Train, Shizuoka Prefecture, 7:14 AM.

April 9th, 2149.

The train rocked to life, the motion gentle despite the sheer power the machine possessed.

It was interesting in a sad sort of way just how much the death of a classmate could invade their lives—even more so considering they hadn’t even known each other for an entire week. I wondered if it was the proximity to the event that caused the pain or if they had genuinely managed to form a connection in such a short period of time.

I watched the others as they talked—the situation was invaluable in a way, being able to see exactly how each of them acted while knowing with certainty that they were attempting to hide something from each other. It was a front-row seat to study the masks they wore, the tells they had, unconscious or not, as they tried to cover it all in upbeat energy.

I wondered if my own reaction was coming across as strange to them in turn.

“Well, we have an hour and a half before we get there,” Eijiro said, smiling.

He’d folded one leg underneath him in order to face the group from his seat. It left me in between Eijiro and the rest of the group—I regretted being the first to sit down; I would learn from this experience.

“A relative lifetime,” I said in response.

Eijiro just grinned at the perceived impatience before leaning back on the cushion.

“My mom was super worried after everything,” Eijiro admitted, “I had to argue with her to even let me out of the house. It was pretty bad.”

“So did I,” Mina groaned, letting her head bang against the wall of the train. “It was my dad, though.”

Everyone fell silent for a moment, thinking.

I could relate to their experience in a small way because both Sajin and Hayami had been worried about my safety, but it wasn’t the same visceral terror he could imagine would take over those who didn’t have their experience.

Hayami had spent most of her life with a family member who was in constant danger on the job, and from some of the stories Sajin had to reveal over the years, it wasn’t a trivial amount. Sajin practically lived at his workplace—his tolerance for danger and his professional skillset had helped him build up a startling tolerance for this kind of thing.

It had hit close to home for both of them, I could tell, but Hayami’s learned distance and Sajin’s solution-mindedness had curbed the reaction most of the others would be going through. I wasn’t the best at engaging with others, but I know several classmates who would have been in a similar position. Shoto with his father, and Tenya and his family likely had dealt with this situation before, even if the roles would have been flipped.

“My parents were very critical of U.A after the invasion,” Tsuyu said quietly, voice hesitant, “I’m not sure if they are going to try and pull me from school. They were talking about it last night after they put my siblings to bed—I’m not sure how to deal with it.”

I watched her carefully; she was refreshingly open compared to most people, and I didn’t need to read between the lines; it was all on her face and in her words. Her hesitation, the words she’d chosen, the way her eyes were locked on her own lap—a complete divergence from her usual unyielding eye contact. Tsuyu was obviously affected by what had happened, her parent’s reactions, and what it meant for her own future.

It spoke of how close to the surface it was for all of them—he could see flashes of it echoed in the others.

Eijiro’s smile felt more like an accessory he’d worn today rather than an outward expression of his feelings. Mina’s energy seemed artificially bolstered like she was overplaying her reactions to reach the normal range she usually just existed within.

Momo was strangely quiet, not offering her own parent’s reaction when the natural flow of conversation indicated it would be her turn to speak. The moment hung in the air, and Mina spoke instead.

“No way!” Mina said, shocked, “Can they actually do that? We signed all those forms, right? And the waiver about injuries? They’d have to get it overturned first somehow.”

There had been a large amount of paperwork to fill out on acceptance into the U.A, and a lot of it had to be co-signed by their individual guardians and parents. One of the memorable ones was a waiver for injuries incurred during the training process to keep any legal actions away from the institution.

Another had been a contract designed to hamstring their ability to remove the young heroes in training against the student’s will in question. It had likely happened many times in the past—injuries in a school that dealt with combat scenarios and quirk enhance power could easily end with a serious injury.

I could easily remember just how upset Sarada had been after I’d broken Haru’s arm.

“It would be a difficult process for them to enact, but it’s not impossible to have those documents overturned if they were determined. Your own decision to stay would be weighed highly, I’m sure, and U.A would no doubt attempt to represent your interests if you desired to stay, but….” Momo said quietly, taking on the more distant legal argument, rather than confess her own home situation. “This is a completely different situation than what was described in the injury-in-training waiver, and a full-scale villain invasion would likely be more than enough to satisfy the legal requirements to have it overturned through safety concerns if nothing else.”

The thought that she had considered this in such depth in such a short amount of time was telling enough. The legal process wasn’t really the main issue in that kind of situation, though; at least, I didn’t think so.

Depending on both Tsuyu and Momo’s everyday living arrangements, their parents could easily act to enforce their will on the situation in other ways—a minor had little to no fiscal ability at this stage of their lives, and our independence was basically non-existent. We were all living under cover of our parent’s wings, and those wings could be manipulated to allow for all kinds of pressures to slip through.

I wasn’t sure either of them had the ruthlessness required to go against the people that had raised them—I was sure that they hadn’t considered it fully either; nobody wanted to believe the adults they trusted were capable of such things.

“It wouldn’t be a good situation to be in,” I said calmly, closing my eyes and working through the hypothetical. “If a disagreement over enrollment turned into a legal battle with your parents, it is very likely that the comfortable home environment you are used to would change for the worse—something to consider if it ever came to that as unlikely as it is.”

Momo managed to keep her face even, but Tsuyu looked shaken.

“What do you mean?” Mina said hesitantly. “How would it change?”

I answered her interest in the topic with my rationale.

“If you found yourself in that situation, the pressure you would experience at all times would be crushing; every single interaction you had with your parents after that point would be loaded with confrontation, either outright or as a subtle tremor that underscored every discussion.” I said calmly, “It doesn’t even have to be present in those interactions for it to have an effect on you—you’ll start to feel it everywhere.”

I thought about Sajin and his various requests and rules that I had agreed to follow over the years—Don’t make others cry, Never break your promises, work towards your goals, watch how people interact with each other, try to understand, focus on your own growth, move on.

There were plenty of others, but the first of which had been designed to change how I expressed myself, so I was more in line with how the others my age had been socialized. As a child, I’d been very blunt—to a fault even, and my lack of care for how others received my message had led to more than one incident.

If I’d denied his request, I told him that I wouldn’t change how I expressed myself—that it was on them to understand what I was saying and not on me to cater to them. That I didn’t care if I made others cry.

I didn’t even want to think about how disappointed he would have been with me and how it might have changed our interactions afterward. That fear of disappointment was exactly the invisible pressure I was describing to them—The fact that this particular pressure had been leveraged to help me fit in was entirely beside the point. I hadn’t even known it existed at the time, hadn’t been aware that I was already within a manipulation.

There were countless tiny examples that I could point to, and the discussions I’d had with Hayami after I’d hurt Haru was a big one. The distance that had grown larger between us, the curt exchanges immediately after. The unspoken urgency and speed at which she left a room where I was present, and our business concluded.

All small things that most likely weren’t active manipulations or even conscious decisions on her part—at least in most cases. Each of them had inflicted a measure of negative pressure that acted to guide me in a direction more aligned with how they saw the world.

It wasn’t a bad thing or some kind of evilness that existed in its natural state; it was just how humans perceived each other and how they interacted, observed behaviors in one another, and made decisions based on it, always growing, always adapting.

The idea of disappointing either of them was a constant fear that always followed me, and I’d had more than one sleepless night, dreaming about the day Sajin had found out I had lied to him. Would he hate me for going against his guidance?

Would he call me a fool for trying to save a girl who had most likely died years ago?

“It’s a system that’s built into all of us, and if you actually were trapped in that kind of toxic situation, you’d be living with a constant push and pull of punishment and reward.” I continued into the silence. “All designed to draw you closer to their point of view, for you to drop out, to find another way to live a fulfilling life, and to leave your dreams by the wayside—and the worst part of it is that they wouldn’t truly be wrong.”

I opened my eyes and shook my head.

“Protecting their children from harm is the job of a parent—they’d feel as if they were doing the right thing, even while they crushed you.” I said honestly, “I can’t imagine what it would be like to deal with that for months on end, years even if your one for stubbornness or grudges. That fact that the contract is contestable in the first place is a landmine just waiting to explode; I hope nobody has found themselves in that situation before.”

Tsuyu was pale-faced at this point, and the others seemed pretty shaken up as well—I hadn’t meant to make it worse; I wasn’t even talking about her situation in particular—but I’d forgotten how easy it was to draw parallels between a described worst-case scenario and your own personal situation even if it wasn’t at all likely.

“That’s a pretty horrible thought,” Momo said quietly, “I would… I don’t know what I would do. Going against my parents would be a very difficult thing.”

I’d be meeting those parents later tonight—perhaps I could gain some insight into that while I tried to figure out if they had participated in Nanami’s disappearance.

“I don’t think I could do it,” Mina admitted hesitantly, pulling her legs up into the seat. “Even just fighting with them over small stuff gets pretty rough sometimes. Something this big would be awful.”

“Yeah,” Eijiro said quietly, his upbeat energy finally faltering, “If mom really wanted to pull me out, I’m not sure I could keep fighting her over it if it stretched on for months—I really don’t like seeing mom cry… I mean, I want to be a hero; I’d definitely argue, but… What would you do, Hisoka?”

I thought about it seriously for a moment—Hayami and Sajin were the stand-ins for my parents here. They’d raised me, guided me, protected me, and everything else in between. I knew that disappointing them hurt me, and the thought of either of them being angry at me for such a long time was a painful one.

I’d been going against them for a long time already, just not openly as this situation would dictate. I’d already come to the decision that there were some things I just wasn’t going to give up regardless of who asked me. I hadn’t stood my ground and faced that pressure. I had ended up lying to them both, promised to leave it all behind me, to focus on school, on my own growth…

If I’d been unable to bring myself to lie, if I’d been forced to weather the disapproval, the disappointment—I would have done it in a heartbeat.

“I’m selfish enough to put my own goals ahead of my guardian’s wishes,” I said seriously, “As long as I got what I wanted in the end, I could deal with being crushed.”

There was a silence after that, the answer perhaps difficult to empathize with given how strongly they all felt, and Tsuyu still hadn’t stopped staring at her lap. She was obviously worried that the worst-case scenario would come to pass.

“Tsuyu,” I said quietly, drawing her attention. “You didn’t ask for my opinion, but I would like to give it anyway.”

Tsuyu croaked, eyes flicking over towards him, watching through her hair. I thought about Hayami’s distance and Sajin’s strict but well-meaning guidance.

“The parent’s role has always been to protect their children, even to the degree that it can become stifling,” I said simply, summarising my point. “No human is perfect, and thus no parent is either. They will attempt to carry out their goal to protect you. You will attempt to find and work towards your own goals—this is a part of the natural process of growing up.”

The train rocked slightly before Tsuyu lifted her head to keep her balance, and I found myself making proper eye contact with her.

“The questions you must ask of yourself is simple,” I said quietly. “Exactly how much do you wish to be a hero? Can you stare them down and convey the strength of that conviction? Can you make them understand that you’re willing to sacrifice a degree of that safety for your future?”

It was something I’d thought long and hard about over the years and something I’d failed to do once already. I’d taken the easy way out in a way—I’d seeped into the cracks, bypassed the walls and barriers instead of making myself heard.

Much like my quirk, my mindset had chosen the midpoint between the solidity of earth and the fluidity of the ocean. There would come a time in the future where I would need to own up to Hayami and Sajin to show them my own conviction.

To push through that veil of protection, the invisible pressure, and force them to take notice that my goal was far stronger than that—to show them that they had both been wrong to tell me to leave Nanami in the past.

“I think I can,” Tsuyu said, voice quiet.

“I think so too,” I said honestly.

I washed my hands and left the train’s tiny bathroom, finding Tsuyu standing near the door to our train car. I approached her position, and she didn’t move towards the bathroom, so I prepared myself for a discussion.

“Do you have any siblings, Hisoka?” Tsuyu asked quietly.

Not the immediate reprimand I expected from what I’d said earlier—it also felt like it wasn’t really the question she had originally wanted to ask.

“No,” I said simply. “I am an only child; how many do you have?”

I found it hard to imagine what a sibling would have been like—I was different from most, and while it was possible that a sibling would have been like me, it was more likely they would have been normal.

“I have a younger brother and a younger sister,” Tsuyu croaked, but she was smiling, “Ten and six, respectively. I look after them whenever my parents go away for work.”

That was a large show of trust, even for a sixteen-year-old—my situation, living in an apartment with rules, guidelines, and constant contact and check-ins were one thing. But being tasked with looking after actual living human beings, ones that relied on you for food, safety, support, and structure, when you yourself were still a minor spoke well of Tsuyu’s level of maturity and responsibility.

“That’s quite impressive, Tsuyu,” I said honestly. “You’re parents must trust you very much.”

Tsuyu wrung her hands nervously for a moment.

“I suppose they do, but I don’t want to damage that,” Tsuyu murmured before steeling herself. “How do I talk to my parents about this? I don’t want to get pulled out of school. I want to be a hero like you said.”

It was an impossible question to answer; I only knew fragments about her relationship with her parents—that they were protective of her safety, but they trusted her with a great deal of responsibility.

I knew that Tsuyu was mostly within the standard level of behavior I expected of someone our age, she wasn’t a bully, and she was friendly and open to conversation when she was comfortable. It was likely that her parents treated her well overall.

Not exactly enough information to construct an exact method of attack for her—But I didn’t really need to know the exact details because she already knew them.

Tsuyu didn’t need a step-by-step guide to argue her parents down, not really. What was most likely to help her overcome this was support, acknowledgment that she wasn’t doing something bad by pursuing her goals, even if they conflicted with her parent’s own. She already had everything at her disposal to make her goal a reality; all she needed was the confidence to back it up.

“Tsuyu, have you ever challenged your parents on anything before?” I wondered.

Tsuyu bit her lip in thought before nodding slowly. I continued to watch her silently until she felt pressured enough to speak up.

“Once,” Tsuyu said evasively, “It was over something really stupid though—there was a girl from school, and she invited me to her birthday party, but I didn’t want to go.”

I actually had some experience with that, as Hayami had attempted something similar a few times when I was little, but she’d stopped after I’d failed to infiltrate several friend groups, one of them, in particular, had been a spectacular failure.

“A bully?” I guessed.

“The other girls were,” Tsuyu admitted, “The girl that invited me was nice, sometimes.”

“How did your parents react when you argued?” I said curiously.

The details of the event didn’t really matter to me; it was getting her to remember that it had already happened once before, and she had survived the experience with their relationship intact.

“Dad was disappointed in my behavior,” Tsuyu said easily enough before croaking again. “Mom was angrier, she tried to convince me for almost twenty minutes, and when I screamed at her, she sent me to my room. I got grounded for a week over it.”

I smiled slightly, unable to help it.

“A week,” I said solemnly. “And your mom hates you now.”

Tsuyu croaked in alarm, looking completely taken aback by the assumption. I spoke up before she could rally.

“Of course, she never treated you the same after that,” I continued calmly. “She packed you off to an orphanage for naughty children who didn’t obey their parents. Your dad struck your name from the family tree and told all of the extended family that you had been nothing more than a group hallucination.”

“Um.” Tsuyu said helplessly, “None of that happened.”

“But you stood up to your parents, Tsuyu. You didn’t want to do something, and they wanted you to.” I smiled, “You ran headfirst into a conflict with your parents—why didn’t your entire life end afterward? Why didn’t you’re relationship with them crumble to ashes?”

“Because they aren’t like that, Hisoka.” Tsuyu croaked defensively.

I nodded, and she frowned, realizing I’d baited her.

“The difference between the toxic home environment I described earlier and your own situation is two-fold,” I said simply, studying the expression. “First, it was never going to reach that point in the first place because that was a worst-case scenario I was talking about, one in which the contract was the fulcrum. It wasn’t a prediction of your circumstances in particular.”

I nodded as if I was finished speaking, waiting quietly. Tsuyu’s expression slowly morphed into awkwardness as I remained quiet.

“You said it was two-fold,” Tsuyu asked hesitantly as if I’d somehow forgotten it. “What was the second thing?”

“Your parents are good people,” I said simply. “Just talk to them, stand your ground and show them how much you’re willing to do to make your dream real, and it will. You shouldn’t give up on convincing them before you’ve even had a single conversation.”

Tsuyu wrung her hands nervously.

“How do you know that?” Tsuyu asked quietly. “You haven’t even met them.”

“I don’t need to meet your parents because I’ve met you.” I said evenly, “I can’t imagine a pair of ruinous, irrational individuals raising somebody like you, Tsuyu; it wouldn’t make sense.”

I stepped past her and opened the door.

Tsuyu, the shortest among us, was practically invisible within the crowd, and I could see that she was using Momo’s prodigious hair as a tool for orientation, almost as if it was a lighthouse leading her through a storm.

“Were here!” Mina said, bringing the energy that had been missing for most of the train ride. “What should we do first?”

I’d already spread my sand out, using it to establish a rough zone of perception in the area around us—watching so many people from an isometric view almost felt like watching ants flitter around, ferrying tiny resources back to their homes.

“Has everyone eaten already?” Eijiro prompted before pausing as he got a round of negatives.“I’m the only one who ate before we left? Seriously?”

“I thought we agreed to visit the novelty café first?” Momo said sheepishly. “The one you told me about, they serve breakfast—I checked.”

I caught sight of a woman slipping through the crowd, hands moving deftly into the coat pockets of those she held no ownership over—her actions quite obvious from above as she moved parallel to the group.

“I want to see the cats.” Tsuyu croaked seriously.

I wondered if I should report her—currently limited by my lack of hero license, I couldn’t act to physically stop her without incurring further trouble from both the police, the hero agencies, or U.A. I wasn’t willing to let her continue her acts unobstructed, however.

“Excuse me for one moment,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Hisoka?” Momo said, blinking as I vanished.

I stepped out of the edge of the crowd, moving towards the man most likely to be a hero. He was in the process of posing for a photo with a middle-aged man.

His hair was an interesting mix of pink and auburn that I hadn’t seen before, style straight upwards into a block and held there with what I could only imagine was copious use of hair product. He was also wearing a predominantly blue costume, with yellow lines on the front.

I waited patiently as he finished dealing with the man and then stepped forward.

“Hi, there!” The man said cheerfully, adjusting his headband. “Would you like a photo as well?”

I couldn’t help but notice the man wore some kind of strong-smelling perfume.

“No, thank you, sir,” I said simply, turning slightly and pointing towards the crowd, moving my hand to keep up with the thief’s pace. “There is a pickpocket; I’ve witnessed her take seven different wallets already.”

The man’s smile vanished.

“Thank you for reporting it—you’re able to tell where she is even in the crowd?” He said seriously, and I nodded. “Can you describe her?”

“Five and a half foot, shoulder-length black hair.” I said, studying the woman’s clothing from above, “She’d wearing a black tank top and a zippered hoody, covered in stars, over the top of it. She also has a shoulder bag; the word ‘Sport’ is written on the side.”

“Fantastic description—Thank you for your help.” The man said firmly, “Might I ask who you are? It will make filling out the paperwork easier.”

“Hisoka Higawara, a first-year student of U.A.” I said simply, “I’m not familiar with the heroes from Tokyo; I’m only visiting. Could I ask your name as well?”

“Of course! How rude of me—My name is Young Spice,” Young Spice said quickly, “I work for the Genuis Office Hero Agency; if you could point me towards her once more? Thank you!”

I watched as Young Spice strode off towards the crowd and vanished. I moved at a more sedate pace, joining the group crossing the street and rejoining my own group. They were standing still on the sidewalk and getting some frowns for blocking the flow of foot traffic.

A loud yelp rang out from ahead of them, drawing their attention.

“Hisoka!” Mina squawked once she’d noticed I had returned.

“Where’d you go?” Momo said, concerned.

“There was a villain up ahead pickpocketing people; I reported them to a hero on patrol—” I said honestly. “His name was a bit strange, but he smelled nice.”

Tsuyu croaked in alarm at the presence of a villain or the knowledge that the man smelled; I wasn’t sure.

“Whoa! Is that what that yelling is about?” Eijiro said worriedly, standing up on his toes to try and see up ahead of them. “How’d you even spot them? Who was the villain—”

“If you keep asking him questions, he’ll never have a chance to answer them,” Mina said pointedly.

Eijiro closed his mouth with a click, but he was smiling.

“Sorry, Eijiro—I don’t know who the villain was,” I said simply, glancing around for a moment. “I… also skipped breakfast—we should eat.”

“You too!?” Eijiro said, exasperated.

“Jump,” Mina said brightly, hands outstretched to the cat that was looking down at her curiously from atop the wall perch. “I’ll catch you! Really! You can come home with me—”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to take them home with you,” Eijiro snickered.

“It hates me!” Mina pouted as one of the waitresses came to stand with her.

I stared at the animal that now sat on the table—its tail flicked up for a moment before quickly rolling back down through the air to slap noiselessly against the tabletop. A challenge, or a declaration of ownership over the table—I removed my own hand from beside my plate and placed it in my lap.

“I haven’t seen you or the cat blink once since I sat down,” Eijiro said, bemused, messing with his phone. “Who’s winning?”

“I am,” I asserted before the cat’s tail raised back up in warning.

I broke the staring contest at the sound of a click and found the red-haired boy holding his phone up in front of him—he’d taken a photo. I quickly looked back to the cat to find it smugly licking its paw—I’d lost the battle.

“This was a great idea,” Momo said, smiling, sipping at her tea. “I’ll have to see if I can convince my mother to come here; I think she would like it.”

“It’s cute.” Tsuyu insisted, for the third time in as many minutes. “Really cute—I wish I were born as a cat.”

Tsuyu remained crouched down in front of the black-furred and yellowed-eyed cat for several minutes now, scratching at its ears and spine. I turned the thought over in my mind—being born a cat would most likely be a terrible fate.

The likelihood of being abandoned or born on the streets was high, and the lifestyle of a stray cat would be challenging. Constantly looking for your next meal amongst the waste of the humans or hunting rodents and eating them raw. Unable to communicate with the dominant species on the planet and to live almost at their whims.

The cats that lived in Neko Ame were probably luckier than the average stray in that they had a permanent shelter along with daily food and water—but this life probably had a set of downsides as well.

The café itself was a clean, bright and positive place, but this room wasn’t were the cats lived outside of opening hours. I’d already checked—spending most of your life in a cage and only taken out as a novelty for those they couldn’t even communicate with or understand.

An unending chain of unfamiliar humans, entering and exiting their lives, touching, grabbing, picking up, and prodding at them. Attempting to mentally place myself in that circumstance was difficult, and it left me in a place of complete unease.

I broke a tiny piece off my cinnamon roll and pushed it across the table with my finger; the cat investigated the terms of the ceasefire before snapping it up with its tongue—Perhaps peace was an option after all.