Youchi sighed as he sat upon his throne, along with many of the others, bar En who had volunteered to watch over the ninths first.
Today had been a rather tiring day for the vestiges.
There were admittedly some nerves between them all at the idea of there being two holders and what light it might bring to them if they were successful in being passed down to two people at the same time.
Most worrisome was the idea that they would only be with one of the two but the other would have the quirk as well, meaning they were only copies of the people they thought they were, or perhaps worse have only some of them there in the main area and the others gone.
Perhaps it said something about Youchi and the others that they were more worried about being even partially separated instead of being some cloned mind of a dead person.
Regardless they all held their breath once it came time to be transferred on.
They knew it had happened the second Inheritance had begun to accept the new holder, the world began to shift as it always did.
There was always a change to the air as a new person's thoughts and memories started to become part of their collective unconsciousness.
Admittedly this time it was even more strongly felt as the rush of two open minds joined their own.
Then for the first time in years they all heard something that was not their own voices or from the ears of their current holder.
The crash of waves against each other.
They all watched with amazement when where once was even more of the empty void beneath them was an endless ocean stretching as far as any of them could see.
Two shades barely seen under the water.
"Well, I think everyone lost the bet on what their spaces would look like." Banjo commented at the time, one of his hands coming up to rub at his forehead as they all stared.
Indeed, no one had bet on them sharing a space if the two became holders, nor the idea of the two sharing the large sea that became a part of their shared mind space.
They didn't allow it to distract them for long and returned to looking through Yagi's eyes to see how the kids were doing.
And as they expected, both of them were affected by the lull.
Lull was probably a far too innocent word for having one's whole-body rewriting itself from the cellular level, but frankly it wasn't as painful as it sounded either.
More like their bodies were being lulled to sleep, with the tug being stronger with each quirk added to the mix.
So, it was almost expected when both Hado and Amajiki's eyes fluttered and the two of them had trouble keeping their heads up, Amajiki handling the changes a bit better than Hado since his body was more used to this.
But then both of them fainted at the same time.
Everyone had been rightfully worried since none of them had expected the lull to actually make them pass out all the way, but Youchi was quick to get everyone to calm down with the help of Yagi.
Sending Nana to check on the pair since she was the most familiar with her quirk and the closest in line with Yagi still awake.
They had all expected much resistance from her entering the ninths space but to their great surprise Nana was easily able to slip between the waves and found both of the half-formed vestiges beneath the waves.
With Nana returning just seconds before the two had woken from their sudden 'nap' and explained what had happened to them.
"They were pushing their minds too far too soon." Nana told Yagi.
"Their 'vestiges' aren't solid enough to leave their space, but they were trying, I had to calm them both down and get them settled in their own space." Nana further told them.
And they all had left it at the time so they could focus on the kids until Yagi and the others were shooed from the infirmary.
"They already have vestiges? That usually takes a month to form the wispy shadow." Hikage brought up
"I think that might be Amajiki's quirk speeding up the process, his quirk is all about adaptation to new genes so he would be settling faster than most of us." Youchi suggested getting nods from the others.
"Okay but what about Hado? She wouldn't be adapting as fast as Amajiki unless she had his quirk too, and they got Inheritance separately so he couldn't have given her his quirk." Bruce countered his arms crossed.
"I... don't know." Youchi admitted letting his head hang.
There was a lot he didn't know or understand about his own quirk, knowing how his quirk worked beyond how it was passed on and the effects it had on the current user was usually swept aside for more important things.
Like surviving against his brother and helping the current user as much as they could.
"Maybe Junior will have some idea, mind asking him Eighth?" Bruce asked.
Yagi nodded and went to find Midoriya for them.
"Dr. Midoriya, the vestiges wanted to get your opinion on something." Yagi informed the boy, after waiting for him to finish speaking with Nezu.
Midoriya hummed in acknowledgement and motioned to Nezu they would talk more later, moving to speak with them somewhere more private.
"Yes?" Midoriya asked them.
"We've spoken about how it roughly takes a year for the new holders to be able to enter the shared mind space before." Hikage said with Yagi quoting him for Midoriya.
"Yes, is Amajiki's vestige forming faster than expected?" Midoriya guessed.
"Junior once again proves he's Youchi's eldritch child." Bruce said with a teasing look over at him.
Youchi made and threw a pillow at Bruce, the man quickly flipping him off in return "You need to accept your son is an eldritch terror Youchi." Bruce told him in response.
"Y-yes Dr. Midoriya, but Hado-Chan's vestige is also developing faster than it should, it's developing at the same right as Amajiki's vestige." Yagi managed to tell Midoriya, somehow keeping a straight face.
Youchi did not envy Yagi having to deal with them constantly talking about Midoriya being his kid and had to be the one to actually talk with Midoriya for them.
Midoriya blinked, his brow furrowing as he mentally ran through the information, one of his hands coming up to his mouth and the boy muttering under his breath.
"See, your brat even speaks in tongues Youchi, clearly your unholy offspring is cursed." Banjo said pointing at the screen, Youchi meanwhile scowled back at him.
"It's Russian, Ukulele. Not everyone is as uncultured as you are." Hikage spat back at his successor.
"Junior's on the move!" Nana exclaimed pointing to the screen.
Indeed, looking back to the screen they saw Yagi was following Midoriya back to the infirmary and that Midoriya was allowed inside after trading sharp words with Shuzenji-San.
"Yagi did Junior say what he was doing?" Hikage asked.
"I think so, but I didn't hear him over all of you." Yagi answered, his hands fidgeting and rubbing his worn hands.
"Damn it." Bruce grumbled "We'll just have to wait for Youchi's brat to come back and tell us the fuck going on." Bruce said, crossing his arms and slumping on his throne.
Youchi took the moment to look at the space where the ninths' thrones would be.
Well... throne would be more accurate to say since the two were just one big one combined.
On the left side a dark indigo shade, a great myriad of features from different animals carved into it and mixing to create a striking but subtly powerful energy to it, something that matched Amajiki from what they were told and felt from the boy.
And pressed right against Amajiki's was Hado's throne.
Her throne a pale cream color, shaped by clouds to an elegant visage, tall and regal.
And if one didn't look at the arm rests where the two thrones were next to each other, then it wouldn't be hard to think that the two were simply pressed together.
But the two armrests were in fact intertwined with each other, a cloud remolding into a horned snake with a violet underbelly, violet horns and eyes.
Hado's throne also had a matching violet cushion and a few other details on it, though curiously enough there was not any cream accent to Amajiki's part of the throne.
"You see it too, brat." Second said, Youchi looked up to see Second leaning against his throne with his arms crossed as he stared at the ninths' thrones.
Youchi nodded.
It wasn't uncommon for successors and predecessors' thrones to share traits if they were closer, Second's blue throne had speckles of crimson like blood splatter on it and Bruce's red throne had a blue seat cushion.
Yagi and Nana's thrones an unappealing mix of pink and yellow each.
However, there wasn't one that was 'one-sided' like Hado and Amajiki's.
It was a bit concerning actually since the two were supposed to be very close friends, they had all expected their thrones to bleed over and into the other.
Amajiki's colors were bleeding over to Hado's sure enough, delicate looking violet birds and butterflies sat in different places and the previously mentioned cushion on Hado's side but there was no trickle of cream back from Hado's side of things.
"Junior's back." Bruce called and they all turned to the screen again.
"I convinced Shuzenji-San to let me draw blood from both of them, and she's running the blood through some gene marker tests, but I also looked at both of their blood under a microscope." Midoriya told them.
"And?" Second questioned, Yagi faithfully repeating for him.
"Hado's white blood cells are already taking on the traits of Amajiki's white blood cells, so when the tests come back, I am quite sure they will show she is getting Manifest from Amajiki." Midoriya explained.
"But how? Amajiki-Kun couldn't have given her his part of Inheritance at any point." Yagi pointed out.
"I can't say anything for certain, Youchi's quirk has never been studied in earnest, much less have two holders at the same time before now. But I have a theory." Midoriya stated a hand going up to his hair.
"I don't think any of you knows anything about quantum entanglement or quantum physics do you?" Midoriya asked them.
The majority of the them all shared equally confused looks, so Yagi shook his head.
"Well to put it very simply, quantum entanglement is normally the idea of changing something, say this book for instance," Midoriya said then pulled out a notebook and flipped to an empty page and a pen.
"And that change will be reflected in another exact same book at the same time regardless of distance between the two books." Midoriya elaborated making a small symbol on the blank page.
"People theorize we'll be able to use it in the future to communicate in real time with each other once we colonize other parts of the galaxy. And I think there might be some form of quantum entanglement as a factor in Inheritance." Midoriya further explained putting the book away.
"What do you mean?" Youchi asked.
"Well, if I'm right, then it explains why Hado is getting Amajiki's quirk. You are still connected to the mind space correct? Despite no longer having a full connection to the quirk's right?" Midoriya questioned back.
Yagi nodded, glumly having lost his ability to use float.
"So, you won't get either of their quirks, but since they both are connected, they're able to share their quirks through the mind space's collective genetic information, the same way that Nana could share her quirk with you." Midoriya said.
Youchi frowned thinking it over.
"I think we can agree that is what happening, but why isn't Hado's quirk also showing up in Amajiki as well, or why is Amajiki's quirk the only one being shared?" Youchi questioned, glancing back to the thrones.
Midoriya's shoulders slumped, and his eyes went down to the ground.
"Hado probably isn't letting it be shared... she wouldn't want to risk her quirk making Amajiki immortal." Midoriya explained sadly.
Youchi's heart fell, realizing exactly what Midoriya meant.
"You want to let the rest of us in on the quirk bullshit of the hour, brat?" Second questioned, having seen that Youchi had caught on.
Youchi sighed and looked back up to the rest of them.
"Because of Manifest, if Amajiki got Hado's quirk, his body would handle it without killing him the same way it would eventually kill Hado on its own, he'd just be semi-immortal like Hado was from the beginning." Youchi answered for them.
"Doesn't that mean that Hado would be back at square one? And will be immortal again with Amajiki giving her his quirk?" Nana said, moving over to the ninths' combined throne looking concerned.
"Only if she lets it, she can make a mental block to end the connection and without Manifest she'll be slowly killed." Youchi corrected "Yagi blocked us all out completely at times, and Hado can do the same without Amajiki being the one to cut off his quirk." Youchi further explained.
"Oh." Yagi said as each of the holders eyes fell to the ground.
Youchi couldn't blame any of them, the reminder that Hado wanted them to die 'young' was a sharp point to them that they had been tiptoeing around.
He knew it was especially hard for Nana and Yagi, maybe Banjo too but he knew that himself and the rest understood to a degree about not wanting to continue in life after everything that his brother threw at them.
"Yagi, thank Midoriya for his help I think... we all need to go home and process this." Youchi suggested to Yagi.
Yagi not wanting to stay in this situation took the out and left with a quick excuse, then made his way to get back home soon so they could all talk without anyone would think that Yagi was crazy.
"I'll take the next shift to watch Hado and Amajiki, I think Nana and Yagi will need time to re-process things." Youchi said standing up from his throne and moving over to the edge of the main area.
The water was closer now and En was floating just about the water using Nana's quirk.
"En, your shifts over, get back to your space." Youchi called out floating over to where En was, having to shake En by the shoulder before he came back to himself.
En gave a soft grunt back to him, still dazed and Youchi told him "Go back to your space En."
En nodded quickly returning to his place and Youchi turned back to the sea below him, to the bright spot of Hado and the dark shadow like one that was Amajiki.
Youchi supposed it was fitting in a way there were now three 'holders' in the world now.
His brother had named their quirks after the famous saying from the three musketeers, all for one and one for all.
He was also sure that his brother had come up with this grand narrative for himself, one about himself and whatever person would be his next successor, that it was some grand duel of fate or something else, he was sure.
Knowing that his quirk had been shared between two people would probably piss him off to no end.
Youchi huffed bemused at the thought.
His brother...
Aoi had always tried to seem smarter than he actually was, the two had argued before, when they were still incredibly young about whether there were three or four musketeers.
And now there were three of them, four if he still counted Yagi.
Strange how life could imitate art sometimes, when given enough time... though he doubted anyone other than En would appreciate the humor in such an irony.
But he'd have to wait until after he recovered from his own turn watching the pair before asking En's thoughts on the matter.