Shoto formed a series of ice crystals in his hand.
Immediately, he felt the heating pads of his powers kick in. Again.
"Any weaker?"
"No."
The pink-haired inventor nodded enthusiastically.
"Good, good, that's way better than the previous version. Hopefully, this one will continue like this for the next 60 bursts of cold."
Shoto didn't argue, instead nodding.
They'd been working like this for a while now, ever since Shoto had discovered the first real big mechanical problem with his Aokiji suits. If the power was turned off, and on again by lack of it, then there were more sudden bursts of cold to activate it, and it would short circuit.
It wasn't something he'd experienced at first, as his style was to create attacks that either hit a massive area at once with enough power to freeze but not much more, or with massive, and all-engulfing attacks. Smaller, but numerous uses of his power weren't something he'd experienced before a training exercise forced him to use his powers that way.
Mei didn't seem too bothered by the suit she'd made failing.
He dumped the crystals he'd made into a wat of extremely hot wat mei had heated up for the purpose.
The steam in turn was sucked up into a vent that in turn led to another tank Mei had set up where the water vapor gathered.
"I could just erase it with my fire, you know."
Mei nodded again, as she wrote something down while he continued the cycle of creating, dumping the ice in the wat, waiting, then creating again.
"Yes, I suppose you could. But that's why I want to study this ice you make. It's amazing, isn't it? You conjure up ice from nowhere, and you create matter, thus seemingly breaking one of the fundamental laws of the universe. Then, if you yourself melt it, it usually just disappears, but if another source melts it, it sticks. So interesting. Is it your fire that has unusual properties? Or is it your ice? Maybe I'll discover some great secret about your ice once I study the water from it."
He shrugged.
"I've never really thought about it. I have… More important things to worry about."
"Mhm… There is important information for you to be gleaned here though. Like your body being resistant to heat in general, but not boiling heat."
Memories came to Shoto's mind at that.
"Does it matter? I can't change the past no matter how much I want to."
Of course, it does! This blatant weak spot might be even larger than you realize. What if you one day need to traverse a volcano? Only to discover your resistance to fire does absolutely nothing against molten rock?"
He had not considered that.
"All Quirks are in essence unique. And they work by their own rules. The important thing here is to discover how it works for you."
Unexpectedly, the suit's heat packs short-circuited on the 15th cycle.
"That's way less than last time."
"Yes, obviously there's a mistake somewhere in the new version, take it off, We need to discover it before I can patch it up."
She quickly began undressing his upper body, which in turn made quite a lot of the other girls in the room giddy, as they blushed and looked over while pretending they did not.
The sight of his abbs apparently had that kind of effect on a lot of girls.
Personally, he did not understand why.
Mei, however, was not one of them, as she completely ignored his now naked chest, and instead unfurled the jacket across the workbench.
"Hmmm… Let's see, is this part…? Nooo… Not there… How about here…? Not that either huh?"
She had a tendency to do this instead. Just start to work and not say a single thing to the people she had just been talking to, instead ignoring everything except her work.
He did not mind, but he was rather sure by now this was one of the main reasons she did not have many friends within her department.
It was just how she was. Which was why her suddenly asking her a question while acting like this, took him completely off guard. Though to be fair, the question matter didn't help.
"Hmmm… By the way… Speaking of patching things up… Are you planning to reach out to your mother? You mentioned you wanted to see her again."
He froze… Then relaxed.
"I do. But no, I won't."
"Why not?"
He leaned back and considered.
"...Because my mother has made it clear she doesn't want to see me. Even if she is better now… Which I don't know she is… It would be irresponsible of me as a son to seek her out when the part of me that I inherited from my father was what drove her to madness, to begin with."
There was a bit of silence afterwards, as Mei considered that, all the while tampering and looking over his suit.
"Hmm… That so? So you're okay with how things stand right now? What if either of you dies without having seen the other again? There will be a lot of regret on both parts if so."
"If my mother wants to see me… She will ask for me. You speak like she wants to. But I don't think she does. If she did… She would have contacted me long ago. The fact is, she is better off without me or my father in her life."
Mei did not answer, instead letting the silence hang as she continued the work on the suit, and finally figured out the problems. Apparently, she had used a less-than-perfect bit of electronic wires from the school's storage, which she quickly replaced with a more sturdy one before they resumed their test.
"Now, let's see if you get past 15 cycles on this one."
He nodded and started resuming the test as Mei went back to writing on her block.
"Oh by the way, could you visit Recovery Girl's office before you leave school tonight? I need you to get a pint of blood taken out to run an experiment on."
He nodded, having a pretty good idea of what sort of experiments she was planning, just from their previous conversation.
"Sure. Will that take a while?"
"No, I'll have it done over the weekend."
"That's good."
Mei shook her head.
"Not necessarily. Experiments don't always have results. But we'll see. If it tracks out, it'll be a great benefit for you."
He didn't question the words.
He just assumed Mei knew what she was doing.
I
Hatsume Mei looked over the container she held in her hands as she let her fingers run over the transparent material.
Blood.
The oil that kept the body running.
And the key to the Human soul.
Scientists of all stripes would scoff at that description. To prescribe such ancient superstition and supernatural qualities to simple Plasma created by a completely natural process, all so it could keep running through your veins and make your body function...
Mei knew better.
She had touched the abyss after all.
The threshold beyond sanity, and true, inescapable madness.
She knew what lurked beyond that threshold… And she knew how to move beyond the basic, material world.
The machine was not something she had had storage for such an occasion. She'd built this piece from scratch for this occasion.
As she prepared it for activation, she considered her course of action.
Shoto wasn't her friend. Not really. She was only starting to remember his face beyond their fleeting meetings. She had genuine trouble remembering what he looked like in her mind's eye, as she had with most people.
She didn't owe him anything.
But… Then there was his mother.
The thought of Mother and Son not even talking to each other at all for the rest of their lives, despite having any and all opportunity to do so… Well, that hit her far harder than she would have thought it would.
The memory of her own mothers came to mind, unbidden, and unwanted.
The flash of a brilliant dancing rainbow of light that had engulfed her birth parents the last time she had seen them, and the final day of the woman who had given her her family name…
She had not been well enough to speak then. Mei didn't know what her last words would have been.
She lifted the container and poured it down into the black gauntlet she had prepared for the occasion.
For a moment, as the red liquid drained down into the gauntlet, nothing happened. Once it was done, the seal over the hole she'd just poured it into just shut closed again.
She waited patiently, until…
The gauntlet began to change. The metal began to wriggle, the steel changed shape, sharp edges shooting out of metal before retracting, then the metal changed completely to the horrific shape of skinned flesh… Then to undefined and pulsating meaty flesh… Then to the absolutely horrifyingly disgusting feeling and look of burst and splattered brain matter… Before finally settling back down as a gauntlet, now with 4 different lights dancing across it.
Mei did not react, nor move as the gauntlet made it's transformations.
If she had flinched at this small bit of Eldritch display, she would never have dared what was about to come.
She put her free hand under her chin and considered.
Four. Four Members of Shoto's direct family had been touched by madness. Those alive at least.
That was not good. It suggested mental problems ran in the family. If it was genetic… There wasn't much hope. On the other hand… They might be like Mei herself.
In any case, she would take a closer look before giving any judgement.
She grabbed one of the lights dancing across the gauntlet.
A red one.
This one was Endeavor. She had no doubts about that.
It was still burning strong, but as Mei saw the world around her as a twisted place of fire and flayed flesh, she could tell it was in many ways a burnt-out place.
She let go.
It would seem that Endeavor's madness had left him long ago. The rage was still there, the potential for going over the edge still very much a part of him, but nothing of the caliber it must have been at when he raped Shoto's mother to conceive him.
The second flame was blue.
And this one… This one was alive beyond words.
The entire world became nothing but a world of dancing bones alit by blur fire of pyroclastic proportions.
Mei quickly let go, panting.
Mad. Definitely insane… But who? She didn't know.
She felt her hand slightly shake as she grabbed the third one, this also white.
This one was far, far lesser in intensity or horror than the previous ones.
It was simply a lake of eternally simmering boiling water.
Shoto's, she thought.
He's not truly mad, but… He could end up if circumstances went the wrong way.
So, a bit better than her.
She let go of it, before focusing on the final one.
Unless the one of blur fire belonged to her, then this was Shoto's mother.
The moment of truth.
She grabbed the orb of blue, icy light… And the world in front of her… Became a Winterland.
Not raging, or pouring down with ice and snow. Just… Covered by white.
She turned from side to side.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
That meant… She looked down.
It had to be under the snow then. Buried. Forgotten.
That was a good sign. It boded well that this might not be a gigantic waste of time.
This time she did not let go. Instead, she pulled the orb out, and put it in her hand, closing a fist around it.
The other lights went out, as the winter landscape vanished.
The metal of the gauntlet began glowing with a blue light.
Alright… She had the connection.
She turned to the device in front of her.
Then took a deep breath, as she began untangling the inexhaustible power source from her belt.
The gift from the Alien. The wonderful little device that had allowed her to tap into the power she needed for her arms… This eldritch gauntlet… And greater things.
She inserted it into the device… and the world behind it broke.
The air itself shattered like a mirror… Leaving a hole in reality, and beyond that hole…
A black sun, a dark, golden sky… And the faraway sight of a great and terrible city by a dark and sunken sea.
Carcosa.
The place between worlds. The place where all the unconsumed Emotions that had ever been was gathered. The place that bound all those touched by Madness together.
It had been a while since she had seen it's shores. Not since she had fruitlessly searched it's alleys for the key to further life.
Mei stepped through the mirror.