Being tall again was fucking weird.
Not having to look up while talking to people was just the start. I could now actually see out the windows as I walked around the house. Rooms that had once been off limits to me due to not being able to easily reach the handle were now open to my inspection. No longer did the top cupboards or shelves elude me. I'd gotten so used to searching my immediate surroundings for anything that could be used as a stepping stool that I'd caught myself doing that three times already, and I'd only hit my growth spurt less than five minutes ago.
Thankfully, despite having no clue about what I'd been planning to do (hopefully), Giran had seen fit to stock this house with clothes of every size before handing me the keys. That probably had something to do with the fact that in my haste to make sure the yakuza would never have the funds to hunt me down, I'd made him the richest man in the country. Who would have thought there was so much money to be made from drugs?
Normally I would have foregone a shirt entirely, especially with my hair now being long enough to trip me over while I walked. Putting on a shirt while your entire upper body was essentially covered in honey didn't sound pleasant. I couldn't let the silky texture fool me! It had taken far too long to detach myself from the garage floor. As soon as its grubby little locks touched anything aside from my body, not even the sheer power of Twice's muscles could do anything!
Even if those muscles had only been put to use in his chest, because he was laughing that damn hard at my predicament. Not that I could blame him, I'd probably laugh like that too if some idiot got stuck to the ground in front of me.
Honestly, the whole hair thing had been completely out of left field. I'd been expecting the balls to remain. Sitting inoffensively atop my head- stop giggling, damn it. Instead, I'd failed to account for the fact that I was taking Mineta, who was a bit of an asshole, and combining him with Chisaki, who was a very big asshole. And then I was multiplying them with myself, who was also a bit of an asshole.
Math wasn't my strongest point, but even I could calculate how much of an asshole that prospective person would be. Little did I know it would all be concentrated in the hair.
The simple solution would have been to just chop it off. A hard yank was all the confirmation I needed that I couldn't just remove it to stick elsewhere. Without that bit of utility, Mineta's Quirk was honestly just useless.
I couldn't do that, though. Every time I considered it I would see that stray orb that I'd shoved in my pocket before that coat was ruined. The chunk of hair that had caught a bullet and probably saved my life in the process. I wasn't a religious or overly sentimental person, but that felt too much like a sign for me to just ignore.
Chopping it all off now would just be ungrateful, and I really didn't want to put this newfound sense of spiritualism to the test. Unfortunately that left me with a head full of issues, and this time I'm not talking about the mental kind.
It was as I was staring down at the shirt I'd grabbed from the top shelf of the closet; a black tee with the same face of a muzzled man printed onto it three times, all of them tilted up towards a full moon, that I realised I was a fucking idiot.
If being tall was fucking weird, having Overhaul in my system was like having a Rorschach blot test hold a gun to my head and order me to invent a new colour and explain what its taste sounded like. Then you would say "do you mean taste in music," and then you would get fucking shot.
Still, it being so alien meant that getting a hold of the feeling of it was easy. Most of it was concentrated in my arms, but there was enough of its strange energy in the rest of my body to give me an idea.
I'd have loved to be able to say that I was careful about not exploding my body with what I was trying, but that honestly would have been a lie. Not for any grand plans of self-conflagration, but because I honestly had no idea if this was even possible, given from all I could remember of Chisaki, his arms were a big deal for his Quirk.
His arms being sacred had nothing to do with the fact that the weird feeling, the pervasive sensation that was stretching out to change and mould, was all throughout my body. Had it been the same for him, and he'd just never done anything with it? Had he tried and made a mistake that made trying again an unattractive prospect?
Fortunately, I was attractive. Therefore, by that logic, it would work for me.
Before I could question myself further, I took a step towards the centre of the room, pivoting on my feet to face the door and holding my arms perpendicular to the floor. I didn't want to run the risk of them brushing against anything and ruining the whole purpose of this little experiment. With my arms in contact with nothing but the spirits and my mind made up, I turned my focus to that Quirk energy, and pulled.
Immediately, I could tell that I was right. Though the concentration was highest in my arms, I could feel the Quirk as it awoke across my entire body and started to move to my directive.
Just like being tossed into a new body, getting it moving was always the most difficult part. I'd done this song and dance with both foot long legs and my hair glued to a cement floor. I knew how to get things moving when all they wanted to do was lie down in place and ignore everything I was telling them.
The Quirk crept upwards, fighting me less as the distance between it and my hair closed. Passing my shoulders proved to be a bit difficult, the Quirk slipping through my control to follow the well-traveled path down to my hands before I could wrangle it back under control.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the bulk of the Quirk passed them. I ignored the sensation, even as some of them were infused with power. Those weren't the hairs I was concerning myself with right now, but it was a small affirmation that this wouldn't end up a failure.
Finally, with a bit of effort, the Quirk was in my hair. Complimentary to its nature, Overhaul latched onto Pop Off with no issues, spreading from the roots to the ends quick enough to make my head spin. For a moment I was worried, feeling as the Quirk throughout the rest of my body grew weaker in presence, before with a flash of heat, it climbed back to the level I'd been privy to before.
But, I'd just pushed a majority of the Quirk into my hair. I could feel it right now, I could see the slight haze of warmth emanating from the handfuls of hair that had settled on my chest. The amount of Quirk factor hadn't dropped at all.
…Overhaul could affect anything physical, I knew that much. But did that physicality extend to the Quirk itself? Did it extend to the Quirk factor being discharged into my body to power it?
I scratched my chin, lost in thought as I let my arms fall to my sides. I'd had ideas before now, certainly, but if Overhaul could transcend whatever science Quirks adhered to on its own volition? My own personal lab and research equipment climbed a few more places on my mental list of priorities.
Also, how was I still scratching my chin if I'd lowered my arms?
Glancing down, my answer came in the form of purple strands, curled up around my neck with a few strands extended out to the bottom half of my face. The tips of the hair, where previously they had been blunt yet hard, visibly softened, drifting away from my chin to settle back into the impromptu scarf that had been fashioned around my neck.
I blinked at it, probably looking very stupid. It probably would have blinked back at me, if it had eyes. Fortunately for my continued mental health, the mere thought didn't automatically fashion a pair of vitreous within the keratin.
With a thought, the hair was untangling from around me. Some of it fell limp, but most of it drifted upwards, either choosing to settle on my shoulders or just stand upright on its own volition. It was long enough to reach the ceiling, but it was with no small amount of glee that I noticed that wherever it came in contact, it didn't stick.
Until, with a flex of the only muscle I could be bothered to exercise on a regular basis, I gave it the cognitive directive to stick.
It wasn't just the few strands of hair that were already stretched out to the ceiling that chose to stick to it. All the hair on my head, even the ones that were too short to actually reach, rushed upwards to the ceiling. They didn't stay too short for long, growing so quickly that I could actually feel my scalp getting tugged along with them.
Before I could even grunt at the sensation, my hair was pooling on the ceiling. Unfortunately, in my rushed experiment, I hadn't actually thought too long or hard about how much hair I wanted up there. So rather than just the tips of my hair making contact and latching on, instead they all rushed upwards, hitting the ceiling and coiling around and outwards like boiled noodles landing in a bowl.
They also didn't seem to get the memo that if they wanted to do so, they should have kept growing.
With a yelp that would have made the Looney Tunes proud, I was yanked completely off my feet. It felt like the whole house shook as my skull made contact with the roof, the puddle of hair doing approximately fucking nothing to dull the pain. I wasn't even granted the dignity of that being my only injury; the sudden deceleration left no room for the rest of my body to stop as well.
If my head hurt after slamming into the ceiling, then the pain in my knee after it punched through the ceiling could be more accurately described as agony. I think there might have been some wooden beams up there as well, if the sounds of something splintering were any indication.
Fortunately, it was at that point where I had enough wherewithal to order myself to unstick. Unfortunately, I'd failed to account for the fact that by then, I was already high enough above the ground to gain some speed on the descent.
The house definitely shook this time, after gravity had peeled me away from my own hair and slapped me back down. Somehow, because when it rains it fucking pours, in between the ceiling and the floor I'd managed to flip around midair. So instead of landing on my back, which would have still sucked but would have been at least somewhat absorbed by the rug I'd ascended from, instead I landed flat on my face.
Much of the momentum was halted by my neck. However, there was still enough for my knee to hit the ground with aplomb, where I felt it go through the floorboards.
It saved your life, I reminded myself, as my hair settled down around my shoulders again. Moving my arm was worryingly difficult and sent some shooting shudders down my spine, but I was still mobile enough to nudge my hand against my hip and push for Overhaul to start fixing the damage I'd done to myself.
Don't shave your head. Don't shave your head. You can learn how to control it. Ignore the temptation.
It was at that moment the door slammed open. I tilted my head to the side, spying Twice's unmasked face from the corner of my eye. He stared down at me, dumbfounded, before his eyes travelled upwards to the ceiling.
Movement caught my eye. I tilted my head over a little more, watching as a loose bit of plaster dangled precariously. It was on the edge of a severe dent, the one that I'd made with my brain just a moment prior.
Twice opened his mouth. I'd like to think that he would have asked if I was alright. Before he got the chance, the loose bit of plaster splintered off with a crack, and I only had time to close my eyes as I swooped down towards my head.
It saved your life.
BONK.
But I still fucking hate it.
A few minutes later saw me wandering into the kitchen. Gentle and La Brava, both nursing steaming cups of what I could only assume were tea, both glanced up as I passed the threshold.
La Brava's eyebrows climbed up her forehead, the fingers dancing across the laptop in front of her slowing as her eyes followed my progress. Gentle nodded in greeting, though he was doing the exact same thing as his partner/probable girlfriend.
He took a sip of his tea as I hobbled into the kitchen, searching the cabinets for a cup. After a few seconds I had unearthed one, and a moment after that I was pouring myself a serving from the steaming kettle.
La Brava snorted, hiding her mouth behind a hand a moment later. I shot her a glare that probably could kill her, now that I had this nightmare of a Quirk. Gentle's eyes cracked open, and he scrutinised me for a moment before his eyebrow was rising in an eerily similar manner to the woman sitting beside him.
"What happened to your hair?"
I twitched. My hair, which had been gathered in a bun atop my head that was so large that it looked like a purple afro, trembled violently.
"I… don't want to talk about it."
