Geten exited the bathroom drying his hair with a towel; unfortunately like always, his hair stubbornly refused to become any less soaked than it already was.
*Made for water quirks, my ass.* he thought, tossing the useless rag to the other end of his room * At least these ones were soft.* he huffed in his mind rolling his eyes, moving back to the bathroom.
Once inside, he raised his hand and then proceeded to slowly draw all the liquid from his hair to keep it from freezing immediately; tossing the leftover clump of ice into the tub, shaking his head, hair now ready to work on; he turned to the mirror.
His hair was a bit of a mess, and he couldn't hold his gaze for long.
A shiver unconsciously crept up his spine as he was once again reminded of his mother's piercing blue eyes; Geten quickly shook his head and left the bathroom to get dressed.
He had an important meeting today, and didn't need to psych himself out by thinking of that harpy.
Re-Destro and Skeptic had been trying to get a meeting with Deku-Sensei for nearly a year once Skeptic had stumbled across him. With all the rumors of his quirk improvement and wide net of influence, it was no wonder that they were trying so hard, and they had recently got him to agree to a meeting.
Deku-Sensei had agreed to a single meeting with one group member with an ice/water quirk, and Skeptic had suggested using him as a proxy to get on Deku-Sensei's good side and warm him up to their cause.
Geten didn't like the idea of lying about his quirk, especially about being more of a dunce about it, but he also knew this was more important than his ego.
Deku-Sensei would be vital to the movement, and this first meeting was critical to recruiting him; Skeptic had him trained on how best to act during the session.
And now he had to get dressed 'appropriately' for this meeting; he could wear most of his favorite suit except for the blazer, instead he had to make do with the under-shirt and roll up the sleeves to his elbows and leave the top buttons undone.
He was also wearing some black fingerless gloves, not his usual fair but still tasteful in his opinion, so he didn't totally hate it; he even got the chance to break out the earrings he bought with his first paycheck.
Honestly, the most significant change was having someone with a hair quirk make it longer than it used to be, and he had enough hair for a 'proper' ponytail, which was a bit more of a hassle, given how much more water it retained.
Just another thing to thank his mother for, he did get the water aspect of his quirk from her after all.
"Damn it." he hissed and immediately reached for the rubber band on his wrist, intending to snap it like he always does whenever that harpy crept up in his mind, but it wasn't there.
*Right... can't risk bruises, fuckers.* Geten thought rubbing his eyes; with his pale complexion he usually had a constant ring of bruises around his wrist and since that could negatively reflect them he had been forced to go without the band since he agreed to take up this mission.
Which was... a thing he was working through, and he certainly had better days but he'd get through it, he was doing something important of the movement and he could sacrifice a little for the greater good, he had made a lot of social climbing just by accepting to do this.
Confident in his look Geten left his apartment and made it down to the buildings lobby Skeptic and Curious both waiting for him, Geten tried his best to keep his head held high as he strolled over to them, he was still a touch nervous being such a young but high up member of the movement.
The two stopped their conversation once they spotted him and Curious gave him a once over circling him before nodding "This will definitely do, still a bit formal but Deku-Sensei might brush it off as you trying to put up a strong front." Curious commented before grabbing for his chin and tilting his head, her green eyes searching him for anything out of place.
"There wouldn't be time to change either way Curious." Skeptic said indifferently.
Curious hummed back releasing his face "I suppose you're right." she muttered placing her hands on her hips "No changing it now, come along then Iceman. We shouldn't keep Deku-Sensei waiting." Curious said as she turned to the entrance.
A nice looking and very expensive limo was waiting for them and Geten had to admit that he felt a touch uncomfortable sitting between two of the highest members of the movement despite spending most of his free time with one of them to improve his acting.
"Now Iceman," Curious spoke leaning towards him and making him acutely aware of how close she was to him "You've remembered everything I've taught you about pain points yes?" she questioned and Geten quickly nodded trying to keep from showing how unnerved he was by her.
"Good, you'll need to find as many of Deku-Sensei's as you can and don't pull any punches." she instructed with a grin before she moved back to check her phone's feed.
Skeptic hummed "Indeed, we will need to get Deku-Sensei over to our side and we'll need to find the best way to do that." he commented typing away at his laptop "From what I can find children and abuse will be strong triggers for him so you should play up that angle." Skeptic suggested.
Geten pursed his lips * Well that won't be too hard.* he thought resisting the urge to run a hand through his hair and messing it up.
Geten sighed pacing back and forth across the meeting room they had booked, biting down on the tip of his thumb as there was still no sign of Deku-Sensei by any of their people, of which was a very bad sign that Deku-Sensei might not show up.
It wouldn't be unreasonable for them to be spooked after Deku-Sensei was unintentionally outed by the networks, thankfully the "heroes" witch hunt of Deku-Sensei hadn't been leaked from some careful planning from Skeptic and Curious, and that favor had gotten their foot in the door to even get Deku-Sensei to agree to this meeting.
He had no idea what would happen if Deku-Sensei actually ghosted them, what would he tell everyone much less Re-Destro given how much was riding on this meeting.
He did know the higher ups would not be happy with him.
Geten was just about to start trying to find something to say for himself when a large cloud of black-purple mist suddenly appeared in the room making him jump * The fuck!* Geten thought about to use his quirk when someone walked out of the apparent portal.
Standing in front of him was Deku-Sensei though he didn't look as prim and proper as he did on the broadcast, his hair was a mess of clumsy braids and colorful hair clips and bands.
His clothes were semi-formal at least, a nice short sleeve button-up, an argyle vest too but the jeans and boots were clearly worn and used often, and the boy had a series of bandages all over his arms and three on his face.
Deku-Sensei's eyes found him almost instantly and he beamed at him "Ah, you must be Kyūryū-San, apologizes for the sudden arrival, but given the nature of our meeting I would assume you'd want complete secrecy." Deku-Sensei greeted with a quick but deep bow.
Geten nodded unconsciously and return the bow on auto-pilot as his brain took a second to re-boot "Right, of course, glad you could make it Deku-Sensei." Geten replied knowing Skeptic would be made aware of Deku-Sensei's... unorthodox arrival and start looking into it.
The boy rubbed the back of his neck with a stilted chuckle "Oh there's no need for formalities Kyūryū-San, Deku is just fine." Deku-Sensei said before taking a seat on one of the chairs and began digging in his bag "So, they told me that you think your ice quirk takes more from your mother's water quirk than you previously thought, is that correct?" Deku-Sensei asked.
Geten pursed his lips, he didn't like admitting he had anything in common with his mother and he had to remind himself that this was all for the movement "Yes." he answered sitting down and crossing his arms and glancing away.
"Alright, I brought a water bottle and a few things I've been using to test what you can and can't freeze. Mainly to see what your quirk works best with, usually the parents' favorites factor in but I've seen at least four people whose element was the opposite of their parents." Deku-Sensei told him as he set out a series of bottles and other things like a chunk of wood of all things.
Geten raised an eye at that and looked at the different things and bottles with half-interest, he had made ice on about everything he could think of so he wasn't sure what he could learn from a test like this but he'd have to play the part that he didn't know as much as he did.
"Let's start with you making a small slab of ice with just your quirk though, I want to see what your baseline looks like." Deku-Sensei requested as he pulled out something that looked like a microscope.
Complying Geten willed some ice into his palm under Deku-Sensei's watchful eyes, once he had a block about the size of a regular phone he stopped and handed it over to Deku-Sensei, the boy examined it with great interest before looking at it under the microscope.
"Hmm, interesting... instead of being one or the other your base line ice seems to have formed a mix of dry and water made ice. Normally it's one or the other, your quirk might view the properties as equals." Deku-Sensei commented.
"Is that important?" Geten questioned, unsure why that would be relevant to mention.
"Well since most lean one way or the other it limits their quirk's resources, a water leaning quirk would be much less effective compared to a dry ice user in a desert because the only water around would be coming from themselves. Having a quirk that doesn't have a preference is functionally a jack of all trades and removes environment as a factor to your quirk." Deku-Sensei explained before he broke the slab in two making him jump at the sound.
"And the mix of two sources also leads to your ice having a unique formation that is stronger than the average ice made by ice quirks, with proper instruction you can be able to customize the mix to your pleasure, making it as strong, or weak as you need it to be." Deku-Sensei added.
"I, see." Geten replied, he was aware that his quirk didn't need any training to draw ice even in infernos unlike the others in the movement and that his ice was, stiffer than theirs, the fact it was because of how he could make it wasn't something he realized. But it was good to know, though he did wonder how someone trained to focus on the mixture of their ice.
"Okay, now that I have a base let's see what your quirk does when it freezes other things." Deku-Sensei prompted grabbing the bottle of vegetable oil and poured the contents in a glass.
Geten nodded holding his hand out to the glass and he prodded the liquid with his quirk only to jump as the oil reacted very dramatically and a small ball of it now floated in the remaining liquid much to his surprise.
"Ah, oil is a strong preference, odd but not unheard of. Ice quirks like your's typically don't take to oils since their freezing points are much harder to accomplish and they hardly freeze solid like this period, I've personally only met one other person capable of this, but I know of at least five others off the top of my head." Deku-Sensei commented, placing on a glove and picking up the ball of oil to look closer at it.
Geten nodded along, it tracked with what he learned back in high school science and he could understand part of what the boy meant.
In truth though he was merely glad Deku-Sensei wasn't bored of him yet, learning more about his quirk was certainly a benefit but he could not let himself forget what his real goal was.
And if that meant being a curiosity for Deku-Sensei then he just had to remind himself it was for the greater good.