Giran sat in deafening silence as I concluded my plan. The notebook I'd compiled it all into, along with everything I would need him to organise for me, bounced off his numb fingers and clattered to the floor with the airy ruffling of numerous pages.
Gentle wasn't much better, his eyes shot wide and his mouth actually hanging open. Twice had stopped laughing, eventually, but that wasn't stopping him from looking between the three of us with naked glee.
I knew he'd like this one.
"Any questions?" It was more a courtesy than curiosity, but manners were occasionally important.
Giran accepted the notebook the second time around, after some hair had scooped it off the ground and offered it up to him. I got the feeling he hadn't even noticed.
"You're insane." His voice was flat, emotionless. He shook his head slowly, and if I squinted, I might have actually been able to see the exact moment his hopes that this was one big joke all crashed to the ground. "This will never work. You're actually insane."
I just smiled.
"Y'know, I'm not actually sure if this will work."
"If it doesn't, that's still useful information."
Twice adjusted the cuffs of his villain costume, popping the measuring tape in and out. The villain costume was a necessity; he'd be spending a lot of time with Giran over the coming weeks while I went out and made myself into a massive headache for the entire world.
We still had a few hours before Mirko was scheduled to show up, but I wanted Twice away from the house for the foreseeable future regardless. I didn't want to test if whatever ceasefire she'd worked out with me would extend to the people I lived with. More importantly though, I didn't want to know what would happen if they did meet while not distracted by the fact that they were on opposing sides of the law.
I could handle one Twice, and I could handle one Mirko. I was more than fine with not testing if I could handle them both at the same time. I couldn't even guess what would be more difficult, if they were antagonistic, or if they decided they were friends.
He'd be on guard duty, and he'd be far away from any volatile rabbits. Win win.
With a snap of his wrist, Twice extended his measuring tapes until they were reaching out further than his arms, before rolling them back in like a yo-yo. He repeated the movement twice, alternating between his arms as he did so, giving me ample time to idly watch the sky through the canopy of leaves over our head.
I'd migrated us outside for this, to a clearing in the orchard that was… shall we say, less than natural. It was enclosed on all sides by trees, which would act as both cover and an early warning system if we ended up with any unwanted visitors.
Security was important when you were about to strike down a fundamental law of Quirks, and then potentially immolate whatever remained afterwards.
With a whirl of his hand that somehow sent both measuring tapes careening in a circle, despite them also somehow being sturdy enough to break through stone, Twice nodded with enough exaggerated fervour to draw my attention away from the cloud that almost looked like it was giving me the middle finger.
Yeah, well, fuck you too, atmosphere. We'd see who'd be left laughing once the human race managed to tear even more holes in you.
"Alright!" In contrast to the sky, Twice shot me a thumbs up and a grin. I assume, it was difficult to see with the mask in the way, expressive though it may have been. "Let's do this."
Finally. Taking a deep breath, I shook my shoulders to ease the stiffness that had been building within the muscles. Why Twice had needed me to stand perfectly still while he got ready, I had no clue. He'd probably been fucking with me, I couldn't think of any other alternative.
Arms now loosened, I pressed both hands against the trunk of the tree that was supporting my back, willing Overhaul to life. This was going to be an experiment just as much as it would be moving other plans forward.
When it came to potential, Twice exceeded us all. Knowing exactly how his Quirk worked was going to become my favourite project in the future, I could already tell. It would all start right here, figuring out if we could use it to facilitate my other favourite future project.
Near the centre of the clearing, only a few feet to Twice's left, a large tree root emerged from the ground. Gentle enough that it didn't displace the dirt or send the grass flying, the tree root twisted up and around until it was almost as tall as Twice, about level with the bottom of my chin.
The perfect height for this; Overhaul would know better than me. It held all the information, I was just the conduit right now.
Steadily, the tree root mutated further. The top of it trembled the hardest for a moment, before the wood contorted into a rounded oval. The centre of it poked out slightly while a few other sections sank slightly inwards, quickly morphing into a set of features that I'd known for years, but only really seen very recently.
The rest of the root didn't take much longer. With the face done, the body quickly followed. Most of the work was internal, mainly because I didn't know the exact level of detail that Twice would need in order to attempt this. I had the information stored, so there was no reason I wouldn't use it.
After only a few more moments, it was done. Long, thin fibres hung down from the top in the facsimile of hair. Intelligent eyes surveyed the clearing, even though they couldn't actually see or understand anything. Perhaps even in a state like this, she was scarily smart.
Some features had been omitted. The swell of her chest was there, as was the curve of her hips, though they all lacked the more interesting additions. I'd gone into this knowing that Overhaul, and by extension myself, would have full and perfect knowledge of Momo Yaoyorozu's body, but I'd been hoping that holding some of that knowledge to myself would make this feel even slightly less creepy.
Hopefully, I was also holding that knowledge away from the part of me that was still Mineta, purely out of spite. Fuck you, Mineta.
The whole 'not being creepy' plan was tested slightly when Twice looked upon the finished project and wolf-whistled. I don't know how he managed to dodge the rock I kicked at him without even looking.
"Don't make this weird." Curling my fist, I slammed it into the tree behind me, hard enough to shake the leaves. Two apples fell a moment later; I bit into one of them and set the other aside for when Twice would be done.
I didn't throw it at him, but holy shit was I tempted.
"This is the weirdest shit I've done all week!" Despite his words and tone, Twice had already begun hopping around the statue, measurements being taken down with the speed and ease of a professional tailor. Her hair and face took barely any time at all. I'd only managed two bites of my apple before he was moving down her neck and to more intimate areas.
That didn't stop my fist from clenching when he took the tape measure to her breasts. The smug grin that I knew he was shooting me under that mask didn't help matters either. It was how his Quirk worked and I had no basis for being pissed off about it regardless, but it felt like Twice was reading me a bit too easily for my liking.
Especially when I already had another woman coming over later. The apple I was eating took the brunt of my anger, a sweet sacrifice to appease my spirits.
The enormity of willingly giving Mirko another avenue to harass me through was only offset by the fact that she'd probably try to kill me, once she realised exactly what I was going to be doing in the next few months.
That, or she'd laugh until her lungs collapsed. Either reaction would be understandable.
"Yo, question."
"Answer." My response was immediate. That was a reflex that had been developed over time since I was a child. When I focused back on Twice, I'd almost been expecting to see my older sister standing there.
The tape hadn't stopped, but Twice had definitely slowed down. It was probably a much quicker process to get a cup size than it would be to get the dimensions of every single fingernail.
"What's your planet like?"
I snorted, despite knowing damn well that he was entirely serious. Giran and Gentle had still been sceptical by the end of my brief explanation, as had La Brava is the squawking in Gentle's ear was anything to go by, but the 'alien train' was already at full steam for Twice. He hadn't questioned it for even a second, which did at least make things much easier than I'd been anticipating.
'I'm a regular person displaced through time and space and have found myself in the body of a fictional character that I disproportionately hate'. Concise, informative, perfectly accurate. But it didn't roll off the tongue quite like 'I come in peace'.
Or at least an approximation of peace.
Really, it didn't matter if they never believed me. All that mattered was that the idea was in their heads, never to leave again.
"It's a lot like this one, actually." I took a contemplative bite of my apple, not realising that I'd already gotten down to the core. I spat out the bitter seed as soon as I realised it was in my mouth (stop laughing), changing my mind a second later and catching it in the palm of my empty hand.
It sank underneath my skin a moment later. A brand new plan to be hatched later.
…Should I be worried that I was becoming addicted to planning?
No, preposterous. There was never enough planning to be had. I could stop whenever I wanted to.
Fuck you.
"There's no Quirks, though." It was added as an afterthought, once I realised that Twice would probably want more information, but it was that statement that caused his head to snap towards me. The movement jolted his hand enough for the tape measure to leave a thin scratch along one of the statue's arms, one that I fixed as soon as I noticed it. This was the control test, it needed to remain perfect to be usable.
"There's no Quirks!?" How he could look incredulous through the mask, considering what his Quirk had done before I even came along, I didn't really know. "And you wanna go back?"
"Yes." I didn't even need to think about it.
This world was beautiful. Flawed, broken irreparably in some aspects if one were to look hard enough, but beautiful for it nonetheless.
It wasn't an outlook I'd arrived with, and it certainly wasn't the one that I'd anticipated developing, but there was no point in lying to myself. The heroes stumbled, the villains prospered, and yet there would always be a light shining in the darkness if you cared enough to look.
It was a world where even those hated for their existence could rise above that and become heroes. Even if their only motivation was to get rich, or to be cool, wasn't helping people enough to not bother with the ulterior motives?
Well, no. Not really, that was a big part of the series, but that was also somewhat beside the point. This place was a shithole for a lot of people, and a haven for the ones who could find their opportunities. It was only our optimistic desires that led us to focus on the latter, while the former slipped further and further, until no path was left to them except to turn others into the victims of society that they had found themselves to be.
Hell, I'd been put on the trail of a group of them. And that was going to be the biggest mistake anyone had ever made since the inception of Quirks.
Even if this world wasn't mine, it was still many people's. It was easy to forget that Twice had been lost to a void of his own mind, twisted around until no act was too heinous for him to do, because he couldn't comprehend that it was him doing them. It was easy to forget that Gentle and La Brava had been turned away by everyone else for ridiculous reasons, until the only way they could think of for people to look at them was to take the choice away.
Turning my back on that reality hadn't gotten me anywhere.
So now, I was going to embrace it.
After all, how bad could someone be, if they decided to solve the entire world's biggest problem?
How very bad indeed.
"Is that why you need that rat thing?" Apparently the quotient for how much bullshit Twice was willing to take from me capped out at random laughing and moustache twiddling. N-not that I was doing that second one at all. "He building your spaceship or something?"
The tape measure was already down to Momo's calves. Considering he was going over every single angle of the statue's body and it had only existed for a few minutes at the very most, that was rather impressive.
"He's my only safe bet if I need access to a Quirk that isn't available to Giran." Twice waved his hand at me. Somehow understanding what he wanted, I brushed a hand against the tree, pushing one of its roots above ground underneath the apple that I'd set aside for him. "I'm not exactly going to trust the government when they're throwing their own assassins into prison."
"Assassins?"
"Don't even ask."
The apple arched through the air, landing perfectly in Twice's outstretched hand. How he managed to coincide that with the final measurement he needed to take, the left big toe, I had no clue. There were some things that logic couldn't explain, and the inner machinations of Twice's mind was one of them.
With his work done and focus shifted to attacking the fruit I'd assaulted him with, I set about changing. My shirt was replaced with a pure white variant that sported buttons, while my pair of sloppy sweatpants were shifted out for a set of dress slacks. A pair of loafers encased my feet that I'd left bare before leaving the house, while a suit jacket emerged from my back to complete the ensemble.
Finally, my hair darkened to a near black, retracting until there was only a few inches of length left atop my head, and a third of that along the sides and back.
Why was Michael Wise standing in the middle of a random orchard, surrounded on all sides by thick foliage?
Hopefully Momo Yaoyorozu, or rather her clone, wouldn't think to ask.
"Moment of truth." I nodded to Twice, and he nodded back, before holding up a single hand. Brown muck, too much of a liquid to truly be called mud, cascaded down from his palm, landing on the ground with a disturbing splat. I watched it, somewhat apprehensively, as it began to distort upon the ground, churning upon itself and decidedly not making any distinct shapes.
Until, mercifully, a pair of legs began to emerge from the puddle, quickly becoming hidden away beneath an elegant black dress.
Twice stepped back, towards some of the deeper shadows being cast by the trees, as the clone took shape. Once the process had begun, it rapidly began to speed up, her body constructing itself and being covered by her gown before I could really see anything. Honestly, even if only for her sake, I was grateful for that.
Finally, the clone stood to its full height, long hair flowing down its back as it opened its eyes. Even though I'd seen Twice's Quirk in action many times before, it never ceased to amaze me just how… lifelike his doubles ended up being.
"Michael!" The clone didn't question anything, not why we were standing outside, not why there was a masked and costumed person sharing the clearing with us. All it did was gaze upon me and smile, a radiant expression that exuded joy right down to the bone.
"Hello, Momo." From my jacket's inner pocket I pulled a small notebook, identical to the one that I'd left in the real Momo's possession, aside from the phone number that had been slipped into that one without my notice. "Care to help me test something?"
The clone's eyes shone.
Soon enough, the whole clearing followed.
Though unlike the onyx brilliance of Momo's eyes, the light in the clearing was an assorted rainbow.