This fic returns, after christmas! There was a writer event thingy that wanted me to post on Christmas, but on account of incredibly cold weather where I was at that time, allergies that caused incredibly dizzying congestion, a frantic campaign by myself to turn that place into a place I can survive in, and me not wanting to conform to peer pressure of "update on Christmas!, People will appreciate it!", I didn't do anything. Boy was that a run-on...
Needless to say, I didn't participate in that event. But I ended up writing this today anyways...
I bring you this chapter after receiving nothing for Christmas…
Sadge. Besides, who reads fics on Christmas anyways… Definitely not lonely people like me. Definitely not.
Definitely…
-SpiritOfErebus
"...He drank my blood, and got back into the fight." Ojiro said, an admiring look on his face.
"Most… metal thing I've ever seen. And I normally don't use that word."
The police officer in the interrogation room just stared at the student, a look of disbelief in his eyes. He flipped through Hans's quirk profile, before sighing.
…
"...Using a knife, Ojiro-san… stabbed into his own arm, and bled into a bowl that I made. I made!" Yaoyorozu sobbed. "It was terrifying, terrifying!"
The police officer looked at Ojiro's interview notes, and hesitantly looked at the pale, yet arrogant expression on Hans's face.
"What is this kid?" He thought, a bead of sweat running down his forehead.
…
"He summoned an Angel of Death, monsieur." Aoyama said, brandishing his arms out towards the dim ceiling light in the holding cell. "It was truly magnificent! Hans Christian Anderson controlled it with mere strokes of a quill, but it flew around, spewing out arrows of water that pierced the spirits of our enemies!"
"Is… Is he a god?"
"Non, monsieur. He was… a hero." Aoyama sighed. "If only I could have lived up to his brilliance. But no… I was temporarily ensnared by my cowardice. Even though he had to resort to feeding on blood to continue combat, he still ensured the safety of our class, and my sparkling self!"
The interviewer slowly changed the order he was going to be doing interviews in. The demon child was definitely coming in last.
…
Koda's fingers continued to gesture through the air, his slightly intimidating picture on his profile not matching up at all to the meekness of the boy. He looked at the kid gesturing, and regretted not actually trying to study sign language as a suspect interviewer.
At least these kids weren't actually villains, right?
At last, it was time to call in the last kid.
Hans… Christian… Andersen.
The slightly greasy button that activated the speaker in the waiting room almost quivered in the dim light. Across the dusty table, his hand slowly crept towards the button.
But could he really call this kid. This… vampire? This person subsisted on human blood. Somebody that could summon an Angel of Death?
The policeman regretted eating something as greasy as fried pork chops for lunch, but it was too late to turn back now. His finger once again hit the slippery button, and he spoke shakily into the speaker.
"H-Hans Christian Andersen, please come into the office."
…
From outside the room, Hans was frantically feasting on the pork chops that were provided to them.
"Are you sure you don't want these, guys? I mean, this stuff is free. And it's not even bad! Just look at the porkchop that's actually one piece! This isn't shredded meat either, which means that it's actually sort of expensive."
Class 1-A looked at the truly preposterous amount of food that Hans was consuming. Many of them couldn't eat after the USJ, and had left their meals mostly untouched.
Hans was the obvious exception. After nearly dying to the Nomu's fist, having to drink somebody else's blood, and emanating strange, gold sparks, the small child seemed like he had absolutely no qualms against massacring the sustenance.
"At this point, I'm going to turn into some blonde saber with an ahoge." he muttered, mouth filled with delicious calories. Say what you will about Japan, but their tonkatsu was very, very cultured.
Jiro, being the irritating little bugger she was, noticed Hans's statement.
Casting aside his irritation for annoying sensory quirks, he continued down his train of thought. It wasn't like he actually wanted to eat all of this, but food could recover some amount of mana, even though Hans suspected that, generally, properties like these were a narrative trope used to showcase the cooking skills of the protagonist.
Who knows? There could even be a spinoff featuring the harem protagonist of whatever the source material was cooking.
At that point, the system's speaker crackled, and Koda walked out of the room.
For a moment, everybody paused in their conversations, and looked at Hans.
"What, is it my turn?"
"Yes." Ojiro said, nodding. "Yes, it is."
Hans pushed four meal boxes off his lap, set down the fifth on top of a small table, glared at Yaoyorozu as if daring her to take it, and then left for the interrogation room.
Yaoyorozu, in the middle of a third box herself, sighed.
"Honestly, I don't even want to be eating so much. It's only because of my quirk that I need so many calories."
"But what about Andersen-san? Why does he need so many calories? Is his quirk a psychic quirk? Does his brain use up the energy that should have gone to physical development? What if…"
"...And there you go again, Deku-kun." Uraraka muttered, looking slightly concerned at Midoriya's expression.
"That shitty nerd…" Bakugo scoffed. "Our class just beat back the biggest villain attack in four months, and he's still fucking useless.
"Wait, you keep track of that stuff too, Bakugo-san?" Kirishima said, looking up from the porkchop he was considering.
"Shut up, you brick!"
"How did we all survive, though?" Hans thought, as he entered the doorway to the interrogation room. "Honestly, with how brash Bakugo is, I wouldn't really expect him to get away unscathed."
…
The policeman looked nervously at the top of the doorframe. From the descriptions of the student given by his classmates, Hans Christian Anderson must have been a terrifying beast.
Slowly, the door creaked open. The policeman ducked behind the small piece of plastic cover that was granted to the interviewer… and waited.
And waited.
And waited…
And waited…?
His gaze slowly trailed down the door frame, looking for the student/vampire lord.
"What, not going to ask me annoying questions?"
The policeman jumped from his seat. That voice… was incredibly similar to a certain blonde vampire from a series of truly absurd misadventures. If he didn't know better, and if the show wasn't produced in a pre-quirk era, he would even think that the voice actor, or worse, the character himself, had walked in with his eleven seconds of stopped time.
Swerving his neck around at break…well, neck… speeds, he saw a small, emaciated, blue-haired child sit down on the chair that was way too tall for him. The bloodstained labcoat did give him an ominous aura, but otherwise, the small child was actually a pretty sad sight to behold.
Then again, with this Hans Christian Andersen supposedly summoning… terrifying creatures… he was going to do anything but underestimate him. After all, according to all other accounts, he was the one that contributed to the survival of the students even more so than the teachers. Which was surprising, considering Eraserhead's competence.
He gathered his wits, shook his head determinedly, and then began to ask for a tale that… now seemed extremely ridiculous.
Because what kind of high schooler has a whole lecture prepared about the self-perpetuating cycle of hero society? Or… more importantly…
Was that short?
…
Hans burst out of the interview room to a room filled with drowsy teenagers. He coughed once, took a swig out of a paper cup, and crumpled it up into a ball. When he got back to his seat, his food was cold… and overly greasy.
It just… didn't look as appealing as before.
The drowsy teenagers, upon hearing his footsteps, abruptly looked up from their sleep. Some fists were raised absentmindedly, and some quirks were flexed.
"Are you all really settling into PTSD?"
"..." Many students looked at their offensive postures, and sighed.
"Well, don't sleep now. That just makes the PTSD worse."
"And why can't we sleep?" Kaminari whined. "My brain was literally fried twice! In two hours!"
"Because if you do sleep, your brain will keep on reflecting about your day, and inscribe the memory of what you just did into long-term storage, therefore worsening your PTSD. Find a distraction now."
"You think that you can just order me around, you little shit?" Bakugo roared, not sleepy in the slightest anyways. "I bet you were just cowering after that annoying little speech of yours, right? Behind everybody else's back. Because guess what? You're a weak ass little shit that can't even do a physical exam correctly. How the fuck would you be of any use against villains?"
Literally everybody in the room looked at Bakugo, who could feel the gaze of even the illusive Invisible girl.
"...What?" he said defensively. "Am I wrong?"
…
"I didn't even believe that I could be shook by his speech. I was… angry. I was misguided by the person that said I could get back at society. But when that little blue-haired kid spoke about all of the illusions of this corrupted society instead of the lies that I had been fed for my whole life, I understood."
"Thank you for your time. Again, we have been speaking to Rikasakusei-san, a reformed villain from the USJ incident. With the megacorporation Detnerat backing you and your group's case, I wish you good luck in your court case."
"Thank you for your time, and if Hans Christian Andersen is listening to this, I hope that I can live up to your standards so I can actually contribute to society instead of accepting the adverse circumstances against me."
"Truly inspiring words. Now, with the newest report from the USJ, we can observe who Hans Christian Anderson really is, and continue our investigation into who this eccentric hero student really is."
Hans switched off the radio, before chowing down on some more cereal. It was already 10 A.M, but it didn't really matter. After all, he had the day off. And the next day off, too! Thankfully, UA was at least giving them a chance to cool off from violence.
His parents sat around the table, their faces looking down at their barely touched breakfast.
"Did… did you really say all of that?" his mother asked,
"Yeah." Hans said, sighing. "I kind of regret saying it, but delaying for that ten to fifteen minutes really did help us. And besides, those villains saved us in the end."
"But… they're still villains." his father said, a conflicted expression on his face. "Should they really be allowed to walk free? They did enter the facility with the intent to kill you all."
"We all are born into this world with a mutable destiny." Hans said. "Some may be more mutable than others, but in the end, are we really responsible for our actions, or is it society that pre-determines what we do? Are we even capable of affecting our own actions? Some pre-determinists even say that since the beginning of the universe, every single action was just caused by the momentum that resulted from the big bang."
"That's some heavy philosophy you're spouting, son." his father said, chuckling weakly. "But I didn't understand anything."
"Don't worry." Hans said, dropping his spoon and looking out of his window. The urban sprawl before his eyes was beautiful, yet ugly. Tall buildings in the distance contrasted with slowly dilapidated apartment blocks. Clean alleyways in the distance did nothing to cover up the dirty streetways that lined the slightly poor neighborhood they lived in.
"It doesn't matter why or how we make those decisions. All that matters is doing what we think is right."
"And we'll support you however we can." his mother said supportively. "I was quite the brawler back in high school, you know?"
"Yeah. If you mean being beaten up makes you a brawler."
Hans took a look at his parents, before walking to a windowsill and setting his hands on the frame.
He really didn't want to die. He didn't want to live in a narrative shithole. He didn't want to constantly be embroiled in needless conflict. Schoolyard squabbles. And having to roast everybody around him just to achieve sweet, mental relaxation.
Honestly, waiting for the plot to just come at him was a foolish strategy to pursue. The best cure to a sickness was prevention, after all. And to prevent the sickness of trouble, what better way to do that than tackle the source?
"I've spent enough time just writing and complaining." Hans muttered. "It's time I actually did something."
"Well, you're already working to be a hero-"
"It's not that, dad." Hans said, slightly exasperated.
Recently, other than the radio show kind of shamelessly investigating his life for listeners to continue listening, the only real way he could get out there and convince more people to stop being idiots was to…
"Can you drive me to a protest tomorrow? I predict that those pro-quirk use protesters are going to be doing something today."
"I mean, we took the two days off anyway. Might as well go with you."
"...Thanks. I know that I can be troublesome."
"Nonsense! What kind of son can provide millions of yen for their family?"
"But besides that, I haven't really done much, have I?" Hans muttered.
This time, human history wasn't going to erase itself after his brief summoned existence. This time, he wasn't trapped in a computer simulation, forced to serve a disgusting cow woman.
Maybe he could actually, well, do something that would last and improve his quality of life.
"…And starting now, I won't just be a spectator anymore." Hans said. "It's time I started causing some change."
Then, his phone began to ring.
"Yes, Yaoyorozu?"
"...Did you know you burnt our medical insurance?"
"What? I burnt all of our medical insurance? But I only burnt one page!"
"And that one page turned out to be incredibly important." Yaoyorozu said, somewhat smugly.
"That form about Aizawa-sensei was actually about all of our class?"
"Yep."
"So, when will we meet to actually fix the thing? I don't have a printer at home."
For a moment, the family fell silent as his parents listened into his conversation.
"You did the damage." Yaoyoruzu said.
"And we have to fix it." Hans said, smirking. "Don't you just love the Japanese school system of shared punishment?"
After Yaoyorozu suitably spouted off her piece, before reluctantly agreeing to help Hans with the now very numerous forms, the call ended.
"So…" his mother began.
"Who was that girl?" his father said, smirking.
"Shut up." Hans said, looking to the side as if hiding his embarrassment. "It turns out I can't get my rest and relaxation in today."
…
Stain sneezed as he stabbed yet another poster through the center. The paper fluttered and struggled, the voluptuous woman printed on the sheet almost snarling, before the poster crumbled into dust.
"Did you feel like somebody, somewhere, was disregarding their own accomplishments to better this society?"
Spinner sneezed himself as he threw out his dual blades, impaling another half-formed paper demon child to the pavement. Drawing out another pair of his cheaply made, expendable blades, he ruffled his red cloak before sighing.
"Yeah. I get that feeling too."
…
Re-Destro sneezed. The back of his head almost impacted his chair. The sense of somebody not appreciating their own efforts began to knaw at his consciousness.
"Remember to send all of the local leaders of our organization a gift basket after the protests tomorrow." he said. "We'll be working hard today to secure the liberties of those reformed villains."
"Yes, sir." his secretary said.
Re-Destro gave a nod of thanks, before turning back to his thoughts. He still felt like he was forgetting something.
"I've assigned lawyers, tried to rig the jury, assigned missions to all of the leaders, and… oh, wait!"
He stood up, grasping at his forehead.
"I forgot to water the plants! And order those movie tickets!"
…
Yaoyorozu sighed. It was midday, and she was sitting in a coffee parlor. The drinks she ordered were long gone, however, and she wasn't even paying attention to their sinfully good cupcakes in favor of something much more mundane.
That being paperwork.
Of course, it wasn't a lot of paperwork, but it was paperwork all the same. Mostly, it was inquiries about what happened to the collective medical insurance for Class 1-A. However, the forms had to be repeated for every single classmate.
It was… rather mindless, and skull-numbingly boring.
Now, the question would be what in the world vice president was doing.
Well, Hans should also be doing paperwork. Should being the operative word. When Momo came in to do her duty she was Hans sitting on one of the tables, tapping away at his magically appearing tablet.
She would have said something, if not for the stack of already done paperwork sitting on his side of the table. So now it was just her, sitting across from the irritating blue child with nothing but a small sleeping mermaid, a potted plant which she could swear was staring at her, and the rhythmic sound of tapping on a tablet.
Yaoyorzu sighed again and began filling out the last of the paperwork when another noise made itself known. She blinked, confused at first at what she was hearing, then even more confused once she realized what it was. Humming. Coming from where the sound of tapping was.
She looked up, sure that she was mistaken, but no, there Hans sat, tapping away at his tablet, humming a melody she'd never heard before.
It was so bizarre that she couldn't help but stare. In the corner of her eye she also saw the mermaid blink confusedly at its creator and even the tree was leaning to where Hans sat.
It took a minute before Hans noticed the attention he was receiving,
"What?" He asked, slightly amused and annoyed.
"Nothing, nothing." Momo replied, still staring. "Just, never pictured you as the musical type."
"What are you on about?" Hans asked, even more annoyed.
"The melody."
"What melody?"
"The one you were humming."
Hans finally put his tablet away, completely confused. "I wasn't humming any melodies."
"Yes, you were. We could all hear it." Yaoyorozu said, now also confused.
When Hans looked at the little mermaid, she nodded her head. He was very confused now. He couldn't remember humming anything, he also didn't know how he could have, since he didn't listen to music, preferring the silence of his mind when writing his stories.
"I don't listen to music." Yaoyorozu looked bemused and slightly concerned at the expression that was slowly coming over Hans' face.
"Then, how come you were humming?" Hans looked down with a confused and, dare she say, slightly scared expression.
…
Kiara was humming a tune to a song she loved.
She heard it while she was learning Danish for the first time to experience Hans' lovely work as they were originally written and, once she figured out the lyrics, fell in love with it.
It was an old song, at least, by modern standards. When she first heard it, it was still rather popular, barely a few decades old.
It was a love song, one that she felt was fitting given what she was doing and who it was for. She was putting the final touches on her greatest work yet.
Now all she needed was the right catalyst, and she knew just the thing. Kiara smiled a smile that was both beautiful and unholy, promising both all of heavens pleasure and pain beyond any hell, and sang in a voice befitting a Goddess,
"Kvinde min jeg elsker dig, og jeg ved, du elsker mig. Og hvad der så end sker åh lad det ske, for jeg er din." The shadows seemed to dance with her voice.
"And whatever happens? Oh let it happen. But I am yours…"
Kiara's grin widened as she looked at a statue's decapitated head.
"And you are mine."
…
AN
Kiara makes her second appearance, I think. And this is mostly a wind-down chapter from the three previous, rather hectic chapters.
I'm trying to give Hans some char development. It may work. It may not work. I don't know. I'm trying here. Unlike my other Kojiro fic, where Kojiro is rather one dimensional, here, I'm giving it an honest effort. I mean, it's already at 40k words and I haven't even touched the sports festival, along with all of the other things that I'm planning on shoving into the crowded BNHA timeline. Oh joy…
I finished lostbelt 5.5. The bosses were disappointments. Also, I finished the karna christmas cq with a lvl 80 Billy with 4/4/4 skills and double Hans support, baby! Only took me nine turns once I 10/10/10'd Billy.
BTW, my boi RumIe5 helped out a lot with the last 2 sections. Hats off to that.
Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV
Merry New Year and Happy Christmas!
-SpiritOfErebus