Okay guys two things!
1) If you follow my tumblr, Lo-55, you might have heard a bit about what happened. The short version is, back in October one of my aunts passed away unexpectedly. A second aunt passed away a couple of weeks ago. So that's where I've been these past few months.
2) I was talking a while ago about moving on to a 'seasonal' posting schedule. Like how TV shows or podcasts do it. Basically I would spend about 6 months writing and then post one chapter each week for 20 or so weeks. I've finally decided that I'm going to implement that. Between seasons you might see some bonus content, like deleted scenes, holiday specials, or some artwork or memes like I have over in Kono Family Pics on AO3, or directly on my tumblr.
Suzume flies through the obstacle course for all of the next day. Faster and faster, to the point that she's almost reckless she dodges and twists and sweeps through the trees and the traps. Each run they change, if only a little. Spikes that smack instead of impale shoot out from trees and big logs swing between thick trunks and try to pin her.
She knows the point is to make her learn and fast, but at this rate she feels like she's going to get something broken.
Either was each time she comes away bruised, battered, and covered in paint.
So she starts figuring out how to maneuver better mid air, using her weight and the other wires to supplement. Centrifugal force, once again, becomes her best friend and a couple of times she fancies herself in Attack on Titan instead of My Hero Academia. Gravity lets go of her for a long, breathless second and she floats above the tree tops. A sea of green spreads across on all sides and the sky stretched into infinity above her and for a moment all she knows is floating between earth and heaven.
Then a paintball smashes into her head and she has to start again. This time without the day dreams.
Somewhere in there Aizawa sends her over to Tiger and the boys doing their calisthenics and she feels like her brain is melting out of her ears. Elbow planks and donkey kicks are all well and good but they're things that she already knows how to do.
Suzume knows how to properly chamber her kicks and twist her body. She knows how to work herself into a sweaty froth if she's really trying. But that's the point.
It's all things that she knows. All things that she's done and will continue to do habitually until someone else stabs her again.
Having a huge man yell at her and make her do the same exercises over and over is old and boring and dull. She already knows all of it, she's not honing any new skills. She's just building a little bit of extra muscle mass.
Muscle mass that, if she's honest, she's a little wary of acquiring.
She eyes Tiger in his uniform.
God she hopes she's never as ripped as he is. She'd never fit in a vent again. And she doesn't need an Adonis belt, she likes being hydrated thank-you-very-much.
All the same, Suzume keeps doing crunches, sit ups, planks, and runs suicides with the others between two trees.
She's not happy to be doing those, either. Her lungs feel like they're filled with ice and its a struggle not to start coughing.
The others are ready to drop long before she is, but they're better today than they were yesterday.
"How are you still moving?" one of the 1-B kids asks her between rapid panting.
She spares him a glance.
"I just am?" How is she supposed to answer that question?
A few hours of working out later and Aizawa has reset the obstacle course, rearranged everything, and he releases her upon it again.
She flies-
And gets smacked in the butt with bright yellow paint.
The day rolls on.
Shinso is a rainbow by the end of it. He could be a jackson pollock painting, he's such a mess as he slinks off to the showers. He and she have different courses, since Suzume is more experienced, but he still looks aggrieved. No way he can get into the baths with that much color on him.
The sun goes down. With it the temperature slowly falls, and the night hums with crickets and soft rustling in the leaves. There are animals in the woods, she knows, but none of them come close enough to the class of noisy kids to be seens. Even birds have fled the area in wake of their training, much to Koda's dismay. She saw him speed-hiking out into the woods near morning.
Suzume can't tell if she's anxious or not about the potential up coming attack. She doesn't even know if it will happen. Tomura hasn't mentioned a single thing about Katsuki in the last few weeks, or any one else in UA, but he's probably smart enough not to do that.
Probably. He's a pretty reckless kid in general.
Suzume also has to wonder how different the camp attack would have been if everyone was fresh and rested.
Probably not very different. They're all just kids.
Kids who are taller than her, as Katsuki reminds her when he ruffles her hair of all things with sweaty hands. Suzume swings at him, and he darted out of rang before she can break a rib.
"Dude! What the hell?"
Katsuki shoots her a cocky grin. "Just wait until this camp is over Wasp Girl. I'll kick your ass."
"I'm going to replace all the sugar in your house with salt."
"I- what?!"
She races for the building with Katsuki on her heels. Her whole body aches, but his befuddlement is worth it.
They all go to soak in the hot springs that the Pussy Cats have as part of the facilities. It honestly feels less like training and more like a weird resort to her, but Suzume can't complain too much. Her technical skills with her equipment are improving by leaps and bounds, and her classmates even seem to be having fun. When they aren't about to pass out.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that quirks are physically part of people, and like muscles they can be overused and weakened. Her classmates all seem more exhausted than she is. Or maybe she's more used to working herself to the bone? Or it could be because they're working 'muscles' that they never have before.
Anything, really.
"Man, how are we supposed to get through the Test of Courage tonight?" Ururaka complains. She rubs her palms over her cheeks. "I feel like I could sleep for a week…"
"Same here," Toru leans against Suzume's side in the water. Invisible hair brushes against Suzume's collar bone. Toru keeps her hair cut to her shoulders, apparently. Suzume loops an arm casually around the other girl. It's weird to look down and see the water parted around her invisible body. Like being next to a glass box or a voice in the bath.
It makes Suzume's head threaten to spin if she looks at it too long, but it's hard not to watch the way the water parts around invisible arms when Toru motions, or the diamonds of dew that cling to seemingly open air.
"You're just sneaking around though!" Mina argues. "I feel like my hands are going to melt off, and my acid doesn't even hurt me!"
Yaomomo nods in vague agreement. She rubs her arm, where she's been producing little russian nesting dolls for the last twelve hours straight. Her skin looks a little raw, and she looks a little thinner, but over all she seems fine.
"Working our quirks like this is brand new to most of us. It's no wonder we're all so tired."
There's a pause when they mention quirks, and everyone's eyes dart to Suzume. She ignores them succinctly, and instead looks at Tsu.
"How's the climbing going?"
"I feel like my legs are going to fall off."
Suzumes looks dead at her and says, "Cuisses de grenouille."
From the other side of the partition there's the distinct sound of Aoyama choking on his own spit.
Suzume tries not to laugh. She knows good and well that her accent is terrible, and she's just fine with that.
Yaomomo looks mildly disturbed, while the other girls look bewildered.
"I don't think it's very nice to mention deep fried frog legs right now," Yaomomo scolds lightly.
"Oh my god," Mina gasps at Suzume. "You're terrible!"
Suzume arches a brow at the pink girl.
"Yeah, and?"
"Aren't you used to it by now?" Jiro asks. She's been quiet for most of the night. Suzume has a sneaking suspicion that her ears are a little shot from all the training.
Suzume flashes a grin at the girls.
"I'm going to get out and go start prep work in the kitchen. I'll meet you outside," she tells them all.
The girls wave her a farewell as Suzume climbs out of the hot water and leaves them soaking in it, trying to relax. She rinses off, dresses in a black overall-shorts and a puffy sleeves yellow shirt and goes to sit out in the cool night air. Her hair is still damp when she tries to work it into a braid, and Tiger is stacking wood into what will soon be a bonfire.
It's nice. Quiet.
A flash of movement catches her attention.
Kota.
She catches him sneaking away from the building and towards the woods, where he had gone yesterday too. He's going to his little hide out in the hills, but when he catches sight of her watching him he freezes.
Suzume…
Isn't good with people. Kids especially.
She never really has been, if she's being honest. She's too used to blood, too familiar with death, to unphased by the rot of corpses and the burn of bleach and the feeling of stolen diamonds running through her fingers to easily recognize the boundaries between the pale and beyond it.
She's too used to sleeping on the couch of Yakuza members and picking locks, and she's too used to aggression and idiocy and prejudice.
No.
She's not good at people, and she's even less good at talking to victims of crime and loss, for all her experience with it.
But something.
Something takes hold of her then.
And she opens her mouth.
"Is it still gray?" she asks. Her voice hangs heavy in the cool night air. Stars watch them from high above, glittering and distant and cold.
Kota stares at her, his nose scrunching up and his mouth twisting. "What are you talking about?" he demands. He glares at her from under the cap of his spiky hat.
She waves a hand flippantly at the everything around them.
"The world. You lost your parents, is the world still gray?"
Kota goes still for a second before he draws himself up in sudden fury and indignation.
Suzume quiet tacks that off on the list of grief.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
His parents died years ago, and he's still on step two.
That's… not great.
"Stop talking in stupid riddles! What would you even know?"
"It's not a riddle," she says flatly. "It's the truth, isn't it? The world is gray without them."
For a second she's new again. On the cusp of Suzanna and Suzume. Lost and confused and her family is gone and her sister killed her and she has nothing-
Nothing, nothing, not even control of herself, not even her own body, not even her own voice. Everything is gone. Everyone she's ever known is gone, gone, gone. The gravity is crushing and she spends whole weeks trying to understand how she's even breathing.
"I know that everything is gray, dark, and muffled."
She twists the scrunchy on her wrist.
Suzume was lucky, she knows. For the time she spent suffocating under the weight of grief she had people taking care of her. She was a baby, helpless and useless but she didn't have to take care of herself. Other people fed her, washed her, and carried her all around. Other people loved her and drew her from the pain and crushing loss into warmth and slow acceptance.
"And I know that one day you're going to look around and realize that there's a red flower sitting there. And in a few days, or weeks, or months you'll see there's green in the trees. Birds will start to sing. You'll see lightning in the sky and thunder will shake your bones. Maybe the gray comes back for a while. Maybe there's more gray days than not. The colors are gone, the sounds are dull, and everyone around you is a million miles away when they could be holding your hand."
She takes a breath.
Kota's hands are shaking and he glares at her. His eyes are wet, and so are his hands.
"But then you'll look up. The sky is blue, and the sun is warm. Nothing gold can stay, but neither can the gray."
Kota's breathing fast and hard.
"Shut up!" he shouts. Then he spins on his heels, and goes sprinting into the darkness.
Suzume watches him go.
Then she turns, and goes to start chopping the vegetables. Tiger goes back inside for something, and for just a minute she's completely alone outside.
Then a finger taps her shoulder.
"Excuse me?"
She turns, bewildered, and a white and black mask smiles back at him. The touch on her shoulder tighters and she feels a tiny 'pop!'.
The world is gone.
No color. No gray.
Black.
Empty.
Nothing.
Suzume gasps loudly. Color is everywhere and she can smell cigarettes and alcohol. She stumbles, her eyes suck in dining booths and a long bar, sepia tones everywhere and people staring at her. A TV shows nothing but static but she stumbles herself into it and sends it smashing to the floor in her wake. Another step to the side, away from the people in the room, and she crunches the microphone under her heel.
The League of Villains all watch her warily.
Tomura leans forwards on a bar stool. Father is fixed on his face.
"Well that was just rude."
"You don't get to complain about my manners when you just kidnapped me you shit head!" She snaps instantly.
She can't see the red eyes she knows are somewhere behind his hair. But she can feel them fixed on her like a physical thing.
Something inside her snaps.
"What the actual fuck is going on here?!"