It was a dark windy night.
Jaku Central Hospital was as quiet as ever. Not much was even going on. Nami was lying in bed hooked up to all kinds of machines. The doctors and medics were completely dumbfounded by what had happened to her, aside from the fact that she lost blood... somehow.
But apart from that they couldn't figure out what happened to her. Which didn't help the reaction that her family had. Iku had come off work early to make sure she was alright.
But we aren't going to focus on the hospital too much. What we will be focusing on is the Nanari residence and the person who accidentally caused her condition.
Now what was he doing?
Using one of the family's laptops to find out as much as he could on All Might. Various sized tabs opened all with videos and articles all on All Might's various escapades and appearances.
His fingers moved far faster than any normal human could; scrolling, closing, opening and reopening tabs to double-check information. This is what he was used to. It was his job to know basic information and he had been slaking.
If his coworkers saw him they would be laughing at home much he had wasted.
If his parents could see him now he would look like a maniac. They would probably bring him to the doctor to get help. Not that said doctor would even be able to do anything nor would he need it.
As he continued his mad research his body suddenly froze as a realisation came to his nonexistent brain.
What is a hero?
He had seen the word being used to describe All Might all the time for one reason or another. But he never actually thought about what the word meant in this world. Did it mean the same? Had it been changed? Or did it gain another meaning?
Taking a look over at some news sites and other websites Hibiki quickly became confused at what he was seeing.
Hero. Which used to refer to literary characters of old before being used to refer to someone for doing exceptionally good deeds has been reduced to a simple job. Something that should be used to describe someone who had gone above and beyond had been reduced to a mere job.
Now don't get him wrong. He could care less for heroes as a whole, not specifically in this world, just in general.
But there was something about reducing such a thing to a mere occupation that irked him. Shouldn't those who actually want to help others be the ones to get such a title? And this of course isn't even talking about that ranking system and, supposedly, how those higher ranked get paid far better.
Heroes were also taking sponsorships and all kinds of endorsements. They looked more like glorified celebrities than someone who was supposed to save your life. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if that was how most people saw it. A relatively easy way to get money and fame.
Well... so long as you had a good enough Quirk for it. Which brought him over to the next talking point. Quirks.
Now he had no real concrete evidence for this persay but there seemed to be a certain stigma around those with mutation-type Quirks. More specifically, animal-type mutation Quirks or those that significantly change the body in one way or another.
Perhaps from religious groups or the natural human superiority complex to see anything non-human as lesser.
Either way, from what he'd heard and sparsely seen this seems to be somewhat true. However this could simply be attributed to human nature and biases. He would need to go into it more thoroughly to confirm.
However, there is one thing he didn't need to confirm. The stigma or rather more accurately put, shunning of "Villianous" Quirks.
What makes these Quirks so evil and villainous in nature you may ask? Because some people don't like the way they act, behave, activate or the way it makes its user look.
This isn't a joke. People genuinely don't like certain Quirks for how they operate. Something encoded into a person since birth and, if certain papers are to be believed influence and directly tell you how a person acts and behaves. Though this is another thing he needs to confirm himself.
Sighing to himself, he decided to return to his cradle for the time being. He didn't need to sleep, far from it in fact. He longed for it, mainly because it got annoying staring at the ceiling for 12-plus hours after the first day.
As he began to make his way back, four large tentacles sprung from his back, lifting him off the ground, and immediately catching him off guard.
Questions began flooding his mind as his body moved him towards his cradle, completely against his will, which brought on a question to him.
How long has it been able to do this? Why is it doing this now? And how is it able to do this? Was it doing things like this before and he never noticed? Surely impossible right?
Actually... now that he thought about it, how could he see at all? He couldn't taste anything, but he could see, hear and to a limited degree smell and touch things. Even though by all accounts he shouldn't be able to.
He could control his body however way he wanted, did that mean that he could also control his senses? Possibly. But he would need to test that.
And he had just the plan for that. Opening his bedroom window just enough to where his mask, his actual body, could pass through. The acid that was making up his false body liquified slightly just enough so that it could easily pass through as well.
-----
A cold wind blew through the outskirts of Mufasa City.
Buildings left to rot away littered the roads. Groups of people sitting around flaming barrels and dumpsters. Begging to any god that would listen, that the cold spring winds wouldn't snuff out their warmth.
A haggard, cloaked man walked up to one of the burning barrel groups, holding some old torn-up clothes. Though this man was quite the unique fellow. As he held up clothes it could be easily seen that not only his hands but his forearms had been replaced by two large revolver guns.
"Here, I was able to find these for the fire." The rugged-looking gun-armed man said before pausing and looking down saddened. "I wasn't able to bring all of what I found with me... Sorry." He couldn't look the others in the eyes. Every time he'd gone out to get clothing or food, either with or without others, he would almost always come back with very little to nothing at all.
If it wasn't for his Quirk, Katashi and well most people here, wouldn't even be in this situation. Some because of how they look. Others due to how their Quirks work.
"Hey, what's this?" A young man Ai asked with a little excitement in his voice. Ai was just one of the many individuals on the outskirts who have Mutation type Quirks. His gave him a reptilian-esque skin with enlarged forearms and hands. Instead of the nails of a regular human, he had sharp claws.
"Huh?" Katashi looked up surprised. He wasn't expecting anything interesting to show up in the clothes he could carry.
Taking a look at what the young man was talking about in the small pile he saw a strange-looking smiling porcelain mask. It had rosy red rounded cheeks, purple stripes that stretched from the eyes to the top of its large smiling mouth and red lipstick had been painted on it for a slightly exaggerated pucker.
Neither Katashi, Ai or any other of their group had ever seen a mask like that. Once more, Katashi didn't remember ever seeing the mask in the dumpster. Something as strange-looking as this surely would have caught his eye.
As he and the others kept looking at the odd-looking mask, all of them slowly, without realising it began to slowly reach towards it. All except for Ai who simply kept staring at it in a trance. A much deeper trance than those around him.
"Go on." He heard softly in his head among other words he couldn't make out. "Grab it." He heard another, this time childish voice say. "Take it." This time a voice sounding like his mother said. Soon more and more voices began talking to him. All with their own encouraging voices egging him on.
Before anyone could register what had even happened to them, Ai had swiftly taken the smiling mask. Causing the rest to snap out of their unknown daze. The feeling of wanting the strange mask hadn't left them yet but the sensation could, and was easily chalked up to be out of curiosity.
They all quickly looked at the young man when he took the mask from the small clothes pile. They weren't originally going to say anything but when they saw his face and the way he was looking at it they thought that they just had to say something.
It was a creepy, happy smile. As the seconds marched forever onwards the smile on Ai's face grew wider and wider. And the distance between his face and the mask grew shorter and shorter.
Feeling that something disastrous would happen if Ai was allowed to put that mask on they tried to stop him. Some tried to get his attention by talking to him while others tried to grab the mask off him.
What none of them thought would have happened was the mask suddenly expelling a large quantity of black semi-solid liquid which quickly expanded, wrapped around and covered Ai's head.
None of them even realised what had happened as it all occurred too fast for their eyes to track. But the liquid that had come out of the smiling mask didn't stay for long as it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared as the mask quickly attached itself to Ai's head.
Everyone stood still as Ai's body fell limply to the floor. Katashi was the first to come out of shock, dropping the clothes in his arms and trying to move Ai into his arms.
"Oi, kid say something!" Katashi said shakily. He couldn't even begin to imagine what was happening to Ai or what the strange mask had done to him.
As the others also started snapping out of their frightened daze and began to move Ai's body suddenly shot up causing Katashi to fall on his back eyes shakking. A black, rotten-smelling substance began to leak from the masks, now pitch-black eyes and mouth.
"Sorry about this. It isn't personal." Ai's body said in a voice that didn't quite sound like his excitable voice. It sounded as if someone else was speaking over his voice. A ghostly and slightly robotic voice.
"It's just..." The voice paused holding up Ai's arms in a way reminiscent of a doctor about to do surgery. Excitement could be barely heard in its tone as it continued. "An experiment"
________________________
AN: Sorry for not posting in a while, the ending of the previous chapter made me realise I had to write a chapter in between it and the planned chapter. Then I got stuck for a bit, so I wrote up another chapter to unblock.