Nemuri Kayama reached for her head as soon as she woke up.
The daylight that streamed in through the windows was bright and seemed to be reflected at least a thousand times at the unnaturally clean floor before it hit her and she groaned due to its sting.
"What did I drink last night?" The woman muttered as she raised her head up from the pillow and continued to rub her forehead.
Nemuri threw a quick glance around her and then dropped down again before the woman once renowned as the heroine Midnight turned her head around and half-buried her face in the pillow.
"Fuck." She muttered as she recognized the room for what it actually was…A hospital…although one that was extraordinary barebones.
"Perfect!" The now mostly former pro-heroine hissed before she twisted her body, lifted it up from the mattress, looked down and recognized the blue surgical gown which covered the front of her otherwise bare body. "Just perfect, why not add this one to the pile as well. Anything else?"
Her red mask rested next to her trusty cane, fans and flogger upon the wooden bedside table to her left and she sighed for what hopefully was the final time.
"And of course I somehow found an opportunity to get back in costume." She added before she threw herself down and buried the back of her head in the pillow. "Why did I even ask?" She asked herself as she rubbed her forehead.
Nemuri heard a door open and close behind her back and a few moments later the soft sound of approaching footsteps was accompanied by the much sharper noise of another person's cane tapping upon the floor.
The woman turned her entire body around to face the source of the familiar noise before she recognized the small figure and instinctively dragged her lower body to the side, where it remained safely hidden underneath the sheets and as far away from the intruder as the limbs could be.
"Recovery Girl?" Nemuri muttered curiously as she gave her environment a second look-over.
"Am I in U.A.?" The youngest of the two women asked with a baffled frown.
Said nurse paused for a moment and locked her eyes from behind her glasses into Nemuri's sky-blue pupils.
"Yes, you are." She agreed with an unusual expression upon her face as if she couldn't decide how to feel about the former heroine's presence.
The younger woman sighed in return.
"I screwed up badly didn't I?" Nemuri asked her whilst she reached for her mask and stared at her red disguise.
"Yes…yes, you most likely did." Chiyo Shuzenji agreed with a stiff posture as she walked past the bed and opened the window which allowed a wave of fresh air into the room and with it came the chirping sound of numerous birds.
One of these birds had seated himself upon one of the U.A.'s Bots which had attached himself to the wall so close to the window that anyone but Recovery girl could have reached for the bird and allowed it to hop over if they would have wanted to do so.
"Is the usual ward getting renovated?" Nemuri asked her with a false nonchalance in her voice as she tried to ignore the churning feeling in her stomach.
"This isn't one of my rooms." Chiyo replied rather tersely before she turned around and once again fixed her eyes upon Nemuri's features.
The older woman sighed after a few seconds.
"You have absolutely no idea why you're here or what happened, don't you?" The Youthful Heroine asked her.
"I assume I did not simply get drunk yesterday and did something incredibly stupid and embarrassing in public whilst in costume thereby tarnishing my name even worse than it already was?"
Recovery Girl stared back at her for a little longer.
"…What day do you think it is?" The grey-haired woman asked her after a few moments.
"The…first…of… march?" The disgraced heroine replied with a bad feeling about her answer.
Recovery girl took a deep breath and opened her mouth to say something, then seemingly changed her mind and took another moment before she replied.
"That is correct." Chiyo agreed dryly before she added. "You are fine by the way, I checked it one hour ago."
Nemuri glared back at her in return. "Fine…I nearly had a heart attack when you began to question me about the date."
Recovery Girl gave a smirk in return whilst Kayama allowed herself an overly dramatic wail about fearing to have lost her most beautiful years to a coma.
The much smaller woman made a remark about Nemuri liking her dramas too much before she raised the massive syringe that she disguised as her cane up in a threatening gesture that had the much younger woman instinctively crawl backwards again.
"Why am I here?" Nemuri asked her with as much dignity she could muster after her earlier retreat from the tiny figure.
Recovery Girl's earlier smirk melted away in return. "That… I don't know." She admitted after a few seconds. "Nezu messaged me last night to set up a room in Ground Beta, that was mere minutes before Hound Dog raced into the school with you hanging from his shoulder."
"You were covered with so much dirt, blood and…worse that I didn't recognize you at first." The nurse continued. "I literally had to peel every remaining inch of fabric from your skin to check your state."
Nemuri blinked after those words, now thoroughly sobered by that particular revelation. "Than…Thank you…" The former heroine whispered as she sat up straight and inspected her bare arms before she slipped her hand beneath the robe and checked her chest. You did a brilliant job, I feel more like I just awoke from a Spa rather than a battle. I can't find even as much as a single scar."
Recovery Girl scoffed in return. "I could do nothing so impressive that you should thank me for it!" She replied within a few moments.
After those words she sighed once again and fixed her eyes straight at the younger woman. Then as she finally made a decision she pulled a strip with pills out from one of the pockets in her lab coat.
"This one will help you focus and has the nice side-effect that it will help you keep calm." The school nurse said as she removed a first pill from it's container. "I suggest you take two of them …for both effects."
Nemuri opened her hand to accept the first of the pills.
"I'll get you a glass of water to help you swallow those." The older woman added.
"Some water would be nice." The purple haired woman replied after those words as her lips curled into a very familiar smirk. "But I know I can swallow much bigger loads."
A moment later Nemuri rubbed the sore side of her head whilst a very annoyed looking Recovery Girl glared up at her as she palmed the bottom of her cane and contemplated giving the younger woman another whack.
The disgraced heroine quickly downed the pill without another remark and extended her hand to receive the second.
"Nezu ought to be aware that you woke up at the latest within another five minutes so prepare yourself for his visit." Recovery Girl warned her.
"You've already messaged him?"
The school nurse scoffed in return. "You are underestimating The Principal." She told the younger woman. "…severely if you think that he needs me to give him a warning."
As if in answer to those words a grating in the ceiling opened up with a soft but audible scraping sound and extended downwards from above where it remained dangling.
The Youthful Heroine instantly turned around and raised her cane in a pointing gesture whereas Nemuri likewise fixed her gaze at the empty area beneath the gap.
One heartbeat passed, then a second and even a third moment went by whilst nothing happened.
The former heroine chuckled for a moment. "You know," She told Recovery Girl, "considering the dramatic timing of that fall I think I was expecting him to drop in."
The oldest of the two women gave a scoff in return. "Nezu is a great many things…dramatic is just one of them." She muttered as she took a few steps forward and poked her cane into one of the slits of the roster and then gave it a hard push which locked it back in place.
"Is a dog, a mouse or a bear also one of those things?" A soft voice asked her from behind the two of them.
Nemuri gave a surprised cry, straightened her back and twisted her neck towards the origin from that voice behind her whilst Recovery Girl did the same.
"Principal Nezu?"
"That is indeed who I am."
"A bloody menace! That's what you are!" Recovery girl muttered annoyed at the small, costumed hybrid who stood proudly in front of another dangling ceiling grate.
The school nurse gave a soft growl and then stepped past them both with surprisingly large and obviously frustrated steps as she raised her walking stick to close the second grate .
"It is good to see you again, young Kayama." The Principal told the youngest of the two women. "It must have been over half a decade since you last set foot into U.A. and yet it appears as if you've been losing years rather than gaining them."
"Tears of the brokenhearted, you flatterer." Nemuri told him with a smirk before she pushed her chest forwards, tilted her head and brushed some loose strands of her purple hair behind her shoulder. "They keep me young."
Nezu cackled in return. "I have heard many good things about the consumption of such bodily fluids." He agreed. "One of these days I might start gathering them as well to try the effects of such a process for myself."
The dark-haired woman blinked in return and hesitated for a second as her brain desperately tried to reboot and find an answer that would persuade Nezu to refrain from such an action.
"Well that might sound like a good idea … "Nemuri began as her brain kept trying to provide her with such an answer. "… but you see…."
"…and if you do that…illegal…." She tried as a loose collection of words kept tumbling out of her mouth. Her brain had failed her... and most likely the rest of humanity…badly.
Nezu kept staring at her as Nemuri kept failing to say something intelligent…or merely intelligible before the small Chimera threw his head back and cackled loudly.
"Relax young Kayama, I am usually well aware when someone employs a hyperbole." The Principal told her once he had calmed down.
The rat-like being jumped up and landed upon the foot-end of her bed. "Usually…." He repeated with a visible smirk before he added. "...But if someone offers me a pretext…"
"I offer to testify in your favor in front of the courts if he decides to act on that…pretext." Recovery Girl muttered as she raised her cane in a menacing motion towards The Principal.
Nezu merely smiled at the threatening gesture and straightened some imaginary crease in his costume before he returned his gaze to the youngest of them three.
"Despite these jokes..." The costumed hybrid began as he pointed his beady eyes at her with a calculating edge. "You are here for a reason."
The chimera raised one paw at the end of the sentence and made a circular motion.
"Your case was curious, very curious…It would have attracted my attention even if you hadn't been one of U.A.'s students." The Headmaster told her. "Or if you hadn't called me for aid."
Nemuri stiffened after those words. "I did what?" She asked her old instructor with complete and utter bafflement.
"You don't recall what you did yesterday, don't you?" Nezu asked her despite being already aware of her answer.
The woman shook her head in return.
"What is the last thing you can remember about yesterday?" He asked her in return.
The younger woman groaned in return as she rubbed the side of her head.
"I can recall leaving my apartment in Osaka." Nemuri said with a hint of uncertainty.
"I remember suffering a pain where my no longer existing leg should have been!" She added with a bit of bite as she recalled that particular annoyance as it had caused her to miss a few steps and to hit her shoulder against the wall.
"After that…" The former heroine muttered. "not much… just the usual route to the daily grind I guess." She concluded with a sigh. "I usually don't pay a lot of attention on my commute."
"That agrees with what I've been told." Nezu replied as he gave a nod. "Your colleagues at the administration of Osaka High School stated that you never arrived there and your neighbor claimed he saw you leave around your usual time."
Nemuri blinked after that before the former heroine's eyes gained an edge which in return resulted in an unwitting smile on Nezu's features.
"You already knew that for certain. Didn't you?" Nemuri remarked as she fixed her own eyes at Nezu. "You already knew something happened during my morning commute and at what point, didn't you?"
"Indeed I did." The hybrid replied with a pleased expression. "I can tell you that you saw something in one of the side streets after buying one of those cheap mass produced coffee-replacements."
"Those drinks aren't cheap!"
"They are, you and the rest of the bleating flock who buy them simply pay way too much."
Nezu dismissed her interjection with a simple gesture before he continued. "I have no indication of what you saw…There were no cameras pointed at that particular street."
Nemuri gave a curious nod in return as she waited for the Chimera to continue.
"…But it was enough to simultaneously bring Midnight back into the fold and to turn her into a ghost." Nezu admitted.
The hybrid sighed. "Usually I would be proud if one of my students shows herself so capable of keeping herself off the radar when someone is searching for her… but now..."
"But now…." Said student repeated as she rubbed her fingers across the knuckles from her dominant hand.
"Now… I am angered. Furious even at the one who forced her to undertake such efforts." Nezu continued as he opened and closed his paws which revealed a set of long talons which retracted every time he closed his fists again.
"You were terrified whenever I could sight you, Nemuri." Nezu admitted to the three of them. "You did a great job at hiding your discomfort from those around you, but there are a number of tells you can't hide from the likes of me…and you were more than merely worried."
"Not without a reason going by the evidence you left behind upon Hound Dog's costume," Chiyo added with a gentle voice as she glanced at the younger woman.
"…Yes, not without reason." Nezu agreed before he shook his head and resumed Midnight's tale.
"It was impossible to get more than a general impression of your route throughout yesterday," Nezu continued with a soft voice. "You rarely appear for more than a second on the camera; a glimpse at the edge of the screen, a single face in a group, a momentary member of a crowd."
The rat-like creature shook his head. "I really wish I could have sent you that offer to educate the students about stealth."
"It would have been appreciated." Nemuri replied with a poorly veiled edge which wasn't aimed at him though. "Unfortunately we both know how people tend to think of my reputation as …unbecoming of a teacher."
"I still disagree with them, unfortunately at the time the board did not."
Nemuri shook her head. "It matters little nowadays." She lied with a tired, resigned voice.
Nezu on the other hand caught her gaze in his own eyes and then refused to let it go for a short while before he too shook his head. "I disagree." He repeated.
"None the less…" Nezu continued. "There is enough to give me a decent indication of your route…furthermore there were several curious coincidences which gave me some more information about what happened along the way."
"Curious coincidences?" Nemuri deadpanned.
The principal smirked in return. "I discovered that an unusually large amount of people happened to fall asleep throughout the day with seemingly no clear cause for that sudden event. Up until five hours ago the police were still researching the possibility of a terrorist attack and a pandemic."
The cause of said investigation cases opened her mouth to speak up but Nezu interjected before she could.
"I made certain they closed those cases with no connection to Midnight." Nezu told her dismissively which had her release a relieved sigh as The Principal continued.
"Whereas a small number of your victims seem to have been no more than collateral damage...which seems rather unusual and excessive in light of your usual modus operandi…. " Nezu explained with a thoughtful expression. "Others were ….more interesting."
"More interesting?" Nemuri repeated after him.
"Unrecognizable due the presence of a mask, shawl or something else which obscured their visage." Nezu explained. "Furthermore they somehow disappeared before the cops could pick them up…or that is what was implied by their reports."
"You make it sound like I had to deal with an organization?" Nemuri remarked as she stared at her old teacher who smiled in return.
"Good, an excellent deduction…far from the only possibility unfortunately but indeed the most likely." Nezu agreed.
"What other possibilities are there?" Nemuri asked him curiously.
Nezu shook his head in return. "A distressingly large number of possibilities as quirks grow more numerous and versatile with every passing day." The hybrid replied. "teleportation, short-term time manipulation, light-manipulation to the point of invisibility, numerous forms of camouflage and illusions, the creation of temporary clones…. I can recall one soon-to-be-student who can travel through shadows… and of course there are other, more mundane possibilities such as hacking to remove or adjust the images and files which I would have required for my research."
"I doubt anyone could hack as many cameras and computers as you undoubtedly violated in your quest to solve a half-decent mystery." The heroine added somewhat dismissively to Nezu who seemed to preen in return.
"I am in full agreement that they couldn't hack as many as I did..."
"Don't sound so proud of that. You should at least pretend to respect the law." Recovery Girl interjected after a frustrated huff.
"Interrupting someone who is still speaking is a rude thing." Nezu said in return as he pointed his head at the School Nurse.
"Quite horrible indeed, you are aware that you are supposed to be an example to all those impressionable youths within the walls of this proud institution." The Chimera sighed, shook his head and then pointed his beady eyes at Nemuri before he hopped closer towards her and placed his hand upon her shoulder in an exaggerated reassuring gesture.
Recovery Girl glared at the unaffected looking Hybrid in return.
"Uhm… You said I made my way to this place from Osaka?" Nemuri asked them as she tried to put the conversation back on its rails. "Why?...Why would I be heading to you rather than someone more nearby? I doubt Tensei would have turned me away if I needed him."
She ignored the condemnation in Recovery Girl's gaze as she brought her former boyfriend up…and ignored the stab she felt as she recalled how that seemingly solid relationship had been turned into battered ruins.
"I honestly can't say what made you decide to head directly to U.A. young Kayama." Nezu admitted, "Although there are several possible explanations for that particular action. Let's stick to the example of the current Ingenium for this explanation."
"The first is you believed someone would intercept such an obvious course of action as your former relationship with Ingenium is well known in most circles."
"You mean it is well observed by most people with a penchant to jerk off to heroes or heroines." Nemuri corrected him through pursed lips.
Nezu observed her with a curious expression, seemingly not certain how to interpret her emotions and after that deceptively minor expression pointed his eyes back at Recovery Girl who failed to give him a notable reaction in return.
"A second reason is that you might have been uncertain about Ingenium's ability to repulse your pursuers or at least you were worried about the consequences for him and his sidekicks." Nezu suggested as he decided to ignore their human idiosyncrasies.
"Some of his sidekicks are very green." The heroine agreed. "plus with how he tends to spread them out to cover the biggest possible surface would leave them rather exposed to a capable villain looking for victims….or hostages."
"Indeed." The Hybrid agreed happily before his smile disappeared and he continued. " And finally there is the third option…you were not certain whether you could trust him on this."
Nemuri snorted in return. "Nonsense!" She replied instantly. "The day I can't trust Tensei is the day we check in with a quirk- and a mental specialist because I'll either be in need of the second or at least one of us is under the influence of a Quirk.
"And you were doing so well up to the previous possibility." Nezu sighed with a tone he employed to convene a mixture of disappointment and understanding.
The Principal sighed one more time before turning his head a bit and pointed his solely scarred eye at the woman. "Hostages and threats, Nemuri ... .Are you confident that Tensei would remain standing by your side if those in the shadows behind you held a loaded gun to his little brother's head? Will he pick a former girlfriend over his mother? Would you expect him to choose his dear friend over his father? To value an old classmate over those who are apprenticing under him? To defend a former pro-heroine, one of the best of her year rather than to shield innocent civilians from a danger they could not be prepared for?"
Nemuri lowered her head in return. "I…do…trust…him!" She muttered through clenched teeth.
"I know you do." Recovery Girl agreed with her before she sighed. "But I don't doubt that you still care enough for him to not force him to make that choice."
The aging woman glared at her principal. "Maybe you should continue with where Hound Dog found her and the state he found her in."
Nezu stared back at the now mostly self-proclaimed Youthful Heroine for a few more seconds before he nodded and jumped off the bed.
"Hound Dog found you at a building site not that far from here." Nezu told them with his back turned to them. "There were a number of incidents taking place throughout the city around the time when you most likely arrived in Musutafu."
They saw him take a deep breath before he continued.
"I am almost certain they used at least some of those incidents to corral you into one route before they intercepted you."
"That makes it sound as if at that point I didn't trust the cops and heroes or at least didn't trust those to keep my pursuers from reaching me through them." Nemuri added as she narrowed her eyes and recalled instinctively performing that very same action as she walked past a cop as he was reaching for his phone.
"Nemuri?" Recovery Girl asked her as the younger woman reached for her own forehead.
"It is nothing ...and I might have…I might have not trusted the cops and others at that point." She muttered with a mixture of disappointment and annoyance.
"There are many reasons why you could be wary of others, Nemuri." Nezu reminded her. "Not all imply that the fault lies with you or points at ill intentions on their end."
The Chimera paused for a moment and touched the scar upon his face. "Sometimes the best of intentions or merely following orders can make others more terrifying than any greed or hatred could have done. I know I taught you that years ago."
"What happened next?" Nemuri asked with audible frustration as she sought an explanation for the gap in her memory.
"You called me." Nezu told her with a soft voice. "You had just the time to yell my name and your alias as Midnight in your phone before the connection was cut off."
Nemuri and Chiyo both continued to stare at him and as such forced him to continue.
"It took me nearly a full minute to triangulate your rough position, after that I ordered Hound Dog to find you as he was the fastest member of our present staff and the one who was most likely to sniff out your exact location in the shortest amount of time.
"You feared I would be dead and hidden by the time anyone could reach me." Nemuri added with a soft voice as she expressed out loud what her former teacher kept unsaid.
"I hoped you would be there, alive, unharmed and somewhat embarrassed…but yes, I feared that would be the case." The quirked animal agreed.
The Hybrid sighed after those words. "And strange as it might sound… I am not certain whether that wasn't what happened!"
"What do you mean?" Nemuri asked as she resisted her first impulse to dismiss his words as either a joke or lunacy.
"There were no witnesses to what happened as masked and uniformed men kept those at a distance but the people who were nearby heard the sound of gunshots and something else…or rather several somethings elses."
"People were shooting at me and using their quirks." Nemuri translated.
"Not just that, they had cleaned the entire surface of visible evidence and evacuated the premises by the time Hound Dog arrived."
The former pro-heroine narrowed her eyes again. "You did not express yourself like that for no reason." She said coldly which prompted another smirk upon the Principal's features.
"I didn't, young Kayama. Whoever they were that fought you, they reshaped the entire surface level of the terrain…but not before they buried you underneath!"
Nemuri stared back at Nezu almost as if she was expecting him to sport a smile and tell her he had been joking…and when he didn't she dropped backwards and hit the pillows with her head.
"I was buried alive!" The woman muttered as she stared at the animal.
"Despite your current state I am not certain how truly alive you were throughout the event." Nezu continued rather darkly.
Nemuri blinked in return.
The rat-like creature gave her a glare that would have terrified her if she had been the intended recipient of that expression.
"There was a lot of blood…and even worse… cranial matter spread across the terrain…mostly hidden beneath the surface. Some of it was still covering you by the time Hound Dog reached Recovery Girl. I can not say for certain whether you fought back with any effect, but I can say you fought hard and took a lot of damage in a fairly short amount of time."
"And you are certain that the blood and… all of that was mine?" Nemuri asked them.
"I can confirm it was." Recovery Girl interjected. "As does Hound Dog."
"How did I…survive?" Their former student asked with a fragile voice.
"Like I said earlier…I am not certain whether you did." Nezu whispered before he reached for the bed sheet that still covered lower body.
Nemuri blinked for a moment when her eyes followed the direction of Nezu's paws and recognized a presence underneath the sheet which no longer could be there.
Time seemed to slow down dramatically as Nezu pulled the sheet away and revealed inch after inch of two long, appealing legs.
The woman stared down at her own legs in return as her hand hovered over the knee of her formerly missing limb.
"Is this a joke or an illusion?" Nemuri asked sharply as she turned her head towards Nezu. "My leg is gone! Dusty Ash took it away when I tried to keep her from escaping!" Nemuri snarled at the rat-like creature.
"Yes, she did five years ago." Nezu agreed with a small, sharp smile, "So perhaps she will try to do so again in a few years once she finds out?"
The Chimera pointed his gaze back at Recovery Girl. "Ten to thirteen years, that was what you guessed no?" He asked her.
Nemuri fixed her gaze back at the healer who sighed and reached into one of the pockets of her costume.
"Check yourself." She ordered with a cold voice as she handed her a small hand-mirror. "Seventeen to twenty years old, that's my guess for your current age."
Neither of the two missed how Nemuri's hand first rested upon her formerly missing knee and how she then pulled her legs towards her chest and allowed the digits of her hand to travel up and down the length of the limb whilst she simultaneously checked the features of her face at different angles.
"Nineteen…" Nemuri muttered after a few seconds.
"What?" Chiyo asked her patient in return.
"Nineteen…." Nemuri repeated, "I can't be more than nineteen at the oldest. Seventeen or even sixteen at the very youngest but no more than nineteen at most."
"How come?" Nezu asked her in return with some curiosity at the decidedness in her voice.
"I only have a single hole in each ear." Nemuri explained. "I had two more gaps added to my left ear at the end of my first year of U.A. when I came in third place."
"You retained those two holes in your ears but had the others closed?" Nezu remarked intrigued. "Intriguing, any other scars or developments which you obtained to triangulate your age…or which are mysteriously missing?"
"Nothing I can recall other than getting my maidenhead ripped to pieces at my seventeenth birthday." Nemuri added before she gave another pained groan.
"Will you stop that!" She growled at the nurse who was once again rubbing the head of her cane as she glared with undisguised frustration at her patient.
"It is a valid benchmark." Nezu provided semi-helpfully with far more amusement due Chiyo's annoyance than care for the apparently supposed private nature of that information.
"I'll have those sheets burned if you decide to have that… checked." The school nurse added in return.
"Ladies…." Nezu intervened, "as diverting as this conversation is…and undoubtedly could become again… we will need to reach a conclusion at some point before the start of the new school year."
Both women nodded in return.
"What will happen now?" Nemuri asked in return.
"With them?" She added with a cold growl before her voice became more vulnerable. "And with me?"
Nezu sighed after those words. "In short order, there is little that can be done to the first. We have suspicions of an unknown organization, but no names or goals, nor relevant locations and so many possible but far too vague traces that it is impossible to say which ones are relevant for what happened to you."
"There can't be so many quirks that wind back your age, no?" Nemuri noticed.
"Officially, no…unofficially it is far less unheard of than most would expect." Nezu corrected her. "I don't have to explain how much money there could be made with the ability to return someone's youth or to remove a disease or a handicap."
"I can imagine…I don't know how much I would be willing to pay to keep myself from shrinking into a few feet of wrinkles and soft, floppy meat." Nemuri added with poorly disguised venom after which Recovery Girl somehow stomped her cane with enough force in the concrete to crack the material.
Nezu nodded in return. "There is a reason that most of those potential quirks get an invitation to reside on I-Island as soon as their government hears of it."
"There are few parents who refuse such an offer of universal protection as those who do tend to find their children become a statistic in a disappearance-case." Chiyo muttered darkly. "My own quirk merely speeds up a body's natural rate of recovery and comes with enough limitations, risks and drawbacks that there would only be a limited market for it. A quirk with the ability to return someone's youth or to regenerate limbs on the other hand…."
"You think I was trying to help someone with such a healing quirk and that this person healed me at least once during the last confrontation before I was defeated."
"More like at least half a dozen times." Chiyo growled before Nezu could reply.
"Nor was it necessarily only one person whom you were helping..." Nezu added. "Although that might very well have been the case."
"Any chance we find the victim or my attackers?" Nemuri asked as she brought the conversation back to its original course.
"I will keep my ear to the ground, draw some slits through the soil in the hope of finding some clues or indications of similar cases…but the truth is that most of these victims are only discovered after some time has elapsed…usually when the actions from those who own them are found out because their business has grown too big to be hidden or ignored." Nezu admitted with audible anger in his voice.
The rat-like creature took a deep breath after those words almost as if to demonstrate to Nemuri how she had to do so, still there was a poorly hidden anger in his eyes which contrasted with the seemingly amused smile which he sported.
"First… there is the case of what to with the former heroine Midnight as there is no way that she would live for another full 24 hours if she was seen walking out of the school."
"What do you mean?" Nemuri asked him. "You intend to lock me away in here until you find the bastards who are responsible?"
Nezu gave her an undisguised smirk in return. "Don't be silly," he told her, " to lock away someone with your capacities would be such a waste."
"Thank you." The young heroine replied as she shot a Chiyo a poorly disguised cry for help with her eyes.
"What would you need me for?" She asked Nezu as the traitoress abandoned her to the Rat-god's wiles.
"The youngest son of Endavour, the heiress of the Yaoyorozu-imperium, the secret apprentice of All Might …even Tensei Iida's little brother will be joining the university this year." Nezu began.
"You've already tested them? Isn't that a bit soon?" Nemuri interjected with some surprise her voice.
"The first two finished the recommendation today and were accepted. The youngest Iida brother will arrive tomorrow but going by his family's rate of success it seems doubtful to me that he would fail the test." Nezu explained before he chuckled. "Honestly I am inclined to say that All Might's apprentice is more likely to fail than an Iida but it isn't as if we could refuse his apprentice even if she somehow did fail."
The former pro-heroine frowned at Nezu's open admission of corruption but it wasn't as if he wasn't making sense. Any school who'd refuse to accept an apprentice of a Top 10-hero or such an economic titan's heir was in essence sabotaging it's remaining students in every possible way except in name.
"So what would you'd like me to do then?" Nemuri asked with false nonchalance as she felt an old dream awaken in the back of her head. "I mean it has been a while since I attained my license but I guess I could take up teaching if you give me the chance."
The former heroine attempted to ignore the mocking snort which had been poorly disguised as a cough from Recovery Girl and recalled why she had always hated the Witch-in-White.
"Whereas I for one have no doubts about your willingness to teach and your capacity for the vocation…" Nezu began as the disgraced heroine recognized his rejection and sank back down into her mattress. "There are several obstacles to that…chief among them our intention to hide your survival and the difficulties involved with establishing a new identity and acceptable credits for the job ... especially as the Hero commission is currently trying to curtail some of my …liberties."
"The hero commission is riding your ass, aren't they." Nemuri commiserated. "I know what that's like."
"More than ever, young Kayama, the current lack of serious public problems in society makes them all the more eager to create troubles for others in the hope of gaining more control for themselves." Nezu sighed after those words. "And the existence of organizations such as the one you tussled with makes it rather likely that it will be sooner rather than later that the price will be paid for it."
"You know something?" she remarked in return.
The head of U.A. chuckled again. "That's who I am, I know things and I laugh at the stupidity of others."
"What do you want me to do to help you?" His former pupil asked him as she returned to essence of the case.
"Lately I have been having doubts about one of my teachers… As well as my own judgment in some regards." Nezu confessed.
"What do you mean?" Nemuri questioned in return.
"I do not question my intelligence if that is what you are wondering about. My intellect is just as much above everyone else as it always has been." The chimera remarked cheerfully before he shook his head and regained his earlier more solemn tone of voice. "I am not human! I am not a human with an animal-like appearance, nor an animal with a human mind. I am an unique animal with an intelligence quirk, a chimera. This is something many people forget, there are times I do so too but I am not human and thus I can't think like one."
Nezu sighed and turned his head away from Nemuri and stared at Chiyo who had reached at the other end of the room by that point, too far away to listen in but still close enough to intervene if she felt the U.A. dean bothered her patient too much.
"I need people to question my decisions, to keep an eye on their consequences to keep them from going too far and becoming a cure worse than the ill they're meant to combat." The Chimera admitted.
He shook his head as he sighed and recalled a memory. "I know from my own experience that such people are a necessity to keep myself from going too far. Don't try to discover how I found out!"
The young woman stared at her former teacher and recalled some of the lessons he had imparted on her and her fellow pupils, about the danger of the greater good, tunnel vision and a great many other darker aspects of her profession.
"Chiyo has been the most important from several of such brakes on my actions in the course of a great many years but lately...I have noticed I began to feel myself slipping." He admitted. "The fault is mine rather than hers obviously, as nobody can perform the same duty for years without becoming complacent. But you understand my worries."
"I do." Nemuri admitted.
"I know I made mistakes in the past years I ran the university." The Dean of U.A. continued. "And now I fear I must repair the damage and cut away the rot where I can't cure the diseased flesh."
"You want me to inspect the school and spy upon at least one of your teachers and students?" The woman asked him with a slight quiver in her voice whilst she simultaneously pretended to laugh.
"In more than one way." He agreed.
"Fuck!" Nemuri whispered as she stared at the Chimera before she blinked and once again allowed herself to drop backwards and pushed herself deep into her mattress, then she repeated herself. "Fuck!"
"I take it you agree to help." Nezu noticed.
"Yes, I will help but still…Fuck!" The former pro-heroine said as Recovery Girl stared down from the other side of a room with obvious disapproval after the younger woman's outburst.
"This year contains an unusual amount of high profile students." Nezu told her, "the majority of them will be focused in 1-A. You'll be joining them for a year, although I might be inclined to leave you there for longer if it would be necessary."
"Woohoo …a chance to relive my student days…." Nemuri remarked as she made a weak pump-gesture with her fist. "Wooh."
"Odd." Nezu remarked with something of a grin. "I was always told these days are the best of a human's life and how much humans wish to relive those green days of yore."
"Please don't, Nezu." His no-longer-former-student muttered as she first pointed and then wagged her finger at him. "Do me at least the favor of not mocking me after I agree to help you."
"Don't get greedy, young Kayama." Her teacher reminded her chidingly. "Ask for something more reasonable such as erasing a penal record or the ruination of a rival."
"Ugh…is it too late to change my name and head for America?" Nemuri asked before she turned around and now attempted to bury her face in her pillow.
"Yes, your soul is already mine." Nezu remarked with a chuckle. "And as such a place in my garden of Eden is now yours."
"Fine," She exclaimed dramatically, "but then I demand the right to fulfill every naughty student and professor fantasy I ever had without any punishment for me or them in exchange!"
"Do you want that in written form?" Nezu asked dryly.
Nemuri chuckled. "Obviously!"
"Addressed to professor Kayama or miss Nemuri student of U.A.?"
"Yes!"
Recovery Girl gave them both a disapproving glance in return. "Why do I feel that you're allowing that solely for the shenanigans she will be causing." She asked the rat-like creature.
"Because you're not incorrect." The Chimera replied cheerfully.
"What is the reason you want me to …join 1-A?" The youngest occupant of the room asked the principal as she tried to refrain from employing words like spy.
"A number of reasons. For one, I already mentioned that most high profile students will be gathered in 1-A and it would surprise me if there would be no attempt to reach for one of these…prizes. A second reason is that despite the reasons for his original nomination Aizawa and to a lesser extend Vlad King used to have my full confidence and as such I gave them a lot of freedom but I have been starting to wonder whether or not I have been too lenient with regards to their behavior and teaching methods."
Nemuri narrowed her eyes in return. Despite The Principal's generally rather quirky behavior she had always liked Nezu, but despite that the former heroine wouldn't deny that she feared him either. Because the chimera wasn't immoral so much as he was amoral and as such the current Principal tended to care more about what he found amusing or intriguing than what someone else would argue was right or deserved. One of the few (perhaps) unintended lessons she had taken from his classes was to make certain she entertained those around her and to some extend that lesson had helped her greatly...right up to the point that it dragged her down.
None the less as amoral as he was, the former experiment had a few lines he tried not to cross and Nemuri was quite confident he had just revealed that he had been tiptoeing one of these.
"Honestly," Midnight admitted with poorly disguised nervousness. "It sounds like you want me to inspect a pair of scientific experiments on human lab-rats."
The chimera stared back at her through narrowed eyes and despite his lack of size, Nemuri was instantly reminded of how terrifying the scarred animal could be.
Nezu continued to glare at her for a few more seconds before he sighed.
"You …might not be as wrong about that as I'd wish for you to be!" He admitted with a soft growl.
Still the Chimera turned around and began to walk towards the door.
"I expect you to protect your classmates from anything that threatens them. That includes their teachers." Nezu reminded her with a colder, noticeably less humorous voice. "I'll make certain you're allowed to directly overrule them if that becomes necessary…but before that I expect you to reach for me."
Nemuri nodded weakly before she exhaled loudly and sought for some comfort in her mattress.
"I can't say I ever liked you." Recovery Girl admitted with a somewhat softer, even impressed voice. "But I won't deny that you have more courage than 95% of the people who're still allowed to call themselves heroes."
"I can't say I ever liked you." Nemuri replied in a poor impression of the nurse, "but if I never have to do that again I'll be glad to be back among those 95%."
"And here I was always assuming that you liked annoying people regardless of the consequences for yourself."
"Not Nezu!" The younger woman began poorly disguised stress. "I am 100% sadist!" She shook her head as she continued. "There is not even a bit of masochist inside of me."
Then seemingly realizing what she had just said the dark-haired woman woman shot her a smirk. "Well not at the moment at least, but give me a few days and I'll have a more than just a bit of a masochist inside of me!"
The Youthfull Heroine sighed in return.
"I'll be leaving now." She announced.
"Wait." Nemuri whispered in return as she simultaneously grasped the woman's arm.
"Yes?" Chiyo asked her with a resigned voice, obviously anticipating the question she was about to be asked.
"Is there a way to make my memory come back?" Nemuri asked her. "I don't care if it hurts…getting a description of the person whom I tried to save…. It is more important. "
Recovery Girl sighed again.
"Honestly," She began before make her admittance. "I fear it isn't likely."
"It might happen eventually, but your body and more specifically your brain must have gone through a lot of physical abuse and that is without considering the impact which such a rejuvenation might have had on your mind… Let alone what several might have done to it!"
Recovery Girl shook her head and sighed once again. "If I add the amount of mental trauma which repeatedly getting wounded, possibly dying and getting buried alive might have done to your mind to all that…"
"It is most likely a good indication of the potency of that healing that you're as coherent as you are now…" She admitted with a somber voice. "That said even if it left you without any lingering consequences today, I doubt you were much more than feral by the end of your battle yesterday!"
Nemuri sighed and nodded before she closed her eyes and waited for the nurse to leave.
For those who are wondering, Nemuri was not in costume when she left but she was (and still is) in a habit of taking her mask, flogger and fans everywhere. The first mostly in case of and as a reminder to herself that she was (and at least in her mind still is) a licensed heroine, the second in case of fun times and for self-defense, the last mostly as a comfort-thing and also self-defense.
She had a prosthetic leg but still needed a cane to help her walk. Yes, technically she could have grown a new leg with the help of I-Island but such procedures are not only expensive they also tend to require years of waiting before they start unless you're either wealthy or famous...( and preferably both). Unfortunately for her, whereas Midnight had a certain popularity, she was far from the top 10 and even further from being wealthy.
Also she won't be regaining her memory in the short term. Recovery Girl hit a bullseye with her impression of Midnight's final stand.
For recap: She has died and been revived at least half a dozen times, went from a fully adult brain to one at the end of puberty, had her head (and most of her body) repeatedly smashed, broken and shot, …. Went through all that physical trauma and the accompanying mental trauma in something like a half an hour! Saying she was feral by the end was putting it mildly and that was before getting buried while sort of still alive on top of all that! These are not memories anyone should re-awaken.
Also to make things absolutely clear: Nemuri is 18, not 17, not 21, not 25, not 30, she is 18! She is 18 years old in every hormonal, chemical, physical, … way possible. The only exception to such a enumeration is that intellectually she has the experience and knowledge of someone who is thirty.
U.A. won't be a high school, because that doesn't make sense in not even a single way except for the fact that the original target audience of the manga/ anime was still in high school.
Whereas U.A. in the story will generally be referred to as an university, it will be in practice something different than the current interpretation of the term. For a modern comparison: a "hero-school" is something like a mixture of university and a military-/police academy with some governing- and policing-related responsibilities. (there is no way that U.A. otherwise could remain existing).
For those who are wondering, yes, Nezu has cleared himself from all charges before… on a number of occasions…. And he has every intention of doing so again!
U.A. students still "enjoy" far more oversight and control by the institute than most current university students (although under Nezu this has been reduced to a point that he himself is no longer comfortable with), and it comes with the added advantage of a monthly stipend for the students. This in combination with the privileges coupled to being (a former-) hero makes such academies highly attractive for people with ambitions alongside more "heroically"-minded students.
The "disadvantage" for the students is that you are obligated to become a part of the hero-circuit for at least a number of years and that even after you quit you'll become a part of "the reserve" and thus you can get called in at any time. For example a former hero with a quirk that is useful for searching a missing person might get "conscripted" into a search. In case of a large scale disaster a number of former heroes might be deputized (possibly regardless of their quirk or skills) to aid alongside the military, the emergency services, inter- and national aid organizations alongside civilian and local volunteers.