"If the magnesium shards are mixed in with white phosphorus, the ignition period might last longer and give the cover effect a longer duration," Izuku rattled off to Nageruhito, who was listening with rapt attention. Izuku's neighbors had quickly learned that while Izuku's practical application skills weren't the most refined, he frequently had interesting ideas in concept derivation. While he might not always have the answers, he could often offer a new outlook on a given issue with one of their support item assignments.
"So, if I were to implement a slower combustion time," Nageruhito started, "I might be able to cause a longer period of obscurement without risking damaging the user's own senses."
"It might get you clearance to assign it to a hero student faster that way," Kurieita chimed in from her workbench next to them. "Then you can get back to work on your invisible stitch work suit for Hagakure."
"Here, you can use mine," Matto piped up, passing a small bottle labeled with a 'combustible' icon, "I grabbed some for my project, but I don't think I'll need it."
Nageruhito took the small bottle of white phosphorus and carefully transferred a small pile of it into the combustion chamber before she and Izuku flicked down their welding visors.
"Let's see then," she started, turning to Izuku, "Ready?" Turning back to the combustion chamber and adding a pinch of magnesium shavings, she shut the access port and flicked the switch to 'ready' before Izuku flicked the ignition switch, and the machine generated a spark in with the reagents and the combustion chamber erupted in white light. Even through the welding visor, the light emitting from the combustion chamber was impressive, and the two of them counted as the seconds ticked by. Eventually the light in the chamber dimmed and Nageruhito rattled off the time she had recorded.
"Just a little more than seven and a half seconds," she announced happily. "Should be plenty of time for someone to detonate and be able to find cover or escape. Now we just need to figure out a method to scatter the materials without them burning up too fast."
Before Izuku could put forward any of his ideas for the presenting issue, Nageruhito's phone buzzed in her pocket. She grumpily pulled it out of her pocket muttering something under her breath and quickly read the offending message. Her already irritated expression darkened considerably before she looked up to each of her nearby friends.
"I need to go," her voice seemed to be hardened and brokered no room for argument.
"Is everything okay?" Kurieita inquired.
"No," Nageruhito replied harshly, "My sister's been in an accident. I'm going to go see her."
"Is she alright?" Matto piped in but trailed off under Nageruhito's cold gaze.
Nageruhito quickly packed up what she needed to take with her before stepping away to speak with Power Loader. A moment later, she turned and briskly strode out of the room.
The racket of the Development Studio's residents echoed around the group of three as they stared out after their departed friend.
The three of them looked at each other for a moment, a little uncomfortable with the sudden lack of conversation, but the stalemate was broken shortly by Kurieita.
"Is she going to be okay?" Kurieita asked quietly, "She seemed a little brusque."
"Did either of you know she has a sister?" Matto asked in response. "I wouldn't have thought they'd be so close if she hadn't talked about her yet."
"I think her screensaver is a picture of her with someone who looks kind of like her," Midoriya chimed in, "though I didn't think there was so much familial resemblance."
"I hope she's okay, both her and her sister," Matto trailed off, staring after their departed friend.
–
A splitting headache and a stabbing pain in her ribs were what greeted Jakusha as she woke. A deafening ringing echoing in her ears as pain radiated all down her body from her head to her toes. She moaned quietly, before immediately regretting it as contracting her lungs caused her presumably broken rib to grind against itself.
"Welcome back, girl," a voice she didn't recognize sounded from somewhere off to her right. "Thought you stood a chance, did you? That a quirkless girl like yourself stood a chance?"
The familiar indignation flared in Jakusha's chest at the mention of her quirklessness, almost hotly enough to open her eyes and glare at whoever was talking. Almost.
"Anyways, it was stupid to go after someone with such a strong quirk, even to establish yourself among your new peers."
"I-I wasn't looking for a-a fight…" Jakusha managed to groan out, keeping her eyes closed all the while, though her eyebrows knitted together with the strain.
"Funny way of showing it. But I'm not here to discuss why a quirkless girl like you was caught picking a fight with someone who was otherwise minding their own business."
The ignorance of this imbecile. Talking to her like Mika was some sort of innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of some quirkless nobody lashing out against an uncaring world.
It was enough that Jakusha forced her eyes open to glare vehemently at whoever was talking. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the brilliant, sterile white environment of what must be a hospital.
When her eyes adjusted, she was surprised to see that the speaker wasn't dressed like she'd have thought a doctor would be. Instead, next to her bed was a pale young man with short, shaggy auburn hair and a slight build, seated in a chair adjacent to her bed. He wore a purple-fur collared vest over dark clothes, and he wore pristine white gloves and a cloth mask over his mouth and nose. As she sized him up, she registered that he was doing much of the same, sizing her up with golden irises set under long lashes and simple, refined eyebrows and a series of silver piercings riding up along one of his ears.
While she couldn't see his mouth, she got the sense that he was smiling at her indignation from the slight crinkle around his eyes.
"Hello, Jakusha," he murmured to her, blessedly quietly, "I hear you got in quite the tangle at school today. Anything you would like to get off your chest?"
Jakusha didn't reply. She wasn't going to give this official-looking man anything to put against her academic record. At least anything that wasn't already on there, given how he was talking.
"I can't help if you won't talk to me," the man continued, "You have to tell me why you fought that girl if I am to help you."
"Help me–?" Jakusha's exclamation was cut off by an absolutely agonizing coughing fit. As the pain clouded her mind, she couldn't fully register that the man next to her bed had recoiled in disgust. "What could you possibly want to do to help me?"
"I think you might be surprised if you would just give me the chance."
"Really?" Jakusha demanded as forcefully as her condition would allow, pain beginning to dilute the rage that otherwise consumed her at this fool's blatant ignorance of her struggles. "Enlighten me."
"Well, for starters," the man began, getting comfortable again after seeming to confirm that her coughing fit had concluded, "I could hardly call you fighting such an opponent fair. Even if the other girl is stronger as a result of a defective genome."
That certainly prompted some thought, as Jakusha relaxed back into her hospital bed to mull over what she'd just been asked. While she thought, she looked around the rest of the room. It seemed she was in an isolated room with a complex series of machines and shelves of medicine adorning the walls. Looking to her bedside table, she took note of the barren tabletop.
No one has been to see me.
"What do you mean?" She voiced her curiosity.
"Quirks are a relic of a corrupted world. An aspect of humanity forgetting from whence it has come. A disease."
This is new.
"While I cannot call myself whole as you are," the man drawled, drawing another confused look from Jakusha out of the corner of her eye, "I can honestly say that I am working to find a way to purify the world."
"Purify? What do you mean?" Jakusha asked, but the man simply stared at her for a moment.
"What would you do to level the playing field?" the man asked instead. "Would you do what needs to be done?"
"I don't understand, sir. Who are you and what do you want with me?"
"My name is Chisaki Kaii. I loathe what the world has become over the last few centuries, and I fear what the world will become over the next. I want you to see what must be done to save it and rise to the challenge. Become what you must become and see the world purified. Sear it clean and build it back from the ashes of this wretched land of nightmares."
With that, Chisaki peeled one of his gloves from his hand and reached forward with his newly bare hand.
"All you need to do is take my hand, and I will give you what you need to level the proverbial playing field."
–
Nageruhito stepped quickly through the halls of the hospital past door after door of patients fighting for their lives. The intensive care unit was not unfamiliar to her, as her sister had been here a few times in the past after getting into fights with older students over being quirkless.
Nevertheless, it was not a place she felt any love for. Ever since her mother had died from the fire that had burned her childhood home to the ground, this place only served to stir up painful memories.
Shaking the painful images of her mother's scorched body from her mind, she prepared herself to find her beloved sister, bruised and broken within an inch of her life. The doctor had reported that two of her ribs had been broken and one of them had punctured her left lung. Additionally, she supposedly had a serious skull fracture, which would be linked to a very severe concussion, and she likely wouldn't wake up for a long while.
Nageruhito pulled the bouquet of yellow roses closer to her chest as she searched for her sister's room. Nothing would turn her away from her sister's side now. She would be damned if her sister woke up with no one and nothing by her bedside.
Room 4C, 4D, 4E… there it is.
"Pardon," a man said as he opened the door for room 4F. He stepped out and around Nageruhito, as she hesitated on the mantle of her sister's room. He hardly paused to look at her as he strode away back the way she had come in the direction of the elevator.
For a moment she stared after him as he strode away.
He doesn't look like a doctor or a nurse.
Once he turned the corner and disappeared, Nageruhito shook herself from her distraction and took a deep breath, ready to come face to face with the broken body of her sister before she summoned her will and quietly swung the door wide open.
"What the hell?" Nageruhito's exclamation sounded in the otherwise silent room. She stared, dumbfounded, at her sister. She was clothed only in the simple hospital gown that most patients wore, but there was an inexplicable glow about her as she sat upright in bed. She stared at Nageruhito for a moment, staring as though not quite seeing her standing there, before her eyes lit up along with a brilliant smile. It didn't escape Nageruhito's notice that she seemed to snatch something that she hadn't otherwise noticed from her lap and stash it behind her.
"Enkyori!" she exclaimed, "I thought you weren't coming!"
"Wha– what do you mean? I only got the message that you were hurt about an hour ago."
"Really? Have I only been out for that little time?" she trailed off looking pensive for a moment. "I thought it had been longer, but that would be why I didn't see those when I woke up," she continued, smiling brightly, and indicating the flowers that had fallen to Nageruhito's side.
"Oh – Right!" Nageruhito stammered as she started forward to hand over the flowers and made to hug her sister but stopped herself short so as to not hurt her broken ribs. "I heard you were involved in a hit and run." Her statement fell short of being taken at face value as Jakusha stared back at her meaningfully. The true source of her injury was not lost on Nageruhito.
"Don't worry about it too much, Enkyori," Jakusha brushed it off. "Come closer, I want a hug."
"You're sure? It doesn't hurt?" Nageruhito inquired carefully as she set the flowers on the bedside table.
"Absolutely," Jakusha replied lightheartedly, "I'd get up and come to you, but I've got all these things sticki–"
She was cut off as the door to the room was slammed open and a group of 6 people dressed in hospital uniforms flooded the room.
"Start compressions!" a voice commanded over the sudden commotion, "and get me a defibrillator. Stat!"
The speaker moved straight to a sink in the corner of the room where he thrust his hands under the stream of water as the rest of his entourage froze as they took in the scene in front of them. The two sisters half-reaching out to embrace each other, one of which was supposedly unconscious on death's door.
After a moment, they managed to shake themselves from their stupor and surged forwards again to check vitals and reset whatever had drawn their attention so quickly. As they bustled around, Nageruhito was guided near to the door so as to be out of the way, and she managed to make out as one of the nurses produced a sensor of some sort that must have been disconnected from Jakusha at some point.
"Excuse me, Miss…" one of the nurses asked as she approached Nageruhito, notepad and pen ready to take notes.
"Nageruhito."
"Oh. Sister, then," she mumbled, "Could you tell me what happened here? Last time any of us saw your sister she wasn't in such – operable condition."
"I'm not actually sure either. I thought she would be unconscious when I arrived, but when I came in, she seemed fine."
The nurse continued to write for a moment after Nageruhito stopped talking before she looked up at her again.
"And there's nothing else you can tell us about her?" the nurse asked gently. "We'd see if there were any video records, but this wing of the ICU is considered lower security and there won't be any video recording of anything happening in the whole wing."
Resisting the urge to curl her nose at the blatant admission of 'your sister isn't as important as other people,' Nageruhito responded, "Um… There was a guy who was leaving just as I showed up. I didn't really take a good look at him – sorry. I was a little preoccupied."
"You're sure there's nothing you can tell us about him? Nothing at all?"
"I think he might have been wearing a purple and black vest? Sorry."
"Right," the nurse muttered, "Well, we'll check to see if we can find this man and question him. Otherwise, you'll need to wait in the next room while we perform an evaluation of your sister."
"Oh– alright," Nageruhito mumbled as she was ushered out of the room and the door was shut behind her. "I guess I'll wait out here then…"
–
"Mr. Midoriya," the tired voice of a faculty member sounded over the din of the crowd of students headed home for the day. "A word if I may."
A look around the crowd revealed a shaggy-looking man standing above the students that swarmed the corridor. His tangled black hair drooped around his shoulders and his heavy-lidded eyes seemed to part the crowd before him as he strode towards the trio.
Izuku looked to his friends who shrugged before hastily muttering they would be waiting outside and good luck with the 1A homeroom teacher. He swallowed as he watched his friends retreat before steeling his nerves and turning to face the intimidating teacher.
"Right this way, Mr. Midoriya," the teacher droned as he motioned Izuku through an open door into an empty room adjacent to the main hallway.
Izuku followed him into the room, looking around quickly before turning to face the teacher as he shut the door behind him.
"It has come to our attention, Mr. Midoriya," the teacher began flatly, "that a design that you used during the practical application of the entrance exam may have originated in a – less than ideal setting."
"What do you mean?" Izuku responded confusedly, quirking one eyebrow as he did so.
"Your explosive darts," the teacher continued as a means of explanation. "We have determined that they are not directly sourced from this group of developers, but we need you to understand that they know that you have adopted their design."
"I'm sorry, Mr. …"
"Aizawa."
"Mr. Aizawa," Izuku continued. "What are you getting at? Are you saying I plagiarized my practical component for the entrance exam?"
"No," Mr. Aizawa said simply. "However, you should know that they are an unsavory crowd, and that they are interested in preserving their autonomy in the face of the world at large. They do not appreciate having their design, 'knocked off,' as it were." Mr. Aizawa then looked to the door to double check that it was secure before looking out the window and turning back to Izuku. "They will be checking in on you at some point once they trace the design through the school's public examination record to you. When they do, you should be ready to deal with them."
"Deal with them…?" Izuku asked weakly, wringing his hands together nervously.
"Yes," Mr. Aizawa responded with his usual deadpan, looking Izuku straight in the eyes as he did so. "You should be able to negotiate on your own behalf. Think of it as preparation for when you're a full-fledged designer of support equipment. There will undoubtedly be people who try to get you to do things you'd rather not do once you establish yourself as a designer."
"I-I'm not sure I understand, sir."
"You don't need to understand yet. Just know that you and I will be doing some private classes daily to go over what you'll need to know starting tomorrow and continuing daily during the final period. I trust you'll be able to keep up with your design assignments?" At Izuku's nod, he then stepped away from Izuku and opened the door, standing aside and letting Izuku leave. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Midoriya."
Numbly, Izuku stepped past him and back out into the considerably less-crowded hallway. He then strode down the hall and back out into the open air to meet up with his friends.
Behind him, Mr. Aizawa watched him go.
"Understand your assignment, Hagakure?"
"Yes, sir," the feminine voice sounded from somewhere off to the teacher's right.
–
"Do you think you and I should check in with Nageruhito and her sister at the hospital?" Kurieita asked Izuku as he emerged from the school. "Matto couldn't hang around. His mom called and wanted him to go straight home."
"That might be nice. She seemed kind of worried when she got that message this afternoon," Izuku thought for a moment. "I don't suppose she said which hospital she was going to?"
"No," Kurieita responded, "but I can see where she is on my friend map here on my phone."
"Oh, cool. That's smart," Izuku commented.
"It looks like she's at Musutafu General. That shouldn't be too far out of the way for me, are you coming?"
"Yeah," Izuku resolved and the two of them set out to the train to make their way to check in on their friend.
It was a quiet ride on the train, despite the uncomfortable crowd pressing in on all sides, and no more than twenty minutes later, the two of them were standing outside the front doors of Musutafu General. The pair looked at each other, somewhat uncomfortable, before they stepped up the steps and through the automatic doors.
As they looked around the main room of the hospital's reception, they noticed their friend seated in one of the waiting room chairs, hunched over and staring unseeingly ahead.
Izuku's heart sank as he saw her, fearing the worst, but as the pair approached and Nageruhito saw them coming, she smiled brightly at them.
"Hey! What are you guys doing here?" she asked as they approached.
"Ch-checking on you," Izuku responded nervously. "You seemed kind of scared this afternoon when you left."
"Is your sister okay?" Kurieita inquired carefully as Nageruhito nodded her affirmation. "That's good. What happened to her?"
"She's fine," Nageruhito responded. "Apparently, she got caught in a hit-and-run. In fact, she's doing better than anyone thought she possibly could. The doctors are checking for a quirk factor that possibly could have just been activated by the trauma."
"Why would they be checking for that? What is your sister's quirk?"
"She's quirkless, but she's fine, and that's the problem," Nageruhito explained. "Supposedly she had two broken ribs and a largely crushed skull only a few hours ago. If this is due to a previously dormant quirk, it would be one of the top self-healing quirks in the country." She paused for a moment. "She should even be released from the hospital in the next couple minutes since the doctors don't have any excuse to hold her any longer."
As the three of them paused for a moment, the elevator dinged and out stepped a girl that Izuku recognized from Nageruhito's phone's screensaver. Taller than any of the three of them, with long, slim arms and legs and long lime-green hair, Jakusha Nageruhito stepped out to see her sister and her friends.
–
"She seemed nice enough," Kurieita said to Izuku as the two of them walked back to the train station from the hospital.
Izuku nodded his acknowledgement to the statement as he walked. She had been more than nice enough. Once he'd told Jakusha that he was quirkless as well, she had bombarded him with questions about how and why he'd gone to so much effort to get into UA and work with the heroes who didn't care for the little ones like they purported. She had inquired deeply into his childhood, and once she'd uncovered his bullying at the hands of 'Kacchan' she had simply nodded her understanding. She asked about what he would do to Kacchan if he were given the chance, but when he'd explained that he had made his peace with his bully, so long as they didn't continue to fight through high school, she'd seemed perplexed and hesitant.
Regardless, the doctors had confirmed that she was, in fact, still quirkless. They'd mentioned something about another visitor who'd shown up and left without stopping in with reception and who had disappeared before anyone could question them, but that was all secondary because Jakusha was okay.
"I forgot to ask earlier," Kurieita spoke up again. "What did Mr. Aizawa want with you?"
"Something about supplementary classes with him about negotiation or something. I start with him tomorrow during studio time."
"That's unfortunate," Kurieita lamented. "You only get so much time in the studio."
"It is, but I'll have to see what these classes are all about."