Darkest Before Dawn - 113

Chapter 113

‘How did this happen again?’ Kazuki wondered idly, leaning back on his chair and taking a sip from his cup of tea.

“Still, surely there’s some kind of equipment that could be given to him that he can wear on him besides basic things,” Shield said. Melissa, actually, since she’d insisted as soon as she learned that Kazuki used first name basis with everyone and preferred it. He’d been caught off guard a little by that, but he really shouldn’t have been. She was American, he guessed. “There might come a time when he needs something more than his Grimm Armor. He might actually run out of negativity, unlikely as that is. As I understand it, his Grimm Armor isn’t instantaneous and needs time too, right?”

“Yes and yes, but he insisted and those are extremely specific cases, so I’ve been covering for everything else, as I should,” Mei argued fervently, looking mighty offended by the implication that she wasn’t doing her best. “It’s support equipment, and my equipment supports him and the things he struggles with more. Not every hero needs something to punch harder.”

That was a hilarious argument, coming from the girl that wanted to make everything an explosive for some reason.

… Even things that had no business exploding.

“Combat is important,” Melissa said, unwilling to give up on her stance. “Lack of combat power and options is the main reason why heroes are lost in service. As far as I’m concerned, making sure a hero has the firepower to survive villain attacks is what an equipment maker should focus on.”

That seemed to make Mei physically wince.

At some point through his conversation with Shield, the girl had been adamant that she wanted to talk directly with Mei about her projects and, especially, Penny. From there, once the tinkerer of his club had answered the call, they had devolved into a clash of ideals. Mei wanted to make anything and everything. She had thousands of ideas and she went for every single one, aimless but effective all the same.

Melissa, for her part, was much more focused. She was an offensive equipment maker if Kazuki had ever seen one. Although, that was just something he’d come up with. He didn’t know if there actual distinctions. The point was that the girl’s passion was to make combat support equipment. Weapons, armor, anything that could help a hero defeat a villain in a fight, she wanted to make.

Thus, with such different approaches, it was really no wonder that the two girls were kind of butting heads.

“What would you even do? Any piece of armor would just get in the way for Boss. I just need the budget and I’ll make Penny battleready, she’ll be Boss’s extra firepower, if you must know,” Mei shot back and Kazuki briefly pondered if he should get involved in the argument. Because it’d been a bit and neither side seemed very intent on giving up.

Then he thought they might turn on him and he’d rather avoid that outcome, if at all possible.

On top of that, there was the fact that Kazuki wasn’t all that full of energy, especially in regards to dealing with people. So, instead, he just sat back, drank his tea and let them do their arguing. While the entire debate was fairly… enthusiastic, to put it mildly, he didn’t really pick up all that much anger or annoyance from Melissa, so that was reassuring. He didn’t know how Mei was feeling, but if he knew her at all, he rather doubted she was feeling all that bad. She hardly ever did, after all.

Thus, he settled for spectating like he would a show. As far as he was concerned, neither side was wrong, really. It was just two approaches to the same thing. If push came to shove, he’d side with Mei though, if only because combat wasn’t his focus. He was, at his core, a rescue hero. That’s who he wanted to be, his aim and his goal. So, yeah, Mei’s more widespread approach fit him a lot better.

Combat was neat and all, but even if Kazuki was suited and likely would participate in a lot of villain fights, they weren’t what he was going to focus on. He wasn’t going to be an All Might or an Endeavor. Besides, most of Melissa’s ideas were for more up close and personal combat equipment and if Kazuki reached that point… Well, he was probably already screwed, especially if he couldn’t use Grimm Armor to help himself.

Although, he guessed it wouldn’t hurt to have a little more on him for such a situation, but-

“I am the Head of Support, lady,” Mei said, rather strongly at that. “I make all the support equipment for our agency.”

“Club,” Kazuki corrected, but neither of the girls seemed to pay him any mind.

“... So you are,” Melissa mumbled, eyes narrowed as she looked at the screen of his phone where Mei was. “Doesn’t Head mean that there are more members to your branch?” she added and that seemed to give Mei pause. Kazuki, for his part, felt danger.

Ok, maybe that was a little dramatic, but after a while, he did learn. He was seeing something coming and he didn’t know if he liked it. There was only one way he imagined things would go and now it all depended on Mei. Although, maybe he was paranoid, right? No way Melissa was-

“You offering to join, lady? Because we at Pharos Agency are a very distinguished institution-”

“We’re a school club, Mei,” Kazuki interrupted. He didn’t know why though. Evidently he wasn’t part of the conversation at all. They didn’t seem to notice that he’d spoken.

“I might not be my father, but I believe I’m good enough to be part of this,” Melissa said, eyes narrowed, and Kazuki… he just sighed and took another sip from his cup of tea. He probably should be surprised, but he just wasn’t anymore.

Boss, right.

Everyone was the boss except for him, evidently.

“I’m sure you are,” Mei said with utmost seriousness. “But you’ll have to prove it.”

“How?”

“You want more juice?” he asked Melissa, giving up on everything.

“Please.”

So, he stood up and went to get her some juice while getting himself another cup of tea.

[}-o-{]

“You know, Boss?” Chikuchi started, and Kazuki was already done with the conversation and the two of them, even though he’d just arrived and Neito hadn’t even spoken yet. “I’m not even surprised anymore,” she said, looking very overtly at Melissa, who was still in a conversation with Mei, this time actually swapping ideas and all.

There was not even risk of him running out of battery like the previous day, considering Shield had plugged the device to a portable charger she had in her purse. In the spirit of not being alone with the two tinkerers, Kazuki had decided to visit the cafe where Chikuchi and Neito had managed to get a job at. Apparently, the entirety of I-Island was intent on making up for the mess of the villain attack and prices everywhere were ridiculously low, so that was neat.

“Same,” Kazuki replied flatly, and somehow, even though he remained silent, Neito got on his nerves. His amused expression alone was aggravating. Which wasn’t helped by the fact that he had an infamously easy time being annoying. The guy was just built like that, he supposed.

“So, how’s that gonna work? Isn’t she American? Or does she live here? Either way she can’t really be part of the club, right?” Chikuchi asked and Kazuki just shrugged.

“I think she’s just… having a very enthusiastic conversation with Mei. You know how tinkers are,” he commented, taking a sip from his smoothie. “She’s probably trading ideas with Mei and that’ll be that. Maybe they’ll stay friends.”

Which would be neat, he imagined. The Support course student wasn’t very sociable on a good day and while Kazuki liked to think the club members were all friends with each other, there was no denying that Mei was probably the one that connected with them the least. As someone that knew how lonely it could be to not have anyone, he liked the idea of Mei finding someone to truly call a friend. Maybe Melissa could be that for her.

“Are you saying I can’t join?” Melissa said, turning rather sharply towards him. Kazuki was caught off guard, not by that, but by the fact that he felt some genuine hurt and disappointment from her. What the…?

“I… never said that,” he replied, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. She wasn’t seriously considering joining them, right? Chikuchi wasn’t wrong. How that’d even work? “I just thought it’d be too inconvenient for you. You study here, right? And we’re all the way in Japan. I think you have better things to do than trying to make that work, don’t you?”

“But you do approve, right?”

Why was she acting like he was some kind of great authority on the matter all of a sudden, when his input had been thoroughly ignored before?

Was she about to start calling him Boss too?

God, he hoped not.

“Melissa, I think you could thoroughly humiliate every UA Support student-” He almost rolled his eyes at the sound of a cleared throat that came from his phone. “-other than Mei,” he finished. That’d even been what he was going to say to begin with, honestly. “We’d only be so lucky to have someone like you on our club, but, again, it’s a school club-”

“Is it? Is it really?” Neito asked and Kazuki felt his eye twitch. Why did everyone talk like he was their leader when everyone walked all over him? Was it some kind of running joke that he wasn’t aware of yet?

Also… Was he not the only one that sometimes wondered if they could keep the “club” going after they graduated? The idea crossed his mind once in a while, admittedly, but that was just him. He’d never brought it up with the others because… Well, that was just his idle mind daydreaming, right?

“I wouldn’t mind,” Melissa said, determination written all over her face as Kazuki looked at her and he… found himself surprised. There was, however, an underlying hint of something negative there. He couldn’t quite place it though. There was some boredom, some frustration, some grim dejection and resignation. It was an amalgam that he was decidedly not familiar with, that was for sure. “I… I don’t get to build a lot of stuff here, not anything meaningful at least,” she admitted, turning to look away from all of them, locking her gaze on her own smoothie like it was the most interesting thing around.

Idly, Kazuki prepared himself for what was to come, because he had a feeling he’d leave the conversation with another member to his club, this one not even from UA. He didn’t even know what to make of that, to be honest. How had they even ended up in that situation in particular? That was one crazy succession of events, surely.

Shield was Midoriya’s friend, after all, right? He’d gotten that impression from what he’d seen during the whole villain attack. Even afterwards, they seemed to stick together fairly well. And yet, how had he ended up in that situation? Shouldn’t it be Midoriya sitting in his place?

Yet he was not, Kazuki was.

‘What even is my luck, man?’ he thought, swallowing a sigh with some of his smoothie.

“I have a lot of assignments here and all, but they never really go anywhere. They are just that, assignments. No hero will use them. They will end up somewhere in I-Island, in some display or something to show what the students here can make… and that’ll be that,” Melissa said, her frustration growing. Her more sadness tinged emotions started vanishing though. “I didn’t start studying this just… to show off. I wanted to help heroes like my father does. I wanted to make a difference for the world, even if it was through others… and this… this feels real, what Mei talks about, the way they look at you,” Melissa continued, glancing towards Chikuchi and Neito, both grinning back at her, before locking eyes with Kazuki. “It feels real. So… can I help?”

Kazuki just stared at her for a long moment before inwardly sighing.

All the same though, a smile tugged at his lips, because what else could he say in the face of such passionate speech other than-

“… Welcome to Pharos.”

“Happy to be here,” she said immediately, grinning back at him, all her bad emotions vanishing and her expression litting up. “Boss.”

And at that, he groaned while Chikuchi and Neito laughed.

Of course.

Of fucking course.

[}-o-{]

[Hina Maeda]

“I can make combat equipment that you can use, on you, Boss,” Melissa Shield herself said, pouting stubbornly at her student. Kazuki, for his part, looked about as done as he could without actually showing it to the world. After all, they were in another party, one that hopefully wouldn’t be attacked by villains.

Hina was really hoping, at least.

“And I’ve told you that you can try,” her student replied, almost flatly. “Most things we’ve been able to come up with would get in the way one way or another, honestly. Either that, or they don’t fit my costume at all,” he explained with the voice of someone that had already said the same thing several times.

As that conversation happened, Hina traded a look with David Shield.

The man had always been too high profile for her, actually. They had met here and there in similar parties, but they frequented very different circles. He focused almost hundred percent on combat heroes, after all, and Hina– while a half-decent fighter – was as far from that as a hero could get. There was also the fact that the scientist shied away from spotlights and the more… celebrity-like stages as much as possible.

He stayed in his labs, his expositions and his lectures.

Hina, for her part, stayed on catwalks, shows and parties.

Yet there they were, united because of their… students. Hina had to stop her own mind from finishing that with another word. That situation was getting way out of hand. She needed to get a grip, because she was an adult and the last thing she needed was to think that. Admittedly though, the world conspired against her, putting her in a position where there was a father and daughter on one side and then Kazuki and her on the-

‘Bad Hina,’ she chided herself, groaning.

“It’s been a while since I saw her this… not excited, but enthusiastic,” David commented, apparently very happy with what he was seeing. That was nice to see, considering how down the man had looked ever since the attack. Understandable, she supposed, considering the man was practically the head of I-Island and he’d been the one targeted by the villains. “I do find it a little insulting that he rejected my tech, but accepted my daughter’s.”

“If it helps, I’m pretty sure it was kind of forced on him,” Hina commented, amused and relieved with the distraction.

She wasn’t lying though. Kazuki had a way of attracting people without meaning to. That was half the reason why his club existed, Hina knew. If those students hadn’t stuck to him after the Sports Festival, or if those Management students hadn’t been interested in his group, or if Nezu hadn’t been intrigued by the gathering of teenagers… And yet, it all had happened, with Kazuki right in the middle of it all, willing or not.

It was kind of funny to see her boy become a leader without even meaning to or wanting to.

She had seen it though, especially those days. She’d seen his sidekicks, she’d heard about his Management Team and she was witnessing some of his support branch shenanigans. Kazuki might not realize, but people wanted to follow him. They flocked around him, inspired by him, guided by him, like he was a… Well, a beacon.

If Hina hadn’t known better, she’d have thought it was his Quirk at play.

It made it all the more impressive though, considering his Quirk literally should be doing the opposite really. Kazuki was doing that all by himself, with the strength of his character. It was impressive, truly. And Hina was so proud of how far he’d come from the boy that had first stepped into her agency. The both of them had worked to make him shine and now, now he did and people appreciated that.

“I guess that’s a small comfort,” Shield replied, reminding Hina that yes, she was part of a conversation with the man. When she turned though, she noticed an odd look being directed at her by the man. Increasingly concerned, she noticed how he seemed to be looking between her and Kazuki. “You’re not related, right?” he asked, confused and she really didn’t like the thoughts that popped up in her mind as to why he was asking that.

“No, we’re not,” she answered as casually as she could. For once though, she wasn’t completely confident in her acting. Thank God that the younger Shield had Kazuki thoroughly distracted, because she imagined he’d have noticed her lies immediately. “I’m his mentor. He came to me for his internship after the Sports Festival,” she explained, fairly sure that the man was familiar with Japan’s hero system and especially UA’s, considering how close he was with All Might.

“Hm, I see,” was all the scientist said, looking very thoughtful.

And Hina sensed danger even more than before.

“You care about that boy a lot, don’t you?” he asked and she swallowed the knot that formed immediately in her throat. “I can see it,” he added, a somewhat knowing tone and expression on him that made her want to squirm. She did not need to deal with that at the moment. Hina had enough of that going on in her head as it was.

“He has that effect, as you can see,” she added, hiding behind a complete truth as she looked at Melissa and Kazuki talking.

“I guess that’s true,” Shield replied and he seemed to drop that conversation there.

‘Thank God.’

[}-o-{]

[Melissa Shield]

Back in her work station, she couldn’t stop thinking about ideas for Kazuki to use, for everyone in Pharos to use, and she was somewhat surprised by that.

Even her gauntlet project for All Might hadn’t been that engaging. After all, it was more of a… dream project. Something she doubted would work, but she worked on anyway. The man was like an uncle to her, even if the last few years he’d been focused on Japan and fairly absent. She remembered being a little girl and him saying that he’d wear something she made if she managed to make it work.

And while she had, it was incomplete, a prototype if anything. At some point though, Melissa had lost her drive in that regard. Because she’d poured her everything into that gauntlet and it still seemed like it’d go nowhere… Even if it had, Melissa was sure there would have been little point to it. What could she make that All Might, the hero who famously didn't use support equipment, would find useful? To add insult to injury, things looked like All Might would retire before she even managed to make something.

That had been a bit of a hit to her confidence, admittedly.

Now though, she had a chance to make something for someone that would use it. She could now make something for actual heroes to use in the field instead of for scientists to appreciate. Melissa could finally have a direct hand in how effective a hero was, just like she had with Midoriya while he used his Quirk during the entire attack.

She had thought maybe she could get what she wanted with him, actually. Alas, the green-haired teen hadn’t asked for another gauntlet, or anything at all, after the one she’d given him broke during the attack. She hadn’t even noticed any desire that he might have held back. It was like he’d forgotten about it already, or dismissed it entirely.

Melissa didn’t think the boy she’d gotten to know would be so rude as to do so out of some sense that her work wasn’t worthy though. He seemed too nice for that. If she had to guess, she imagined it was because support equipment just wasn’t for him. Maybe he thought he could or had to stand on his own. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to ask for it and that’d been that. Maybe it was something else entirely.

‘Still though,’ she thought, pausing her brainstorming with her pencil over her notebook of ideas. ‘It’s so… frustrating,’ she thought bitterly. Had her work not been good enough to make Midoriya want her equipment? She didn’t know if that was the reason, but her mind seemed determined in thinking it was. Years of wanting to prove herself in the real world instead of just in academics seemed to crash onto her…

And then she’d found a path without even meaning to.

A random comment was dropped in a conversation that was about something else entirely. A question had escaped her lips before she could get a hold of her desperate mind. A debate happened, heated and passionate and exciting. Then, to finish it all off in spectacular fashion, for Melissa at least, she saw a way forward to get what she wanted.

Kazuki and his group, his club, his agency, they were doing exactly what she wanted to do. They were testing themselves in as real an environment as they could. Heroes-to-be placed themselves at the head of a pseudo-agency, seeing what the job was like outside of the actual heroics out in the field, training themselves, preparing themselves. The Management students worked to streamline everything, bolstering the heroes and the support branch which had consisted of only a single person before Melissa.

And then, the part that she was the most interested in, the support branch itself. Mei had exactly what Melissa had wanted all along, a group of people that actually needed, no, wanted her creations to help them reach new heights. Melissa had seen and heard about some of her designs through their conversations and she couldn’t help but be jealous. All of it was applied, all three of the hero students had taken her designs, her devices and applied them to their costumes. They would see use, they would help.

Melissa wanted that.

And now she had it.

‘I’ll make something for you if it’s the last thing I do, Kazuki,’ she thought, only then noticing the grin on her face as she went back to writing. There was no way she couldn’t make something. Her brand of support technology was perfect for them, actually. Their costumes limited them a lot, but she had ways to make her devices smaller, compact in a way that surely she could adapt for them.

None of them were sure how it’d work with their club dynamic, but Kazuki had promised he’d talk with the Management Team and they’d all bring her up with Nezu. He’d also promised that he’d do what he could to make her part of the whole thing. Which… she appreciated. It was a mess of a situation and she knew it. It was complicated and convoluted but…

She wanted it, so badly.

So, she was really grateful that he’d go through all that trouble for her.

As such, Melissa wanted to make sure it was worth it. Her support equipment had to be worth it. So, she made notes, sketches, even though it’d been an hour or two since Kazuki had left I-Island to go back to Japan. There was work to be done if she wanted to achieve what she set out to do.

And, admittedly, she was really excited.

‘Kazuki has almost everything covered, but there’s always something more that can be added,’ she thought to herself and she immediately had an idea. After all, she’d spent too much time around All Might not to know what inspired people, what people looked for in a hero. It was simple, but that same simplicity was what made it great. Anyone could throw a punch, after all, so a hero punching a villain hit differently with the public, it was relatable and satisfying. So, maybe it was basic, but Melissa already knew what her first device would be. Although, maybe she could be a little wilder about it than normal. This wasn’t a project for her classes and Pharos seemed to take Mei’s madness in stride.

So, maybe they would be fine with Melissa’s too?

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

All right!

Kazuki caught a Melissa!

I don’t know where that came from, but I had fun writing this chapter, so I won’t worry too much about it. Melissa turned out to be an interesting character to write, once my Muse started feeding me information about what she thought and did in my particular headcanon/AU. And now she’s gonna be around, apparently, which is interesting.

I hope you agree with me and that you enjoyed the chapter!

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What do you think Melissa will make for the agenc- I mean, the club?

See you.