed to successfully thwart all attempts to steal the ten million points so far! Can they last until the end, or will some other team get the last hurrah?"
Sesera clenched her jaw, stretching out her neck to get rid of the forming crick. "Oh, screw this."
With a quick scan of the field using electrolocation, she found all three of her teammates among the crowd. She tugged at the marbles she'd attached to each of them, pulling them up into the air and out of the range of her impending move.
She spared a few seconds to gather more power before lifting her baton over her head. Blue-white sparks fired from its tip.
"Thunde—"
"DELAWARE SMASH!"
Sesera's defense mode automatically kicked in, and she swung her arm back. The energy she was directing into Thunder Wave was instead converted into pure electric power, spreading across the air and rippling over the field.
The sparkling currents were further strengthened by the additional power released from her body. Glowing, blue-white crackles of electricity burst out of her and exploded outwards with a chittering, high-pitched screech that shook the very foundations of the stadium.
A sharp pain pulsed through Sesera's right arm, and she bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. She didn't have to think about shutting off her pain receptors, but the effect kicked in a bit too late. The slight tingle from the electric burns on her arm was a nagging thought at the back of her mind.
Rough winds whipped around her and blew her hair into her face, but it wasn't as strong as before. Her counterattack had weakened the impact of Seaweed Head's Smash, and she was able to stand her ground and maintain her teammates' positions with no issue. Sesera dropped to a crouch on her platform and transferred her baton over to her left hand.
"Twenty seconds!" she heard Bird Boy shout.
The air cleared, and behind a crumbling wall of ice, she could see Seaweed Head's scrunched-up face and the utter pain in his expression. His left arm hung limply over Glasses' chest, and both his middle and pointer fingers were mottled in ugly shades of purple.
Sesera hadn't had any plans to take sides in the greatest rivalry of their class, but she was feeling pretty sympathetic towards the delinquent right now.
"We're down to the final countdown!" shouted Present Mic. "Say it with me now! Ten seconds! Nine!"
"Wait a minute, Miyaka—!" Ponytail sounded desperate, but her voice was dim, barely registering in Sesera's ears over the crackling of the strands of electricity prickling her skin like a thousand silver needles being stabbed into her over and over and over.
Blood poured out from the ghosts of the wounds that scattered across her body like constellations. It formed thin red lines that twisted together into a jumbled, knotted mess, looping around her neck like a noose.
"You… mus— bec—e l—ke th—t."
Pale hands wrapped around her throat, and she could barely breathe. There was that agonizing pain of being ripped apart cell by cell—the feeling of that invisible glue that just barely held her body together being washed away by the ice-cold waters of the Sanzu River.
A faceless phantom grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her violently. A moving mouth on a face she couldn't remember was spewing out words she couldn't hear.
"You mustn't become like that!"
Sesera could feel the gaze of a pair of bright red eyes piercing into her—watching, waiting for the moment she crumbled to ash.
"This is our chance! He is our chance!" she remembered Azalea Garden shouting at her from the blue side of heaven. "Don't you want to see the world burn? Don't you want to get revenge?!"
Everything snapped back into place.
Blue-white strands of electricity flickered from Sesera's temples, and she gripped her baton tightly. Light coalesced into a singular point, and she aimed.
"Screw you, Midorima!" she shouted.
Glasses' head snapped around. "His name is Midoriya!"
A bright beam of white light erupted from the tip of her baton to shoot toward Seaweed Head and his team. But then the laser suddenly angled upward, missing the wall of fire that came out from nowhere as Sesera felt her head being jerked back.
"Three! Two!"
When she turned her head around, she saw the delinquent staring right back at her with bright red eyes and a victorious grin blooming on his face—as well as the headband worth ten million points clutched securely in his hand. The line of tape stuck to his back reeled him into his team's formation as Kaminari and Spiky Hair #2 cheered and whooped.
"One! Time's up!"
Sesera vaguely registered the sound of the buzzer ringing through the air, but it was dimmed by the wild screaming of the audience and the blood rushing into her ears. Tension filled her body, and she took in several short, sharp breaths to bring oxygen into her brain.
The ghost-like cold that had encased her leg lingered over her, trailing its way up her body and prickling her skin with incessant sparks of pain. It froze her heart, and she felt the icy touch of mottled purple fingers rubbing circles on her temples.
Flashing in front of her eyes was a back covered by red-and-white armor—no, that was red-and-white hair, neatly split down the middle, and what looked like a bundle of blue flowers growing from messy bushes was actually an entire miniature garden set aflame by cold fire that kindled the smell of ash, as well as a trace of something faintly bittersweet—like burnt caramel—that was filling her nose—
"All you have to do is follow my orders." The heat and light inside her were slowly being drawn out, and she was going to be left empty—bitter and cold and dead. "This doesn't have to hurt."
But that's mine. It was the one thing that was hers, and it was her at the same time. You can't take it from me.
"Come now. Don't be difficult, Ka—"
"—ka! Miyaka!"
Blue-white strands of electricity flared from Sesera's temples as she snapped her head around.
Ponytail looked over her worriedly. The Support girl and Bird Boy hovered in the air behind her, all of them having activated their aerial support gear.
"Are you all right?" asked Ponytail.
Sesera looked away and let out a deep, shuddering breath. She gradually lowered herself and her team back onto the ground.
"Rejoice, audience! We end the second round with the kind of surprise upset you all enjoy!" shouted Present Mic over the applause. "At the absolute last possible moment, Team Bakugo supplants Team Miyaka for first place, stealing the ten-million crown from right under their noses!"
Sesera felt a touch on her shoulder, but she didn't remove her hands from over her face.
"The points you got us at the very beginning still put us through to the next round, so don't beat yourself up too much over what happened," said Ponytail in a soothing voice.
"In second place is Team Midoriya, and in third, we have Team Miyaka!" said Present Mic. "And rounding up our top four, we have Team Tetsu—huh? Team Shinso?! When did that happen?!"
Sesera spread her fingers just enough to glance at the scoreboard. She ignored Bakugo's name right next to the ten million points and let her eyes drift lower, finding Hitoshi's name at fourth place, the last team to not have zero points.
She should've just gotten rid of him first thing. If the entirety of Japan knew how his Quirk worked, he'd be less than useless.
"Yowza! It's gonna be hard to top the excitement this cavalry battle brought, but with these four teams moving onto the final round, we'll have one heck of a show to look forward to!" said Present Mic. "So make sure to stick around! We'll commence with the afternoon portion after a one-hour lunch break!"
Sesera heaved out a long sigh as she stood up from her crouch. She made sure to compose her facial features before turning to face her team.
"I'm sorry I lost the ten million," she said with a bow.
"No need for that!" Ponytail placed her hands on Sesera's back and shoulder, gently easing her up into a standing position. "We made it to the final round, and that's all that matters."
"Continue aiming for the top, and you will have your chance for revenge against Bakugo," Bird Boy told her.
Sesera's heart clenched at the word, but thankfully, she was able to put on her business smile with no trouble.
"Your name value added some eyes from the support businesses on us, so I'm A-OK with this result." The Support girl beamed. "My babies got the attention they deserved."
"Let's head to the cafeteria before it fills up." Ponytail took hold of Sesera's hand and smiled brightly. "I know you probably brought a lunch box, but I heard they're offering a limited amount of servings of Wagyu beef bowls and oyakodon made from Nagoya Cochin. You like chicken, right?"
"Yeah." Sesera brought up her free hand to push her hair out of her face, and she was suddenly struck by the stench of burnt meat.
Right. She almost forgot about that.
"Actually—"
"Miyaka."
They turned around and found Junior standing behind them. His face was as impassive as always, but there was something brightly burning in his gaze.
It made Sesera pause.
For a moment there, she thought he looked kind of like Endeavor, but the notion didn't linger.
Junior was too cold to be anything like his father.
"Do you have a few minutes?" he asked, his tone not betraying anything. "There's something I'd like to talk to you about."
She took in the burnt edges of his left sleeve and placed her free hand over Ponytail's forearm.
"I'll catch up later," she told the other girl with a small smile.
Ponytail glanced between her and Junior with a bit of a crease between her brows. After a few moments of inner debate, she slowly loosened her grip and took a step back.
"Very well then," she said. She turned to Sesera. "I'll be stopping by our waiting room to pick up my lunch box, so I'll bring yours over as well. It's in the bag with the blue azaleas, yes?"
Sesera felt her throat dry up. "Yeah."
"All right. We'll meet up at the cafeteria then," said Ponytail. She turned to Junior, giving him a polite nod before walking away.
Once she was out of sight, Sesera turned to meet Junior's cold gaze.
Nope. Nothing like his father.
"Follow me," he said, and then promptly turned on his heel, not even looking back at her once.
Sesera followed Endeavor Jr. into an empty corridor. Vaguely, she could hear the sounds of the crowds streaming into the stadium's upper levels, where the cafeteria and other public facilities were.
Junior leaned against one side of the corridor, face half-covered in shadow as he stared intensely at his left palm. The overall effect on the atmosphere was so dramatic that she had to question whether or not it was intentional.
What an edgelord. She really should start observing him more. His sense of drama was top-notch.
The silence between them quickly became stifling.
Sesera put on her business smile. "You said you wanted to talk?"
He looked up at her and stared blankly for a few more moments before speaking.
"Back there—how did you do that to my ice?" he asked.
The question was rather vague, but she knew precisely what he was talking about. It probably wasn't the main point he was trying to get at, but she'd humor his opener.
"I ran an electric current through all the available water molecules in the vicinity to separate their atoms into oxyhydrogen—a mix of oxygen and hydrogen gases—then brought it to its autoignition temperature so that it would combust—"
"I didn't ask for a chemistry lecture," said Junior, his voice dripping with annoyance.
She arched a brow. "You literally asked me how I—"
"That wasn't the point." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't get smart with me."
Sesera shut her mouth, pouting slightly. She crossed her arms over her chest and put on her business smile again, this time making it a bit wider. "By all means—get to the damn point then."
His face was pulled into its usual irritated look, but there was that something quietly sizzling in his eyes. The tense silence stretched out for a few more seconds before he spoke again.
"Do you know about Quirk marriages?" he asked out of the blue.
Her smile stiffened. If this was an offer, it was a very, very bad one.
"Well, yes?" She tilted her head. "I mean, I'm the product of several generations of it."
Or, well, if she was going to be technical about it, not everyone in her direct line of ancestry was actually married.
There was someone who was the kid of a mistress but was adopted into the main family because their power was stronger than the rest of their half siblings' combined. She was also pretty sure that there was some incest somewhere down the line since, after a few generations, it became difficult to find electricity users outside of the family with the strength to contribute to the blood.
Not to mention her mother had only been barely seventeen when she'd given birth to her. She hadn't even been legally allowed to marry yet.
But Sesera was digressing.
She brought a hand up to her chin. "Why do you ask?"
Junior let out a short sigh, but the look on his face didn't relax one bit.
"I suspected so." His eyes weren't narrowed anymore, but there was still that sharp glint in them. "In that sense, we're a bit alike. Powers like ours aren't natural."
He wasn't wrong. The idea that powers like theirs could be received on a free gacha roll of the Quirk birth lottery was laughable. No amount of luck could grant some random baby an ability like Sesera's Electromagnetic Force or Junior's Half-Cold Half-Hot—not even a one-in-a-billion mutation. Their powers were that unnatural.
Since the early days of the Age of Superpowers, Quirks had taken various forms. Some were extraordinarily powerful, yes, but in the end, they were still just alterations and extensions of the human body. There was a limit to what they could do, what they could come to, even with some sort of chaotic factor put in the works.
It was during the second and third generations of Quirk users that arranged marriages began being set up so that the base level of powers could be enhanced or any weaknesses otherwise mitigated. Generally, the mother's genes tended to be more dominant—and this was part of the reason why the woman's side could afford to be picky when choosing partners—but the goal was usually for the resulting children to end up with an ability that combined features from the Quirk of each parent.
Sesera's family had been focused on compounding power. Over the course of seven generations, they'd brought in every discipline under the umbrella of electric-type Quirks they could into the bloodline, and all that power eventually converged into the fundamental interaction of Electromagnetic Force.
Still, while Sesera might've been the perfect poster child for the ideal result of a Quirk marriage, it didn't change the fact that a genetic chimera like Junior was exceedingly rare and valuable. Combining like powers to get a multiplied result was easy, but tossing two opposing forces into a pot and hoping for the best didn't usually produce anything good.
Scientifically speaking, Junior was even less natural than she was. The Quirk geek side of herself wanted to get her hands on his blood for research purposes, but at this rate, she was going to have to resort to underhanded means because he definitely wasn't going to be wrapping up a DNA sample for her any time soon.
"That last attack of yours—it overwhelmed me so much that I broke my pledge," Junior told her. His gaze dropped to her right arm. "Though it seems like your Quirk overwhelms you pretty often as well."
She was hiding the limb behind her back before she even realized what she was doing.
Junior really was so very hard to deal with.
Sesera sighed. "What's the point of this conversation?"
He fixed her with a level gaze.
"You know my father is Endeavor, right?"
"Yes." Yes, she did.
"He's been number two for the longest time. Since he couldn't beat the number one hero All Might on his own, he came up with another plan," Junior told her. "With his wealth and fame, he forced my mother's family to agree to a marriage all so he could get his hands on her Quirk. He wants to raise me into a Hero who can exceed All Might just to fulfill his own ambitions.
"I refuse to be a tool for that human garbage." He practically spat out the words. Junior brought a hand up to his face, covering the scarred skin over his left eye as he continued speaking. "In my memories, my mom was always crying. She told me, 'I can't stand to see that left side of yours,' before throwing scalding water on my face."
Sesera kept silent, biting back the business smile pulling on her lips. It was her default expression, and most of the time, it was useful in situations that came out of left field—like this one.
Considering the current atmosphere though… She had the feeling that Junior wouldn't exactly appreciate it.
Nothing he said particularly surprised her. She'd had the… inkling that Junior had unresolved daddy issues ever since he sent Kaminari a look that could kill when the latter tried broaching the topic of his father in an attempt at conversation.
That it was his mother who caused the scar on his face was a bit unexpected though, and she definitely wouldn't have been able to guess that one.
The bitter shadow that lined his face made more sense now. He'd clearly gone through a lot, and it was only human nature to try to make sense of suffering. Sesera wasn't entirely unsympathetic to his circumstances, but the revelation of his backstory affected her less than it probably would others.
She'd long since accepted the fact that she'd been bred and born to be used for the purposes of other people. Honestly, all children were, in the end. She—and Junior, apparently—just had more clearly defined purposes than others.
Her mother's voice came crooning into her ear, electric and mechanical. "This is all you are, and all you ever will be."
Sesera looked forward and saw light and shadow moving together in a macabre dance. The space Junior's existence occupied was ripped apart to reveal the portrait of a long-dead girl with silvery-blue hair and red eyes like stars. The ruby-colored paint melted into blood, spreading and staining the canvas in fire.
"Fire begets light, which begets shadow." The cold fingers rubbing circles on her temples dragged over the shells of her ears and trailed down across her jaw before lifting her chin. Long, frosted lashes framed gray eyes, endlessly dark and deep and cold. "And the brightest light begets the deepest shadow."
Bone-white ash scattered into the wind like clouds of steam, and Sesera breathed in deeply. A chillingly cold voice condensed the moisture in the air to glistening drops of water, then to diamond-sharp shards of ice.
"I'll rise to the top without ever using my rotten father's Quirk," swore Junior. One hand still covered the left side of his face, and other than raising one of her own hands to her neck, Sesera remained utterly still. "I'll deny him everything and prove that his methods are wrong."
"You… mus— bec—e l—ke th—t."
Junior finally brought his hand down, and the stunning sea-glass color of his father's eye brought her back to reality.
She moved the hand on her neck to toss back the hair that fell over her shoulder.
Calling Junior out on trying to get revenge would be hypocritical, even if his target was the person she looked up to. Sesera was now broad-minded enough to accept that right and wrong didn't exist the same way twice, and if this was what worked for him, then she wouldn't get in his way.
Besides, his revenge would only really fail if he ended up offering forgiveness, and with the intensity he spoke of the matter, that probably wasn't going to ever happen.
Endeavor definitely wasn't the sort of person to ask for it either.
Still, just because she understood where he was coming from didn't mean she was going to bend over backward to help him out. Really, she was busy enough with her own itinerary even without Junior trying to shove his family drama down her throat.
But.
"This isn't anything personal," he said, putting his mask of impassivity back in place. "You have your circumstances, and I get that. But beating someone like you with just my right side will have meaning for me."
But—
"I don't think you're the type to care, but"—Junior met her gaze head-on, and looking at him was now harder than ever—"consider this a declaration of war."
"This is all you are." The night sky blanketed by stars spread out over her head, and the highest heaven lay flat beneath its existence. "And all you ever will be."
Sesera crossed her arms over her chest. She then brought one hand up to her chin.
"What was your father's Quirk again?"
He looked thrown off by her sudden inane question, his brows furrowing into the middle of his forehead. He stared at her a bit weirdly before eventually answering, "Hellflame."
"And yours?"
"…Half-Cold Half-Hot."
Sesera smiled brightly.
"Well, whatever. It's your Quirk, so do what you want with it," she told him with a shrug. "If we have to go up against each other in the next round, whether or not you use your left side, it doesn't really matter to me."
Sesera took quick and wide steps. She rocked to her toes and leaned forward, slamming her hands on the wall beside his head and caging him in. Junior went stiff as a board.
"Because, objectively speaking"—she brought her lips close to his ear, her cheek all but brushing the scarred skin over his left eye—"I would crush you like a bug either way."
Sesera stepped away from him, clasping her hands behind her back. She bent a little at the waist, tilting her head to the side to better look up at him at the angle she was at.
Junior had one hand covering his ear, and his face was looking a little flushed. There was something confused in the way his brows furrowed, but it was quickly replaced by his usual look of anger and irritation.
His eyes hardened, and he glowered at her frighteningly.
Suppressing the grin forming on her lips and the shiver that went down her spine was harder than necessary.
"If it's not obvious yet," said Sesera as she turned on her heel and made her way out the corridor, "you're sorely mistaken if you think you can beat me with ice alone."
Scientifically speaking, "coldness" didn't exist. What people called "cold" was simply something that lacked heat. And she had droves of that to spare.
"Besides which, you said your Quirk as a whole was made with the intention of surpassing All Might, right?" she asked airily. "Well, mine was made with a far greater purpose in mind."
"God is dead," her mother sung as she hugged her tightly in her arms, "and we have killed him."
She stopped just as the sunlight hit her face and glanced over her shoulder.
"Don't put me in the same category as you."
"You mustn't become like that."
When Sesera dropped by Recovery Girl's temporary nurse's office, the old lady was in the middle of sucking on Seaweed Head's fingers while a lanky blond man watched from the side.
"Oh." Sesera took a step back. "I'll wait outside."
"No! I'm OK now!" said Seaweed Head hurriedly. His eyes looked a bit sleepy, but he seemed to be fighting it off. "You can come in."
To be honest, Sesera was still kind of ticked at him for all the trouble he caused her in the last round. But talking with Junior allowed her to let off some steam, and Seaweed Head's face was too squishy for her to be able to stay mad for too long while looking at it.
He looked over her worriedly. "Miyaka, were you hurt in the last round?"
"Ah, yes," she replied. She turned to Recovery Girl. "I burnt my entire arm. Again." She added for good measure, "Sorry."
Seaweed Head's eyes widened. "W-W-Wha—?"
"Tsk. It's always like that with you." Recovery Girl pointed her cane at the next bed over. "Let me have a look then."
Sesera obediently sat down on the indicated bed. She pulled off her right glove and rolled up her sleeves to reveal a scorched black arm. The damage went right through to the skeletal muscle, and she had to put in a bit more effort for her to even be able to move it with her Quirk.
The conductive fiber her clothes were made of acted as both armor and insulator. It protected her from outside sources of electricity and redirected outwards what she generated and released from her body.
For the most part, anyway. It had its limits, so things like this still sometimes happen.
However, if her clothes hadn't been made of the special material, they'd have melted and merged into the injury as well. Cleaning that up had always been complicated, so even if her uncle was a no-good recluse who hadn't stepped foot outside of his laboratory in nearly six months, she was still thankful to him for developing it.
Seaweed Head gasped as he laid eyes on her burnt limb. "H-H-How even…? D-Doesn't it… hurt?"
"I can turn off my pain receptors," she said, shrugging lightly. "It's not as bad as it looks."
Recovery Girl slapped her leg with her cane. Sesera hadn't been prepared, and she jolted at the hit.
"No, it's much worse!" said the old lady. "Just because you can't feel it doesn't mean the damage isn't there! You have nociceptors for a reason! This kind of repetitive self-destruction isn't right! I should bash your two heads together, honestly!"
Sesera took the scolding with a deep breath and a placid expression. Seaweed Head cowered where he stood.
Recovery Girl brought Sesera's hand up gently and placed her lips just above the inside of the wrist.
Sesera could feel the effects of the old lady's Quirk instantly working. The remaining living tissue rapidly replicated and replaced the dead cells. The burnt skin gradually peeled off to reveal a smooth expanse of arm.
Sesera brought her other hand up to brush away the remaining black flakes before rolling her sleeves back down and putting her glove back on.
"Thank you for the healing," she said in a formally polite tone.
Recovery Girl narrowed her eyes at Sesera with a tut. Then, she turned her sharp gaze towards Seaweed Head and the blond man who stood beside him.
She said staunchly, "The tournament in the next round will have you all fighting in back-to-back battles, but I refuse to keep healing this kind of damage."
Sesera blinked, and the two men sputtered incoherently. The blond man looked like he was about to protest, but it only took one look from Recovery Girl for the words to die on his lips.
"Do you know of the Hayflick limit?" she asked with utter calm.
"Um…" Seaweed Head's eyes flitted. "It's something to do with cell division… right…?"
"It's the number of times a cell can divide before dying," said Sesera. "Its life span, basically."
"Yes, you would know that." Recovery Girl narrowed her eyes at her again, a frown pulling at her lips. She shook her head once before turning to face the other two people in the room, her gaze fixing on the curly-haired boy in particular. "Human cells can't replicate unlimitedly. Continuous damage and repair wear down on their life spans. The more kids like you get hurt, the shorter your lives get. That's an undeniable fact."
Both Seaweed Head and the blond man looked completely dumbfounded as if it was a wholly new revelation.
Sesera just stayed silent in her seat. She already had this lecture multiple times and was perfectly aware of all its implications, but it was probably for the best that Seaweed Head heard the whole thing.
"If you insist on using your fingers like that, they'll all fall off within the next decade at the latest." The old lady's warning was blunt and to the point. "You're not going to have a very long career if you keep this up. I know control can't be forced, but whatever kind of training you're doing clearly isn't working, so you need to find another way."
She turned her eyes up to the blond man.
"You need to find that other way," she told him. "That's your job as his trainer."
The blond man looked humbled, his brows furrowing over his deep-set eyes as he hung his head in shame.
Seaweed Head started flailing. "I-It's not his fault! He's been giving me lots of tips, but I just can't seem to make use of any of them!"
Recovery Girl huffed.
"That only means he's giving you the wrong ones." She squinted at the blond man, sniffing. "Raku would be disappointed. Maybe you should call Torino and have him give you tips."
Sesera watched the man choke on air and spit out blood with a bit of fascination. He shook violently in his baggy suit, placing a hand on the edge of a nearby bed to steady himself.
Seaweed Head bolted towards the blond man, hands waving wildly in between them.
"A-A-A-All"—he suddenly stilled, eyes flickering to her in an almost panicked manner—"All right there?! Are you all right there?!"
Sesera had no idea why her classmate was suddenly speaking in English, but the blond man took several deep breaths to calm himself. When he finally raised his head, there was a wan and tight smile displayed on his face.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said, holding out a hand. He patted down the front of his suit, and his shadowed blue eyes turned to her. "I don't believe I've introduced myself. I am Izuku Midoriya's personal trainer. You can call me Yagi."
She didn't expect Seaweed Head to be the sort to have a personal trainer of all things, but then again, with what his Quirk did to his body, personalized training was probably necessary. She had no idea how long these two had been working together, but if the current state of her classmate's skills was any indication, this trainer's methods were indeed rather… ineffectual.
Nonetheless, she straightened her back and gave him a polite nod. "Sesera Miyaka. It's nice to meet you."
"I also consult regularly with Recovery Girl for my, ah… condition, so you might see me around the school," he said, glancing at the boy beside him.
Seaweed Head nodded a little too fervently. "Y-Yeah! He does! So, don't be surprised if you, uh, see him walking around the halls or something! Ha ha! Ha!"
Sesera wasn't sure why they were bothering to tell her all this, but she took the information in stride. "OK."
Recovery Girl pulled two chocolate bars out of her coat pocket. She dropped one on Sesera's lap before rolling her chair over to Seaweed Head and handing him the other.
"I want to say I don't want to see either of you for the rest of the day, but that's probably too much to hope for." Recovery Girl sighed deeply. "Well, go off and get a proper meal in you before the final round then. If you want me to heal you, at least try to build up some energy for it."
"Y-Yes." Seaweed Head bowed towards her, clutching the chocolate bar to his chest. "Um… Thank you for the healing."
Sesera got to her feet as she tore off the wrapper of the chocolate bar.
"Thanks again," she said before biting the corner piece off.
Ooh. She turned the bar around to check the brand. That was a nice snap. Good mouthfeel too.
She read the blurb at the back of the wrapper as she trailed behind her classmate, and they exited the clinic one after the other. Just before the door closed, she heard a loud smack and an embarrassingly high-pitched "Yeowch!"
"That poor boy!" Recovery Girl's voice sounded shrill and very angry. "You're always pushing him with such strange methods!"
"Aha ha ha!" Seaweed Head laughed loudly and awkwardly, shuffling forward with heavy steps. "L-Let's get to the cafeteria before it gets too packed, yeah?"
"Your trainer—was he a hero?" asked Sesera as they walked down the hall. "It seemed like Recovery Girl knows him pretty well too. Is he an alumnus?"
Seaweed Head stuttered, green eyes wide. "O-Oh, uh, w-well, I guess… you could say that…?"
Their evasive tactics were a bit too obvious for Sesera to not be suspicious, but after that cavalry battle and a heavy-duty healing session with Recovery Girl, she didn't have the extra energy to press the issue further.
And to be perfectly honest, she wasn't interested enough in Seaweed Head to care.
So, Sesera just shrugged the matter off. "OK then."
They walked down the hallway in silence. From the corner of her eye, she could see Seaweed Head's shifty gaze and the unspoken words at the tip of his tongue.
"Just ask," she told him in an almost bored tone. In his own way, Seaweed Head was kind of hard to deal with as well.
"U-Um… Well, I was just a bit curious…" He pressed the tips of his forefingers together and then twirled them around each other. His hedging was starting to get on her nerves. "Those burns… Does that… uh, does that happen whenever you use your Quirk?"
"Only if I release too much electricity at once, or use myself as the locus of high-power attacks," she replied. "That's why I use my baton."
One would think that after seven generations of carefully cultivated power, the body that contained it would proportionally grow stronger, but no. Both Sesera and her mother had their maximum power outputs limited by the backlashes their bodies were able to take.
According to research, the RNA polymerases that eventually came to be called the Plus Alpha elements acted somewhat like viruses—nonliving strands of genetic data that took residence in living cells to reproduce themselves. Once inside a host, those elements interacted with other human cells to diversify and mutate themselves, and it was where the early idea of Quirks being some sort of disease came from.
It was posited that eventually, the host wouldn't be able to keep up with the elements' constant change, and a disconnect between the body and the Quirk factor would gradually grow over time. Some years ago, an article outlining this effect, which was then called the "Paranormal Singularity Theory," was published in an international medical journal.
At the time, it received harsh criticisms since it was only a couple of generations ago that more than fifty percent of the world's infant population began being born with superpowers. Quirks had only begun to be widely accepted, and the idea that it would eventually destroy humankind was ill-received.
Not to mention that most people were still only second- to third-generation Quirk users, and there wasn't really anyone who had come anywhere close to the point of singularity described in the article. The basis for the research was there, but there wasn't enough hard evidence available to support it.
Except actually, there was.
In response to the information it presented, Sesera's grandmother had been married to someone with a strong reinforcement-type Quirk. And though her mother was consequently born with an output comparable to a nuclear power plant, it was clear that she could go even higher but was limited by her physical body.
Reinforcement-type Quirks were common enough, sure, but finding one at a level that could withstand several generations of power compounded upon power right off the bat wasn't easy.
Sesera had a similar problem, but since her Quirk afforded her a more flexible form of control, she was able to get around her hard limit by minimizing her actual output and assimilating power from her surroundings instead. Still, they'd paid for that control with physical constitution, and though her generation ability was nearly on par with her mother's, her storage capacity was woefully nonexistent.
Truth be told, her body had less electrical resistance than even a Quirkless person. Rather than calling it "efficiency," her current method was the only way she was able to safely use her Quirk.
"I see…" mumbled Seaweed Head with a nod. His eyes were sharp and focused, and he was seemingly writing something in the air in front of him. "It's something like Kaminari's wattage limit then? Or maybe it's closer in theory to Kacchan's upper limit…? And I suppose the sheer number of possibilities your Quirk offers makes it hard to categorize its applications, so you use your baton to provide a basis for control. It does sort of look like a wand when you use it…"
Sesera blinked, swallowing the piece of chocolate she'd been chewing. Seaweed Head's analysis of her abilities was pretty on the nose.
Nerds are seriously dangerous.
"With a Quirk with such a high degree of freedom, you must've had quite the learning curve," he commented, looking at her with a bit of awe. "It's amazing that you're able to use so many applications of it at your age. If you don't mind me asking, how did you do it?"
She looked at the honest admiration in his eyes and felt almost guilty for her answer.
"Money," replied Sesera with only a slight bit of shame.
Seaweed Head's feet stumbled over a nonexistent pebble in his path. He blinked repeatedly at her, open-mouthed.
"P-Pardon?" he asked, his voice tentative and a bit disbelieving.
She pointed her half-eaten chocolate bar at the dull-rose pouch hanging by her hip. "I outsource most of the processing power needed for control to my regulator. It maintains my body's homeostasis and supports most of the necessary calculations for my Quirk's functions. It's basically a supercomputer."
Or, well, technically, it was a transceiver that acted as a relay point between her neural implants and the actual one, buuut—details.
"I see…" He let out a quiet breath. "W-Well, I suppose that's what Quirk-support items are for. Though I feel that being so reliant on them is a bit…"
"There are"—she thought over what she could say without legally implicating either of them—"extraordinary circumstances."
"Oh." His gaze flickered over to her for a split second before he looked away. "O-Out of curiosity, what would happen if it was destroyed in battle?"
"It's been made to withstand quite a lot," said Sesera with a shrug. "But in that case—"
She was probably being a bit dramatic, but the point stood, kind of. Sesera slashed a thumb across her neck.
Seaweed Head stared at her with wide eyes, his jaw nearly dropping to the floor.
"E-Eh…?"
He was too busy gaping at her to look ahead of him. Sesera noticed the door to the restroom opening before he did, so she grabbed the scruff of his shirt and pulled him back before his cheek could smack right into it.
"Hmm? Oh. My bad."
Seaweed Head stuttered. "E-E-E-En-End-Endea—"
Sesera breathed out.
"Endeavor."
