Harleking31: Step 1: wake up at 5 am
There's a 5 AM?
Oh hey he used his power again
Did Smith find him before Doppel?
Well anyway, I was convinced Papi was like
At least a teenager
Re: Yes there is; and IRL, I get up at 5 every weekday.
No, Smith found Doppelon the way, and drove her the rest of the wayfold .
In her Canon maybe, but here, I decided to age her down a little so she'd be Takei's age.
Not that I have any plans on shipping them or anything, and I mean that with complete seriousness. I just thought it'd be interesting to write a story arc for her where she isn't blatantly sexualized. Or treated as an over-glorified pet for that matter.
LoamyCoffee: Ooh a double update!
Wow, Takei's snapping was totally warranted.
Nice reference to Omniverse and Papi, now has a legit reason for her behavior. Not that is an excuse for her go kidnapping people. Takei is likely to develop distain for flying Quirks, what with the kidnapping and then Tobita actually leaving him to his fate, though she might not've wanted to possibly gotten in trouble for her Quirk usage. Really starting to hate the civilian's mentality of waiting for a Pro Hero to come and do something THEY could easily do by getting a damn ladder.
I agree, best part was the monologue. I remember before Vigilantes, wondering what the hell was the cops' role.
Re: I honestly had no intention of bringing up Omniverse, but when I thought about the grape flavor… As for Papi, when you stop treating her like an over-glorified pet (and/or "waifu bait"), "mild-spectrum autism, coupled with an extreme case of ADHD" would be exactly what she'd have been diagnosed with if she were Human; a distinction that's important in this universe since any Liminal cameos would just be Heteromorphs. As for Takei, at least Papi didn't fly him through any convenience store signs~
As for the civilian reactions, someone born into that world wouldn't care, it'd all seem natural; but Takehiko, being a satire of an Isekai Protagonist, has a "point of reference" to what people were like before superpowers, hence he can actually quantify when people are being "100 percent of a dick". And it was lots of fun getting to elaborate on some of the friction that exists between the Police and Heroes, what with Heroes basically being over-glorified law enforcement officers. In any other world, Izuku would've made a pretty decent cop, but because of the toxic environment he grew up in, the word "cop" has basically become synonymous with "failure"…
*AHA*
Bruised ribs weren't exactly something you could just shrug off; not like protagonists of an anime did, anyway. And even in the 22nd Century, the actual treatment for bruised ribs had hardly changed in the 200+ years since Takei's own time.
True, the damage Takei had taken was extensive, but not overtly life-threatening, due to there not being any full breaks. The Mon Agency, purchasing some painkillers and some sort of wrap-around icepack that coiled around his bruised torso like a serpent, put him on "sick leave" for a while since the most he could do was ice his ribs, take painkillers, not sleep on his stomach, and not put any additional strain on his body.
Takei didn't have any problem with that, not minding in the slightest that he was under house arrest after his "abduction". The only thing that really irked him in the days to follow was he could no longer work out to burn away some of his nervous energy. Between that and the "early-morning incidents" he would thusly refuse to go into or bring up in casual discussion EVER again… and he wasn't exactly a happy camper.
He'd thought he'd done a good-enough job of hiding it, being a reincarnated late-20-something and all, but as he was nursing his wounds, he noticed that the ladies of the Mon Agency would pamper or fret over him whenever they were around; Doppel and Manako in particular. Tio had tried to do much of the same, but between her monstrous strength and monstrous… bosom, she had the unfortunate tendency of squeezing too hard, or outright smothering him without even realizing. Zombina, no longer having the first-name basis relationship most of the "living" had with pain, wasn't able to empathize with him completely, while Kuroko gave him his space, treating him like the adult whose presence he tended to radiate.
Though he'd been given their cell numbers and encouraged to call if he needed anything, the 'eleven-year-old' never did, his traction doing little to impede their own careers as he studied or lounged about.
*AHA*
"Hey, Kuroko."
"What is it, Zombina?" Kuroko hummed as she bulled her way through incident reports.
"Don't you think Take-chan is healing a little… fast?" the [Zombie] Quirk user questioned.
"How would you know? You barely heal from anything at all," Doppel hummed.
"Hey, I might be 'dead', but even I remember enough about what it's like having a living body, to know that the speed his bruises are disappearing isn't exactly 'normal'," she defended.
"H-He is about to go through puberty. Maybe it's hormones?" Manako questioned.
"No… I don't think that's it…" Zombina hummed, crossing her arms under her bosom and leaning back. "Didn't Hitomi say he got his muscle mass back faster than normal, too?"
"Honestly, it could be any number of things," Kuroko hummed, rolling her neck. "Maybe it's something obscure like Damon Hall Syndrome, or Heteromorphic Atavism. Either way, it won't help him any if we raise a stink about it and draw attention to him. If he's healing, it just means he's a healthy prepubescent boy. And nothing else…" she said warningly, causing the others to clam up.
" . . . When's the next time Hitomi can come over to visit?" Doppel asked, surprising everyone. "The other day… he got really pissed at me for wearing Hitomi's skin. He hides it, doesn't say anything, but I think he really misses her…"
"She's… trying to get everything sorted out at the HPSC, after the way we smuggle Tokei-kun out of there…" Manako answered. "They haven't blacklisted her or anything, and they didn't outright fire here… But I think she might need a new job before the year is out."
" . . . I don't think we should tell Take-chan about that," Tio murmured, the cookies she was snacking on suddenly losing their flavor. "He really loves her, deep down, and if he realizes she put her career in jeopardy for him…"
"Then it's settled. We tell him nothing. Nothing at all," Kuroko ordered.
"Just like your sex life. Heyooo!" Doppel cackled gleefully, only for all of them to go silent. "Oh, you guys are no fun…"
*AHA*
"Well…" I hummed to myself as I set my book down, the whole 'Papi the ADHD Harpy incident' several days hence. "That's English down, at least…"
It wasn't surprising I'd refreshed my English so-quickly compared to all my other subjects; which were all in Japanese… English being my former primary language, a language I'd used to write fanfiction in before my death, was actually a useful skill to have in this world since it was just a future version of my own and not a completely alien world. In most Isekai however, the language barrier was tackled in different ways; you either had to learn everything from scratch, could understand the spoken word but not the written, could understand the spoken and written word, and in some cases were sometimes able to take your original language and use it for coded messages or for magic formulae.
I was thankful that reincarnating hadn't caused my mastery of the English language to atrophy, and there hadn't been any major upheavals on that front beyond a bit of niche lingo. Some of the older stuff, Heroes would sometimes revive to help distinguish themselves from their peers with battle cries like "cowabunga", "groovy", "booyah", and so-on. And it was a saying that fads recirculate "every ten years".
To be honest, it'd taken me almost no time at all to complete all the coursework for elementary school English in the Japanese curriculum. As soon as I'd realized how-easy it was tackling that again, I basically binged it to get it all out of the way.
"Maybe I should ask for the middle school coursework next?" I groused to myself. If I could reach "mastery" of the English language -as recognized by the Japanese department of education- before I actually got to Damoto Junior High, that would actually free up a great deal of time for other studies down the road.
*Knock*Knock*Knock*
"Who is it?" I called to the doorway.
"Who do you think? It's Torino Sorahiko, let me in!" a muffled voice said through the door.
" . . . Can you wait a minute? I need to check on the oven!"
"Alright, but don't leave an old man standing out here all day."
"Just give me a minute!" I said dialing my phone and moving into the other room. "Kuroko."
"What's wrong? Are you in trouble?" Kuroko asked in a whisper.
"Not sure. That old guy from the hospital, Torino-san. He's here. Wants me to let him in?"
"You sure it's him?"
"I could try looking out the peep hole, but any idiot can just stand out of the way, and Torino-san's too short to see through it anyway."
"Well, use the camera feed. It's to the right of the entryway; controls are pretty intuitive."
Turned out, it was. A couple button taps and suddenly I could see into the hall outside the door without looking into the peep hole.
Torino, surprisingly-enough, was clad in a Hero Costume. Consisting of a full-body monochrome suit with a yellow cape that dragged across the floor, a belt with a stylized G-shaped belt buckle, and very thick yellow gloves and boots, on his face he wore a black domino mask resembling two diamonds. I have no idea what the guy's costume looked like before he'd shrunk with age, but at present… the guy's costume made him look like Classic Mega Man with a "Golden Age-inspired DLC Skin" slapped over it.
He still carried his wooden cane with him, though that just left me wondering if he legitimately needed it to get around, or if it was a ruse to con Villains into underestimating him.
"I mean… It looks like him-Wait… Is Doppel with you, or is that her playing hooky out there?"
"Hey, I'm not that bad!" the doppelganger cut in.
Okay, so that wasn't her out there then…
"What should I do? Do I let him in?"
"Well, I mean, he's your friend."
"I barely even know the guy!"
"Well… If you're up to it, you can meet him in the common area downstairs if you don't wanna be alone with him. And you said his name was Torino Sorahiko?" Kuroko asked inquisitively.
"That's right."
"Ah… Hitomi mentioned you hung out with him a couple of times," Kuroko hummed. "Meet him in the common area just in case. I heard he's a little senile, but old people get to act like they're senile when they're really not, and people will totally fall for it. Like you and the whole eye laser thing-~"
"Gottagobye!" I say killing the line, deeply regretting that I included that sordid little detail in the re-telling that evening at dinner…
*AHA*
"That was some trip to the oven," Torino hummed as soon as he spotted me in the common area, the sun shining brightly in the panoramic view windows.
"I'm uh… slow-roasting something…" I lied… "So, why're you here? And what's with the costume?"
"You still wanna get in shape?"
"Well, yeah, but… more for my health than anything-"
*Crump*
"Then put these on and follow me," he said tossing a large paper bag my way. "They're some of Toshi's old hand-me-downs, but I had them re-sized a little so they'd fit."
'That 'Toshi' guy again… One'a these days I'll really have to ask who he even is,' I hummed as I pulled out the contents. It looked like an ordinary tracksuit, dark-blue pants with white vertical lines running down the legs, and a dark-blue long-sleeved shirt with a high collar and white lines forming the letters U and A at the collar and abdomen respectively.
"They're part of the Yuuei uniform. As long as you're with me wearin' that, no one'll bat an eye at us as we train," the old man stated, guessing pretty accurately what I was going to ask next. "If you wear them when I'm not around and someone asks, say they're hand-me-downs from your ojiisan."
"What, you want me to call you 'jiji' when we're in public?"
"It'll help sell the bit. Hero Trainees get all kinds of slack; you just gotta have the right connections to… take advantage of this little unwritten rule is all~" the old man said with a coyote-like grin.
"Geez, you and Smith are bad influences…" I muttered.
"But anyway, we're burnin' daylight," he said clacking his cane on the ground. "Get changed, I'll stash your stuff in a locker and you can pick 'em up later. I'll mail the rest of Toshi's old tracksuits later on. As you get older, you can let some of the slack out."
Forceful little gremlin, wasn't he?
Ah, hell, might as well. My ribs have finally stopped hurting and I've been itching for an excuse to go outside on a school day.
Stepping into the bathroom and changing into the dark-blue tracksuit, I found that for something once worn by a highschooler, it fit surprisingly well after it'd been re-sized. The sleeves may've been a pinch long, the legs the slightest bit short, and the body of the top went down past my waist a bit, but other than that it wasn't an unbearable fit. Surprisingly-enough the elastic waistband still had a bit of life left in it. Looking at myself in the mirror, I found that I could've easily passed myself off as a Sports Festival Contestant at Yuuei; assuming my shirt size was something like "Youth Extra-Large".
Of course, the only reason I knew what they wore at the time, was because I'd gotten curious what was so-special about it that it'd replaced the Olympics in terms of viewership.
I mean sure, the first and second events were kinda interesting, some nice variety on occasion, and all the Quirks running wild all at once made it impossible to tell immediately who'd take the top three slots in each event… But that every Sports Festival ended with a Dragonball-esque Budokai Tenkaichi-style "tournament arc"…
Honestly, I felt like the old Olympics, but with Quirks thrown into the mix, would be more exciting.
But that was neither here nor there.
Stepping out of the restroom and stashing my clothes in the locker Torino had rented, before I could leave the building he grabbed my sleeve and held me back.
"Hold up. I got one last thing before we go," he said holding out a small, flat box. Taking it in my hand and finding it had a tiny bit of weight to it, I pried open the lid to see a domino mask of all things waiting for me.
It wasn't as-explicitly diamond-shaped like Torino's, more elongated with a streamlined look to it. What made it different was the white streak running along the underside, a pair of fang-like extensions that would rest on the wearer's cheeks set below the outer corners of their eyes.
Something nagged at me as I took in the shape, the white as a sharp contrast to the black. And then all of a sudden it hit me! Like a flaming semi-truck falling on my face!
"Holy cow…! This…! This is…!"
"Don't get your hopes up, it ain't the original," Gran Torino waved off, quashing the miniscule part of my brain that thought for a moment it might've been the Real McCoy and not just a replica. "Still, I'd heard you were a fan of the 'Crusher of Justice: Wild Tiger', so I had them whip up a duplicate in your size. How's it fit?"
Duplicate or not, I still couldn't help but lift it from the box with trembling hands. Audibly gulping as I turned it over, ever-so-carefully I brought it up to my face. As soon as the middle of the mask touched the bridge of my nose, like a screen protector on a phone, the material of the mask smoothed itself against my face, conforming to it perfectly. Blinking my eyes and feeling a slight, but unobtrusive weight settle over them, I realized that not only had the mask changed its shape to fit me perfectly, but that it covered my eyelids too!
"Better than some old grease paint, huh kiddo?" Gran Torino chuckled as he watched me tremble with excitement, my fingertips tracing the contours of the mask as though I couldn't believe it was actually real.
"Ohhhh yeah… Definitely…~!" I whooped excitedly. Or at least the eleven-year-old whose body I inhabited did. Objectively this shouldn't have registered on any level higher than a cosplayer with a really good prop of a beloved character, but to know that Kotetsu Kaburagi had once been real in this world, that he was a non-fictional Hero I could have as 'my Hero'…
"Good to hear!" he said clacking his cane on the ground as he made his way to the door. "Now come on, time's a'wastin' and I ain't getting' any younger!"
"Right! Coming!"
Sure, it was unseemly for a pre-30-something to be so giddy and excited over a domino mask that was only a replica of the one worn by a long-dead Hero… but damn it, the part of me that was still 'me me', couldn't help but be ecstatic at getting to bring back even a sliver of Wild Tiger back into this world so-bereft of true heroes.
*AHA*
"Soooo…" I hummed, finding myself jogging down the street with 'Gran Torino' on my back like Luke Skywalker with Yoda on Dagobah. "Why have you taken this interest in me? I mean, I don't want to be a Hero or anything, and I'm basically a complete stranger, sooo…"
" . . . Because I need to keep my mind engaged. Because there's one last generation of Heroes I can train before I'm too old and crotchety to move anymore. Because you're the only whippersnapper I've found lately who knows 'the value of a hard day's work', regardless of whatever Quirk you do or don't have," Gran Torino answered honestly after a moment. "I never had any young'uns of my own, thought it'd be too dangerous, but by the time I did want them, it was too late for me to start," he continued aloud. "Sorry if this all sounds like an old man's selfish request, but you're the honestly the only one who can help me with this right now…"
" . . . Maybe you aren't my elder… But the fact that you lived long enough to retire in anything other than a 'pine box', well… I gotta respect that, to be perfectly frank," I found myself admitting, adjusting my hold on him. "And who knows, if I happen to have a couple club activities under my belt that all this training helps me in, maybe I'll have a better chance of getting into Yuuei, and Tokyo U after that."
"Plannin' that far ahead, eh? Awfully optimistic~" the old man chuckled. "Not everyone can be a Hero; or at least not everyone should. You're honestly one of the few kiddos your age to actually realize that. Most youngsters think if they plan for any kind of college it'll jinx them out of the Hero Course altogether."
"Yeah, well… being used as this world's whipping boy… it made me age a lot on the inside."
" . . . I'm sorry to hear that."
"Meh, it's all gravy," I shrug. "Anyhow, where're we going exactly?"
"Why're you askin' me? I was following you."
"You're not following me, you're riding me; I know the difference."
*AHA*
As surreal as it was carrying this Yoda-like Mega Man cosplyer throughout the city in a re-sized Yuuei High tracksuit, I couldn't help but feel like I was being a complete and utter nuisance to those around me. That being said, with what I was wearing and who I was with, I learned a little bit more about this world's toxic codependency with its Hero population.
Along the way I heard people mutter about how I was supposedly "the grandson of a Yuuei alumnus" who was being prepped to "get into the Hero Course on recommendation"; the latter of which was apparently a thing at certain Hero Academies. I mean sure, like the Turian Hierarchy in Mass Effect, putting forward someone for promotion who wasn't ready for it could monumentally backfire on the person who put the promotee's name forward in the first place. But even still, the fact that someone could just get into an elite Hero Course like Yuuei's with nothing but a spoken word, was a hint as to where so much Quirk-related bias and arrogance seemed to come from. As though having a Quirk was some green card to be a complete and total dickhole to everyone else without reprisal, with those that had the strongest or flashier Quirks being the biggest dickholes of all.
And speaking of which, no matter how many people I jostled in the course of my training at Gran Torino's insistence that I keep my feet moving, that no-one raised any sort of stink about it just because one of us was a Hero retiree and the other was in a Yuuei tracksuit and a snazzy domino mask… It kinda felt like I was leaning a little too much into the "rules" of this society for my own benefit, for a gain as-minimal as staying healthy and fit.
I mean sure, I wasn't a paragon of virtue or anything like that, but neither did I take the "renegade for life" approach either. I guess all in all it was just a little jarring how much you could get away with out in the open where everyone could see you as long as you had the right connections…
Oh… wait… Real life was always like that.
Okay, so this isn't anything new…
*AHA*
Eventually, like all things do, my stamina began to flag.
I hadn't gotten "soft" or anything since I'd been stopped from doing my "One-Punch Man Menu", but the added weight of the old guy on my back and having to weave through so many different body types caused me to use muscles I wasn't completely used to. Anime-style training weights were also a mixed bag in this world since the presence of Quirks in most of the population made it almost impossible to collect unbiased data influenced by certain Meta Abilities. Though the Quirkless population was more in demand for medical studies because of this, it was a small comfort for all they had to endure everywhere else in this poisoned society.
Thankfully, the Hero retiree on my back didn't have any unrealistic expectations of me, telling me to pull into a little café out in the city. Annoyingly though… one look at his costume and mine and we were seated almost immediately. What irked me further was that the people who had already been waiting just sat there and took it, one of them seeming to think he was doing society a favor by giving up his seat.
Of course, I couldn't exactly say this out loud since at present I was more or less "part of the problem"…
"Good afternoon~ What can I get for you today?" a pretty young server with cat ears said coming up to us.
That she wasn't wearing a maid uniform told me we hadn't accidentally wandered into one of those cafes by mistake…
"I'll have the coffee jelly and a milk~" Gran Torino said putting on his best winning smile, which back in his prime might've left the pretty waitress swooning.
"And what'll you have young man~?" the server beamed at me, brushing some of her hair over her shoulder.
Choosing not to immediately interpret the gesture as her being some kind of shotacon…
"I'll have the omurice and an ice water with lemon."
"Coming right up~ Your orders will be out in just a bit~"
" . . . She's cute~" Gran Torino grinned at me.
"And I'm nowhere near far-enough into puberty for that to matter," I returned with an embarrassed hiss.
"You aren't? We'll I'll be, heheheh!"
Okay now I just know he's fucking with me… Though the more sentimental part of me chimed in that, maybe he was just trying to make up for all the time he lost to the cape and undies…
Maybe this was why I always liked Kotetsu Kaburagi as a Hero better than his contemporaries? Because he did his best not to let life pass him by?
Idly running a finger along the bottom of my Wild Tiger mask, I hoped deep down that someday, somewhere, someone would be able to revive the heroic spirit Wild Tiger had gone on to inspire, at least for a time. Because if the cracks I was finding in the veneer every day were any indicator, this country might need a real Hero like that very, very soon, and it sure as hell couldn't be me of all people…
"Reincarnator" or not, for all intents and purposes I was still a "bystander" in this world. Like whatever poor schmuck that got "summoned" only to get stuck with the "Villager" class.
*AHA*
'Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was expecting the first time I had omurice…' I mused to myself as I ate my lunch, which in of itself tasted pretty pedestrian, while my 'American sensibilities' should've treated it as something new and exotic. 'Then again, if this body has had omurice before, maybe that's why it doesn't taste like anything special?'
Thoughts for another day.
"So what Hero are you?" the pretty waitress asked after Gran Torino insisted on paying their fare.
Maybe free meals for Heroes was just part of the overhead?
"Gran Torino, missy," the old man smiled, 'oblivious' to the bit of coffee jelly on his cheek, which the waitress dabbed with a napkin. "And this is my grandkid, Take-chan!"
Boy, really selling the whole bit, ain't'cha?
"And what're you going to call yourself when you're a big strong Hero~?" she asked turning her attention to me, eyes alighting on my mask before my eyes.
"Urk!"
"Wild Tiger!" Gran Torino grinned while I choked on my last bite of omurice. "Don't mind him. Boya's just shy around pretty girls~" he stage-whisper conspiratorially.
"Wild Tiger? That's so cool!" the waitress beamed prettily at me. "Well, I look forward to seeing you again, 'Wild Tiger'~"
I decided to give the wink a pass.
Barely.
"Come again soon~" she smiled walking off.
"You know you're gonna get hell for this if she ever finds out."
"Not if I play the 'senile old man' card, heh heh heh…~"
Boy, I am just surrounded by bad influences, aren't I?
"But anyway, let's get movin'! We're burning daylight!"
*crash-crash-craSH-CRASH-CRASH!*
My "Tactical Time Dilation" flaring up as my ears burned, my gaze panned down the street outside the window to see a motorcycle tumbling towards the spot Gran Torino and I were sitting at like a freakin' tumbleweed. The motorcycle getting closer as it scattered plastic and metal in its wake, my body powerless to leave the seat my butt was seemingly glued to, before the motorcycle could breach the glass and send me back to the coma ward, a blur of white and yellow shot over the table and tackled me out of the way. When real-time resumed, a formerly very expensive motorcycle shattered glass, wood, and drywall, scattering aforementioned materials into the side of the café.
People crying out and screaming- "Villain!" -a moment later like the little boy who cried- "Wolf!" -, only there was a Villain this time, I blinked my eyes and saw that Gran Torino had not only tackled me out of the way, but that he'd also shielded my head from striking the floor, and my upper body from any sparse debris that'd landed on us.
That he'd been able to perceive the threat, assess, and react to it faster than my "Tactical Time Dilation" allowed… Old as he was, fog was the last thing in the space between Gran Torino's ears no matter how much he pretended otherwise.
"How…?" I found myself asking dumbly.
"Years of practice, kiddo~" Gran Torino chuckled, wincing as he got back to full height and holding a hand to his back. "Agh…! Freakin' lumbar…!" he groaned shaking the glass shards out of his cape, which amazingly wasn't damaged in the slightest.
"A-Are you alright?!"
"Yeah, I'll be fine…" the elderly Hero grumbled as everyone who wasn't too-injured to do so scrambled for the backdoor to the café. "Honestly, I should be asking you that."
"I-I'm fine," I said giving myself a quick pat-down, a bit of drywall on my shoes the worst off the damage.
"Well then… while you 'get your Hero on' and help get that screaming metal deathtrap off that guy's-"
"MY LEG! My leeeg…!"
"-I'll go out front and see what all the ruckus is about," Gran Torino said hobbling out the front door with cane in hand, leaving me alone in the ruined café with cowering civilians, screaming civilians, parents assuring their children that All Might would save them, and one unfortunate soul who'd had the ill fortune to be sitting in the exact spot to have the tumbling motorcycle land directly upon his leg.
Of course, the true evil is that Spongebob became a thing in this universe while DC and Marvel did not…
*AHA*
As it turned out, there was still someone in the café strong-enough to leverage the motorcycle off the fish-headed man's leg. All I really needed to do was drag the guy out from underneath it, because there was just no freakin' way this eleven-year-old frame was going to be able to jack that motorcycle into the air all by its lonesome. No matter how many parts it had shed off along the way, or how-much I'd been working out as of late, that thing was still freakin' heavy and I had next to no testosterone in my system.
Surprisingly-enough though, it wasn't all that hard dragging a grown man across the floor…
Anywho, while the fish-man was getting his leg treated by someone who just so happened to have medical training, I did… something that was probably incredibly stupid, and followed the direction Gran Torino had gone. Though all I had to go on was that I'd seen him exit the door and go right, it wasn't all that hard to follow the sounds of screaming and carnage, with a little 'going against the current' of the pedestrians fleeing for their lives.
Ignoring the fact that there were other people moving toward the chaos with cameras and/or smartphones in hand and treating two Quirk users going at it like some kind of spectator sport, after about half a block I was able to catch sight of all the ruckus; as well as catch up to Torino even though he'd left several minutes before I had.
"Oh good, ya caught up."
"Yeah, amazing how much time a guy can lose trying to get some other guy out from under a motorcycle…"
"Hey, had to sell the bit. And besides, would Wild Tiger have shied away from helping someone?"
"Low blow, 'ojiisan'. Low freakin' blow," I hummed back. "So, what's the rub?"
"Look for yourself," Gran Torino said, gesturing around the corner.
Doing so, what I found was…
"Hey, you never tried to kill me before!" an ostentatiously-dressed man who could've only been a Hero called out as he dodged a spray of silver-colored glue. His limbs elongated to carry him out of the way, and he was dressed vaguely like a fire fighter; a common-enough theme among Rescue Heroes that while lacking any sort of imagination, at least got the point across…
"You never got my sister pregnant before!" a less-ostentatiously-dressed man who could've only been a Villain called out as he sprayed aforementioned 'silver-colored glue'. His attire was military-themed, more function than form even if it did make him look like an army general, doing little to restrict his movement as he avoided a stretchy punch from his… nemesis?
Although, it wasn't so much the look of them that held my attention as it was the content of their exchange. The fact that a Hero and a 'Villain' could exchange dialogue and/or fight over something so… pedestrian, only served to remind me that some Villains out there were 'just people', not 'monsters' like the media constantly demonized them to be.
True, there were plenty of sickos out there who would make Batman's Rogue's Gallery squeal like little girls and run for the hills, but there were also cases where people "had no other choice", or had a mental illness that went largely ignored because people in this world only cared about Quirks anymore…
"It's becoming a little too common these days for my taste…" Gran Torino huffed indignantly. "Heroes getting into Villainesses' panties and their siblings or parents coming out of the woodwork and throwing their Quirks around. Why, back in my day, we actually knew how to keep it in our pants! I knew how to keep it in my pants, and the Villain ladies back then were all smokin' hot bombshells!"
"TMI, Torino. T, M, I," I said as the old man made an exaggerated hourglass outline with his hands.
"Where was I again?" he blinked, hamming it up as the senile old man.
"Something about Heroes and panties?" I quipped sarcastically.
"Well, I mean, I won't kink shame them if that's their thing…" he mused.
Just gonna banish that mental image to the Shadow Realm…
"So… You really gonna get in the middle of that?" I asked watching the rubber Hero and the glue Villain go at one another. If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought they were a couple of stage performers with how practiced the whole thing seemed, how-easily they exchanged words as they fought.
Come to think of it, the only thing this society seemed to do right with its Villains was actually convict them for the crimes they'd committed. Instead of letting them off indefinitely on technicalities like in the Marvel or DC universes, they were actually made to carry out their sentences and, in the case of mass murder, actually give them the chair or whatever they used to execute people in Japan. Which had me wondering…
"How in the hell do these two have this sort of relationship?" I asked aloud.
"Well, in areas with low-ranking Heroes and Villains where they don't cause too much collateral, sometimes the townsfolk treat it like a spectacle; they throw a few punches, banter, make pop culture references, slink off to heal their wounds, rinse and repeat. Why, I remember one time in America in this little backwater town I was passin' through on vacation, there were these two who dressed like a robot and a giant ant, and they went at it almost like clockwork. It'd have been funny if they weren't clearly mentally ill."
Well… nice to know there were Villains on this end of the spectrum as well, and not just the crazed megalomaniacs who could level entire cities by themselves.
"Hey kid, you should probably be aware that this is the low end of the spectrum. The real Villains out there are so strong and fast, if you get hit by them that's 'it'; game over," Gran Torino hummed as he rolled his neck and handed me his cane. "By that same measure, the best Heroes are the ones who can end fights in a flash instead of letting them drag out for ten episodes."
I'll just assume it's still a pop culture thing where big boss fights in anime can last the infamous "five minutes".
"You know, I never did learn what your Quirk was."
"Heh, well, since you're about to find out… Keep your eye on the birdie!"
A burst of pressurized air sounding, the next moment Gran Torino was off like a comet, courtesy of the air vents on the bottoms of his feet. The old man flying between the fighting pair and upsetting their momentum, the next moment Gran Torino changed direction in mid-air to position himself behind the Villain, before changing direction again and tackling him from behind. A moment later there was a loud *SMACK!* as the old man plowed the Villain into his rival in a literal head-on collision, knocking the both of them unconscious. A minor burst of air from the vents on his feet and he alighted upon the ground with deceptive grace a moment later.
"And that's, how, you, do it!" Gran Torino said pumping his arms with a grin on his face, the Hero and Villain groaning in a heap behind him.
For whatever reason, the Final Fantasy 7 post-battle theme played in my head. All that aside though, hoooly fuck that was fast!
The whole thing might've taken a minute to read if I were recounting it, but in actuality it took less than five seconds! If this was how-fast he was as an old guy, I shudder to imagine how-terrifying he'd have been in his prime; because assuming the amount of air he could pressurize for his Quirk was dependent on his lungs and not some weird 'auxiliary organ' like some Heteromorphs had, he either had more 'Dash' and 'Double Jump's to work with, or was simply much more powerful in his heyday.
*AHA*
A few minutes later the "Second Responders" arrived; police to contain 'Glue General' in Meta-grade restraints, EMTs to tend to anyone who got hurt in the two's rampage, and of course the fire department for whatever had happened to have caught fire during the little pow-wow.
While Gran Torino was chatting it up with an officer collecting info for the incident report, I was wise-enough to hide my distinctive domino mask so I wouldn't get sucked into it, and more or less sat on the sidelines in deep contemplation. Both about all I'd witnessed here, and about the current Hero System in general.
While I'd admit to not being the biggest fan of these over-hyped, high-budget Heroes at the top of this country's ranking system, if any of them actually lived to be old enough to retire in anything other than a pine box, well… If Gran Torino was any indicator of how-powerful a Meta Ability user could be with maybe half a century of experience under their belt, they'd definitely be a sight to see once they began to trade raw power for overwhelming skill.
Of course, by that very same metric, only the most-stubborn, the most-clever, or the most-cowardly Heroes were able to live long enough to get as old as Gran Torino. Three guesses who the majority were made up of, first two don't count.
Anyhow, after Torino waved the whole incident report off onto someone named Sasaki, he had a sudden fit of 'senility' and hopped onto my back before acting like I was a damn sled dog. I don't know if they still did the Iditarod in the 22nd century or if anyone other than the old fogies even knew what it was anymore, by something in the old man's delivery must've really convinced them he'd gone full-on "fogey", because instead of the remaining cops giving chase on their bikes, they just let us go.
*AHA*
On top of the usual heightened tolerances in building construction which allowed them to remain standing in a world where Villains could pop up at any moment, another homestay of modern construction techniques was the addition of rooftop access for commercial and government buildings exceeding certain height thresholds, depending on local zoning laws. While this did allow Villains with verticality more avenues of escape, it also allowed Heroes another way in should an emergency arise.
It was a tradeoff; like how if you wanted a building to last a full calendar year, you had to be willing to pay for it.
Between Takehiko's mask and my costume, it was all too easy to barge into a nearby office building and get roof access. Other than climbing stairs with a heavy load being great for cardio, it also gave me a better idea of what his general physique was like, since you used completely different muscles climbing stairs when you were forced to carry a load then when you were not. And while this troupe may've been beaten to death with a live horse, high places did grant Heroes an excellent view of their surroundings.
High places also offered a great deal of privacy, which is why many Pros throughout the ages would have their lunches on the rooftops when they could manage it.
"Takehiko, I have to ask…" I mused as I turned my attention to the boy sitting behind me and off to the side, a couple meters away from the lip of the roof I myself had perched upon. "What do you think of this world?"
"Of this world in general or the people who live in it?"
"We'll go with the prior for now," I specified.
" . . . It's quiet. Peaceful," he began with a soft smile. "Then again, so were Poland, Pearl Harbor, and Normandy before everything went straight to hell," he said as his expression soured horrendously.
That he would even bring up those places, in sequence no less, was a tremendous shock. The second World War in of itself was a tragedy that, thankfully, had not been repeated even since the advent of Paranormality. But to have it brought up in this context, more than two-hundred years later, and by someone who shouldn't have even been taught about that until high school, was rather jarring.
"You uh… You're very versed in your world history aren't you…?" I asked a little awkwardly. "But uh… what makes you think that exactly?"
"There's always the calm before the storm, and just as I'm sure the sun will rise tomorrow morning, I just know I'm going to live long-enough to see Japan's hero-dependent society completely and utterly collapse on itself around me," the eleven-year-old replied frankly.
"But Japan's the most-peaceful it's ever been, thanks to All Might."
I recited this more as a knee-jerk response than anything else...
"Tch! All Might? That guy fucking blows," he said clicking his tongue.
If I had any tea or taiyaki right now, I'd have spat it out.
"And uh… Why do you say that?"
"I don't want to upset your delicate sensibilities or anything, but let's just say I don't trust anyone without a 'dark side' and leave it at that," the jaded eleven-year-old huffed tiredly. "All things considered, if the guy turns out to be a charlatan like Mr. Legend, I would not be surprised."
"Mr… Legend…?" I asked, racking my brain only to come up short. If I caved and used a Google search engine for that, it'd only confirm his suspicions that I didn't know. The only solace I had was there was no way he was referencing someone from before Paranormality.
. . . Right?
"You know… It's rather rare to see someone so… critical of the 'Number 1 Hero'," I hummed, fishing for further detail. Making someone feel like they had to justify themselves may've been 'the oldest trick in the book', but it was the 'oldest trick' in aforementioned book for a reason…
" . . . "
Of course, just because it was the oldest of cunning or skillful acts, didn't mean it was infallible.
"Mind if I ask why you're so critical?" I inquired.
"The guy's like medicine. Not only is too much of it poison, but the fact that everyone's so damn reliant on one fucking guy means as soon as he's gone, everything will go completely to shit. The moment Japan's 'nuclear deterrent' against Villains is gone, there's going to be blood in the water, and the sharks will be out for fresh, vulnerable meat. Maybe it won't be complete anarchy, but the crime rate will definitely jump back up into the '-teens', at the least, before the year is out."
Graphic little shit, isn't he…?
"Well, that… certainly isn't a new criticism…" I admitted aloud; another trick for getting people to keep talking. "But you have to agree, most of the people who take our time of peace for granted, are those who've never known first-hand what came before All Might became the 'Symbol of Peace'."
"And I don't blame them for that ignorance, but that doesn't mean I excuse them for it either. As soon as you leave the Top Ten, there is an alarmingly sharp decline in the quality of Heroes by technical ability, let alone competence; hell, more than half are just whatever idiots with a pulse they could give a License to, and they're hardly any better than Bike Cops. There are exceptions to be sure, and I'm not just saying this because I live with some of them, but the fact that people treat Hero and Villain battles like a damn spectator sport… That really curdles my cheese…!"
Well… He's definitely opinionated for someone his age… And who even says stuff like 'curdles my cheese' anymore…?
"And… you think you could be a better Hero than the 'more than half'?"
"Trust me, it's a very low bar to set," he returned with a flat stare. "And if Cops in general were actually allowed to use those Quirks when they actually came across Villains, they'd probably be able to out-perform most 'Heroes' by the merit of their physical training alone."
'That… certainly isn't false…' I admitted to myself.
At most Provisional Hero License Exams, at least half the sum applicants wound up walking away with aforementioned license, showing a rather lax vetting process in the current peaceful era. It was also true that the industry was utterly saturated with so-called 'Heroes' who could only use their Quirks for one thing and little else, making it an impossibility to do anything without threatening another's livelihood. And sure, with someone like All Might 'propping up society' by putting the fear of God into criminals everywhere by merit of his two fists, the decline in quality amongst Heroes was inevitable as everyone grew complacent in this time of peace, but to find a child who could say all this out loud…
Were all the failings of the current establishment really that transparent…?
"Whoof. Sorry about that. I guess I just needed to let off some steam is all," Takehiko sighed. "Sorry for talking your ear off."
"Oh no, it's quite alright," I waved off. "Honestly, if you became a news pundit, I imagine you'd be quite frightening. Not that you wouldn't make scads of enemies by talking like that, though."
"Hey, if I upset people enough to become my 'enemies', it means I must've stood for something, right?"
"I suppose that is true…" I admitted, hopping down from my perch. "Come on, we've got one more stop to make before I head on home."
*AHA*
"And you're sure it's alright to leave him alone with this Gran Torino guy?" Zombina asked as the Mon Squad made their way home, the sun beginning to set in the distance.
"I haven't even heard of the guy," Doppel mumbled over her phone.
"Well, that isn't surprising," Kuroko admitted. "Other than teaching at Yuuei just one time, for the most-part he's been an 'Underground Hero'. A lotta people who even know about him think he's over-the-hill, but the fact that he's been able to hold onto his Teaching License for so long and still out-class most Heroes a quarter of his age, well…"
"Okay, we get it. He's a secret 'ninja grandpa'," Doppel grumbled. "What do you think he wanted to see Takehiko for anyway?"
"A-According to Hitomi, the two of them hit it off at the hospital," Manako answered. "Maybe… Torino-san is just lonely?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Doppel hummed.
"Where are they anyway? No-one's picking up at home," Zombina hummed. "Kuroko, you got that tracker on his phone, right?"
"Yeah, right here," Ms. Smith hummed, passing it back after the face-check. "So… Where do you see him?"
"Hm… Says he's down by the riverside. Turn left up ahead."
The drive to follow was hardly a departure from their usual route. A little more 'scenic' than normal, but that wasn't a bad thing.
What was a bad thing was…
*AHA*
"HEY! What the hell, old man?! You gone senile!?" Zombina demanded from the top of the hill, she and the rest of the Mon Squad having caught him kicking my ass six ways to Sunday.
I'm still not sure what provoked this attack on my person, he certainly didn't seem the sort to take offense at me bad-mouthing this All Might guy everyone seems to be sucking the Kool-Aid from. All I know is that the two of us walked by the grassy hill to the bottom of the shallow valley, grass crunching beneath our feet as the river babbled off to the side, and then all of a sudden WHAM!
Now, I was never one to get into fights in my previous life, but I had enough spatial awareness then and now that I was able to block his initial strike to my unguarded flank, at least barely. Made my forearms hurt like hell, but I was able to roll with it and take up a kneeling position as Gran Torino suddenly adopted a serious expression, zipping and zig-zagging around me like a yellow blur before lashing out at me again. It wasn't anywhere near as fast as the bullet-like speeds he took down that Villain (and Hero) with, but it was definitely faster than an ordinary person could defend themselves against for long.
And that about catches us up to the here-and-now…
"Hey geezer! Step away from the minor!"
'That sounded… disturbingly rehearsed…' I thought idly, Zombina levelling an SMG at Gran Torino.
"Hoh? You really wanna take that shot?" the old man asked, wily as a coyote as he flipped through the air before landing behind me, his diminutive frame allowing him to completely shield himself using my body.
Dick.
"Girls! Flank him!" Kuroko shouted as she drew a sidearm but kept her position by the car, Doppel, Tio, and Manako spreading out to surround us.
"Oh dear, five of you against little old me~ That's not fair at all~"
"Oh I'm sorry," Zombina said with a feral smirk as she cocked a second SMG. "I don't give a fuck~"
"Who said this was unfair for me~?"
The next moment he was off like a gunshot, the sound of actual gunshots causing me to throw myself to the ground with a barnyard animal-like scream. As Zombina missed her target and got shoulder-checked by the runaway old guy, Doppel and Manako came toward me from the sides, the sidearm in the adorable mono-eye's hands looking… diminutively small compared to my first impression of her with that sniper rifle. Zombina literally falling to pieces from Gran Torino's strike, the next moment he smirked over his shoulder before shooting off toward my would-be rescuers, who each took powerful body blows that left them reeling despite their best defenses being raised.
"Don't worry Take-chan! I'll save you!" Tio cried cutely, bless her heart, as she ran to scoop me up like a small animal.
"Not on my watch!" Gran Torino taunted as he shot off towards the big… -hearted Ogress-like woman.
Gran Torino's complete and utter dismantling of the Mon Squad would've been a "flawless victory" if it weren't for one thing…
Tio's enormous cleavage, which Gran Torino found himself caught betwixt while aiming a flying double-kick at her solar plexus.
. . . Does that actually count as two 'things' then…?
"Er…"
-was his intelligent reply as he found himself enveloped up to the armpits.
" . . . "
That was my intelligent reply.
" . . . DOGPILLLE!"
That was the others' quote/unquote "intelligent" reply as Tio let herself fall like a redwood, sandwiching Gran Torino between her and… the ground, while the rest of the Mon Squad dogpiled on top of Tio in case any Quirk-related hijinxery would've allowed the old guy to escape if their weight weren't added.
*AHA*
Once Kuroko was sure we could all take a little car ride like civilized people…
"So. You wanna explain just why you were using your Quirk to attack a defenseless minor?" Kuroko asked as we all rode the Mon Squad's van back to the apartment.
"Just wanted to see where he stood now that he's all healed up," the old man shrugged, his ankle shackled to Tio's wrist so he couldn't try anything without busting a hip.
"Not good enough. Give me something tangible to work with so you don't go to jail in case someone saw you," Kuroko rebuffed.
" . . . Takehiko might not be some delicate glass figurine you keep up on a shelf somewhere, but living with you five has painted a target smack-dab between his shoulder blades whether you realize it or not," he answered, the air in the van growing incredibly sober. "You might've stopped whatever mad scientist wackadoo the HPSC planned on bringing in from stripping him for parts like an American chop shop, but he isn't out of danger yet. It might not be today, tomorrow, next week, or even next year, but fact of the matter is someday, somehow, some hooligan who thinks you've 'wronged' them like all of them seem to do nowadays, will realize Mon has a weak link, and they'll bring out the bolt cutters."
"…Damn, jiji, you scary!" Doppel shuddered.
"Missy, I've seen things that'll make her skin turn white!" he said pointing at Tio, who continued to smile sweetly despite the severity of what he'd just said.
"So the domino mask is becaussssse… why exactly?" Kuroko asked pointing to the mask clinging to my face.
"So he can actually train out in the open without raising any eyebrows," Sorahiko answered flatly. "That and he's a big fan of this Wild Tiger guy he won't shut up about, so you can treat it like an early birthday present."
"I thought something looked different about you," Doppel hummed, grabbing me by the chin so she could look at me.
I guess for a shapeshifter, something as minor as a facial covering can go unnoticed…
"I'm not gonna need to rig the pull-out sofa, am I?" Kuroko asked.
"Nah. I'm heading home after this," Sorahiko said popping his foot from his boot before slipping it out of the cuff and leaping out the window with surprising agility. "Remember, Take-chan! Push-up, sit-ups, and plenty of juice!" he called out before zipping into the air before flying off into the middling distance.
" . . . He got away," Tio said holding up her wrist, her cuff's vacant partner swaying in front of her.
"Yeah, we noticed," Zombina huffed, her upper body held in my arms while her lower body was belted into the seat beside me. "Hey, Take-chan, Hitomi says you're good with small tools. You any good with a thread and needle?" she asked waving her severed hand about like a prop.
"This is way more morbid than I should be expected to handle at my age…" I grumbled as I adjusted my hold on her torso, putting how intimate it might look to an outside observer in the back of my mind.
*AHA*
AN:
I'll admit, this chapter ran a bit longer than I intended, but when I got down to writing Takehiko and Torino's first genuine interaction in the wider world, I couldn't help but make it a little slice-of-life-y with a bit of meta commentary. Honestly, it's been scads of fun writing from a predominantly 1st-Person perspective since I normally write in 3rd, though it does limit the number of people who can have mental conversations simultaneously in a single segment. Writing Torino as an observer instead of Takehiko was also quite fun, and I feel like he'd have made a better teacher for Izuku than his original meat-head of an instructor if only he'd been able to get his shit together, get it all together, and put it in a backpack, all his shit, so it was together...
Also, here's some info on the one-offs.
[Hero]
"Rubber Rescue Hero"
Quirk: Rubber: Has an elastic rubbery body that can stretch; lesser version of Monkey D. Luffy's Devil Fruit ability from One Piece.
[Villain]
"Glue General"
Quirk: Glue: Can release a viscous adhesive from his skin which he can manipulate.
[Villain('s sister)]
"Slippery Seductress"
Quirk: Slip: Can release a powerful lubricant from her skin which she can manipulate.