"What's wrong?" Dragon asked Armsmaster through one of the monitors at his workbench. The desk was littered with tools and components and currently the salvaged remains of his late Halberd.
"Nothing I can talk about, Dragon," he said in frustration, staring at the various projects he had been working on.
"Then tell me something you CAN talk about about," she said gently to the fellow tinker.
"Have you ever worked so hard for something, only to be outdone by someone who isn't even trying?" he asked futilely. Of course Dragon, the best tinker in the world, never felt that way.
"This is about that boy isn't it? What did he do this time? Did he hurt you?" Dragon slowly asked.
"He didn't do anything. I don't want to talk about it. I just need to be alone for a while, okay?" Armsmaster pleaded.
Dragon decided. Zetsu would pay. It didn't matter that he was a Ward. She would find a way to prove he was a villain and then he would pay for hurting Armsmaster.
Haru was in the bathroom when a blond haired boy approached Taylor during lunch. He smiled and extended his hand and asked, "So, how are you liking Arcadia?"
Taylor stared at the boy for a moment before taking his hand cautiously. "I like it. Have we met before? You seem kind of familiar. Do we have class together?"
"I'm Chris. And you're Taylor right? We had math together last period. And we met last night, if you catch my drift."
Taylor's mouth gaped as she recognized Kid Win. "You're...are you...are you supposed to...do this? Talking to each other outside?"
Chris chuckled. "I don't think you're going to tell anyone so it's fine. It's kind of nice to be able to talk to a girl. Not that I don't talk to girls. What I mean is Vista is only in middle school and Shadow Stalker goes to a different school. It's nice to be able to talk to someone my own age. If you're not doing anything tonight, you can come with..."
A piercing scream came from the girls' bathroom.
Taylor told Chris, "Wait here," before she ventured inside.
The female Haru Ikari was hunched over the sink just below a smashed mirror. Fragments of glass littered the counter having fallen away from the spider-webbing cracks. Only the sound of the running sink filled the room.
"Haru? Are you okay?" Taylor asked gently. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"Do I know you?" Haru replied coldly. "No, I do know you. Taylor." The girl turned around slowly and turned off the sink. Her wet hair clung to her face like trickling blood. "I'm sorry. I have problems with my memories when I'm like this. Right? We met…earlier this week. We're superheroes. I'm sorry. This is why I tend to stay in guy form. I thought it would have been okay since…I was somewhere new. Sorry."
Taylor crept closer. Just in case, she took attendance of nearby bugs. "What happened to you, Haru?"
"I'm okay," she said as she pulled her hair back. "Sometimes I think it's better to forget things but then I end up forgetting too much. And I lose myself. And I can't do that anymore."
"I don't quite understand…" Taylor reached out her hand to touch Haru's shoulder. "Is there something I can do to help?"
"No. I'll be fine. I'm sorry you had to see that." Haru ignored the gesture and raised her fists to her chest. She closed her eyes and the water flew away from her with a 'shahhhh' sound, falling in droplets around her and leaving her dry.
"Woah, is that one of your powers, Haru?"
"Oh, no, it's just something I figured out how to do. I could try to teach you later, maybe," Haru answered timidly.
Chris's voice sounded from outside the bathroom, "Are you two okay in there?"
Taylor jerked her head as she realized how long she had left Chris outside. "Haru, have you met Chris yet? Let's go outside."
"Chris? Like 'Kid Win' Chris Finklestein?" Haru asked. Skimming Piggot's mind had given him the identity of all of the known capes in Brockton Bay.
"That's his last name? Seriously?" Taylor spat incredulously.
"Why not? But if that's the Chris you're talking about, he's still outside waiting for us."
"Hey, you're Panacea, right? I'm Zetsu, a new Ward. I figured I could maybe get Director Piggot to hate me less if I helped out at the local hospital."
Panacea, also known as Amy Dallon, furrowed her face in suspicion. "I've never heard of you before."
"Well, same to you until a couple days ago," Zetsu replied. "You just heal people? I'm moderately capable at healing. I guess I'll just get to work then." The black coat clad boy began to walk away, intending to wander through the hospital, but was stopped by Panacea.
"Wait a second, what do you do exactly?" she asked.
"I do a lot of things." Zetsu's expression was hidden by his coat's hood. "You've probably got me beat on the putting people back together metric, if the reports regarding you are correct, but I'm no slouch either."
Panacea was still unconvinced of the professed character of the shady figure before her. "You didn't exactly answer my question."
"Fine, let's have a demonstration!" Zetsu exclaimed, pointing a finger to the ceiling. "Whoever can heal the most people in one hour wins! It's the 'Super Powered Speed Healing Competition!"
Amy sighed. "This is a waste of time. I could be healing people as we speak."
"Exactly! I've already started on the emergency room patients. You're gonna have to work hard to keep up." It probably wasn't fair that Zetsu had already sent out a clone for each floor of the hospital. He would have to leave disease work to Amy but medic-nin techniques were perfectly suited to minor injuries and trauma. He couldn't regrow anyone's limbs but no one was going to die on his watch while he still had chakra to burn.
A steam whistle sounded throughout the hospital, its source being a wide-area genjutsu, and Zetsu wiped his brow despite not being sweaty whatsoever. "Alright, I'm done. Time to head back to headquarters."
The hospital had never been so empty of waiting patients. Zetsu's diagnostic jutsus expedited doctor's visits and the ER was completely empty. It had only taken the staff a short while to adjust to the cape's assistance but they had been glad for it. The leftovers were only the cases that Zetsu couldn't help, such as diseases that hadn't existed in Konoha or preexisting conditions that fell outside the realm of general medical jutsu.
"Zetsu, I'm sorry. I could never have done so much on my own. You helped so many people today," Panacea apologized sincerely. Zetsu had taken so much work off her shoulders and he allowed her to concentrate her efforts on where it was needed most.
"No big. It was kinda fun. I might do it again someday," he replied nonchalantly.
Panacea paused. "Wait, you aren't coming back tomorrow?"
Zetsu shrugged in response. "Meh. Like I said, it was fun, but I'm pretty much spent at this point so I'm calling it quits."
"What do you mean? It's only been an hour," Panacea remarked as she glanced at the wall clock.
"Can't be too careful. Don't want to burn myself out. Gotta conserve energy in case I need it later, especially since there's a lot I don't know about Brockton Bay. Did you know they have a ton of parahumans here? It's crazy."
Panacea grew visibly upset. "What?! You're just stopping because you feel tired? But you're not even going to come back? You can do so much good but…"
"Whatevs. I don't really care. I just stopped by cause the hospital seemed extra busy and I could use the brownie points."
"That is the most selfish thing I have ever heard. How can you call yourself a Ward and just let people suffer like that?" Panacea demanded.
"Why do I have to do it? Isn't that what doctors do?" Zetsu countered.
"Because you're the only one who can!" she screamed.
"The way I see it, I can do whatever I want as long as I don't break any rules. I'll come back and fix up some more people if I feel like it."
"What the hell is wrong with you? That way of thinking is just so…so…," she yelled. "It's WRONG. You can't just…leave someone to die if you can do something."
"But I've done that a lot already. I've saved people. I've let them die. I don't care."
"How can you be so cruel? Are you even a human being?" she shouted, her voice reverberating down the hospital hallways. She attempted to grab Zetsu's wrist, intending to glimpse the boy's physiology, but her hand was stopped by painful sparks of electricity. She looked down at the younger boy's hood and tried to imagine the person who could say such things. She asked, "You are human, right?"
"Sure," Zetsu answered before he backed away, flying dozens of meters in a single bound backward. As he was leaving, he shouted back, "It was nice working with you, Amy." The boy melted into the darkest corner of the hall and Panacea was left speechless for the next two minutes before she was paged over the intercom.
