Mind Games - Chapter 46

“Th-thank you,” Yoake murmured quietly.

I hummed and nodded, brushing off the last bit of rubble sticking to me. That was the downside of wearing your costume everywhere; when you left a combat class, you were already in your school uniform. Any damage just carried over and you had to live with it until you could wash the thing. Of course, I had an extra suit just in case, but that was 'just in case.' Which, for a hero, meant an emergency.

Unless I was stinking, soaked, or had my clothes torn to pieces, that suit was staying on reserve.

As it was, I just showered off, swapped out the sweaty under-suit for a new one, and slipped the rest of it back on. Snapping it out a few times like a towel got off most of the debris I'd taken when the buildings had started collapsing, leaving only a few embedded pieces of concrete and patches of gray dust. Otherwise, it was perfectly fine to put back on.

I turned to the horned blond and nodded. Despite being several inches taller than me – centimeters – the way she'd hunched over made her look smaller than my own form. “No problem.”

She shook her head vigorously. “N-no! It really helped! I mean, if you hadn't-”

I grunted, cutting her off. “It's what heroes do. You're my classmate, my comrade, and perhaps a friend someday soon. I don't need a reason to do what I did.”

She sighed in relief and smiled, some of the tension draining out of her. “W-well, thank you anyway. Bootstrap? O-or do you prefer Shinso?”

“Bootstrap while I've got the costume on,” I nodded, stretching slightly to get it to settle properly. The hot shower after the training session had done wonders. UA had the best goddamn water pressure I'd ever felt, I swear...

“Bootstrap, then,” Yoake nodded, pursing her lips and-

“You and Sakura. Extra training period on Friday. It's self-study, I'll walk you through meditation exercises,” I informed her unilaterally. “You get that, Usagiyama?”

A pink tuft of ear-hair around the corner twitched, then its owner gave a soft groan. “Crystal, Prez. Shit, and I was gonna' be all grateful and stuff, too.”

Then the girl's changing room door slammed open and Neiko stomped out, her eyes locking onto me as soon as I entered her field of view. “You.”

“Me,” I nodded, unmoved and unintimidated.

“I don't know what pisses me off more,” the silver-haired teen spat, crossing her arms as she stared at me. “That you act like you're the hottest shit anyone ever dropped from their asshole or that you've got the skills to back it up.”

I reached up and scratched at my jaw, not having put my menpo back into place yet.

Ugh, fucking tsunderes... absolutely not. I don't have the time to deal with a girl like her. Too much a spitfire, just no.

“Talk to me later, I want to go over some of the street-dancing HeroTube videos you posted online,” I informed her instead, making her jerk slightly in surprise. “I think you're dramatically underutilizing your quirk.”

Hayami Neiko snorted and shook her head, sending her silver hair flying. “Ugh, you're such a hardass. That was a fucking compliment and you turn around and insult me, fuck.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, if you don't want advice on how to kick my ass, ignore me.”

She paused, then snorted angrily and stomped off.

“Umm... Bootstrap? What about me?” Sakae asked, finally stepping out of the men's room with a mass of half-dried black hair trailing behind him. “I-is there something I can do to improve?”

I cocked my head and looked him over – still pants – then nodded.

“If you do not possess Heaven, gain knowledge and be prepared,” I advised him. “If you do not possess Earth, run through the fields and seek strength. If you have both, dangerous paths will turn into safe ones.”

Sakae blinked at me slowly. “Could you maybe repeat that? In German?”

I turned to the blond. “Ask her to explain. You heard what I said, right?”

Yoake nodded jerkily in surprise and adjusted her glasses. “O-oh, yes! I'll happily help, let's see, which part did you...”

I shrugged and turned as Sakae began to get tutored in the intricacies of the Japanese language and metaphors within. As I walked away, I raised a fist and met Sakura's raised fist with my own, ignoring the blunt he had already lit up. For such a normally laid-back person like him, the silent gesture spoke volumes.

Sighing, I decided to leave my facemask hanging around my neck for now and just pulled up the cloth mask that went underneath it. It was made of a material with a name that was long and painful on the tongue, but it wicked sweat, served as a moderate-grade filter on the air, and had nodes of non-newtonian fluid sewn into it so that it would cushion my face against the mouth-guard if I got punched in the jaw or something.

Also, I'd gotten it personalized so that there was a boot print trailing up the side of my neck, my signature shade of purple against the black fabric.

The modern hero industry was about nothing if not branding, after all.

“So, what've we got next?” Sakura asked, falling in line behind me with a sigh.

“English,” I replied. “With Present Mic.”

[Oh, cool. That's a subject I can actually do.] Sakura replied with a grin.

I blinked, frowning. [You can speak English?]

“At least a bit, yeah,” the rabbit-boy nodded. “I basically grew up on American action flicks.”

I snorted. That explained why I hadn't found any mention of him attending classes at school. Nominally-speaking, English was almost a requirement for a lot of Japanese institutions. Although the political landscape was... rather substantially different than what I was used to, the American-Japanese alliance persevered. Not without its own problems or shake-ups, of course, and the entire thing had been rewritten at one point about seventy years ago, but the ties between Japan and the US were still very right.

That, in turn, manifested in an institutional push to have as many English-literate students as possible. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the country's second language or anything, bu a significant portion of the urban population could be depended upon to be at least brokenly-fluent in the tongue.

I popped my neck as we made out way back into our classroom, finding the blond DJ already having set up shop behind the podium.

“Hey-hey-hey, Little Listeners! Heard there was some trouble in your first combat class! Well, pull up a seat, we've got class!” Mic grinned, waving his arms around theatrically.

“Do you really expect us to just go back to class like normal after that? Geez,” Hayami sighed, shaking her head.

“Oooh! Teachable moment!” The musical-themed hero grinned and clapped his hands. “My advice for aspiring heroes would be to get used to situations like this. One minute you're risking your life fighting a villain, the next you're filling out paperwork! That's just how life is!”

“Mhm, my parents complain about it a lot,” Sakae nodded as he sat down. “Uh, paperwork, that is.”

“Oho, your parents are in the biz? Uhh...” Present Mic paused, looking down at his paperwork. “Du-dudu-durdur-”

“Durchdenwald,” Sakae sighed, drooping somewhat. “Please call me Sakae, for both our sakes?”

“Ah-heh-heh, yeah, maybe we can go with that,” Mic chuckled awkwardly. “But your parents, they're heroes?”

Sakae nodded, his words still slightly stilted as he began to talk. “My dad's retired now, just a few years ago. He was... I guess kind of a big name in Germany? My mom's still active here in Japan. She's search and rescue, though, with a water-based quirk. Her name's Haze? You might not know here.”

“Haze, Haze, let's see...” Mic hummed for a moment, then frowned. “Sorry, little dude, doesn't ring a bell. If she's does work around ships and the ocean, though, that might explain it. S&R are good people, though. Props. And I know about our other two hero-related students, here, too.”

He turned a wide smile on Tatsuma Yoake and Usagiyama Sakura.

Both of them had obvious-enough connections, given their family names.

Interestingly, Hayami Neiko twitched at the mention of a heroic relative. Mic didn't catch it, but I'd almost been expecting that reaction.

“Which makes you two our odd ones out, I guess,” Yamada Hizashi nodded rapidly, his head bopping to a beat only he could hear. “Now, the little miss here seems prickly enough that I'll take a pass on poking her, but... Shinso Hitoshi. Bootstrap.”

“Present Mic.”

“So... you tune into my show?” He asked, his posture that of a child waiting for a treat as he leaned in. Honestly, his long blond peacock-ponytail sticking up behind his head looked, in that moment, like a dog's tail wagging.

“Couple of times,” I nodded. “I like your call-in sections and the conversations.”

“And the music?” He grinned wider.

I shifted, adapting my posture to slight embarrassment and awkwardness. “I'm an ultra-classic dude. Pre-dark age stuff. Modern music is...”

It wasn't good, even if I were judging things by a purely objective measure. Overly-simplistic, lacking any real edge to it, and... all centering around the idea of heroes. A few of the songs were tolerable, usually about the wanna-be Batman-style avengers, but even those were pretty plainly propaganda.

And, yeah, I got it.

This world lived on a precipice.

Enough people had quirks that could prove dangerous to society at large that, if they were motivated, could cause significant problems. The trick was to make sure they weren't motivated. In most societies, that wasn't a huge issue. However, this world in particular, where almost everyone had some sort of superpower...

Bread and circuses weren't just a good idea, they were absolutely necessary.

A song about a hero wasn't just a song. It was an experience.

And, no, I didn't mean that in the same way an executive for a record label did during a press release. Or, not exactly, anyway. Because unlike the bullshit paradigm-shifting jargon they liked to spout, that 'experience' meant something. Because, in this world, not everyone could be a hero. Not everyone could be rich, successful, famous, or a hero.

But you could experience being a hero, vicariously, though merch.

And you could cultivate a vaguely toxic para-social relationship with your favorite crime-punching super-person. And that was awesome for everyone involved because it meant the heroes got a slice of that income, the government didn't have to worry about the population realizing that well over ninety percent of them lived lives of quiet and unthanked drudgery, and the general populace didn't have to worry about having an airstrike dropped on them when they finally went postal after their shitty boss forced them to choose between another round of unpaid overtime and their kid's wedding.

Because while not everyone could be a hero, there were a lot of one-note villains who killed a bunch of people before they got taken down.

This world relied on the vast, vast majority of people deciding that working a nine-to-five every day was a better option than using their mediocre power in a rage-fueled tantrum to get even with society and go out in a blaze of glory.

So if, to get to that point, we need to guzzle down some hero-themed slop on virtually every media and retail channel available, well at least I don't have to put up with Jersey Shore or the goddamn Kardashians anymore.

I'd take my victories where I could.

“...just not my thing,” I finished with a shrug.

“Aww,” Present Mic reeled back, clutching his heart as if I'd stabbed him. “That's a shame! I was looking forward to negotiating having you on the show sometime.”

“I'd have to talk to Buster about it before I made a commitment either way,” I waved him off. “But let me bring my own tunes and we can probably make something work.”

Present Mic threw back his head in boisterous laughter that made me wince slightly. “Excellent! Man, I was so worried you were basically going to be Shota 2.0-er, Eraserhead-” He waved off his slip, “you dress like him, you've got that same grumpy tone, you've got that dead-eyed stare, and your hair even looks like his when he's using his power.”

I thought about the joke for half a second, then threw caution to the wind.

“That's because a villain captured me briefly, stole my DNA, and did a brain scan of me,” I replied with a perfectly straight face and level tone. “They tampered with my quirk and modified it to allow me to control the deactivation of quirks through verbal orders instead of line-of-sight. Their goal was to create a more effective version of my heroic original and deploy me to wreck havoc on the world, but I broke through the mental programming and escaped my captors. Then I decided to enroll in UA to legitimize myself in the eyes of the law before I sought revenge against the shadowy cabal that made me what I am today.”

The rest of my class stared at me like I was insane.

Hizashi blinked rapidly, his jaw opening and closing silently. Then, finally, he started to chuckle slowly and steadily, the noise building into a crescendo. “Hahahahaha! Oh, man! I can't believe you got that out with a straight face, kid! Whew, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!”

“I dunno man, it could happen,” Sakura chimed in, lazing back and hiding the way his lips were twitching as he took a hit from his smoke. “He turned off my quirk. Me and Tatsuma. He could totally be Eraserhead's clone.”

Present Mic blinked again, more slowly, then turned to the rest of the class.

Points to them, they immediately understood the ploy and schooled their faces, nodding along. Though Neiko couldn't resist a superior smirk... but that was something of her usual expression, so it didn't matter as much as it might have on Sakae or Yoake.

“Okay, smart guy,” Hizashi stated slowly, turning back to me with a suspicious and squinting expression, amusement still glimmering in his eyes. “If you went to all of that trouble, why'd you come out and tell me about it on day one?”

“You remember that prank you pulled? The one I swore you to secrecy over how embarrassing it was? Yeah, that one.” I asked him with one eyebrow raised as his eyes slowly widened. “I decided revenge on the people who created me would pale in comparison to the satisfaction I would draw from revenge on you.”

Present Mic's throat bobbed as he took a deep breath. “S-Shota?”

He stopped, stared at me longer, then shook his head rapidly. “N-no, no... that's a good one, but you're pulling my leg. You almost got me!”

I simply stared him down, my violet eyes into his gold-tinted sunglasses.

Then, slowly, I reached up to pull down the half-mask covering the lower part of my face. “It was just a logical ruse.”

Then, I smiled.

The same smile that bastard had given us when we'd finished his little 'test,' the day before. Even if we already knew he was entirely serious about expelling kids from the school should they fail to meet his expectation, that wide, rictus grin had driven home how fucked we were if Aizawa ever thought we were slacking off.

Present Mic's eyes shot so wide I could almost see his eyelashes around the edges of his glasses. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Then he ran out the door.

Right into Eraserhead, who stared blankly at him.

Hizashi screamed again, so loud I almost thought he was going to activate his quirk, scrambling around the dark-clad figure of our homeroom teacher before running for the hallway.

Eraserhead took one look at us. Sakura had collapsed over his desk, laughing hysterically as he clutched its sides in a futile attempt to steady himself. Neiko was wearing the biggest shit-eating grin I'd seen this side of Aizawa's own as she quaked with her own laughter. Sakae and Yoake were more reserved, but both were badly hiding their amusement behind raised hands.

Without a word, Eraserhead walked over to the podium, picked up the small stack of documents on it, and walked over to drop them on my desk.

“You break it, you bought it,” he stated bluntly, locking eyes with me. Then, shifting to the rest of the class, he frowned. “I was going to read you lot the riot act for demolishing an entire testing ground during your introductory practical heroics lesson, but now I have to chase down your English teacher, who has run screaming from the room in blind terror.”

I pretended not to notice the way his left hand was clenched inside his pocket, the muscles pulling at the fabric of his sleeves so hard he must have been forcing his fingernails into his palm. His jaw was clenched, each step controlled and purposeful, as if losing even a moment's discipline would lead to a complete collapse of his entire body. Even his eyes burned, not with anger, but with unshed tears that refused to fall.

“Work,” he gasped out, a rasping order of a man at the end of his rope.

“Yes sir,” I nodded, standing to hand out the English placement tests.

Eraserhead grunted, then turned and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

“We're all deeeee~aaaad,” Yoake moaned quietly, dropping down onto the desk in despair.

“Worth it,” Neiko smirked. “So. Fucking. Worth it.”

“I mean, at least we made it one day,” Sakae muttered with a sigh.

I cleared my throat, bringing them to attention, and looked to Sakura. The pinkette's ears were twitching and he was still quietly shaking with laughter. I smirked and spoke quietly. “He's standing in the hall laughing, isn't he?”

“Totally,” Sakura gasped, grinning.

Neiko barked out a quick laugh, leaning back in her chair as the other two sighed in relief.

“Okay, time for classwork,” I sighed, passing the test out. “Hand it over by the end of class and I'll grade them.”

“I almost want to ask what makes you think you can give me a grade on a test, but you're so bullshit you probably can,” Neiko muttered, accepting the paper without further complaint and sighing as she began to write.

I mean, I had eidetic memory, I'd read our entire textbook cover to cover, and was conversationally-fluent in English at the level of a native speaker. Also, I had a teaching degree... that was two centuries and one universe out of date.

I think the thing that would bug Present Mic the most was that we'd all passed by pretty clear margins.

…

“Hi-To-Shi!”

I'd already felt her approaching – at high speed, nonetheless – but the verbal warning was appreciated.

Himiko collided with my midsection with a solid impact that left me patting her on the back and rubbing soothing circles into tense muscle groups. Something was obviously wrong, though I doubt it had gone as chaotically as my own morning. Some of which had been by my own design, admittedly, but I'd needed to blow off a little steam and Present Mic knew how to take a joke. Hell, he'd even appreciate it once he showed back up to class, and the entire thing would set us off on the right foot.

But, in the meantime, I'd gotten to lead the class, cement my position as their unquestioned authority absent an instructor, and temper that image with another humorous incident.

I'd need the credit I was building up when time came to teach these kids.

Because they were a mess. Even if nothing changed with 1-A from the show, they'd still do better than this little motley crew.

But, to guide them, they'd need to trust me.

And trust had to be built. Had to be earned.

Frankly, the challenge of forging these misfits into proper heroes in record time would at least keep me entertained between schoolwork that I couldn't benefit from even were I to put in proper effort.

“What's up, Himiko?” I asked, comforting her as she nuzzled into me.

“I'm class president~” She whined piteously. “Your dorky superfans wouldn't let me re-fus-eee!”

I sighed tiredly.

That fucking badger-mole.

“That's your girl, then,” Sakura stated, dropping into his seat with a full tray of...

“Yeah, this is Toga Himiko. My girlfriend,” I nodded, then tilted my head at the curry. “Isn't that cannibalism?”

“Yep,” Sakura stated, filling a spoon full of rabbit curry and bringing it to his mouth. “That's what makes it delicious.”

“I never had rabbit before,” Himiko stated, shifting gears like a professional racecar driver as she straightened up and peered over at the dish. “Is it yummy?”

“The best,” Sakura stated with a grin.

I took the opportunity to reach into my bag and rummage around before withdrawing two packed lunches. In reality, they'd been stuffed in my Pocket, held in perfect stasis from when they'd been prepared.

“Yay! I get to serve my boyfriend homemade lunch at school!” Himiko squealed, clapping her hands cheerfully.

“Luuu~uucky,” Sakura muttered in a sing-song voice. “Even as good as this shit is, I'd trade it for a home-cooked meal by a cutie.”

“Hehe!” Himiko grinned, unboxing the lunches.

“Ugh, gag me, why don't you?” Hayami grunted, dropping into her own seat, leaving two spaces between us and glaring at my girlfriend and myself. “Why don't you two get a room? We're trying to eat here.”

I rolled my eyes as I breathed in the spicy scent of a seasoned pork cutlet and steamed broccoli. It was, of course, an extra-large two-stack lunch box, for each of us. We were both growing teens and needed a lot more than a thousand calories per day.

“Oh wow, that looks good,” Sakae hummed, sitting down with something that contained more sausage than I'd ever seen in one meal. But I suppose that was how you knew it was German.

“Right, special first lunch together surprise,” I stated, 'reaching into my bag' again and withdrawing a small sealed bottle.

Himiko stiffened, her nose flaring and her eyes dilating.

“Is that...” Sakura began, frowning at the viscous red liquid in the bottle.

“Blood,” I nodded, handing it off to Himiko as I set it down next to her food. “My blood, specifically. Himiko has an obligate vampire quirk. She can subsist on animal blood or donated plasma, but it's better from someone she's close to. More of an emotional component.”

Himiko, stiff as a board, made a small whining noise as she looked at me.

“Wow... and you gave her some of your own?” Yoake asked, having sat down in the middle of my explanation. “That's so sweet! Shinso must care about you a lot, Toga-san.”

“I do,” I nodded, slipping out a pair of chopsticks and beginning to eat, disregarding Himiko's intense blush.

“...he can be a bit of a meanie sometimes,” Himiko admitted, pursing her lips as she looked at the bottled blood with naked desire. “B-but... I love him, too!”

Leaning over, she pressed her lips to my cheek briefly, then pulled away to happily begin eating.

“I think I hate you more than I've ever hated anyone else in my entire life, dude,” Sakura stated, staring me down.

“Join the fucking club,” Neiko muttered irritably.

“You only think that for now,” I stated, swallowing my food and going for a bottle of coke. “Just wait till I start training you. Then you'll know for sure.”

The sincerity and grave promise in my voice made them laugh awkwardly.

But they'd learn, eventually.

~~~

...and, done!

Kind of surprised I managed to finish this tonight.

Anyway, this will close out Hitoshi's first full day at UA without Eraserhead's testing fuckery. From now on, coverage of UA will jump around a little more. I'm obviously not going to do each and every day at school, that'd be silly.

But Hitoshi has other irons in the fire, too. We'll be looking back in on his work at the agency for the next update, likely touching base with the big man himself, so that should be fun.

Next chapter will likely be Entrepreneurial Spirit. Outside chance of Butler Boy.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend and, to all of my American subscribers, I hope you have a good Thanksgiving break!