Chapter 14
"I am still concerned about the results of the of MRI and PET scans," Doctor Maeda said. This was not the emergency room doctor, but a neurologist brought in for my case. Kan-sensei and Recovery Girl were there to receive the report. The doctor did not ignore me; he just knew who really mattered. "There is definitely some irregular neural activity in various locations throughout the brain." He pointed to a moving image on a screen. It meant nothing to me, but Recovery Girl found it fascinating.
"Have you compared this to her scan right after her head injury in March?" the school medic asked.
"I never got any tests. Didn't even go to a doctor." I revealed. "We didn't think it was that bad. The language difficulties didn't show up until I was already in Tokyo."
"You still should have come in and gotten it checked out," the doctor chided, with Recovery Girl nodding in agreement.
I nodded silently. Not in agreement, just to keep things moving.
"We would like to keep her in for one more day before releasing her," the doctor continued. "Just to observe. Along with a few more tests. We'd like to bring Triage back for a more in-depth diagnostic. He might be able to tell if the Size/Compress interaction had any lasting impact. He'll bring in Assayer virtually. She can analyze the likelihood of antagonism."
"Very well," Kan-sensei agreed. Again, it was a pain no to be consulted on my own treatment – but nominal fifteen-year-old here. That just wasn't the way it worked. Teens did not make their own medical decisions. I was also getting the feeling that the U.A. people weren't too impressed with the level of care the Yanagis had provided. The teachers were more comfortable making the decisions themselves.
"One more day Yanagi-san," Kan-sensei put his hand comfortingly on my shoulder. "I'll let your parents know."
The teacher had brough my backpack from the police locker. In it was my cape phone. Once I was alone again, I texted the number for the man with the voices.
[Tomorrow I am going to see one of the people who might be able to help you. Would you like to meet me there sometime in the next few days? I may have a favor to ask you.]
Now it is up to him. I thought.
Do you think he will reply? Emily asked. Will he come?
I don't know. We'll have to wait. The phone beeped, showing a response. Or not.
[Sounds fun. Where and when?]
[Monday at Keseru-machi station in Shinano-ken. Let us know the time you'll get there.]
[Looking forward to it. I don't think I should go. I'll be there. Or not. No, don't send yet.]
I'm guessing he was dictating rather than typing. I said.
So it would seem.
[Are you all right?] came another text from him.
[Still in the hospital. I think I'm ok. The docs are not so sure.]
[Hate hospitals. Especially the ones with bars. I like bars. Good booze. Not that kind of bar, idiot. I know I am, but what are you?]
Oh boy … I thought. What are we getting ourselves into?
We are helping a soul in need. Emily reminded me.
So we are, I agreed hesitantly. I just hope it is the right thing.
[Why were you fighting the Ravagers? Sounds dumb to me.]
[They started it…] I sent back. I think he was dragging me down to his level.
[What do I call you? Say my name, say my name, say my name baby.]
[Yanagi Reiko. And you?]
[Jin. Call me Mr. Jin. Are you Who cares? related to the docs What's up, doc! you want me to visit?]
[They're my family. I'm very protective of them.]
[Oh. Shit she's taking us to meet the parents. Shut Up! I'm too young to get married.]
[I'm told you have a fractured soul. They're priests and specialize in helping souls find peace.]
[Told?]
[Told.]
[Ok. I'll be there. Not a chance in hell baby!]
I waited, but nothing more came though. I changed the name on the contact to Jingo.
I do so hope he will be there. It could do him ever so much good.
I'd say we've got a 50/50 chance. I replied.
I was allowed out of bed on Thursday, the second day of my imprisonment. I spent as much of the morning wandering the hospital as I could. Not only was I bored, I was sore and stiff and wanted to work out my muscles, so I'd be ready for whatever was next.
I'd been in or around three different cape fights yesterday and three others in the last six weeks – not counting training or school stuff. That wasn't quite up to my days as Skitter, but it was more active than most of my time in the Wards.
I was somewhat relieved to be going back to Dasumiru-mura. Some quiet time working on my Japanese and Emily working on her anxiety issues could be good for us both. The Inoue might prove to be a problem, but I'd been told the Pro Heroes and government investigators were already there poking around. Tokuda was with them and had sent me a couple of messages to keep me aware, if not informed.
As I was wandering, I noticed the police detective who had interviewed me walking into a room. I sent a few spirits to prevent the door from closing and sped up to pass the entrance before anyone noticed.
Inside the detective was speaking to a tall, gaunt man with long lank blond hair. Bandages covered his chest and left shoulder and he was using a cane to stand. The injured man caught my eye and paled. I didn't remember him from the bus, but he seemed to recognize me.
"Tsukauchi-san," he interrupted the detective and nodded towards the door.
I kept moving, releasing the spirits from their task. The thin man might be related to the three attacks. Or the detective might be on another case. Or even visiting a sick friend. But that didn't explain why the injured man knew me.
My phone dinged. It was a message from Kan-sensei that he was on his way and that the two specialists would be coming with him. Triage's quirk was Diagnosis, which let him determine the physical state of anyone. He combined it with a medical degree and special training to work with search and rescue and medical responders. Assayer was a bit of a mystery. I had read up on her. She was seldom seen in public, usually sending a telepresence pod with special sensors to work with clients. Her quirk was analyzing other people's quirks and quirk effects. She worked mostly as an advanced quirk counselor.
They were coming to see what the local doctors could detect but not explain. I was more than a little concerned that Assayer would detect the two souls in this body. I had read there were a few other quirks that dealt with spiritual or supernatural phenomena. There was a guy called Nyikang whose quirk was Spirit Possession. A boy in Class 1-A was supposed to be able to summon a shadowy supernatural being of some sort. I had found a few others in my research, but most people seemed to think it was a way of branding an otherwise normal power.
Hopefully, Assayer would go with that theory, if it came up.
The visitors arrived shortly after I returned. Triage was a medium-sized man who wore a blue bodysuit with white stripes and the 'Star of Life' six-pointed symbol with the staff and single snake – something I used to see on ambulances back home. Assayer's pod was an oblong egg shape around two feet long and a bit less than that at the thickest part. Her face was looking out from a screen in the center of the egg. Several arms with sensors extended from the surface.
"How are you this morning?" Kan-sensei asked.
"I feel a little tired and sore, but otherwise alright," I said.
"Hello," said Triage. "We met yesterday but did not have the opportunity for introductions. My name is Triage."
"Yanagi Reiko. Nice to meet you."
"This is my colleague – Assayer," He gestured to the floating egg. "She lives in Hokkaido, so she has to work with you remotely."
I bowed to the egg. It bobbed up and down while tilting forward a bit in return. I guess that's how an egg bows.
"Dr. Maeda mentioned their visit yesterday if you remember," my teacher reminded.
"Yes, sensei," I nodded.
"This will not hurt, but you may feel some odd sensations," Assayer's voice sounded clear through the egg. I could not help but think of Dragon when she spoke. There were no similarities in face or voice – just the whole telepresence thing.
First was Triage. He had me lie down in the bed. Once I was settled, he laid one hand on my head and took my right hand with his other. I felt a flow of energy seep through me slowly. After traversing my body, it seemed to pool in my head. After five or ten minutes, he removed his hands and the feeling went away.
"Physically her body is mostly recovered from both the injuries and her subsequent healing," he told us, speaking mostly to his colleague. "There are still signs of fatigue from the forced energy drain. There are also two anomalies, one centered in her brain and one present throughout her body. I can't get more specific as the effects are too generalized."
"Alright," Assayer replied. "My turn I guess." The egg floated closer and several sensor arms deployed. Each did something different. One shot a broad beam of light that moved up and down me like a scanner reading a code in a grocery store back home. Two attached to my body at different places. A fourth strobed a bright light into my eyes from inches away. Occasionally one probe would retreat, and another would come out of the egg.
"Can you stand up please," she asked me at one point. All her arms had moved back into the main unit and a much smaller egg came out and started revolving around me. "I am detecting a minor temporal anomaly. Experts posit that Mr. Compress' quirk suspend people and objects in a pocket dimension, the representation of which in our world are the small marbles."
"Kodai-san's Size quirk managed to reverse the process by disrupting the physical manifestation. But the temporal stasis that is part of the demi-dimensional transfer seems to have not been completely reversed."
"What does that mean?" Kan-sensei growled. He laid his hand on my shoulder.
"It means that Yanagi-san is just slightly out of phase with our timestream – a fraction of a second ahead. My temporal scans are not precise enough to determine the exact value, and it seems to be fluctuating slightly."
"What does this mean for me?" I asked. I didn't feel out of phase – whatever that meant.
"We cannot be sure," Assayer said. "This may be a unique situation and will require further study. As the shift is forward in time, it is possible that it will manifest as a slight precognitive effect. However, the shift is so small it is more like to appear to be a slight increase in reflexes if anything."
"I see," I said. I would have to test that to find out. "Anything else?"
"Your quirk is listed as a standard Emitter-type. That is incorrect. You have a rare Medium sub-type. Like a few others, you manipulate non-corporeal semi-sentient energy often called spiritual or supernatural."
"What?" Triage asked "Ghosts and monsters? You've got to be kidding."
"I'm not. I never joke about quirks." She sounded offended. "Medium-type quirks are very rare, but not unheard of. Oddly enough, there are two other Medium-types in her year at U.A. That number is unprecedented. I may want to do a study. If these sorts of quirks are on the rise, what may it mean for our society?"
"Who else?" I asked.
"I am not prepared to share that information at this moment. Privacy must be considered."
"Thank you," Kan-sensei replied with a slight bow. "We will have to find out more about this and consider what it means for our students. In the meanwhile, is there anything we should be doing or precautions we should be taking because of the temporal shift?"
"I will give you a few simple tests – physical and mental reaction measures – I would like you to do regularly, Yanagi-san." Assayer said. "These will provide a baseline for your current reaction times. If they change, we will be able to note and track the changes. I'd like to examine you again in a month unless there are any changes before then."
"Alright," I replied. That would be good for me as well. Getting a secondary Thinker/Mover power could be good. On the other hand, slowly loosing sync with reality would be bad.
After the two specialist left, Kan-sensei wanted to talk.
"You didn't sound surprised when Assayer mentioned this supernatural aspect to your quirk."
"I've been aware of it my whole life," I replied. "I registered it as Poltergeist. That was not a mistake or a marketing ploy. It is literally my power. I control fuyūrei, floating spirits."
"Neh?" he mused.
"My family has been dealing with spirits for centuries, as have many others. It's possible that there is more to it than just quirks."
"There has been discussion in the past if religious, supernatural, and legendary abilities might have existed in reality before the first appearance of quirks." The vampire-like teacher mused.
I pointed to my right canine tooth and then pointed to him.
He nodded in response. "If there are known, verifiable, repeatable instances where people interact with or manipulate spirits and supernatural beings then it seems to prove that there may be some validity to the old stories and beliefs."
"As I say, this has not been a question in my family for centuries," At this point it was Emily speaking through me for the most part – while letting me know what she was saying as I mouthed her words. "My father and both sisters have Medium-type quirks that make our religious tasks easier, but they merely reflect the abilities present in prior generations – going back to the Heian period."
"It might be worth it to see if other Medium-type Emitters have some ancestral connection to religious orders," he mused. "Perhaps I can speak to your family about this."
I wondered if the academic in him was looking to get a paper out of the investigation. Not necessarily a bad thing. Even if I preferred to keep as many secrets about my powers as I could, having experts helping me find out what I could actually do might be useful. I did wonder who the other two mediums might be. The guy with the shadow creature was likely one. Who was the other?
"I have you booked on a train to Kesuru-machi this afternoon at 1535. You will get there at 1820. I have informed your parents who will meet you at the station. Let's get you checked out." He started to pick up my bag. Instead, I had my sprits pack everything I had removed from my backpack. He looked at me flatly.
"When you return we will need to have a discussion about your decisions and actions during the bus attack," he said. "The four of you who fought, along with all of Class 1-A have faced trials we would rather you had not at this point in your learning. While it has been decided that none of you will face legal ramifications for your actions – indeed they have been declared appropriate – the faculty of the school would still like to review the actions and discuss possible consequences on your future. Consider that while you recover."
It took almost an hour to get me checked out. I made the train just on time.
I watched out of the compartment window as we left the urban sprawl of greater Tokyo behind. The train made its way up into the mountains that made up the central spine of the main island. The scenery was beautiful, though the weather had turned rainy. The soft grey light added a melancholy flavor that fit my mood.
You do not seem excited to be returning to the temple? Emily prompted.
I'm not sure that I am. Your Mother is very nice, but I barely got to know your sisters. And your father doesn't like me.
He neither likes nor understands the choices I made. Emily' tone was somber. I wondered if she were regretting those choices. I believe it is me with whom he is most wrathful. You are a stranger to him, and one that has broken the delicate balance of relations between the Inoue and our family. He does not like to lose that control.
Not really making me happier about all this, friend.
I'm certain everything will be alright. Her mental tone was full of uncertainty.
I pulled out my 'cape' phone and sent Tokuda a text. I would likely need to ditch this number when I got a new phone. [Am arriving in Kesuru this evening. Staying at the Temple in Dasumiru. Recovering for the week. Can help with investigation if needed.]
Do you want to be involved in the investigation? Emily asked. She had been pretty quiet at the hospital. But the idea of returning home seemed to have perked her up quite a bit. She was almost chatty.
You have information that might help the investigaiton, I pointed out, especially dealing with the mistreatment of the people from Dasumiru. Don't you want to help get justice for you and yours?
My concern is that our presence may exacerbate the hostilities already present. And should nothing come of the inquiry, then we will have caused more enmity to be targeted at my family and the other Burakumin. It might be better to leave the investigation to the professionals.
I can see that. I considered for several seconds. She was right about the potential fall out, and I was never one to put my faith in official investigations. I sighed. I won't push it. But, you are a witness. If they have questions, you need to answer them. If you're not willing to speak up it really was a mistake for me to start this ball rolling.
I will answer if asked.
Alright. I could tell she was retreating at the thought of the potential conflict. Now tell me about your sisters. How do I get to know them better?
This seemed to change her mood. While they can occasionally be overly rambunctious – even a little naughty – they really are wonderful girls. They best way to gain their approbation is to engage them in a rousing discussion of their favorite topic – spirits. Their Sight is the most advanced of any in our family. They can see more deeply into the spirit world and summon a wider variety of spirits. My limited Sight has led me to concentrate on fuyūrei. However, there are many other types of yūrei and the Twins can summon almost all of them.
Is that their quirk – Summoning? I asked.
It is. And my father's is to lay spirits to rest. Should a spirit not pass on to the spirit realm willingly, he can assist them to do so. He can – if needed – even force a spirit from this world.
So if spirits don't belong in this world where do the poltergeists come from?
The spirits of people who perish usually move on to the next world to prepare for their return to the Wheel. Her enthusiasm was plain. I noticed her usual exaggerated vocabulary was not as pronounced. I wondered if this was a lecture she had been given as a child, or maybe even given to others as a miko. Some do not. They stay because of an unfulfilled task or desire. Sometimes they seek vengeance or to care for the family left behind. These are the sorts of sprits that need to be laid to rest. Many spirits return to our world though rebirth. Others return without taking a new body. These are the sorts of spirits I am my sisters usually interact with. They no longer have any identity tied to their previous lives, though their natures may be influenced by those lives. Fuyūrei have no individual identities, nor do hitodama or tenka or many others.
I'm not familiar with those names. I said.
Perhaps you can ask the Twins to introduce you to some. My quirk allows me to command only those spirits within my range. So far, those have only been floating spirits. They are attracted to me for some reason so there are always a cloud of them around. When the Twins summon a different spirit, I have been able to control those as well.
Interesting. I clarified. So we can see spirits – if they're around – and control them if we can see them. But we can't summon them, not even the floating ones. This was different from my earlier understanding of the power.
I suppose that is correct. However, I cannot recall a time when I was without the constant companionship of the fuyūrei
I glanced about the compartment. The constant swarm of spirits was visible from the corner of my eye. My perception reached through them allowing me to feel what they felt. In their senses I was a constant beacon – though they lacked any sort of vision and weren't actually touching me. I'm not sure how it worked, but it did.
My phone vibrated. It was Tokuda
[I saw you were injured. I'm glad you are ok. I'll drop by to see you soon. Sir Nighteye and Kanjiya Yūko, NTA, may want to speak with you too. OK to let them know you are coming?]
[NTA?]
[National Tax Agency. Also Nagase Genji, a National Police Detective from the Civil Rights Bureau working the Burakumin angle.]
[Yeah. Let them know. Thanks for asking.]
[Sure. The story is looking bigger than we thought. But can't say more. Yet.]
"Well, that isn't the least bit ominous." I muttered as I shook my head. The salaryman seated across the aisle looked at me funny. I refrained from smiling. He looked back to his screen.
It was getting dark when we pulled into the Kesuru-machi station. Mr. Yanagi was there waiting for me.
Wonderful.