Mind Games - Chapter 7

In my defense, I'd only transmigrated to this world about a month and a half ago and had promptly buckled down and begun planning a routine to prepare myself for hero highschool, make a few credits from my corporate overlords, and generally not destroy the best chance the heroes had to fight off the local Big Bad by tampering with the timeline too much. Ever since then, I'd been very busy properly acclimating to my new environment, getting in shape, and starting up a moderately successful streaming channel to both supplement and explain how a fourteen year old suddenly had disposable income. Quite frankly, even if I'd been aware of the situation I now found myself in, I'd have done much the same simply because all of those things were tasks that needed to be accomplished in some kind of reasonable time frame.

I'll also place some of the 'blame' on Shinso Hitoshi never being even close to a 'hero nerd.'

Oh, he liked heroes. Most people did. Having a favorite hero in this world was like having a favorite color or piece of media, even if that was a book, movie, or video game. It was just something people did. Occasionally, you'd get the edgelord or internet tough guy who had a favorite villain instead, but it lined up to the same sort of trend.

Literally everyone was peripherally aware of the hero/villain scene in some way.

As such, I'd inherited a great deal of very general knowledge about the Japanese system of heroes and the few common denominator names that came with it.

All Might: Number One Hero. Super Nice Guy. Big blonde dude with giant muscles that can change the weather with a punch, trained in the USA before returning to Japan to drop-kick crime into the single-digits.

Endeavor: Number Two Hero. Super Serious Guy. Big redheaded dude with a goatee made of actual flames. Actually one of the only pyrokinetic heroes globally with a low range of collateral damage and excessive force. Had a couple of scandals that were old news and never got brought up these days.

Best Jeanist: Number Three Hero. Surprisingly effective and stylish hero for a guy who's answer to both questions was 'All The Denim.' Also, his entire line of clothing was cursed as fuck, and that's coming from a (former) American.

Mirko: Number Four Hero. Bunny Girl, Muscles, Absolutely Vicious Mommy Step On Me Energy. Notable for being the highest-ranked female hero in East Asia and most emasculating heroine anywhere, because people just can't come back from having their ass kicked by a psychopathic bloodthirsty bunny girl in a leotard.

Edgeshot: Number Five Hero. Ninja. That's his whole thing, dude's a ninja. That's all that needs to be said. Everyone fucking loves ninja, even the Americans. Edgeshot is the most well-known Japanese hero outside of Japan save for All Might... and Mirko. For... reasons. He frequently appears on American Ninja Warrior (yes, they're still making it) as an 'authentic' judge for finalists.

Most people in Japan knew this.

Most people in Japan, Shinso Hitoshi included, did not know the American hero scene outside of maybe Stars and Stripes, mainly because of her close association with All Might, emulation of him, and her appearances at a few American air shows over here in Japan.

But the premiere Air Force superhero, Jetstream? Or how about The Commander, the top Army Hero? Maybe Sea Hawk, the Marine Hero? Dreadnought, the number one Navy Hero?

Unless you were an American military buff, the answer would be 'no,' because American military heroes had their own branch-specific popularity and ranking polls. Because of that nasty little limitation of the armed forces to be deployed on domestic soil outside of very specific disaster scenarios or terrorist attacks. It was called the Posse Comitatus Act, by the way, and you'd be hard-pressed to find an American who knew about it, let alone a foreigner.

The result of this problem, though, was that any enlisted American hero (and there were a lot of them) wasn't active within the national borders of the United States. Which meant that they didn't get all that much press for doing hero stuff among the populace. In turn, that meant they weren't popular. And their respective military branches got their panties in a twist when a 'Weekend Warrior' in the National Guard, Mr. Incredible, routinely beat out their own poster child.

Also, the Coast Guard's biggest hero was a sapient dolphin with a quirk named Captain Flipper.

He's apparently extremely popular, regularly making the civilian hero poll Top 20 as a write-in.

I blinked slowly, looking up from my phone and taking a deep breath as I stared into the middle distance. The hospital room I was currently in was bland and uniform, with the exception of a startling amount of flowers and cards on a table opposite my bed, but that wasn't what was holding my attention currently.

“God, this world is fucking weird.”

That was before you got into what had happened with Korea and Northern China.

...which will probably give even me nightmares tonight.

Needless to say, it was called the Dark Age for a goddamn good reason, turns out.

My phone rang, jarring me out of my thoughts, and I sighed as I saw the caller ID. Holding it up to my head, I took a deep breath and exhaled, calming myself before I pressed tapped it. “Hey Dad, still alive. Still in the hospital. Still not kidnapped again. There's still two sidekicks outside my door. No more news about any medical conditions, the tests still haven't come back. I still feel fine and, yes, I've eaten even if the food is less than stellar. We good?”

Shinso Niko sighed deeply through the line, anxiety apparent in his tone. “I'm sorry, Hitoshi. I know I'm hovering, but-”

“It was scary, I get it,” I replied, cutting him off. In my defense, I'd let him talk the first ten times he'd called me. “I was scared, too. But I'm okay. You saw me when they were taking me to the hospital and they're making sure I wasn't drugged with anything while I was out. That's the only reason I'm still being held for observation.”

“I know. I know,” Dad sighed again. “I've talked to some of the heroes. They're all very proud of you, and so am I, if I haven't said so yet.”

He hadn't, but I hadn't demanded it of him either. I knew, more than I thought I had last week even, what kind of stress this man was under. “I... thanks, Dad. And I'm sorry, again, for lying to you.”

There was the sound of his office chair squeaking and I saw him leaning back tiredly in my mind's eye. “As angry as I was when the heroes explained it... in hindsight, it was probably the right thing to do. I'd like to say I would have handled it well, but in the moment? When you were still... out there? I probably wouldn't have taken it all that well.”

I hummed, blinking as the door opened and a young woman in an armored costume made of red and white with splashes of blue came in. She looked something like a heavily stylized firefighter, perhaps Backdraft's more photogenic, female cousin? “Hey, Dad... how about I make us something when I get out tomorrow? Something nice with all the trimmings, but... uh, I think I've got to go over the case again with whoever just walked through the door.”

“Right, right,” Niko took a deep breath. “I should... get back to work. Life of a coder never lets up, I guess.”

We gave awkward goodbyes and I hung up before looking at the hero (sidekick?) expectantly. “Can I help you, Miss...?”

“Hot Ice, Pro Hero with the Endeavor Agency,” she grinned tightly, teasingly, “thankfully you already agreed not to hold that against me, though.”

I clicked my tongue and chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Shinso Hitoshi, and you have my apologies. Streamer-mouth sometimes runs away on me, especially when I'm stressed.”

She snorted and pulled off the armored helmet she was wearing, revealing the face of a young woman with blue eyes and white hair with spots of red sprinkled throughout it.

I recognized her almost instantly.

Internal Screaming.

“I can imagine, given what you've been through at your age,” she smiled disarmingly, a calculated expression meant to put people at ease. “And you can call me Todoroki Fuyumi if you want to, since this isn't a public meeting and that helmet honestly gets way too hot after a while.”

“Looks like a good one, though,” I glanced over at where she'd set it on the small end table. “Provided I get into a hero school, I really want a costume with something hard between my skull and falling debris or villain fists.”

Her eyes lit up with a more genuine smile. “From what I've seen of you so far? You've got a better shot than most kids your age. The way you kept your cool during an abduction, managed to escape not just on your own, but tricking a villain into demolishing your cell while physically disabling another and escorting a further two victims to relative safety while waiting for heroes? Not to mention all of the help you gave us identifying the leader and his quirk? I think there's a gentleman's agreement to wait until you're out of the hospital, but you'll be fighting off internship offers soon enough.”

I blinked, scratching my chin. “I thought internships came after enrollment in a hero course?”

Fuyumi shrugged. “It depends. That's usually the case, but like most industries there's a bit of favoritism that goes around. I interned with my dad three times before I got into high school, and my little sister is gunning for my record.”

Internal Screaming Intensifies.

“That's as good as confirmation that you're Endeavor's daughter, I suppose. Not that 'Todoroki' is a common family name or anything,” I stated with a nod.

“Good catch, though judging by your lack of surprise you probably recognized me the moment I gave you my name?” She probed curiously.

“The Endeavor Army is a pretty famous faction on the internet. Your Dad might not have All Might's scale of a fanbase, but his followers are impressively devoted when they think he's been slighted,” I smirked.

Fuyumi blushed a bit and her expression turned sheepish. “Ah... yeah, those are Dad's fans, alright. He's really a nice guy if you get to know him, doesn't go in for that ultra-competitive versus-match crap at all.”

Internal Screaming.EXE Has Crashed – Reboot System.

“Huh,” I managed, leaning back contemplatively instead of running for the window and jumping through it. “He always looks gruff and unapproachable on TV, but I guess that shows me for judging a guy based on public appearances.”

Fuyumi nodded firmly. “If one of those internship offers that shows up happens to be from our agency, you might get to meet Dad and get to know him a little if you take it.”

I chuckled, having seen the pitch coming... even if it was a decidedly strange one to receive. “I'll keep that in mind. So... I'm guessing you didn't come all this way just to drop a few hints about future job opportunities?”

Endeavor's daughter nodded, pulling out a large folder from within her oversized coat and sliding it over to me. “I went ahead and picked up your schoolwork from the last few days as a courtesy, but I mostly wanted to go over a few things with you about your streaming channel and what you can and can't say on-air about what happened.”

I shrugged, pulling out the papers and getting to work on them. “I've already posted that I'm sick for a few days. I was just going to fake a cough on my first day back and let it go.”

The ancient time-warping celestial bureaucrat kung-fu assassin hiding behind my eyes took one look at the work and turned her nose up. Then the interstellar prodigy tyke bomb rolled her eyes at it. Then the mute child soldier member of the no-kill villain shelter of the most corrupt city in America shook her head in dismay at how easy it was.

The aqua-transexual martial artist? Well, he suggested making it into a paper airplane and finding someone to challenge to a contest of skill.

All of that is to say I answered the math sheet within a minute in pen.

“You weren't planning to make any sort of announcement about getting kidnapped by villains?” Fuy-no, Hot Ice, the pro-hero asked, leaning back in her seat, her gaze analytical and serious.

“Absolutely not. I'm not a media whore. My channel is meant to help support my ambitions financially and the recent five-fold increase in subscribers has more than accomplished what I wanted.” I waved her off casually, and meant it. I wanted no part of the pandering or media circus that would ensue if I went down that route and I was still getting a substantial flow of new donations and memberships... “Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure I spotted a transfer of funds from your agency. Thank your father for me, will you?”

Fuyumi nodded, looking pleasantly surprised by the turn the conversation had taken. “You're going for the underground route, aren't you?”

“I suppose I made that pretty obvious, didn't I?” I asked in reply, moving on to the next assignment. It was slightly harder, consisting of an essay on Japanese literature regarding a book I hadn't read, but knew incidental bits and pieces from class discussion.

Also, I had the skill to bullshit something that would easily get me a near-perfect mark.

This really is high school all over again. A+ on the fucking Scarlet Letter paper without cracking the book once.

“You know, you shouldn't rush through your assignments like that, right?” Fuyumi asked, sighing as she looked over my shoulder. “Hmm... this is...”

“Look, I'm going too stir crazy trapped in this room for two days chronically surfing the internet and I desperately need some kind of mental stimulation, so I'm too tired to pretend I'm not a genius, okay?” I muttered, my script flowing through the last part of the page and moving on to a new one as I set the first one aside.

Fuyumi snorted, picking up the growing stack of finished work and shaking her head. “Listen, Shinso-kun, your grades are good, I won't lie. Impressive, even, and more than enough to get you into UA provided you score well on the entrance exam, but...”

Her eyebrows furrowed and she reached for a glasses case in another inner pocket of her red and white firefighter's jacket. Slipping them on, she looked more closely at my math.

It both was and was not a lie.

I was, at this point, a legitimate genius.

I just hadn't always been one, but she didn't need to know that. In fact, no one needed to, even if the obvious question became-

“I watched you do this,” Fuyumi stated, her voice puzzled. “This is a... very well written essay, too. Advanced kanji for your grade-level. How are your grades not better if you can produce work like this?”

“Let me answer a question with a question,” I replied absently, still scribbling out the second page of my essay. “You've read my file, right? You know what my quirk is.”

Fuyumi nodded slowly. “It's not a very classically 'heroic' quirk, I'll admit that. But your dedication to training, ability to respond well under pressure, and-”

I shook my head. “That's not what I meant. Imagine you go to school everyday in primary school with a quirk like mine. It starts out fun, but then someone realizes that they can blame you if they get caught breaking a rule or bullying someone.”

“That's an unfortunate reality of the world we live in,” Fuyumi stated, grimacing slightly.

“So, here are your options: You get bad mouthed behind your back because you're the kid with the villain quirk, but left alone because that reputation makes you vaguely intimidating. So you don't have any friends, but no one feels motivated enough to pick a fight when they're scared you can brainwash them,” I explained.

“Ah,” Fuyumi sighed, intuiting where I was going.

“Or, you can be the kid with a villain quirk who's also constantly getting praised by the teacher for having the highest grade in the class, which makes you some kind of evil mastermind that needs to be confronted by a group of 'heroes' and brought down a peg so that they can save the day.”

Fuyumi was quiet for a moment, staring at me with something like pity in her eyes as I fed her my cover story.

“But after this latest incident, I've stopped caring anymore,” I stated firmly. “You only live once, right? So it's time to go all-out while I prep for UA.”

Fuyumi smiled, pulling her glasses off and stowing them. “Well, you're quite a bit more interesting than I thought you'd be. And, considering how we were introduced, that's saying something. I'll be looking forward to seeing you at the Agency.”

“I haven't-” I began, simply for the sake of contrariness, when the door to the hospital room opened unceremoniously...

...to admit a somewhat short, stocky man with a bushy mustache, walking stick, and thick glasses sitting under a bald head. The first time I'd seen him, it was even more surprising than having Endeavor's daughter show up as a pro-hero. Now, it was just a new facet of this insane life.

“Dr. Garaki, good afternoon,” I nodded at him.

“Good afternoon, Shinso-kun. I see you're actually resting in bed as requested this time.” Garaki chuckled, turning to look at Fuyumi. “I've had nurses catch him doing push-ups, sit-ups, and all other manner of exercises in the last two days! I eventually had to threaten to hold him back for another week if he didn't recuperate from the stress he's been under properly.”

I stared back at Fuyumi impassively, unmoved. “By his own admission, I'm in virtually perfect health. Being forced to 'relax' all day is probably doing more damage to me than the exercise would.”

Garaki chuckled again. “Careful there, lad. You say that, but everyone needs at least a little rest and relaxation, even someone in the top one percent of one percent of your age range's average physicality. If you put up too much of a fight, I'll have you tied to the bed and shipped down to the psych ward in the basement.”

I rolled my eyes while filing away the threat for what it actually was. “Roger that, I've been behaving myself today as you can see. How's that watch working out for you, anyway?”

Garaki smiled, his mustache fluffing itself with the gesture. His left arm came up, revealing the gold band, allowing him to admire it for a moment. “I've actually grown quite fond of it, young man. It's a very thoughtful gift, though I feel awkward about accepting something so expensive from someone who, admittedly, just needs a bit of bed rest.”

I shrugged. “Imagine how I feel, getting it from a subscriber. I'd feel horrible just cashing it out for its value at a pawn shop or something, and it's just not something either I or my father would ever wear. As far as your concern for not giving me much care, don't worry about it. You did volunteer Juka Hospital to care for all of the kidnapping victims pro bono. That's the kind of good deed that should be rewarded.”

Garaki hummed, cloaked gaze glancing over the watch I'd given him again before he nodded. “Well, if you insist... and it is quite a nice watch. I won't fight that hard against the urge to keep it.”

“Here's hoping it speeds up my release paperwork,” I smirked slightly, just to show I was joking.

On some level, though, I admired the Xanatos Gambit in play. Given what I knew of Wolfram's appearance on I-island in another timeline and his second quirk's reveal, I would put good money on at least some of the victims having been scheduled for Garaki's Nomu research. It probably wasn't ideal for him to make due with a collection of samples instead of the live subjects themselves, but given I knew he'd been able to extract and clone quirks, it was an acceptable compromise.

Likely doubly so for the fact that his boss wouldn't have to cough up payment for the 'product.'

This was all just a guess on my part, of course, but it was an educated guess that made sense. If Wolfram was planning to sell us to someone outside of Japan, he'd have taken us to a boat or a plane instead of further inland. Even as a temporary holding area, a warehouse near a dock would have been a better option. Instead, someone that I knew had connections to Quirk Satan had taken us to an off-grid building in the mountains, then his chief scientist under his cover identity had offered free medical care to all the survivors of the kidnapping attempt.

 Oh, it could be coincidence, or even AFO seizing on an opportunity presented by some third party trying to run a quirk-trafficking ring, but my bet was on this being some kind of trial run for Wolfram to get himself into the ancient bastard's good graces and move up to the big time.

“Now, now young man, I won't be bribed,” Garaki chided me with a smile, tapping his cane on the floor for emphasis. “Thankfully, your lab results just came back. That, as you'll recall, was the official reason we were keeping you for observation, along with all of the others. Thankfully, it seems that all but one of your fellow unfortunates came back with clear bloodwork.”

“Who was the one with a compromised test? What were they exposed to?” Hot Ice asked, pulling her helmet back on. “My fath-er, I mean, Endeavor will want to know.”

“It was one of the young women that Shinso-kun here was brought in with, actually,” Garaki stated, ruffling his mustache as he considered the question thoughtfully. “The blonde one, I think? And she wasn't exposed to anything, it was a vitamin and mineral deficiency that bordered on malnutrition. Her quirk is 'Blood Consumption,' with an interesting manifestation in sharp incisor teeth, but it appears she hadn't been seeing to her dietary requirements. We gave her a few expired packets of plasma and she perked right up.”

I couldn't decide whether that was going to make my life easier or harder.

But, at the very least, I was going to be getting out soon.

Thank Quirk Jesus... or All Might or whatever he calls himself.

My Hero Academia (Start of Canon): 140 Points

Substitute (Hitoshi Shinso) -10

Tempest Jewelry -10

-Basic Tempest Runes I -10

-Jewels of Discord -25

Body Talent -10

Martial Talent -10

Aesthetic Talent -10

Communication Talent -10

Performance Talent -10

Covert Talent -10

Stress Defense/Immunity -10

Body Defense -5

Faerie Feast -10

Remaining Points: 0

+225 Points (Half on Defenses - Required)

Psychic Talent -20

Template Stacking I -40

-River Tam

-Cassandra Cain//Batgirl

-Ranma Saotome//Ranko Saotome

-Sidereal Exalted//Chosen of Serenity (First Age)

Template Stacking II -10

-Sidereal Exalted//Chosen of Serenity (First Age)

Pocket Space -5

Mind Defense -25

Soul Defense -25

Environmental Defense -25

Information Defense -25

Polymorph Defense -50

~~~

Winning Peace will be out in a day or two. The chapter is fighting me.

In the meantime, have more Mind Games.

Thank you for your patience, polls will be up in a few hours after I get something to eat.