Darkest Before Dawn - 123

Chapter 123

“Wanna eat?” Ragdoll followed up after Pixie-Bob, although all of them knew where they were going already. The tables full of ingredients were clue enough, after all. At least, for those of them that weren’t dead on their feet, which weren’t as many as one would think. Evidently, Kazuki was one of the few that hadn’t had to push himself that much, at least stamina-wise. Some of his classmates weren’t so lucky. “Then you gotta cook for yourselves! Today it’s curry!”

Tilting his head, Kazuki walked forward and checked that there was, indeed, all that they could need for some curry. Idly, he wondered if he could get away preparing something else for himself. However, he threw that idea away when he saw that few amongst the students even looked capable of doing anything at all. In those numbers, there were several people that didn’t look very confident about cooking.

His negative sense only seemed to confirm that as true.

“Hm, been a while since I had curry,” he commented, cracking his neck and smiling. “Anyone know how to make it?” he asked, turning towards the gathering of students.

“I do, Boss.”

“Great, so, anyone-” he started before pausing and blinking. With a sharp turn of his head, he saw Chikuchi coming out from in between the other students, smirk in place.

“Just noticed, Boss? You’re slipping,” Neito mocked and Kazuki gave him a glare.

“Good to see you, Chikuchi,” he said, almost in a sigh. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that she’d been invited to the place as yet another special opportunity. Glancing around, sure enough, he saw Shinso at the back of the group, glaring at him. ‘Fuck him though,’ Kazuki thought to himself with a mental shrug. “You and Neito are gonna help then.”

“What? I didn’t even-” the blonde started protesting before pausing when Kazuki fixed him with a look. If he felt like being a little shit and also calling him Boss, then he’d just have to deal with the consequences.

“You heard the Boss,” Chikuchi added, amused, as she moved closer to him.

“Anyone else?” Kazuki asked and a few others joined, Momo and Toru being the most enthusiastic. They had enough hands to do things without issues, at least. “Neat, so, how about we divide ourselves like this…”

It took only a few minutes to hash out details, but they got to work. It wasn’t like curry was that complicated anyway, so they were bound to have something edible by the end of things, even if none of them had any experience preparing food for so many people. That was what they were hoping for, at least, while working.

All in all though, the more things progressed, the more confident Kazuki felt that it’d be fine.

“Pretty good,” he said once he gave their creation a test taste. “Man, we do good work,” he added with a grin, turning towards the rest of the people that had helped. Which turned out to be almost everyone. People had started getting some energy back in them and offering a hand here and there, after all. “Maybe we should open a restaurant instead of doing this hero thing,” he commented, getting a few chuckles and laughs.

He blinked, however, when he felt a spike of negativity from off to the side. Well, one that wasn’t Shinso. The guy’s animosity hadn’t lessened any – not that he cared – but there was also Kota – who he cared a lot more about – off to the side, glaring with renewed anger. He couldn’t do much about that though, except keeping an eye on him.

“Let’s serve this, alright?” he said, outwardly turning his attention back to his classmates and clapping his hands. That was how Kazuki found himself sitting at one of the camping tables that had been set up with a fork in his hand and food on his plate.

“Man, this is good.”

“Much better than I expected!”

“Hm, this is better than my mom’s! Granted, that’s not saying much, but-”

“Oh, I’m gonna tell her!”

“Wha-? Hey!”

People were feeling animated, apparently. Kazuki took all of that in, smiling softly and enjoying the fact that, other than exhaustion and a little pain from all the exercising, people were feeling fine. That and the upbeat atmosphere felt great, if anyone asked him. All in all, after a morning of effort and struggles, it was nice.

‘Now, if only everyone was feeling this good,’ he thought to himself, looking off to the side and seeing a silhouette skulking off to the side. He felt anger, frustration, sadness and hunger from them too. ‘I really shouldn’t,’ he thought, but he was already getting up anyway.

Plate in hand, he went to get an extra serving.

As he did though, someone else approached him.

“He went off,” he commented and Mandalay gave him a sad smile.

“I know,” she replied and he could almost hear the non-existent sigh in her emotions. “He gets like this sometimes. It’s gonna be a tough week though, it seems,” she commented, looking at the second plate he’d just gotten. “Good luck… And let me know if he runs off,” she added and Kazuki was struck by how bad she felt all of a sudden. Emotions that before had been there, but muted, came alive very harshly.

It seemed the woman cared a lot for the kid, which made him wonder what the situation was even more. Had that been going for a while? Had she tried to follow Kota in such situations and only made things worse? Was she trying to give him some space now? That would make some sense.

“I think I can manage to keep a child in one place if I try really hard,” he said with a slight smile that the woman returned, even if she barely managed.

“So you say,” she replied with a weak chuckle. “Go on then.”

And that’s exactly what he did, taking one plate in each hand and walking away to the side of the lodging, where there was a path up the side of the mountain. Some of his friends looked over, but he just shook his head. He’d already told them that he’d be going for a bit, but he hadn’t felt like explaining further than that. Not to be rude, but it was none of their business, whatever was going on with Kota.

Hell, it wasn’t his business, really, but he’d try to help anyway. At least, until either Mandalay told him to stop, or until he felt like he was doing more harm than good. Then he’d step away from the entire situation, but not a second earlier. He owed it to himself, if nothing else, to do something, else he turned into all the people that looked away from him all those years before.

“Hey there,” he greeted softly when he found Kota standing on a little artificial balcony on the side of the mountain. He wasn’t sure what it was for, but there seemed to be a cave carved on the wall of stone to the left from where he came from. Kazuki didn’t pay that much attention. “Not a fan of crowds?”

“Not a fan of heroes,” the kid grumbled and he couldn’t help but chuckle. “What?” Kota growled, but he just kept laughing for a bit.

“That felt familiar,” he commented with a grin, walking a little closer and then sitting beside the boy. “Didn’t we have a similar conversation before?” he added, passing him the second plate he’d gotten. “I know we’re annoying, but that’s no reason to go hungry,” he told the boy.

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered, eyes narrowed. “And how did you even know I was here?”

“My Quirk,” he explained, continuing to eat from his plate even as Kota glared at him. He’d gotten used to having meals in that kind of situation way back when he was a kid. Kota might as well have been a puppy growling at him compared to the beowolf that his parents had been. “And the fact that you’re hungry,” he added with a grin, leaving aside the fact that the kid’s other emotions also helped.

“… Not hungry,” the boy insisted and he nodded.

“It’s fine then, you can eat it if you get hungry or it can be left over for tomorrow,” Kazuki said with a nod, continuing to eat his meal. He was very aware of the glare that Kota was directing right at him, of course. However, he didn’t address it at all, just sitting there and eating. He knew, after all, that the boy would break the silence eventually.

Sure enough…

“Go away.”

“Hm, I could,” he said with a nod, looking up at the boy. “Do you really want me to go?” he asked, calm but pointed. He’d already stuck his nose into things enough, he felt. Kazuki was considering the fact that he might be bothering Kota more than helping. As such, he gave the kid the option to make him go away. “I will, if that’s what you really want.”

“I want you to go away,” was what Kota said, but the turmoil of emotions in him told Kazuki something different entirely. That was what he decided to take heed of. “I said I want you to go away!”

“That’s what you say,” Kazuki agreed with a slow nod. “But that’s not really what you want. I can tell. So, I’ll just sit here,” he said with as comforting a smile as he could put on. Then he looked at the forest, off to the side. “Sight is good enough to stay, wouldn’t you say?”

“Idiot,” Kota mumbled.

They stayed in silence after that, with the boy glaring down at the plate Kazuki had brought for him. As for Kazuki himself, he finished his meal and then moved to sit with his legs hanging over the side of the artificial cliff, taking in the sight of the woods. When he did, that’s when he heard the boy starting to eat the meal. He made a mental note to remember that if he had to do something similar again. Food was probably cold by then, but he still ate it. Kazuki wondered if there was any significance in that, but he wouldn’t know.

He was no Inui, even with some Quirk assistance.

“There, I ate it,” Kota spat out. “Will you go away now?”

“Do you want me to go away?” Kazuki asked and he got a huff and some unintelligible grumbling as a response. Both of those things said plenty though, so he stayed right there. It wasn’t a chore, considering that he hadn’t lied. The sight really was good from there. “Did you want to keep this spot to yourself?” he asked, half joking and half serious. “Because it’s really good.”

“It’s whatever,” the kid growled and Kazuki wondered how someone so young could be such a teenager about things. “… Why are you here?”

“Because I think you need help,” was Kazuki’s answer to the boy’s question. “I needed help once, when I was about your age,” he said, leaning back and resting on his palms as he looked up at the sky. “When I decided to become a hero, I promised myself that I’d give others the help I wanted to get then.”

“I’m not you, idiot,” Kota hissed and Kazuki nodded.

“But you need help, so I’ll help you.”

“You heroes never care, do you? You only care about yourselves in the end,” Kota growled, his emotions getting worse. “You’re all liars.”

“I guess in a way, you’re not wrong,” Kazuki acknowledged with a nod. He was a hero for himself, as much as he was for other people. It made him feel better, to help others. Made him feel like he wasn’t a curse. Made him feel like he mattered.

“At least you’re honest, I guess,” Kota muttered under his breath, and little else was said for the rest of the meal time before Kazuki had to go back to training.

[}-o-{]

“Got you.”

“Fuck!” Kazuki cursed, groaning as he deflated. Then he stretched his back a little while Kuroiro got out of his shadow, chuckling. “You’re way too damn fast,” he grumbled while the 1-B student kept laughing. “You also suck,” he added, stomping his food and extending his shadow once more. “Come on.”

A second later, Kuroiro vanished from sight, disappearing into Kazuki’s controlled shadows.

The exercise both of them had been set up with was simple. Kazuki would extend and control his shadows up to a certain point. Kuroiro would then use his Quirk to enter said shadows. From there, they had two different goals each. Kazuki had to keep the 1-B student away from himself and Kuroiro had to reach him.

It was like a tag game, except Kazuki couldn’t move from where he stood.

Instead, he had to shape shadows in a way that would keep Kuroiro away. As such, his best attempt had been making a spiral-like design and cutting off parts that lead to him when he thought the other guy would get close enough. He couldn’t really see Kuroiro when he had his eyes closed in his shadow, so there was a fair bit of prediction that he had to apply. The same went for Kuroiro though, since he had to guess how Kazuki would manipulate the shadows.

It was a bit frustrating, but that was mostly because Kazuki had never really tried to push his shadow control quite like it was required then and there. He’d mostly been working on control only, but adding speed really changed things for him. That was what the camp was all about though, so he wasn’t complaining… much.

All in all, he could tell that he was getting better, so that helped. It was just a matter of getting the hang of it, like whenever he tried a new videogame at the arcade. He tried not to follow patterns or approaches too much though. While getting faster was great and all, the exercise was supposed to help him get better at shadow control in general, not just at the little game they had come up with. So, he tried to keep changing the shapes of the shadows, how he moved them, how he inconvenienced Kuroiro.

It was actually kind of fun, if a little frustrating at times.

Especially when he started lasting longer without getting tagged, admittedly. Kazuki didn’t consider himself a competitive person, not really, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be proud of doing well. ‘I can do better still,’ he thought to himself, narrowing his eyes as he cut off where he thought the other student was trying to move towards him. He was proven right when, a moment later, a pair of eyes appeared in the dead end.

“That’s enough of that, boys!” a voice called and Kazuki looked up to see Pixie-Bob approaching them. Kuroiro got out of his shadows then and he let go of his hold, letting the clearing return to normal, with only their shadows in it. “Time to change things up! Mr. Kuroiro, please make your way to the enhancers. Vlad King has another exercise for you,” she announced and Kazuki and his training partner waved at each other before the other boy left. “As for you, Mr. Endo we’ll be working on your solid shadows,” the woman said, beaming at him.

It wasn’t difficult to see why the Cats were so popular.

Sure, they might look and act a little silly, but it was also reassuring. In a way, their whole schtick worked like All Might’s smile. It was difficult to feel bad when they were so… upbeat and relaxed. It made you think that things were fine, got you carried away into that vibe. Kazuki lamented the fact that he probably couldn’t apply something like that himself, but he respected it all the same.

“Now, first of all, I want to know how you go about molding them and how you make them solid,” Pixie-Bob said, some of that cheerful persona bleeding out as she got more serious. Taking a deep breath in, Kazuki did his best to explain things to her.

From there, it was a lot of trying out stuff, different approaches and levels of solidity. Most of all, they were trying to see how much of Pixie-Bob’s knowledge could translate from her earth manipulation to his shadow manipulation. As it turned out, not much, at least when it came to structure. However, the actual shaping she could advise him on. How to best use his solid shadows if he needed to, especially considering he was rather limited in that regard, with the sheer level of negativity consumption of that aspect of his Quirk.

Pixie-Bob had a lot of suggestions on how to make the most of what little he could do without emptying his reserves. He could trip someone, he could make the ground uneven, he could cushion attacks – if probably not outright stop them –, and many other things. All in all, it was an interesting way to spend a few hours, really.

It seemed that Aizawa hadn’t been lying when he said that he could take it easy, because even though he was working on stuff, he didn’t feel like it was that… exhausting. And he knew the training camp was supposed to be like that. He could feel his classmates pushing themselves through the day, after all. ‘Sucks to be them, I guess,’ he thought, somewhat amused.

“Ok, how about this shape?” Pixie-Bob asked, bringing Kazuki out of his thoughts to focus back on what he was supposed to be doing. Checking what she’d made out of earth, he tried his best to imitate it with shadows… only partially succeeding. He didn’t let that stop him from trying some more though, getting closer and closer by the second. “Yeah, we can improve on that,” the woman told him and he nodded.

It was going to be a long afternoon.

[}-o-{]

The last bit of work he had for the day was even easier than his other exercises.

This time, it came down to homework, basically. Instead of actively working on his Quirk, he was preparing for the active work. How? By researching what other types of Grimm to make. Something that he had, admittedly, already been doing.

Still, he’d been told to focus specifically in entirely new areas and approaches.

Which is why he’d gone straight for water creatures. After all, he had air and land plenty covered – although he could use some more aerial options, he knew –, so he could do with some options in case of watery situations. With that in mind, he was kind of just looking up stuff, really. The Cats had plenty of books in a small library in the lodging and he was very much enjoying just flipping through the pages of some of them, reading up on random aquatic animals.

He’d noted down some of them for Grimm ideas, yes, but he wasn’t really diving into any of them just yet. For one, he was taking it easy, just as he’d been told. For another, he wanted to make sure he’d seen all the options before deciding to go for something.

So far and for the most part, he’d made whatever came to mind first, but if he didn’t want to end up lacking the one option he could need, then he wanted to cover his bases as best he could before it came to that. So, he was taking it easy for the moment and checking all the possibilities before going for one of them. It was something he’d already been doing, of course, but…

Ok, so he was being a little lazy, sue him.

Interestingly, other than the occasional teacher or Cats member coming to check on him, he also sensed someone else coming and going. Difficult not to, when he stood out plenty in between the crowd of tired and sometimes frustrated emotions. Whenever he came by, Kazuki would follow him with his sense, and it found it interesting that he seemed to be looking for him.

Like at that moment.

Kazuki could feel Kota at the door behind him, but he didn’t try and turn around or anything. Doing that had caused the kid to hide before, so he’d just taken to only using his sense. Good practice too, he supposed, even though that hadn’t been part of his schedule for the day.

“What are you doing with that book?” the kid asked, evidently having gotten tired of skulking around. When Kazuki turned, he saw the boy approaching him, the already familiar scowl firmly in place.

“Looking up ideas for Grimm,” he answered calmly, raising an eyebrow. “Do you need it?” he asked, offering him the book. He had a bunch of others to work through anyway.

Interestingly, however, his first words seemed to have snapped the kid out of his funk.

“You can make others?” he asked, and there was nothing in his voice other than curiosity. If Kazuki hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Kota had been replaced by a normal kid. “You didn’t tell me that before.”

“I can. I just need to study them and then go through a very annoying process trying to hash out the details,” he explained simply before an idea occurred to him and he grinned. “You wanna help? I’m trying to decide on something aquatic,” he asked and he almost laughed at the way the kid perked up.

“Can you make a shark?!” Kota all but exclaimed before seemingly realizing that he broke character quite a bit. That’s when he withdrew into himself and his emotions flared once more. “I mean-”

“Hm, a shark sounds neat,” Kazuki said, turning his eyes away from the kind and towards the book. He’d interrupted, trying to keep some of that good mood Kota seemed to have found somewhere in him. “What shark though? Hammerheads were always one of my favorites, so maybe-”

“Great Whites are better,” Kota grumbled, glaring at him as if daring him to disagree.

“I don’t know about better, but they are cool too,” he acknowledged, not even having to lie. Then again, most sharks were very neat. “So, not a fan of hammerheads?”

“… They’re not bad, I guess,” Kota mumbled, looking away from him as if refusing to accept that he even could be wrong. Kazuki had to hold back a chuckle at that. It was adorable. He wasn’t going to point that out though, of course.

“You know any other books that have stuff about sharks? Now I’m curious,” he said instead and the kid perked up once more. Kazuki counted that as a huge win. “I think I wanna make a shark now.”

“Really?” Kota asked, eyes wide.

“As soon as I decide what kind of shark,” he answered.

“That one has a lot of sharks, but there was another one over here that had others too. Do you have it? It’s got this picture of a-” the kid started babbling then as he checked Kazuki’s pile of books. With a smile on his face, he settled, watching Kota be a normal kid for the first time since they arrived.

Maybe he could try and get a picture or something for Mandalay?

“Are you listening to me?” Kota asked after a few minutes, eyes narrowed.

“Sure am, kid,” Kazuki answered with a nod, smile still in place. “What’s your opinion on octopi, by the way?” he asked and the boy paused.

“They are not bad, but they aren’t sharks,” was the very serious, very firm answer he got and he had to do a herculean effort not to laugh, again. “And I’m not a kid.”

God, Kota was going to kill him.

“Ok, so, definitely sharks? No other favorite aquatic creature?”

“I mean, there’s mantis shrimp, but they are also kind of weird. And lion fish! Did you know they-?”

Just like that, an interesting task had become very fun.

Kazuki hoped no one would scold him for wasting time like that, but if they did, then it’d be worth it anyway.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

The training camp continues and nobody has died yet. Absolute win in my books, guys, I don’t know about you. Kazuki is also kind of working on a water Grimm. Not a lot of those in RWBY canon, I’ll admit, but I’ll figure something out.

Worse comes to worst, I’ll just make original ones, even if I’d rather not.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s your favorite shark species? I’m kinda torn between the hammerhead sharks and the thresher sharks.

See you.