Life is great when it isn't forcing everything down your throat quicker than you can swallow. Which, let's be honest, is more often than not so in general life sucks. But not always.
Kazane is sure there must have been a time when life was more than okay.
Maybe it was months ago when the end of her final year of middle school wasn't so close and her mother wasn't so determined to push her to her very limits in training to make sure she had a good shot at acing anything UA's hero course entrance exam threw her way.
Maybe it was years ago before her father had left them and they had been an actual family, at least as much as she could remember. Maybe they hadn't been much of a family. Maybe that's why he'd left and still hadn't come back yet. But he'd promised her just as she'd promised him and until that time came she would not stop dreaming of that day.
Maybe it was about 14 years ago when she had just been born, before her mother knew about her quirk and still had a normal job, when they were just like any new family, full of love and patience and nothing to drive them apart. That sounds logical. Too bad she had been too young to appreciate it.
Or maybe it was way before all of that, before quirks had come into being and had molded society into what it was today; chaotic, competitive and cruel. Huh, three c's. Anything but the tightly controlled system the government and the police force wants you to think it is. Kazane knows what it's really like. All thanks to her mother, she's seen those crushed under the system, experienced the imbalance, silently screamed at the injustice of it all.
But for now, life is okay. She hates it, but it's okay. Okay in her own personal twisted definition, anyway.
Days spent with others her age at school are monotonous but at least safe. Not that her peers seem to agree as they numb her brain with the constant battle for popularity and insistence on their individuality in their talents and quirks. But despite anyones efforts, they are all fundamentally the same.
It's all the same. Same constricting buildings, same suffocation schedule, same wearily condescending teachers, same achingly boring lessons and the same unoriginal class dynamics. The students, most overpowered and drunk on the same recycled praise they'd been fed since young for their generally useless or barely above average quirks and using it to lord over those with less or in the most unfortunate cases none. It's always dominate or be dominated, bully or be bullied, stand strong or be beaten down swiftly. Kazane supposes it might as well have been like that before quirks dominated the world but she couldn't be convinced that quirks hadn't made things worse. It was brutal, the way it divided people, even in a classroom of squeaky and emotional students.
In her relatively short life, Kazane has been to a total of three different middle schools, moving often for her mother's work, so she'd seen a lot of it. From the start, she'd known there was a choice she had to make. Where was she going to stand? Kazane didn't care much for making herself a victim but she'd sooner run into a wall than stoop to the level of a bully. So she'd made a third choice, just for herself. The ghost, as she likes to call it. She hangs back, stays quiet, keeps to herself. But when her passiveness attracts unwanted attention, then she'd make her move and make it clear she isn't to be messed with. Establishing a reputation, while not always positive, usually helped keep people off her back. Training from her mother, starting as young as she could remember, had made it easy and before long, anywhere she went she'd make sure they knew she could take care of herself (and if she got a few calls home from the school from time to time, well, it's not like Mother could get too mad at her). So they leave her alone and she leaves them alone, barely acknowledged and passing through the years without a fuss. A ghost.
(Of course, she'd seen others like her, ghosts. The students who don't fit in as the bully or the victim, the students who keep to themselves, the students who seem just as desperate as she was to get out quick. Those students can recognise others like them and just as readily ignore each other as they do the rest.)
One thing Kazane in particular does to make sure she doesn't attract attention is reveal her quirk. In school, quirks are a thing used to boost status, to amaze your peers and impress your teachers. Really, the flashier the better. So Kazane is careful, never bringing it up or using it in front of others but never giving others cause to label her quirkless. Being labelled quirkless was pretty much a social death and a one way ticket to becoming a target. She supposes that after she'd managed to beat up so many of her other students, they're cautious not to underestimate her or even dare to call her quirkless. Quirkless, like it's an insult, like it would make her lesser of a human when they're the monsters. Not that Kazane cares what they think but the less attention the better.
It's also important to note that at face value, Kazane's quirk isn't anything too amazing. Atleast, in her opinion. It's more the way she has been trained to use it, the way she has been trained to take advantage of all the advantages her quirk gives her, that makes it powerful and a force to be reckoned with in combat. But she hates it. Hates the way it tears her apart every time she uses it, hates that it melts her body back together only to be torn apart again, hates that it could be so destructive in the wrong hands, hates that she's not so sure it isn't in the wrong hands. Most of all, she hates how much her mother loves it.
The only time she ever uses her quirk is during training.
During training, Kazane forces a sense of detachment, barely conscious of her movements as her mother closely watches her with her piercing gaze and shouts short corrections or directions for her to follow. While her mother is particularly interested in training her quirk, the woman makes sure her daughter undergoes physical training so her body can keep up with the development too. It's there that Kazane puts her focus, secretly training herself so that her quirk would never become a reflex and would never need to be used in the first place. Kazane isn't sure if her mother knows exactly what she's doing but either way, the pale grey-haired woman never seems completely satisfied with her progress.
"Kazane," Her mother snaps and Kazane pauses where she had been alternating between doing pushups and releasing controlled breaths of her strong lung-powered quirk, the effort sending her gasping to catch her breath, her throat raw and her whole body aching as it tenses with every movement. "I want you focused. No daydreaming or half-assed efforts."
Oh, so she had known. Kazane should have known, really, her mother is too smart not to pick up on something like that. She's just grateful she'd been able to get away with it for so long, at least.
"I hope I don't need to change anything to make training more interesting for you, young lady. I would hate for this to be too boring to entertain you."
Kazane makes sure her face reveals nothing, keeping it emotionless and blank like always so she doesn't unintentionally provoke her mother. "No, Mother. I apologize, Mother."
Her voice comes out rough and raspy, a near constant these days with the ceaseless use of her quirk as days where they don't train becom few and far between.
"Insufficient," the dark-haired woman demands, electric yellow eyes narrowing dangerously. The signal to explain.
Kazane lets her own yellow gaze drop to her feet, already pulling up a pre-prepared excuse. "I was… simply occupied with schoolwork. End of year exams are coming up. There will also be high school entrance exams to prepare for."
Fighting not to fidget or offer up any other signs of weakness, Kazane nearly sighs in relief when her mother finally blinks and the accusatory stare no longer feels like it is pinning her in place and stripping her mind apart.
"Accepted. But still out of the question. Your training comes before your studying, you'd do well to keep that in mind. If you fail your final exams that will be because of your own incompetence and failure to understand the lesson your teachers have been paid to teach. Continue with the exercise but please wipe all such thoughts from your mind. You will study later, in your own time."
"Yes, Mother," Kazane whispers and gets back to the task her mother had set for her, painfully aware of her mother's attention and her own consciousness of her actions, feeling it imprint in her mind and sink into her muscles as she moved.
"Much better," Mother comments, making Kazane grit her teeth but otherwise say nothing, throat burning as she is ripped apart from the inside with every strong gust fueled by the contractions of her powerful lungs.
Heat flares in her lungs and expands in a way that makes her chest swell in a way beyond what someone would be capable of and contracting with such force that the air expelled through her body ravages the inside of her throat and leaves her body in a strong gust channelled to push her body away from the ground in a push up as she had been instructed. Before the pain becomes too much, as she pauses in her quirk usage to drop close to the ground and put the burning into her arms and stomach, her throat tingles and the skin slowly melts back together, cool and itching and making her teeth ache. But it isn't enough and before she can completely heal, she is forced to rise up on her arms and push herself up with the aid of one more sharp breath.
She knows the reasoning behind the exercise, much similar to the reasoning behind many of the other exercises she is ordered to perform constantly, daily, weekly. Building up strength in her throat, toughening the skin and forcing her body to become accustomed to the damage of her quirk is important. She had been doing it for years and maybe one day she would strengthen to the point her quirk would no longer harm her. But that didn't change the fact that it hurt now and made her itch with the desire to swallow something soothing.
"That will have to do for today," Mother dismisses after an agonizing who knows how long with a glance at her watch, not offering her daughter any more words or so much as a glance as she turns and leaves the rooftop. Even as Kazane collapses on the ground in exhaustion only to force herself to her feet for the painful descent into their apartment block, even then she knew that her mother won't be there when she gets to the apartment.
That is how their routine goes. Her mother had managed to pull strings so that they had unrestricted access to the open space of the rooftop of their apartment building, free whenever she needed it. Sometimes they would go to a park or gym but for the most part, the rooftop satisfies her mother's requirements. It is large and open to the sky as well as private and most of all, an environment where her mother is in complete control, just as she likes it. There is no chance for unplanned variables or Kazane escaping, unless she uses her training.
After each training session which can take from an hour to the entire evening depending on how her mother was pleased by her results, her mother rarely returns to their small shared apartment straight after. Kazane is not kept informed of what exactly her mother spends her free time on but she was keenly aware she was better off not knowing. Not that she doesn't have her suspicions. She knows her mother well enough to have a very good idea of the kinds of people she meets regularly and even takes home for a business meeting slash meal on some unpleasant occasions.
But Kazane isn't foolish enough to think that that means she is completely let off the hook or unobserved, whether that's because her mother doesn't always leave the block or thanks to the quirk Kazane had fortunately not inherited. Or perhaps unfortunately. Kazane is still puzzling that one out along with whether she's better off earning her mother's pride or ire.
Kazane enters the apartment with a twist of her key and instantly runs a trained eye over the room, easily spotting three or four easily missable imprints on various items and pieces of furniture in the small living-room-dining-room-kitchen. The toaster. The kitchen cabinet to the left. The wall next to the light switch. And that was only the few she can spot immediately. Entering the side that served as their small kitchen with it's wall of cabinets, tiles and appliances cramped in one confined space, she grabs a mug and edges closer to the imprint she had spotted beside the kettle under the pretense of checking it for hot water. Reaching over to fill it up in the sink, Kazane peeks out the corner of her eye and quickly counts the friction ridges from her mother's thumbprint still visible in fragile brown swirling lines and quickly does the calculations in her head as she puts the kettle on to boil.
From the looks of it, she has roughly two hours before her mother returns to either keep an eye on Kazane herself or refresh the imprints with her surveillance quirk. But that was with how long their training had gone on for today too which meant her mother has something important to do which would keep her out late. Kazane stops her train of thought there before she analyses her mother's actions too much. The less she knows, the better. All that matters was she had a good estimate of the time her mother would be back and what to do with that time.
Kazane glances at the clock. 7 pm. Cooking a quick dinner for herself wouldn't take too long, giving her enough time to herself. That is if she got a move on.
Pouring the boiling water and making herself a green tea, Kazane sets it to the side and begins on a simple fried rice tossed together with leftovers and scraps she found in the kitchen, sipping the tea in between her haphazard yet deliberate movements.
She finishes the tea by the time the meal is ready and after setting the table, Kazane hesitates at a cupboard, practically feeling her mother's gaze burning into her from one of the imprints. Slumping in defeat, she grabs a glass of water and stirs in that quirk strengthening powder she absolutely detests but her mother insists she take every day. Not only does it taste revolting but Kazane isn't sure it actually does anything, doubtful that any powder could successfully claim to strengthen and benefit all quirks out there. It also makes her throat feel uncomfortably dry for hours afterwards, not that her mother ever pays her arguments any mind.
Kazane eats hungrily, doing her best to cover up the gritty garbage powder concoction's taste with the rice and in doing so and wincing a few times from the pain in her throat, manages to get on with washing the dishes and heading to her room in good time. She isn't foolish enough to believe her mother wouldn't stoop to spying on her own room and so doesn't drop her guard even entering her bedroom after a short shower.
Kazane hovers over her desk thoughtfully before setting her bag down at her feet and dropping to a crouch over it, effectively obscuring her hands from any logical imprint locations her mother would use considering she usually picked spots that could overlook the entire room. With her hands hidden, Kazane has a few short moments of cover disguised as her rifling through her bag. Careful not to shift forward too much, she sneaks her hands forward to find the crack where the cheap tatami mat broke away, revealing a gap underneath that she pulls the textbook hidden there from and sneaks it amongst her other school things.
Settling down at her desk and acting quickly, Kazane splays the other textbooks and a notebook she'd grabbed too around the hidden one and hunches over it as much as possible hopefully under the guise of intense concentration. She fights off a smile as her eyes scan the contents of the old medical textbook she had taken off someone's hands with something akin to glee for her but for anyone else would appear more like mild amusement.
She mentally berates herself. She shouldn't be happy, she was supposed to be 'studying'. But as she scans the paragraph of knowledge that is technically unnecessary for her to internalize for the hero course or the future she would have, she can't help but stroke the second-hand and torn pages in contentment. A pro hero may be what she is destined to become but at least, for now, she has this. Quiet moments where she could pretend she's following different footsteps belonging to a different life. It isn't much but it is what keeps her going when days become too stifling, training too overwhelming and her mother too much to deal with.
Kazane spends the evening like that until her mother returns, quietly fascinated by what she is reading, hungrily ingesting the facts, advice and tips as she takes scribbled and practically unreadable notes that to anyone else would be meaningless. A click of the front door echoes through the silent apartment and Kazane freezes, eyes darting to the alarm clock at her elbow. 9:43. Her mother is late which means that by now, all of her imprints have faded and she is currently out of sight. Abandoning her pretense, Kazane quickly slips the textbook into her bag to hide more securely later and focuses on her maths textbook in time for her mother to enter the doorless room and cast a sharp look over her and her books, showing neither approval or disapproval.
Before she can stop herself, Kazane finds herself scanning her mother and noticing small clues she has unconsciously begun to pick up over the years. The deepening wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, tighter tonight. The thin line of her lips pulled taught. The way she leans against the doorframe, as if she's been walking around for a long time. The underlying frustration Kazane can spot just under the surface, poking out through her infallible mask. Kazane mentally berates herself when the small satisfaction burning at the pit of her stomach makes her realise what she has been doing, that she has been looking for any signs her mother's plans had not gone as desired, and she forces her eyes to her desk before she notices anything else.
"Well done for studying so seriously but I would not advise staying much later." Put your things away and go to bed now.
Kazane reads between the lines for the order and quickly goes about packing away her things and finishing her night routine. When she is finally in bed with all lights in the apartment off, she can make out the gleam of her mother's eyes briefly watching her through the door before they blink and are gone, the door of her mother's room shutting softly and leaving the apartment once more silent. No goodnight, no sweet dreams, and certainly no kiss.
Kazane finally relaxes, knowing she is finally safe from her mother's constant observation. Of course, she can't leave her room or make too much noise before her mother's hypersensitivity would attract her disapproving attention, but at night is when Kazane has the most freedom in her own home.
With careful movements that didn't waste a second of energy, Kazane silently slips the medical book back where it belonged. As much as she wants to bring it to school, she knows she wasn't safe even there. Once safely back in bed, she can't help but mentally regurgitate all she had read, running the facts and paragraphs through her head, committing them to memory as she knew she wouldn't get many chances to go over the textbook again.
But even as her mind works, she feels her thoughts grow sluggish and despite the fact that no amount of sleep ever seemed to make her feel any less tired, she allows herself to be taken prisoner for another night as the darkness closes in on her.