Nejire smiled as she woke up in her and Jiki's sea and shook her body.
Having become used to the changes to her body in this space, moving the tentacles and her tail like it was natural, and the armor plates felt just as right as the hair on her head.
Though she was excited to see her body glowing with spiral patterns all over her and leapt through the water looking for Jiki to show him the newest addition to her body here.
Leaving the kelp forest and shooting up for the coral reef, crossing the distance with ease now when it would have taken her hours a week ago.
Jiki must have had the same idea since he was waiting for her right on the edge, his own glowing patterns not as prominent in the brighter part of the sea.
His violet glow reminded her of animals' patterns, stripes and spots all over his arms, legs and back, panda markings on his face and she had to coo at them, only to be shocked when her own voice came out.
"We can talk!" Nejire exclaimed her voice completely unchanged by the water around them or her sharp shark teeth in her mouth.
"We can." Jiki said, surprised himself.
"Do you think this means we can go meet the others in the main space now?" Nejire asked excitedly.
Jiki just shrugged with a soft grin and she squealed.
Nejire was very happy that she could still make the dolphin version of the noise, and raced back for the edge of the reef and down into the depths.
They had explored the sea of their space and found many environments that Jiki and she had come to love visiting with the various animals to play around with them, though there were areas they had claimed for themselves.
The kelp forest belonged to her and the reef was Jiki's.
And with the help of En and Nana they had figured out where the exit of their space was, because whatever was above the waves wasn't the main space contrary to their belief, but a very big brine pool deep down.
Mirio though had pointed out it made a bit of sense and sort of an inside joke, their space was a sea because of their quirks and the rest of the space was in a sea within a sea.
A reverse of how their quirks was now in a collective of quirks.
Nejire knew she hadn't left Jiki behind and was happy to see that his pattern was glowing much brighter now, passing the fish around them as they made their way to the large dark pool of water that had a visible difference in the water texture.
"Wow, we can actually get right up and close with it now." Nejire commented as she let her feet rest on the bed of mussels that had created a 'shoreline' of the brine pool.
Jiki touched down, right next to her and very carefully leaned over and tapped the surface with one of his tentacles.
"We can touch it too." Jiki commented kneeling down to get a better look at the water's surface.
Nejire hummed and rubbed her chin with one of her tentacles, considering whether or not they should try to go through the pool and into the main space, or hold off for tomorrow night when Inheritance might be more settled.
A white glowing hand coming out of the pool only a foot away from them made her and Jiki leap back shocked.
And were even more surprised when the rest of the glowing human's head came through and they saw they only had one eye in addition to the fact that the guy's whole body was glowing and white.
"Ah, I'm sorry for scaring you." the man apologized.
"You're human-looking! Why are you human looking?" Nejire questioned confused while Jiki hid somewhat behind her.
The man blinked and then looked at himself confused.
"Maybe because I'm the first?" the man answered looking equally confused at his own appearance.
"Oh, that means you're Youchi right?" Nejire guessed, remembering some of what Nana and Deku-Sensei told her about the past users.
The glowing man nodded.
"Sorry we haven't talked before now, while there wasn't any resistance to entering your space, we didn't want to overload either of you by all of us visiting you all at once." Youchi answered her.
"Huh, then why you'd come in now?" Nejire asked coming back down to stand on the mussel beach, Jiki coming out from behind her but staying pressed against her side.
"Well, your space looks like a sea below the main space's floating mass, but it's been getting closer and closer, and now it's only just six inches from overtaking the land." Youchi explained.
"So, we wanted to see how you both were doing." Youchi told them, resting his arms on the mussel shore.
"Oh, we can touch the brine pool now, but I'm not sure if we can go through just yet, I was considering if we should wait another day." Nejire informed him.
Youchi hummed back.
"If you can touch it, then you should be able to come through now. You wouldn't be able to touch the 'exit' of your space otherwise." Youchi said, one of his hands coming up to his chin.
"The transition between the two will feel weird since it's a prospective shift between the two spaces, and you might want to hold off if you don't think you'll be ready to feel the, well our really, collective unconscious." Youchi suggested.
*Right the collective unconscious.* Nejire thought crossing her arms as she looked upwards.
She might be ready for that, but Jiki might not be, Yagi-San had warned them that it was very 'intense' when he first felt it and that the memories of the other users would certainly enter their minds when they left their space.
"What do you think Jiki? Do you want to go for it?" Nejire asked, turning to her friend.
Jiki bit his lip, then chirped positively nodding his head.
"Okay, into the breach then!" Nejire said confidently as she tightly held Jiki's hand, her other hand in the air along with her tentacles.
Then before they could overthink anything she dragged Jiki up and shot for the brine pool with her eyes closed and braced for the impact.
However, as braced as she was nothing could have prepared her for the solid otherness that hit and filled her to the point she had to gasp.
She couldn't help smiling as her cousins giggled and placed flowers in her hair while she was laying in the field of flowers behind their shrine.
Then she was being held in her mom's only arm and despite the fever making her feel icky she couldn't help smiling and trying to hum with her mom as she swayed with her.
Next, she was in a field stargazing for the first time with her boyfriend on their first date and feeling nervous when he held her hand as he pointed out the constellations.
She blinked then she was walking through a hallway, she filled it with smoke and looking all around for the classmate she was fighting for her final exams.
And then after she placed down the girl she just saved, she had to use Blackwhip again to grab another falling civilian before they hit the ocean below.
Her body, muscles and even her bones felt like they were aching as she slid down the tree she had been punching, her knuckles bleeding but she couldn't let herself stay down for long since she needed to continue training.
Nejire spat in the man holding her arms down and kicked her leg with the full force she had been building up to breaking the support beam of the building they had kept her in, grinning as she brought it all down on them even with her leg now broke.
She gritted her teeth as she stood outside the ruins of the building in front of her, her partner's hand on her shoulder as the rain poured around them, hoping that maybe the saying her grandma about the rain welcoming the dead to paradise was true because the brat deserved that much.
Tears couldn't stop falling from her eyes as she stood watching her daddy being lowered to the ground while holding her big brother's hand.
Jiki's hand squeezing her own brought her out of the memories, finding herself sat on her knees and gasping for breath.
"Jiki?" she called turning and seeing a similarly shaken Jiki on his knees with tears pouring down his face.
Jiki whimpered back and Nejire was quick to pull him over and let him bury his head in her shoulder, she swallowed and rubbed his back trying to comfort him.
"Hey, hey. you're both going to be okay guys." Nana said quickly coming over and hugging them too.
"Just breath, it'll pass." Nana assured them letting them both lean on her to ground themselves.
"N-Nana?" Jiki asked coming back to himself somewhat.
"Yeah, it's me honey, I'm here Jiki-Kun." Nana assured him, squeezing his shoulder before turning to her "Are you okay Nejire-Chan?" Nana asked her hand in Nejire's hair.
Nejire nodded, taking in Nana's human appearance for the first time, before looking around at their surroundings next.
They were on some kind of rock and their sea surrounded it, and despite the fact that she saw everything around them like it was a clear sunny day, the sky above was only a void with less than a dozen stars above them.
Looking behind and over Nana's shoulder, Nejire saw a bunch of thrones and the other past users no doubt... and a young Yagi-San?
The young-looking Yagi-San also rushed over to them and offered her a hand up "Hado-Chan are you okay?" Yagi-San asked her.
"Yagi-San? You're younger?" she questioned; she didn't think that it could be him cause he didn't look much older than her but who else could be?
Yagi-San flushed and rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
"That's because all of us will appear as we looked when we first given Inheritance Hado, or passed on in my case." Youchi answered for Yagi-San, and Nejire guessed once she saw him.
"You look like Deku-Sensei!" Nejire exclaimed pointing at him "Are you related to him?" Nejire questioned before turning to Yagi-San and further asking "Did you know that Youchi-San and Deku-Sensei were related?"
Youchi turned red and at the same time he and Yagi-San said "No." the rest of the users shouted back "Yes!" including Nana, making Yagi-San even more flustered and start sputtering like Jiki would.
"We've all collectively agreed that Youchi is Midoriya's father, Youchi has also called Midoriya his son." One of the others, En she remembered from the files now that her head didn't feel like it was being crushed, said as he stepped forward to stand behind Nana.
"It was a slip of the tongue!" Youchi protested bashfully.
Nana shook her head then helped Jiki stand up and kept him steady.
"Don't listen to my nephew, he's still coming to terms with being a father." Nana told them.
"Nana I'm not your nephew! I was born and died centuries before you existed!" Youchi fruitless protested.
"That didn't stop you from knocking up some eldritch creature and having Junior, Brat!" the man with his hair up in a ponytail shouted back.
Youchi groaned into his hands, having given up on the argument and swiftly tried to change the conversation.
"Whatever, let's just get you and Amajiki properly introduced to the past holders before you both wake up." Youchi said, motioning for them to join him as they walked over to the thrones in the main part of the space.
Nana guiding them to their throne as everyone else sat down, it had to be her and Jiki's since it was the only one the was doubled, allowing for two people to sit on it.
She happily sat on her side and offered her hand to Jiki once he was settled on his half of the throne.
Nejire looked around the group of people and guessed they had to be sitting in numerical order, since Youchi was on one side of them and Yagi-San on their right, Nana on his right followed by En and so on.
"You've already become acquainted with Nana and Yagi, the seventh and eighth wielders, respectively," Youchi began motioning over to the two of them in their own thrones.
"And you-" Youchi was cut off from continuing by Nana speaking up.
"Your grandma and father, you mean Youchi." Nana corrected and Youchi buried his head in his hands.
"Nana." Yagi-San hissed flustered while Jiki stared at her gob smacked.
"F-father?" Jiki sputtered.
Nana nodded confidently "Of course, I gave Toshi Inheritance, and he gave both of you Inheritance, and it's passed by DNA so that makes Toshi my son and you both my grandbabies." Nana explained for them.
"That is not how it works, and you know it, Nana!" Youchi exclaimed, exasperated with her. Meanwhile, Nejire contemplated this new addition to the family tree and gasped.
"Does that mean that Deku-Sensei's our cousin now?" she questioned, excited as she looked over to Nana.
Nana smiled sweetly as she nodded her head while the others all stared at the two of them.
"Oh no, not another one." Youchi muttered looking utterly defeated as he slumped on his throne.
"Wait! Jiki that means you're my brother now! I've always wanted to have a baby brother!" Nejire exclaimed, reaching across the arm of their throne and hugged him.
Jiki squeaking but not fighting her hug.
"Wasn't Amajiki-Kun born in March?" Yagi-San pointed out.
"Eighth I think we've already established just how fucking little crap like that actually matters to them in these cases." the man on the other side of Youchi said with a snort.
"How else do you think you ended up with the Youchi becoming your cousin?" the guy in the green cape commented with his arms crossed.
Current family tree according to Nana.
Nana: Mother, Aunt and Grandmother
Youchi: her Nephew
Toshinori: her Son
Izuku: Youchi's Son/her Grandson
Tamaki: Toshinori Son/ her Grandson
Nejire: Toshinori's Daughter/ her Granddaughter
Tenko/Tomura: her Grandson
Aoi Shigaraki/AFO: Disowned