Ultimate Amiss V
I recently put up a digital art of Hajime and Junko on my DeviantArt and AO3 accounts. Take a look if it interests you.
He grips a screwdriver in one hand, a wrench in another seconds after the door has closed behind a professor that has just exited his room. Somehow when checking for such tools in his room so he can't open the window again they keep overlooking the tiles beneath the medical equipment.
The ones he had loosened over time with a variety of other tools, which are now stored there along with anything else they wouldn't allow him to have in the room if they knew about it.
Izuru doesn't even question their stupidity anymore, though. Why they have negated to put up cameras if they really wonder what he's doing when they're not there. The reasons for not putting them up were endless and not something he could accurately guess anyway. Not without breaking into one of their high security rooms to hack past all the security that would be present in any computers in the room. That, and honestly he didn't care to go through all that trouble to find out which of the reasons it was.
He was much more focused on the grate in front of him, using the tools in perfect harmony to get rid of the bolts secured over the screws before taking those out as well. Izuru wedged a cat's paw between the grate and wall, pushing down on the handle and using the wall as leverage, much like a crowbar to separate the metal from the wall.
Since the solution on the back of the metal had only been stuck on recently and hadn't completely dried the corner was pulled up after a few good tugs, and he repeated the process for the other corners and wherever the grate still stuck to the wall. Eventually it just fell off, no longer able to stay on and he proceeded to get up from his bed, with the grate in hand.
Izuru walked across the room, getting onto the counter top so he could access the vent, pulling it open to deposit the grate inside before closing it once more. After that he put the nails for it back in on the bottom after retrieving his tools, sticking the bolts over them. He hoped his teachers had as much fun getting them off as he had-
His lips curled down into a frown as he stared at the vent, the last bolt now in place. Was he actually mad at his teachers? He didn't recall ever having much of an opinion about them before now; he wanted to learn more from them, see what new talents he could acquire, the challenges they would present to him, but... He had never been angry at them before, or even particularly happy when he succeeded in his tasks.
After all, he knew he would succeed. There wasn't any question about it, him being the Ultimate Hope and all.
Odd.
It was almost like that time when he had a sudden burst of anger in him from Junko's attitude, but this also felt different... He wasn't sure how to describe it. As he usually didn't care that his teachers would put reinforcements on the window, especially after he had left his room that day.
Yes, they hadn't liked that. they had raised their voices at him a bit, but he hadn't cared to raise his own voice in turn. They were the ones that told him he was better than everyone else because of his talents. Which meant he was better than them, that he didn't really need to listen to them unless it benefited him. Right? He was superior to the common rabble, even the Ultimates in this very school. He was better, he had no reason to get upset at those beneath him.
So what was this spark inside him? Anger? Annoyance? It was already slipping away and after a second of staring at the vent he made no attempt to grab onto it. Whatever it was it was gone now. Nothing for him to worry about.
He gave a small shake of his head, setting those thoughts aside as he got down from the counter, feet hitting the floor now. Izuru walked back over to his bed, getting on top to stare out the window once again.
He recognized Junko immediately, and the girl Ibuki that was sitting next to her, backs against a tree. They were chattering away once again, but he couldn't hear the words like last time. From the looks of it the mood was brighter than it had been on that rooftop. But maybe that was just because of the other people around them, talking as well.
Junko raised one manicured hand, red nails flashing in the sunlight as she waved at some passing student, pausing to grab her bag before jumping up to run after them. For just a moment he thought he saw her features darken, teeth glinting between her lips; as if she was a wolf that had just found a tasty rabbit, but then it was gone. She was smiling, walking beside the person as she spoke.
He wished he could hear the words, as he was almost positive they were as twisted as when he had caught her speaking to Ibuki. How did the other people fail to realize what she was doing? Planting some sort of destructive seed into their mind that would later blow up into a black hole and drag that very person inside.
Her wolf persona as it were, finding that nick in a person's army and chipping away until they fell down into a pit of spikes, only injuring themselves as she pranced away. He had to wonder if she had done that to him at some point. If that's why he remembered seeing her, but not much else. Had he suppressed those memories because she had made him fall into his very own pit?
He knew from reading and studying various subjects that people did that; forgetting traumatic things that had happened to them in the past. It was a coping mechanism. And it was the only theory of his that made any sense whenever his thoughts drifted to her.
The only problem being that he couldn't remember if that was even correct or not. It was just a hypothesis and without any evidence to support it it would just fall apart.
Izuru's gaze flickered back to Ibuki as he saw Junko disappear into a building.
How long would it take before her own bomb ticked down to zero? She was sitting among a group of friends, but not talking to a single one. There was a sort of... empty glaze to her eyes. Like she was lost in her own mind, thinking about something else rather than the conversation happening around her. Was she already falling, then?
Should he... should he what? It was that girl's problem, not his that she had become enraptured in Junko's words. Only an idiot would listen to a wolf. So what if the girl was also an Ultimate? She was clearly beneath him if she fell for such low tricks.
Izuru turned from the window, back flat against the wall.
It didn't concern him. Not what was happening to Ibuki, not what Junko was doing to those people, none of it. It was their own fault if they burned. Not his.
