Real quick: The spoiler warning fir anime watchers I mentioned in the last chapter doesn't apply anymore cuz season 2 already covered everything i'n going to lol. Hopefully the guest reader who reviewed this fic sees this because i have no other way of replying to them.
Paper crumpled beneath his trembling hand. Eyes focused on the big bold words that were placed front and center. Forgotten Moogle searches flooded back to the forefront of his mind.
Ritsu was walking home from school on a new kind of high. The results for exams had finally come in and he passed with flying colors but that wasn't what got him excited. He got the top score! Beating out Kayuya, his irritating classmate with an irritating smirk who always managed to score just one point above him for every test they took! Yes, things were certainly looking up.
Then he got smacked in the face with a lurid flyer and a bad feeling found a home within his stomach.
"UA SPORTS FESTIVAL!
Come out to UA High this Friday see the annual competition!
See students..."
Forgetting things is a given for anyone when exams pop up. But Ritsu wasn't anyone. He was on the student council, he was a straight-A student, an overachiever who people just liked too much to call a teacher's pet, and he simply didn't forget things. But he forgot this.
'4 months,' A frown formed on his face as he glowered at nothing in particular.
About 120 days had passed since he had done research on this UA place and he just forgot it! It shouldn't be bothering him this much especially since he didn't even mind until he found out about it again but it did. He had to keep focused. He had to keep himself from forgetting again. With that thought in mind, he quickened his pace and headed home; determined to continue his research.
'Oh my God,'
Feet pounded against the concrete surface of the sidewalk, quick and shallow breaths could be heard among them. It had only been about 2 hours since he had first come home and the sun was getting ready to set but he didn't think he could sleep soundly until he was one hundred percent sure of this.
'This couldn't really be true could it?!'
He ran along the shore of a messy but significantly less messy beach (which he learned was called Dagobah Municipal Beach Park) compared to last time. Sounds of struggle and grunts could be heard to his left but he didn't bother paying attention. Although if he had he might have noticed the eventual lack of noise and the two sets of eyes following him as he ran along the beach they were cleaning up.
His eyes found the city entrance to the beach and he basically flew to it and up the steps. What he saw at the top was simply astounding. People with the weirdest mutations were walking down the street and nobody seemed to care! There was a guy with a cactus for a head, a green person, an oversized animal walking on two feet while typing on his phone (with opposable thumbs!).
It took Ritsu a lot to keep from hyperventilating at the absurdness of it all.
Hands digging into his pockets, he reached for his phone. Once he whipped it out, he began frantically taking pictures. Capturing the outline of the city and the few things that could see from where he was.
Then he just stood there. Time seemed to still as this unexplainable urge flowed through him, begging him to actually enter the city. And so, with shaking limbs and slippery palms, he took a hesitant first step into the city of Musutafu.
The first thing Ritsu noticed upon stepping into the city was how bright it was despite the sun already starting to dip below the horizon. Seasoning City wasn't the most colorful place but this was just insane.
Bold and lurid colors surrounded him as he wandered through the city. Although not being someone who read them, it felt as though he was pushed into a comic book. His eyes scanned the tall buildings and marveled at how different the architecture was here compared to back home. It was all so significantly unique.
It begged a question though. How could he have not noticed this all before? If the appearance of quirks had such a huge impact on the world, why was he just learning about it now? Wouldn't somebody have mentioned it? Wouldn't he have seen at least something familiar?
Ritsu was so busy woolgathering that he ended up knocking into someone which caused him to fall to the ground. He could hear the painful groan of the person he bumped into as it seemed that they also fell. Ritsu's manners slowly returned to him and he got up at an alarming speed to apologize profusely to the stranger.
"I'm so sor-!"
But he was cut off when the person looked up to reveal dilated blue eyes. Hastily struggling to pull themselves up, the person got off the ground rested both of their hands on Ritsu's shoulders in an attempt to gain balance. Once they had accomplished this, their eyes bore into Ritsu's.
"What are you doing here?"
The sound of deep fryers filled the air around Teruki. He bit into a crisp french fry as the crunch of it between his teeth filled the otherwise silent booth with noise. Ritsu glared daggers at him as he sat across from him at the table.
"Do you care to explain," Ritsu hissed as he vainly tried to remove all the little twigs and leaf debris from his hair, "what in the world is going on here?"
Teruki wasn't sure whether or not he should respond. When he bumped into Ritsu earlier, he was both relieved and concerned and before he gave Ritsu an actual chance to respond to his question he took off running while dragging him along. They maneuvered through the city, managing to have Ritsu get hit by every tree, twig, and piece of shrubbery before arriving at a MobDonalds rip-off called MightDonalds that he had gotten to know during his time here.
Ritsu continued to stare at him, unabashed, as he awaited the response he rightfully deserved. Teruki eyed the restaurant and its patrons before somewhat relaxing.
"Something big is going on."
"Yeah," Ritsu barked, "Care to elaborate?"
Teruki sighed before continuing, "If you must know Brother-kun, we aren't actually in Musutafu."
"I may not be familiar with this place but I know how to read signs," Ritsu paused, "And don't call me that."
"I won't call you 'that' and no, you don't get it. I mean we aren't in our Musutafu."
Ritsu gave him a deadpan stare and raised a single brow.
"Recently, I've been noticing a few oddities around Seasoning City. Random things not where they usually are and other random things being where they shouldn't. So I kept my eye open and realized that they're vanishing. All over the place! Disappearing and reappearing and with all of this mayhem there was certainly no way that I could just ignore it." Teruki seemed to be in a completely different place as he spoke but unlike him, Ritsu had yet to care as he showed no signs of interest.
"You dragged me through the entire city, with no explanation, just to tell me about what's most likely a spirit?" Ritsu eyes narrowed with disapproval as he continued with his tirade, "Now, Hanazawa-san, I know your not a complete idiot so can you please cut to the chase."
Teruki ignored the teen's blatant rudeness and he proceeded as though Ritsu had never interrupted him in the first place. "I found out that they were portals," This got Ritsu's attention. "Unless you know what to look for they're practically invisible and they give off no signs of spiritual activity, mind you. They come and go, some stay for mere seconds and others for weeks. Although some can tend to stick around even longer but I can't be completely sure on that."
Teruki received a look of confusion. Of course, that was to be expected; even he was still unsure of the nature of the port-
"Why was l able to search it up then?"
"Excuse me?" Teruki was withdrawn from his thoughts and looked at Ritsu, baffled.
"My computer," Ritsu elaborated, "I was able to search about heroes and the works through it earlier today as well as four months ago," He turned to look at the dark sky through the window and backtracked, "You know what? Forget it. It's already late and if I don't head home now I'm dead. We can deal with this later, or better yet never again."
With that Ritsu left him alone in a MobDonalds ripoff.
It took Teruki little time to realize that he was...well, he was Teruki and he had a way of getting people to see his way.
"What?" Ritsu bit out as he removed his forearm from Teruki's grip.
"You were able to search this place up on your computer?"
"Yeah," replied Ritsu, looking at the blonde warily.
"Come to my place," Teruki abruptly exclaimed.
Ritsu scoffed. He had to be completely insane if truly expected him to follow him to his place when it was already late out and now, because of this conversation, he was surely going to be dead once he got home.
It wasn't hard to think of what to say next.
"Like Hel-"
He was falling through the sky.
It was 10:13 pm on a school night, tomorrow he had to be up early, and he was falling through the forking sky.
He was definitely dead once he got home.
Ritsu didn't know how but somehow Teruki had convinced him to come to his apartment. Though, deep down, he knew what made him crack.
"Please, I could really use your help."
Despite how it may seem, Ritsu loved to help people. That's why he joined the student council, it's why he decided to take up an after-school tutoring job, helping people gave Ristu a rush. It was an unorthodox way for him to connect with Shigeo. He wondered if what he felt when seeing the relieved smiles of people he helped was the same thing that Shigeo felt when helped people with their spirit dilemmas. If he felt as happy as he did.
Helping Teruki brought no happiness to him.
The moment he agreed to help he was dragged back into MightDonalds and straight into the bathroom.
"What in the world are we doing in here?"
"You'll see."
Teruki let go of his wrist then walked ahead of him and into the third stall down. By the time Ritsu caught up he was only able to see the rest of Teruki's blonde hair go straight down the toilet. It didn't take long for things to click.
With his lips forming a harsh line, Ritsu looked around the dirty stall in disgust. Carved messages and love hearts were that written in permanent marker littered the walls that were a dull red color compared to how it probably was when they were first painted. The toilet looked too gross for him to even think about touching with his bare hands.
But there was a saving grace.
Toilet seat covers were mounted into one of the stall walls. He grabbed three of them and placed them onto the toilet seat, mindful of his hands, then stood atop of them.
Looking down into the (thankfully) clear water of the toilet bowl, he proceeded to place his right foot in first. The first thing he noticed was that the portal was under the water and not above it. His body has to go through about a centimeter of water before actually reaching the portal. The second thing he noticed was that once his foot actually went through the portal wind started hitting it. Confused but too done with everything to care anymore, he removed his left foot from the toilet seat and jumped into the toilet.
Now he was here. Free falling. If his phone wasn't completely waterlogged it would be dead, Teruki was nowhere to be seen, and he was drenched from head to toe. The ground grew closer and closer and his system was pumped with adrenaline.
He was scared. Immensely so. Profusions of wind blew onto his wet body making him as cold as ever and his mind was racing. How could he stop himself? He could use his psychic powers but that was easier said than done.
He was still new to this. He didn't have an ease of control with his powers like Shigeo. All the times in which he previously used them other people were there to support him. But he didn't have them now. What he had now was an adrenaline high body and fear. Could he even do this?
SMACK!
His cheek was red. He looked to his left too fast and got whiplash but that was promptly ignored when he realized it was Teruki that had slapped him. He was going down alongside Ritsu but instead of falling helplessly Teruki'd power held onto his body and there was no chance that he would smack himself against the pavement like Ritsu.
"Hanazawa-san! Thank Kami you're here, I need you to hel-!"
Teruki was already steps ahead of him and grabbed onto Ritsu with his powers. That had stopped them going down and they now were floating about four stories above the ground.
Ritsu was washed with relief and looked to Teruki. He had a reassuring smile on his face that let Ritsu know that he was okay. They made direct eye contact and Ritsu realized that he should probably thank the blonde.
"Thank yo-"
"I'm not going to help you,"
"What?" Ritsu responded as confusion marred his face and creased his brows.
Teruki's eyes became less friendly and unease crawled up Ritsu's spine.
"I'm going to let you go. With no intention of helping you. You're on your own Brother-kun,"
Before Ritsu could shout at Teruki and call him completely asinine he was released from his hold and went back to falling helplessly.
Why? Why wasn't he helping him? Why was he doing this? Why, why, why? He looked up to see the blonde looking directly at him was passive eyes as the ground got closer to him.
So this is how he died. Plummeting to the ground (which he realized had poop on it) with someone he almost thought he could trust watching him with uncaring eyes.
...What a jackass.
What a complete and utter jackass. Ritsu didn't care anymore. He didn't have to care. If he was going to die we was going to let it all out. He as going to-
"Brother-kun!" Teruki was floating down next to him again, "What in the world are you doing?"
"What in the world am I doing?" Ritsu snarled, "What in the world am I doing?!"
"Catch yourself!"
He was going to choke him. If Ritsu was going to die, he was going to choke Teruki before he went out. He reached over for the older boy's shoulder and once he had a grip on it with one hand, he wrapped his other around the boy's throat.
"Catch myself?! You idiot!" He was now using both of his hands, "Who do you think you are?" The fact that he wasn't actually choking Teruki due to the skin-tight shield he had around his body filled Ritsu with rage.
While he was busy failing to strangle the blonde, Teruki had the audacity to smile at him. Smile!
"I hate you so much!" With that declaration, Ritsu felt perfectly fine with splattering into the pavement and dying.
But he didn't.
In fact, he should have been dead long before now but he wasn't. He was floating mere inches above the feces that was on the ground. His own power, and no one else's held him up above there.
"Congratulations Brother-kun, you've just used telekinesis on yourself while in a life-threatening situation," Teruki's smile grew, "Although, it would help to be able to do it at will but you take what you can."
Ritsu stared at Teruki, mouth agape. He didn't have anything that he could think of saying to the maniac, so he laughed. He laughed and laughed and once they were both on the poop-free ground with their barriers down he punched Teruki square in the jaw.
A loud crack echoed through the silent streets and Ritsu never felt better.
He found himself staring at the entrance to Teruki's apartment. The portal left them about a block away from the apartment complex and they walked all the way to Teruki's place in his now damp clothing and Teruki's dislocated jaw.
With a click of the door handle Apt. 528 was open. Teruki was the first to walk in and he crouched down to take off his neon green shoes and threw his keys onto the counter before walking to his bedroom and gesturing for Ritsu to follow him.
Not bothering to take off his shoes, Ritsu headed in the direction Teruki left and into the blonde's room. Inside he found him hunched over his computer.
"Hey Rother-kun?"
"What?" Ritsu bit out as he tried and failed to hide his anger from earlier. The obvious amusement that slid into the blonde's face didn't help much.
"Whad exacdly did you tipe on your compudur thad lead you to all that information about Mushuda-"
"Musutafu UA powers, all three at the same time, Heroes, and then quirks," He didn't have the patience to wait for Teruki and his out-of-order jaw to finish one question.
While Teruki typed away Ritsu begrudgingly waited.
He was wondering how his family was holding up. His phone was broken beyond repair like he guessed and he had no idea what the time was. Would Shigeo be okay? All he wanted to do right now was hightail it out of the apartment, head home as quickly as possible, and apologize to them as best as he could but he simply couldn't get himself to. Curiosity had a strong hold on his ankles.
The sudden halt of typing of computer keys snapped Ritsu out of his daze. He looked over to see Teruki going through some sort of loop. He would type something, briefly scan the page, clear the search bar, and type something new as he grew more frustrated after every unfruitful search.
Finally, with a thud, Hanazawa slammed his hands down and turned toward him.
"Noding showed up."
"What?"
"About hewoes or quiwks or anyding of thad kind," Teruki's eyes narrowed and his attention drifted off somewhere else, "So how wer you able to search id up?" He mumbled to himself.
"What if," Ritsu spoke, gaining Teruki's attention, "What if one of the portals intercepts the network that provides my internet?"
"You know, that acdually makes compwete sense. You're ondo someding," He then gave Ritsu a quick once-over, "Alscho, why're you...dahmp? "
"Let's see," Ritsu snarled, "Maybe I'm "damp" because out of all the options you took us through an actual toilet portal!"
Teruki let out a soft grunt, "You do have a poind Rother-kun, but why didn'd you jusd use a skin barrier 'ike I did?"
His voice was becoming increasingly annoying.
Ritsu smiled. A sick, sick smile, and walked up to the teen. He looked directly into his eyes and placed his hands over his dislocated jaw. Let it be known now that he had no prior experience relocating joints so when he went to go and relocate Teruki's it was a long and painful process. Just how he liked it.
"Ow! Owowow!" Teruki glared at him.
Ritsu gave him a sweet smile in return.
"You know what? Forget it," Teruki rubbed his sore jaw, "Give me your number."
"Why?"
"I already told you, something big is going on and all I know is that I need your help."
Ritsu body shifted toward the blonde a little more. "You need my help? Why not just ask Shige-nii? I'm sure he can help you more than I could." His voice came out in as a low mumble and Teruki strained himself to hear.
"Ask Kageyama-kun?" Even though Ritsu wasn't looking at him he could hear the smile in Teruki's voice, "Why of course not! Why get him? He's had enough to deal with, besides, you're the only one who can help me. I need you simple as that. What I need doesn't simply require pure strength, it requires a well-rounded mind and we both know that Kageyama-kun doesn't exactly meet those requirements."
He didn't know if he should be offended for his brother all Ritsu really knew was that he was truly needed. That left him surprised and somewhat skeptical.
"What's in it for me?"
Teruki brought his hand to his chin him a long faux thinking gesture before he grinned at the teen. "You're fairly new to this esper thing, right? I'll train you and you'll help me. Just give me your number so I can contact you; I'm this close to finding out exactly what's going on."
"Well, I really can't receive any calls at the moment," Ritsu droned while reaching into his pocket and pulling out his dripping phone. He frowned at its sad state and barely registered that the water was being siphoned out of it courtesy of Teruki's powers. Once all the water was removed his phone flickered to life before turning back off due to a dead battery.
Ritsu gave Teruki one last mildly shocked look before slowly making his way out the door of the apartment. On his way out, he simply says, "100 5829 2684, try not to call me when it's late."
And with that, he was gone.
Teruki let out a snort before turning out the lights for bedtime. It didn't matter whether or not Ritsu asked him for something in return. What he had in mind for the middle schooler needed Teruki to train him regardless.
"Kids."
"Where in the world were you?!"
Mrs. Kageyama was not a happy camper.
It was 11:53, she had work in the morning, and now she had to deal with this. Let's get it straight, she didn't consider herself a strict parent. With 15 years of experience, she understood that all this weird mind magic could tend to be unpredictable and get out of hand but still! Did she ask for much? Her only request was that her boys be home by 10:00 and if not just call, but after 12 unanswered calls meant for Ritsu she was scared. Deeply so. Only for her to find out that he was out eating (she could faintly smell the grease on him mixed with some other gross scent) Kami knows where!
"I was worried sick! You couldn't send a text? You couldn't answer your phone even once? Why take so long just to get food at some greasy establishment when you could've eaten here?"
She knew that bombarding him with questions wasn't the best approach but she just wanted to know what he was thinking throughout this.
Her son stood there. Actively making sure not to look her directly in the eyes. His posture was somewhat slouched but he didn't seem too surprised by this rant of hers.
She was prepared to continue on but felt a slight weight on her shoulder. Her husband was standing right next to her as he gave her a soft look.
"You have work early in the morning, let me deal with this."
With a sigh, she turned away from both her husband and son and headed upstairs. He was a much gentler soul in comparison to her and she knew that he would be able to filter out unnecessary questions he might have and get to the point. She gave them one last look and headed to bed.
"Just because you have powers doesn't mean you're invincible,"
He knew that. He knew that so much.
"And it also doesn't mean that we don't worry about you."
It was just him and his dad. They had moved from the front door to the kitchen after his mom had headed to bed.
His dad sat there with a cup of noncaffinated coffee and Ritsu sat there with a small plate of tofu that doubled as a small luxury and as something he could stress eat.
The good thing about his father is that when something new happens he'll never press you for answers, he just wants you to listen and Ritsu would gladly have that then having his noticeably tired mother be down here asking him rapid-fire questions as she messed up her sleep schedule even more which would ruin her morning.
"Now, let it be known," his father paused to take a sip of his coffee, "Let it be known that I trust your judgment so I'll let you head on up to bed and not bother you with questions. But-" an edge came into his voice as he stood up to put away his now empty cup, "only this time. If it happens again- well, who knows? We'll see if we see. Goodnight Ritsu."
And with that, his dad headed upstairs and Ritsu sat there alone with his almost empty plate of tofu.
He stood up, put his plate away, and started the dishwasher but didn't head to bed. Not yet. His aura detection skills had naturally gotten a bit better on its own so he waited until the sound of the soft padding of feet became louder and louder and then, halted.
In front of him stood his brother. Standing at 157 centimeters Shigeo was only shorter than him by a bit. His pale skin contrasted greatly with the dark eye bags that he adorned but the dried tears that stained his cheeks were harder to notice. Ritsu mentally winced.
"Are you okay Ritsu?" Shigeo's voice was quiet but scratchy, signs of him either overusing or underusing his vocal cords. "Your um..." He visibly struggled to search for what he was going to say next, "Ah, your aura was going all over the place. Very quickly and very suddenly, strong sometimes and weak others. Maybe about 3 times...or was it two? My memory seems to be a bit all over the place, I'm sorry."*
Even, half asleep and groggy, his older brother never lost his temper with him despite Ritsu knowing that he had every right to be upset.
"I'm perfectly fine Shige-nii, and I'm sorry for keeping you up this late." Ritsu went and grabbed one of the few clean cups remaining and filled it with some milk, "Here take this, and head to sleep." He walked toward Shigeo and placed the glass into his hands.
His brother barely gave the milk a glance before looking Ritsu straight into his eyes. It was times like these when Ritsu truly felt like a little brother, with Shigeo checking in on him and worrying about his health instead of the other way around. He had Ritsu's utmost attention.
"I can't just...go to sleep Ritsu. You had everyone so worried, you had me worried." Recently, Shigeo had been making a noticeable effort to let others know exactly how he felt instead of bottling it up, and it felt nice for Ritsu to hear how he felt, "You can't just go out who knows where without telling anybody and come back late like it's fine. I know this is only the second time you've done this and the last time was a while ago but, It makes me feel...It makes me feel really sad? Is that the right word? It doesn't make me feel nice and I can't focus." His eyes watered just a bit and he brought up his hands to wipe them before tears could fall, "You had me crying last time too and now here I am doing it again. I'm so sorry Ritsu, I'm still trying to get used to expressing my emotions in an appropriate way. I just want you to be safe and now I'm just rambling."
The nice feeling Ritsu felt quickly went away and a stone dropped in his chest. Regardless, he walked up to his brother and tightly wrapped his arms around him to quell his worries. "You don't need to apologize," His voice was muffled by Shigeo's hair, "From now on, I'll let you all know when I'm heading out somewhere unplanned, okay?"
"Okay."
"Good, It's getting really late so go and head off to bed,"
The two separated and Shigeo quickly downed the glass of milk that he still had in his hands before looking at Ritsu with a small and sleepy smile. "You do know that I'm older than you right? So from going to be taking care of you." His voice dipped a bit and his body was beginning to shut down.
"Yes, yes Shige-nii," Ritsu took the empty glass from his brother's hand and placed it on the counter, "But sleep before you pass out."
Letting out a soft hum, Shigeo turned on his heel and silently headed back up the stairs.
Ritsu smiled just slightly knowing that things ended on a good note as he trailed slightly behind him. What Teruki told him about vanishing objects and portals was interesting but not worth making his family worried. He could easily tell his brother about it without too much explanation but something in him just didn't want to. It felt nice. Nice being the one needed, the only option instead of the second or third or last. It was a first and he couldn't get himself to confess.
Too lost in his thoughts, giddiness, and greed, Ritsu hadn't noticed that his brother had toppled to the floor before he reached the top step, completely knocked out, until he almost tripped on his body.
Though he paused momentary out of shock, Ritsu took it all in stride, picked his brother off of the floor and toward his bedroom.
It was quite symbolic. Merely seconds before, Shigeo was multiple steps ahead of Ritsu who he covered in his shadow and now he was on the ground. Letting the light hit the fourteen-year-old and leaving him as the only one to be able to get both of them into bed out of his own power.
Or maybe he was overthinking it.
Shigeo would wake the next morning to a throbbing headache. Along with it, a glass of water and an aspirin pill placed on the ground next to his futon by his dear younger brother.
"Did you talk to him?"
"Yeah."
"They worry me so much sometimes. I just want to make sure that they're alright."
Mr. Kageyama let out a soft hum as he leaned over and kissed his wife's forehead.
"Don't worry, they will be."
Mrs. Kageyama snuggled a little bit closer to her husband and his calming aura.
"I suppose you're right, goodnight."
"Goodnight"
Bad night.
With a student council meeting calling him to school an hour earlier than usual which meant he had to get ready an hour earlier than that and only 3 hours of slipping in and out of sleep last night Ritsu was quite cranky. He was still sleepy and jumpier than usual. His voice came out clipped and snappy and he constantly had to fight off the sleep that threatened to take over during class. So when he received a call during his lunch which he planned to use for catching up with his sleep his patience was dangling by a thread.
"What?" He bit out, not bothering with pleasantries. He didn't check the caller ID either so for all he knew he could be badmouthing his mother (a thought that caused a shiver to trail in the back of his mind).
"Caught you at a bad time?"
Knowing that it was not his mother relieved him but the light-hearted voice on the other end quickly replaced that relief with even more annoyance than before.
"What is it Hanazawa?"
"No 'san' at the end there? I don't know whether to be flattered that you consider me close enough to drop the title or insulted at the lack of respect. Although you obviously mean the later, I'll take it as the former."
"I don't care what you take it as just get on with it," He didn't have the time for the blonde's unnecessary chatter and wanted to head to sleep as soon as possible.
"Okay, okay," A light chuckle came from the other end but when he spoke next it came out a lot more serious, "I told you that I was close to finding out exactly what was going on, right?"
Ritsu let out an uninterested grunt.
"Well, I finally did. It has to do with Claw."
The rest of the phone call would leave Ritsu with only 8 minutes to sleep.
* This is because Ritsu was going through portals
I plan to change the title and summary of this book by the next update. Not completely sure, but probably.
Hey guys. It's 10:54 and I uploaded this story in what- March? If you're reading this on AO3 than later than that but still. I'm sorry.
