-10-

Kagura-nee-chan does exactly as she promises and more.

She comes by nearly every other evening and drags me out to the backyard to practice my quirk. Sometimes she comes alone, sometimes she bring Haru or one of her other friends. I'm not sure why, but they're all extremely kind. Not that I have any real time to talk to them. As soon as we're in the yard, she has me release the darkness, has me fight with it, and brings her own flashlight when I get overwhelmed and lost in it.

"Good job Rin-chan," Haru says, his head in his hands as he watches lazily while I work. He's leaving in three months and I think he'll miss Kagura. I'm practicing releasing only a portion of my shadows, one of Kagura's newest ideas since releasing them all is useless and hasn't shown any progress.

So far, it's worked well. A thick, tentacle-like shadow slivers down and around my arm, coating it and extending in an undulating wave past my hand and towards Kagura.

She threatens it with the flashlight, and it ripples and retreats.

"You need more control," Kagura says with a grunt, putting away the flashlight. "It just does what it wants. It's not like it has a brain, it's yours, hell-spawn—control it!"

I nod, and she glares.

"Y-Y-Yes ma'am," I stutter out. She hates nods and shrugs and stares. I bite my lip, suck in a breath, and then release it. Then I pinch my arm, the only way I know to summon forth the power.

It's like trying to catch and hold water.

Shadows seep from all my pores, and I struggle to push back only some instead of them all. They slip and slide beneath my will, twisting and curling in smoking patterns until they cover my arm in a large, shadowy tentacle. It moves to extend, and I hold it close.

It's like trying to stop a wave.

It surges around my will, shooting out and Kagura squeals as she bats it away with a flashlight.

"Again!"

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.

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Yui-san offers encouragement when we finish, her dark eyes proud and roving. Akari and Niko do not. They become more vicious at my continued attempts to be a hero, hiding my clothes and covering my bed in mud. Kagura offers to 'fix' the problem, but I refuse.

"They'll stop eventually."

They don't.

It escalates to a breaking point when someone puts some powder in my shirt, and I break out in boils and hives for three days. They blister and pus against my neck, my chest, and arms, leaving permanent red scars and welts. Yui-san steps in then, threatening them both. I'm moved to my own room upstairs.

Then the rumors start.

A video of a gas station clerk being attacked by shadowy tentacles surfaces on the web. It circulates the school in hours, and my name circulates with it. Those few acquaintances I have want nothing to do with me and the teachers give me a wide berth. They call me a villain, whispering cruel words in the hall, and stuffing notes and gum and glue in my locker.

Go kill yourself!

My mom was killed by a villain. I hope they lock you up!

Go to Tartarus.

Die bitch!

I cry when I find them. Kagura and Haru are furious about it. They rage and they rant, snarling and spitting until I'm sobbing again. Yui-san is just as pissed. She goes down to the school, rants at the teachers and staff, has my locker moved and my classes changed. Niko and Akari are grounded for months, given the worst of the chores (bathroom cleaning, pulling weeds, cutting the grass, and community service in the neighborhood), and nobody speaks to them.

But the notes and vandalism don't stop.

"No more crying," Yui-san tells me when I come home tear-streaked again and again and again.

"But they hate me," I tell her, struggling to breathe as snot slips down my nose and lip, shoulders shaking.

"They don't," she promises. I don't believe her. She sighs and holds me by the shoulder, shoving me lightly into a chair, tilting my chin to catch my eye. "Rin-chan, I promise you, they don't. They just don't know you-"

"They do," I sob, pushing her another note.

You're a monster! You should just fucking die.

I bury my face in my hands. My nose runs and my throat aches and my eyes burn, and she just stares at the note, lips thin, and eyes narrowed. Then she crinkles it up in her hand. I look up when smoke curls from her fist, smoke I've never seen, and she activates her quirk, the quirk I've never seen her use.

The smell of ash and smoke sweeps across the room.

"No more crying," she says again, this time more forcefully. "The world is made of two types of people, those with power and those without."

I sniffle and nod, I know this lesson. I've known it for years.

"Sometimes, Rin-chan, people want more. More power, more respect, more attention… just more. So they take it. They do things to hurt you to take it, they make you want to cry, to break you, to win."

She stops again, stepping away, her fists curled at her side.

"No more crying," she repeats, looking me dead in the eye. "Crying gives them power. If you want to be a hero, show them your strength. Smile."

I choke and nod. Tears still streaming down my face, I force my best smile. It feels watery and awful. Yui-san looks at it and opens her arms. For the first time in my stay, she offers me a hug. I lunge for it. Warm arms and the smell of cigarettes pressed against my nose, and the feeling of safety whispered in my bones.

I smile.

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"We'll work twice as hard now," Kagura tells me later, her hands pressed against skin-tight pants and eyes narrowed in outrage. "They're all wrong, and we'll prove it!"

I nod in agreement, carefully fixing a smile on my face. I throw myself, harder, into training.