Chapter 78

[Chikuchi Togeike]

With a deep breath in, she raised her hands and prepared herself.

Across from her, she saw Kazuki do the same, his shadow extending outwards and several small shapes forming. Faster than the first time they trained, differently sized too, but the Nevermore looked the same form-wise. Despite the diminutive look of them, she was still a little intimidated and she couldn't quite put her finger on the reason why.

Most of Kazuki's Grimm had that effect.

One couldn't look at them and not feel the smallest bit uncomfortable. There was just something very wrong with them, with their shape, with their masks, the crimson lines in them and the bright red eyes. It was like looking at creatures of a nightmare long forgotten, unnerving, frightening. At least, that was with the normal ones.

Nobody she'd discussed it with, not even Kazuki, had been able to explain why that was, nor why the Baby Series – as the teenager himself called them – felt entirely different despite being essentially the same. In his words, it was probably because they were made of negativity and they inspired negativity by just existing, which the Baby Series differed slightly from. As good an explanation as any, she supposed, but Chikuchi hadn't at all appreciated the self-deprecating comment that followed saying that it was probably why people reacted the way they did to him. He was a Grimm himself, in a way, or so he thought.

Neither she nor the rest of Kazuki's friends had let that stand, but they were all denying something that probably held some truth. Everyone seemed to react badly to his appearance, despite the fact that he wasn't that scary to look at, nor was he ugly. He was just… different, but that wasn't enough. Ashido had almost the same eyes as him but nobody flinched at the sight of them. Sure, there were a lot of factors involved in him looking a little unnerving, but still-

"Ready when you are," Kazuki called, breaking her from her thoughts and making her take another deep breath in. Her mind had gone on quite the tangent there. "Everything ok, Chikuchi?" he asked, and she had to stamp down the awkward feelings that him calling her by her name brought.

Nobody that wasn't family had ever called her that, after all. She hadn't had many friends growing up. She didn't have neither a friendly face, nor a friendly personality, so she wasn't surprised about that. What was surprising were all the developments that she'd made on that front that year. Very unexpected ones, but not at all unwelcome.

And all because she'd been bold and asked for some help from the scary guy in the training facilities. Chikuchi would never stop being grateful for that and the open arms he'd received her with. Her life had basically changed that day, at that moment.

"I've probably been studying too much," she offered as an excuse. That wasn't even really a lie. She'd been burning books into her brain for a while already. Ever since the chance of getting to the Hero course had been dangled in front of her, she'd started desperately clawing at it, doing everything she could to improve her chances. She trained more, she studied more and she'd done her absolute best during her internship.

However, U.A. hadn't said anything after that was over and Shinso was becoming increasingly more annoying. It'd been bad when he insulted her friends, but it was even worse when he added mocking her and her efforts. She wondered if the absolute hypocrite realized what he was doing, speaking badly about someone like Kazuki, who was in a worse situation than he was.

Woe is Shinso, people whisper behind his back because of his Quirk.

Kazuki was being harassed by the news for losing control of a Quirk he barely understood when he was a child.

Shinso didn't matter then and there though.

"It doesn't matter," she repeated, out loud this time. "I'm ready," she called and the Nevermore took flight immediately, as if she'd been the one to awaken them. With a specific motion of her hands and fingers, the containers on her forearms opened. Flexing her fingers outwards, her water thorns started shooting towards the creatures in the air.

Her projectile casting and speed had gotten a lot better through the sessions, she'd noticed. The best improvement of all was the one regarding aim, however. That was no surprise though. Having gone from hardly getting any training done to regular exercises with moving targets and more, it was no wonder, really.

Chikuchi couldn't be prouder as more and more of her thorns hit the flying Nevermore. Maybe she wasn't taking them down, but she was doing great all the same. She'd seen Kazuki send his creatures against much stronger people than her and seen them do about the same as she did. Maybe her Quirk wasn't as strong as theirs, but that was fine.

She didn't need to be the best.

She just needed to be good.

And she'd be.

Chikuchi wasn't the same General course student that was one more in the crowd. Maybe her face was still flat, bordering on resting bitch. Maybe she still wasn't the most affable girl around. All the same, she wasn't some nobody anymore. She'd gotten to the final round of the Sports Festival. She'd gone on an internship. She had support equipment and strong friends and a team.

"Doing great," Kazuki praised when her water reservoirs ran out. "How'd you feel about them, Mei's babies?" he asked, making her snort. That way of calling the girl's inventions would never not be… something.

"They are great, Boss," she replied, using a joke nickname that wasn't a joke anymore. Because, after giving it some thought… Wasn't it Kazuki that had opened all the doors for her? It was him that had helped her train before the Sports Festival. It was him that invited her to his team during the Second Event. It was him that had pulled her all the way from the nobodies' crowd and turned her into someone.

So, being his sidekick didn't sound terrible to her ears, really.

One way or another, Chikuchi Togeike would go places.

[}-o-{]

[Kazuki Endo]

"What do you think, Boss?" Mei asked him, bouncing around like a kid on a sugar rush while he inspected her creation.

Kazuki, for his part, found himself without words, really. They'd discussed it a bunch, but he'd imagined it'd take longer for her to have something functioning. Yet, there it was, hovering right in front of his face. It was the biggest piece of support equipment she'd made for him so far and probably also the biggest he'd have for quite a while, he imagined.

A carrier support drone.

It was basically a floating chest of sorts. Shaped like a thick circle, it opened at four places, all of them spaces where he could store the things he currently carried on pouches at his belt when in costume. Medical supplies, restraining tools and other miscellaneous but generic enough things that heroes might need out in the field. The thing would basically carry his stuff for him while he'd be free of cumbersome things and also able to focus on himself and his Grimm.

Mei and him had plans for the thing to have some other features, but that was the most pressing matter for the moment and it seemed to do the job fairly well from what he was seeing.

"Mei, you are a miracle maker," he told her. Granted, Kazuki had no idea how easy or hard making support equipment was, but he was pretty sure she'd put the thing together very quickly. He might be wrong, but that was the impression he got.

"It's not that good," she replied, uncharacteristically shy. "I still have to make it so that it'll move on its own. From there, I'll have to make sure that it only listens to you. Maybe add something for it to listen to people you give permission to. I also need to streamline the design a lot. It's fairly clunky right now, but I wanted to get a prototype done so we could check it over," she explained, speaking so quickly that Kazuki had a bit of trouble following.

Fortunately, he'd gotten some practice in that field already and none of that was really new info for him, so that helped.

"What do you think?" Mei repeated. Clearly, his previous words hadn't been descriptive enough. So, he decided to take a deeper look to make sure he could give her as good feedback as possible.

"Storage space looks fine," he mused out loud, checking the inside of the four compartments. They were about the size of a head each, which… "Might even be on the bigger side, so you can probably get away with making them smaller. Might give more space for features and upgrades if you need it without having to make the drone bigger," he told her and noticed that she was writing it all down on a notepad.

Kazuki hoped he was actually helping. He didn't know the first thing about how anything she did worked, but he knew what he needed. That's what he could do for her, make sure she knew exactly what he was looking for and make as many observations as he could. It'd mean more work for her, but settling for a subpar piece would just be insulting her, he was sure.

"Movement seems good, literally couldn't tell you something to improve on that front. At least while you are controlling it," he continued, frowning as he tried to think if he was missing something. There wasn't all that much to check. The size was fine, flying was fine, the compartments… "Maybe you can do something about the compartment opening system? Opening up works, but it might be troublesome in tight spaces. I plan to be a rescue hero, so I don't know if I'll always have space to work with. I think that's about it."

"Thanks, Boss. You are the best!" Mei told him after jotting down the last of what he'd said. "I'll see what I can do for Mark 2, smaller compartments with empty space for possible feature prototypes, maybe with a modular system, just for easier testing. Slide opening compartments instead of upward hinges."

"You are the best," he shot back, smile in place. "You are doing literal magic here, as far as I'm concerned. I really lucked out asking you to be on my team, huh?"

"And don't you forget it," Mei replied, smugly pointing at him with a wide grin. "Now I just need to keep working on the Personality Emulating Neural Network, which is a pain. Coding is not my thing, but needs must."

"... Personality?" he asked, blinking repeatedly. Was she making an Artificial Intelligence for the drone? Holy shit, had all his life's good luck gone into meeting and befriending this girl? "Remind me to do something nice for you, Mei." It'd probably fall laughably short, but it was better to do something than nothing at all.

"Can you get me an energy drink, Boss?"

"... I'll do that if I want to see U.A. razed to the ground."

"You say the sweetest things."

"That wasn't a compliment," Kazuki said, suddenly weary as he rubbed his eyelids. "You know what? I'll go get something to snack on from a vending machine. You want something?"

"One-"

"Not an energy drink."

"Ok, then-"

"Not anything sugar heavy either."

"You are so mean, Boss," Mei muttered with a pout.

"Gotta take care of my personal tinkerer, don't I?" he asked, patting her back comfortingly. "Now, really. Give me a serious answer."

"But serious answers are boooring."

"Then I guess I'll have to decide myself," he threatened. Because she knew he'd get something on the healthier side if he did. Not necessarily awful, but she seemed to have some kind of aversion to taking care of herself.

He guessed that was their trade.

She gave it her all tinkering support equipment for him.

And he made sure she didn't kill herself while she worked.

The arrangement seemed to work for them, and that's what mattered.

[}-o-{]

"You don't have to do this, you know?" he asked, his arms full as he helped Momo move drinks and snacks through the halls of her house. It'd become a lot less awkward to move through her place after things had sort of been cleared up between her parents and him. Still a bit weird, but much better than before, for sure.

"I don't, but I want to," Momo replied, all but beaming.

The study session they'd organized had really cheered her up, it seemed. She'd been a happy camper throughout the whole thing as the more academically gifted group helped their challenged counterparts. Granted, she had some trouble teaching, but it wasn't like the rest of them were doing incredibly better.

"Well, so long as you are happy, I guess," Kazuki decided, giving up. There was no point arguing with the girl when there was barely a hint of bad emotions coming from her. He could tell she was a little overwhelmed by the amount of people around, but other than that she was content with the situation and even provided snacks for them.

He guessed they'd just have to pay her back somehow.

"I am," she replied, smiling even wider. If he hadn't had his hands full, he'd have felt the need to take a picture of her at that moment. He didn't often dwell on it, but he really did have some amazingly beautiful classmates and Momo really took the cake in that department. Sometimes it made him feel like he was ruining the picture, but everyone seemed to get genuinely angry or sad when he commented on that directly or indirectly.

They also didn't seem to lie when they said he looked good, but…

'This is my parents' influence again, isn't it?' Kazuki thought to himself, barely keeping his expression neutral. The realizations he'd been having as of late were really screwing with his mind. It was like he was suddenly made to debug a program with no computer knowledge whatsoever. How was he even supposed to go about fixing all the problems his Quirk and his upbringing had left in his mind?

"Everything ok?" Momo asked him from the side, telling him that his act needed more work.

"You know how it goes. I gotta fulfill my gloom quota for the day," he joked with a sad smile. He could have denied things or diverted the conversation. He even had the skills for that. However…

"So, even if I could act perfectly all the time, why would I? That wouldn't be me, would it?"

He felt like he understood that lesson more and more as time passed.

"I don't want to ruin the mood. I'll be fine," he told Momo before she could try and find something to reply with. "I appreciate all the support you guys give me and I'll tell you if I need help, but… I can't depend on you all the time."

"... I see," Momo said, lips pursed in evident disagreement. To her credit though, she didn't push the issue. She really wanted to though, Kazuki could tell, from her expression and her emotions both. "Am I overbearing?" she asked, a little out of nowhere.

"... A little," he answered honestly. He could have lied, but sometimes people needed to be told the truth. That didn't mean he had to be an asshole about it though. "You mean well though, and everyone knows it, so don't worry," he continued, to try and lessen the impact his words seemed to have had on her. "If it helps, I appreciate that you care. I really do. Just that alone cheers me up a little most of the time."

"It does," she mumbled, looking down and feeling a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry, by the way. I… don't have the best social skills."

"Hey, at least you are better than Shoto and I," Kazuki joked, drawing a slight smile from her. He left aside that she was probably about Minoru's level, if for different reasons. He had a feeling she wouldn't like that.

"You've been doing better since your internship though. Maybe I should have gone there," she commented, making him chuckle.

"You don't need help to get people to like you. Your looks alone will do the job and you are too nice for people to dislike you," he told her, shaking his head. It would basically be super easy mode for Uwabami to help Momo with popularity.

"Thank you," Momo mumbled.

"They've come, our saviors!" Mina exclaimed, drawing some chuckles and agreeing cheers.

"You know we won't let you eat more because of that, right?" Kazuki asked as Momo and him started setting things down with some help from others. Apparently, she'd thought it was worth a try anyway, if the pout she directed at him was any indication. "Stop trying to leech off of Momo," he said, flicking her on the forehead.

"You are so mean, Kazuki," the pink-skinned girl whined, reacting dramatically and rubbing the spot where he'd hit her. "You used to be nicer."

"I didn't have friends back then. I needed all the people I could get. You ain't special anymore," he told her and he was kind of proud of keeping his straight face throughout the statement.

"You are so mean."

"I try," he told her, grinning widely.

As it turned out, faking being fine actually helped him feel better. Feeling like shit and making others feel like shit only made things worse, unsurprisingly. However, if he pushed through, he could get the mood to improve and he felt better for it. He did need to make sure he wasn't making things worse by doing that, bottling things up and such, but he had people to talk to if that was the case.

Kazuki almost dared to think he was getting better.

[}-o-{]

It was a calm night, that one.

Kazuki was alone and the place was prevented from complete silence only by the music playing on his phone. He'd just gotten done talking with Distressed, who had to leave. After that, he'd just settled for some quiet time. He didn't have any homework to do and he didn't feel like studying more than he already had after their study session.

Thus, Kazuki had just spent some time watering his plants, playing games, checking his fish tank and just generally doing nothing much. It was nice, actually. A little boring at times, but after he dragged a chair and just stared at his shrimp, snails and fish go about their lives in the aquarium, Kazuki didn't mind all that much. He didn't know how long he sat there, but it was probably a surprising number of minutes. Maybe even an hour.

'I'm doing better,' he noted to himself, pleased. 'I am, right?' he wondered only a second later, some doubt creeping in him. However, he knew that was his Quirk was still feeding him negativity and pushing for him to feel bad though. He was still working on shrugging off that, but it wasn't simple nor easy.

Just because he knew there was something wrong with his head didn't mean he could magically wave it away. It was very frustrating, but he'd just have to push through it, one step at a time, as Inui liked to say. 'Things can't be easy for me,' he thought, a slight smile on his face. It was just the way life worked, he guessed, for him, if nothing else.

"I'm disappointed."

"You truly are that woman's child."

He remained silent as the voices played in his mind. They hurt, even though they shouldn't. He shouldn't care for them. They were petty, awful people. They didn't matter, in the grand scheme of his life. They were less than unimportant. They were harmful, as negative as his Quirk was.

Yet, there was a part of Kazuki that couldn't help but wish for… something. That child still lived in him, he supposed, the Kazuki that hoped his parents would love him. It was stupid. He was stupid. Yet there he was, still the same.

'God, I'm a mess,' he thought, sighing.

Maybe one day though, he wouldn't be.

There were a lot of things to work on to improve his life. His skills, his reputation, his issues and maybe even things that he wasn't even aware of, all those would have to be solved. However, he liked to think he was getting there. He was a lot better than he'd been when he left juvie, at using his Quirk, at fighting without it and at other things. He'd made a lot of progress when it came to how people saw him. And as for his mind… Well, he hoped he was getting somewhere in that department too.

'One day,' Kazuki told himself through the turmoil of his thoughts, his emotions and emotions that weren't even his. He'd thought he stood no chance before, but compared to being with his parents, compared to juvie, things were vastly better then. He just needed to keep going and things would get better, he was sure. There were people on his side, good and skilled people.

He did stand a chance.

'That's enough thinking though,' Kazuki decided with a smile, standing up. If he let his mind do whatever it wanted, then he was sure he'd end up spiraling into negativity, no matter how much he tried not to. So, he needed to quit while he was ahead and focus on something other than his mind.

After moving the chair back, he ran his fingers through his hair and considered what to do. Calling it a day early wasn't an option, he'd just get in his own head while in bed. No, he needed something to do that'd keep his mind occupied. Studying could work, he supposed, same as playing games, but both of them… He didn't feel like it. A simple but very annoying reason not to do those things.

He considered messaging his friends or maybe calling one, but he'd spent the whole day with them. Kazuki felt that he leaned on them too much at times. He knew they didn't mind, but he did. Just because they didn't find it annoying or bothersome to help him didn't mean it wasn't an inconvenience. They had lives of their own and he didn't want to get in the way of them.

'Great, I'm just getting worse instead of better,' he thought with a grimace. An idea flashed through his mind then and he hesitated for a long moment, considering it despite his best efforts not to. 'I… Checking can't hurt, right?' he thought, unsure, as he reached grabbed his phone.

'Can we talk?' he sent before quickly following that with another message. 'It's nothing important, so it's fine if you are busy.' After that, he just stared at the screen, wondering why the hell he was even doing that.

Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately? – he didn't have much time to ponder that before he got a call.

"Hey there."

"Hey," he greeted weakly. "Do you just have a lot of free time or something?"

"Or something," was the cheerful answer he got. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"I just… needed someone to talk to and I thought…" he started answering before words failed him. What had he thought? Even he didn't know. "... And you came to mind."

"I… see," she said and there was an odd tone in her voice that Kazuki had never heard from her before. "Talk about what?" Maeda asked him.

"Just… Just talk, I guess," he answered, feeling incredibly awkward and stupid. God, what was he doing?

"Well, if there's anything I'm good at, that's talking," Maeda told him proudly. "So, did you do anything interesting today?"

"I wouldn't say interesting…"

"I wanna hear about it anyway."

"... Thanks."

"Don't mention it… Now, about your day?"

Alone in his apartment, Kazuki smiled a weak, hopeful smile.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

Nothing much happened in this chapter, but I'm incredibly happy with it for some reason. I'm really not sure why, but I just am. I guess I should just take the win and not think too much about it, but it's weird to not feel like I've messed up somewhere…

Oh well, hopefully you guys enjoyed the chapter.

As always, if you can't wait until next week for next chapter, or if you just feel like supporting my writing, there's up to three new chapters in my Pa tre on:

P a treon . com (slash) AdrianKing

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any ideas you guys have for Mei and Kazuki's drone? I have some, but I could always use more.

See you.