Chapter 18
Himiko's life had always been controlled by others. Her parents were the first who came to see her as merely a monster that needed to be leashed. Then came her teachers who forced her to sit silent and still, work hard, study stuff that interested her not in the slightest and scorned her should she ever fall out of the range of what they perceived as 'normal'. Other children in her school had not been much better. They were vicious and cruel whenever they believed they could get away with it, so Himiko had to hide even more of herself in order to not be singled out for being 'freaky'.
The urge to just let the mask slip and be free grew stronger with every day that she was starved by the alleged experts who told her to 'simply ignore the thirst' at the back of her throat no matter how nauseating it became. Countless nights she spent crying into her pillow at night, because the desire to drink was unbearable. Back then she did not want to disappoint her parents who thought her to be finally 'cured'.
Now she understood how heartless and self-absorbed all these adults really had been. Her plight was merely an inconvenience for them. Nobody cared who she actually was and what she required to live a happy life. Perhaps someday she could have learned to tune out the constant agony and dizziness, found a boring, fruitless job and slaved away with a hollow smile on her lips. That certainly would have made her begetters proud.
Fortunately the one time that Himiko took her fate into her own hands turned out to be the best decision she had ever made.
Running away from her prison, blinded by the desperate, all-consuming need for blood she found the shining hero whom she had yearned for. If following this angel meant that she was about to be bound in even thicker chains then she would gladly do so and that was exactly what happened. Once again most of her life was beyond her control as she was used as a tool for faceless bureaucrats in service of obscure goals.
Yet she never regretted it.
Together with Tanya she felt free and unburdened. Because they could see each other face to face and be themselves in a thousand little ways. Because they had each other's back in spite of a dangerous and uncaring world. Because Himiko's personal hero was capable and strong, unbroken by the cold brutality of the HPSC. No obstacle was too great and no enemy was too strong for her. Regardless of how many times her senpai emphasized that she was not invincible, Himiko was of a different opinion.
Fate however, in its endless ironic mockery, decided to prove her wrong today.
Everything went perfectly. Together they went out into the woods and then found a super cute cafe. She even managed to feed her love a piece of cake! In public no less! And that was where she had made her first mistake.
Without her insistence on fooling around, Tanya would not have been distracted enough to be caught off guard by that Nomu. Normally Himiko would have relished the smell of such sweet blood, but in this case it made her so sick that she wanted to bite her tongue off. How she had to watch for the briefest moment how her beloved's entire left side deformed under the blow of that accursed beast broke her heart into tiny pieces.
And it was entirely her fault!
The sun of Himiko's existence, her reason for living, had gotten hurt directly because of her!
She tried to make things right and put that fucking bastard into the grave, but her incompetence messed it up again!
If she had been a split-second faster... If she had been more composed and thought her situation through like Tanya hammered into her mind after every lesson... If her hatred had not compelled her to strike right there and then... If she had been
better...
Then things would have turned out another way.
It was purely her fault.
Hers alone.
She brought shame on her beloved by being too weak when it mattered the most. An angel fell from heaven today, because of her greed. What a horrible disgrace...
Now, as a last shame, she would soil her senpai's eyes with her pitiful death. Shigaraki was a pathetic pushover who should have been as easy to split open from chin to belly as a gutter rat. How could she be overwhelmed by a man-child like him? No way...
Himiko refused to let her years of suffering be in vain!
She would not lie down and take this humiliation!
She would defy the expectations placed upon her by the world!
She would fight back and wrestle for control over her own destiny!
She would avenge her beloved even if it was the last thing she ever did!
Tanya taught her that there was always another option if one searched hard enough. Those rough hands which held her in place were merely part of a human being and all humans possessed exploitable flaws. What could she do, naked and pressed to the ground?
A slurry of thoughts raced through her head, all the while her hands tried to find purchase against the stone of the street. Seeing Shigaraki's hand close in on her face renewed her strength to struggle free, but it was not sufficient to throw off the guy on her back.
In a last vengeful attempt to get back at the man who she despised more than anything else, she stilled her movements and drew her neck in as far as she was able to. Judging from the sneer on his ugly, cracked lips he believed that she was avoiding him to buy herself another second at life.
How wrong he was...
There was only one continued existence that held any importance to Himiko in the world.
And it was not hers.
With her eyes searching a last time for her senpai, she lunged forward, her jaw nearly unhinging itself by how fast she opened her mouth to bite down on the dusty fingers coming her way!
What she had not expected was for everything to suddenly erupt in golden light.
~[#҈#]~
Time appeared to freeze for one Tanya von Degurechaff.
A few leaves which were swept up in the summer breeze were stuck midair.
Terrified passersby remained standing in place, holding their poses like a horde of carefully arranged mannequins.
Long ago the sight of such a motionless world would have filled her with impotent rage and loathing. Now she could only feel indescribable relief. For once the cause of this anomaly was not appearing at an inopportune moment to bring unwelcome news, but was rather called by herself in desperation. She had been unsure if her distressed pleas would work, if her thoughts could even be heard over the ether or if the entity she was trying to reach cared enough to respond.
After all, they had made peace with each other and vowed to never meet again.
"You surprised me, my child."
There it was again. A voice made up of a million other voices speaking in harmony. Utterly inhuman and simultaneously a culmination of humanity as a whole.
Tanya knew not how to respond, so she nervously awaited whatever judgement was coming. There would be a price to pay, yet she was determined to bear it; for what was living if not constant sacrifice?
"Indeed." chuckled the formless voice. "Nothing good usually comes without consequences. You showed that to me in an impressive display of courage. Do you remember what happened next?"
How could she not?
The war... the dreadful war... the Great War as the historians called it, had neared its end. Savaged and mutilated the nations fought themselves to a mutual loss. Nothing prevailed and nobody except those far away from the slaughter profited. It was a disgrace. Nearly one hundred million men, women and children wasted to satisfy the pride and greed of a few short-sighted elites. A billion more would feel the impact of this global travesty for the rest of their lives, be it in lost friends and property or wounds and sickness.
At the end, only fields of ash and ruins of former grandeur stayed behind. Broken husks, hollowed out by raging fires and violent explosions reached to the skies with long, blackened fingers as if they were begging for divine intervention to save them from this man-made hell.
Help that never came.
Tanya saw the famished peasants crowd inside the churches in hope of deliverance! She smelled the festering wounds of her fellow soldiers entreating to be forgiven for their sins and released from this mortal coil! Cries of faith from the charging enemies were still as fresh in her memory as the sermon of the military chaplain making his rounds through the hospital!
If Being X wanted her to believe...
If he was willing to give her extraordinary power in return...
If he granted Mary Sioux magic capable of toppling mountains for the purpose of testing her...
Then why did his help not extend to those who were actually deserving of it? Those that praised him with all their heart and fully entrusted their souls to his care? Where was he when his loyal followers had to feast on garbage and began to rot from the inside out?
What was the glorious reward for their devotion aside from additional suffering?
During their last meeting she asked him exactly that. Before he could answer she had followed up with an even more burning issue:
What made her so special that she was exempt from this neglect?
Tanya never saw herself as anything special. In her first life she was an ordinary human who was particularly unlucky enough to encounter a being beyond her comprehension. Before that however she took control of her life as much as she was able to. College, working her way up the corporate ladder, bettering herself... it all served to secure her standing and not get trampled under the heavy boot of society.
Her second one was no different. Riding the wave was preferable to getting washed away with it, so she joined the army and tried her damnedest to become irreplaceable to the general staff. While not working as intended, her plan succeeded and she climbed the ranks of the ruling social order again. Every person with common sense would do that. Purely the advantage of her reincarnated knowledge gave her a leg up above the competition.
Hence arose the question, why was her fate more of a concern to Being X than that of others?
His little experiment to see if he could convert her was meaningless. When he was not willing to support all his believers then concentrating on a single individual would change nothing in the long run. She compared this fallacy to a CEO who underpaid his workers, but tried to raise company morale by forcefully relocating one of them into a luxury villa without food or water. No one would be happy about that and ultimately the boss was wasting money on underutilized real estate.
Contrary to how she had worded it during the last moments before her male body was crushed by the incoming locomotive of the Tokyo train station, Tanya did not abhor the concept of god's existence itself. What got under her skin were people who claimed credit for achievements they did not commit. Laziness, narcissism and baseless entitlement were sins she could not tolerate.
Should God bring about actual value for society then she would happily repay his service with a form of worship of his choosing (appropriate to the amount she benefited from it of course). However, letting humans do the work and then requiring them to laud him for that was disgustingly abusive, comparable to the Yakuza squeezing protection money out of innocent citizens.
Choice needed to be free and unhindered on an open market. If god wanted to be competitive then he better provide the best deals around and if he wanted to be fair then he had to be accepting of people who selected other options that they liked more. Monopolies led to stagnation which was probably why religion was failing nowadays.
Oh, how she had ranted on that moonlit night...
Impassioned arguments between the two of them were the norm rather than the exception, but surrounded by the devastation of their collective failures all pretences of personal pride were lifted. Together they had brought a calamity to these lands, feeding the flames of destruction in their own ways. For what?
The voice of her supernatural acquaintance continued: "I saw into your soul and noticed the change to it. Although I regret what I have done to you, I also appreciate how you have grown from that tragedy. Many would consider the difference miniscule, yet for me the disparity between the man you once were and the woman you are today is like heaven and earth."
Well, he was certainly the only person who could draw such comparisons, so Tanya accepted his evaluation without resistance. It would have been illogical if the circumstances of her multiple lives did not have some sort of influence on her. Humans were malleable creatures, as demonstrated by her voluntarily praying for the first time ever.
"Yes, that is true. But I doubt you have invoked my name to reminisce about the past or discuss philosophy. What is it that you require assistance with, my child?"
Anger briefly flared up inside her, because he made her spell it out despite the obvious reason for her despair.
"Toga Himiko, my... friend... is in grave danger. I was reckless and overconfident and I alone cannot prevent her... demise. Please, save her."
Admitting her powerlessness physically pained her.
"My, my... It seems your heart has finally thawed near-completely. You yourself are in quite the precarious position; don't you want me to help you too?"
"I... will find a way."
"Oh, I know that you are strong. Of that I have no doubt. To defy me year after year was as impressive as I found it annoying back then. Luckily for us both, we could come to an agreement, right?"
Unbidden memories of her orphaned childhood and the relentless training under the HPSC rose in her mind. Being X made it sound like he did her a huge favour when in reality her feelings on this new life were far more mixed.
"Yes. But I was under the impression that you promised to not purposefully make me suffer." she remarked perhaps a bit too passive-aggressively.
Unaffected by her indirect accusation the indescribable voice appeared to smile.
"That was the deal. I also said that I would bring you to a world like your home. The Empire as well as Japan had left their marks on you, so I gave this planet elements of both. You wanted to retain your experiences, which meant that you were reborn in a similar body as compensation. I admit that I took some... creative inspiration with your quirk from the computation magic you were already familiar with, but there were no malicious intentions behind its creation. Anything else is pure coincidence or a result of your actions."
Unfortunately, he was most likely sincere. Deflecting blame would get her nowhere anyway.
"I know. It was my responsibility as her superior to keep Himiko safe and I failed at that. Please give me a chance to make things right."
"Ahh... And what would you be willing to pay for your friend's wellbeing?"
"Anything." Tanya answered without hesitation.
"Fascinating... I could have never foreseen you putting anything above your own life. I am proud of you."
What? Being X was proud of her?
"Truly. You showed me the error of my ways; that I must be equal in the dispersion of my love and cannot force anyone to reciprocate my feelings. Now, after decades of war and crime have you understood that there are more important things than merely continuing your existence."
"I was never that simple-minded."
"Of course not. Yet at the centre of all your plans stood always your survival. Often you have helped others, but only for selfish gain. This is your first absolutely one-hundred percent altruistic choice and
choices are the most powerful aspect of mortals."
"Hmph. So what is your price? My soul? Praying twice per day? A body-part? Founding a church?"
"Far simpler, my child. I want you to remain on this path. People who are supposed to act in the interest of the Greater Good, who put themselves in the line of fire and protect the innocent, are called 'heroes' here. A true hero fights for those weaker than them, sacrificing their all regardless if they get rewarded or not. Basically, try to do what is
right."
How was that any simpler than just setting up a charity for a church building? This was suicide with extra steps! Then Tanya remembered why she was having this conversation in the first place and her resolve instantly steeled itself. Her friend's companionship would make the upcoming trials hopefully bearable.
"I swear I will do my best to live up to what the concept of 'hero' is meant to be."
A satisfied presence enveloped her being, wrapping around every cell of her body like a warm blanket.
"Then go forth my Harbinger of Justice! Let me awaken what was inside you all along!"
Shining lightning flooded her nerves, burning her, remoulding her,
improving her.
And entropy resumed once more.
~[#҈#]~
[OMG OMG WATCH THIS OMG] was the extremely descriptive title of the stream Sero had linked in the group chat.
Toru opened the video feed mostly because she was bored and whatever had excited the duct tape swinging boy so much was probably more entertaining than her English homework that she still needed to finish before next week.
A window popped up on her phone and she wondered what in there required three 'OMGs'. All she could see was some villain- oh...
That was the hands guy from the USJ; the same man who attacked them a second time at the sports festival. And he was threatening a young girl.
Oh, no.
Her invisible hand cramped around her smartphone, accidentally raising the volume of the stream. The audio quality was abysmal, but it was enough to make out what he was saying.
"- mean something to you? Your girlfriend, ey? Hehe... I'll make her suffer. Like you made me suffer!" he grinned and Toru feared for the worst.
Where were the heroes to stop that fiend? Her eyes were glued to the screen, despite the overwhelming urge to glance away and spare herself of the scene that was sure to follow.
"Noooooo!" screamed a familiar voice and it only took Toru a split-second to recognize the face of her diminutive, blond teacher, now restrained by some giant ball of black goo. The normally composed and collected woman looked so different that she would not have been able to identify her without hearing her voice.
Ms. Argent's bloodied mouth hung open, her eyes were widened in terror and she fought against her slimy prison with animalistic fury. None of her usual calmness was present at the moment and that made the whole state of affairs even scarier. Their teacher had lost control of the situation and was about to witness the torture of her girlfriend.
Toru felt like she was being choked. This was beyond horrifying.
She wanted to vomit as all her fears came true. The civilian's entire face melted into sludge while the grey-haired villain withdrew his hand quickly.
Wait... Why was there another face underneath?
Strangely enough, it appeared that the criminal responsible for the shocking reveal was as bewildered by this outcome as her...
Soon after a completely new person laid in a puddle of unidentifiable slosh. Blonde hair, yellow eyes and fairer skin were the main differences of the transformation. However, the hands-wearing man seemed to recognize this individual now for some reason.
"Blood Dancer? What are you doing here?" he asked, barely audible over the howling of the wind through the microphone.
"GO TO HELL!" roared the unknown girl with an almost tangible amount of venom carried by her voice.
"Don't tell me... You're with that bitch? No way..."
Did they know each other? How? Wasn't this a friend of Ms. Argent?
"Let me go! You pig! You disgusting fuc-"
"SHUT UP! You're a shitty traitor and I can't tolerate this!"
Toru was highly confused, but the fact that her teacher was still trapped by a murderous psychopath made these finer details look irrelevant. The villain flexed his fingers again, obviously going in for the kill and the invisible girl was not ashamed to admit that she nearly began to cry at the sheer helplessness of the situation. Whoever this person on the ground was did not deserve such a fate.
Meanwhile, Ms. Argent's wide, disturbingly expressive eyes seemed to glaze over for multiple seconds, making her abrupt motionlessness appear like she had just died herself. Then, in the time it took for Toru to blink, those same cerulean orbs started to glow ominously with golden light. More blinding beams exploded outwards from her form as she ripped herself free and blurred across the street.
Walls of shining energy slammed into the gathered villains, throwing them away like ragdolls. They crashed into the destroyed shop window where they would certainly land on many unpleasant pieces of broken glass.
It went too fast for the Toru to properly track, so she could merely observe the aftermath of her teacher's blitz strike. Only when the intensely shining hero fell to her knees to examine the girl who had been an instant away from dying could Toru make out more features of her appearance.
Besides the mesmerizing golden light, cascading in radiant waves around her like some set of magical armour, Ms. Degurechaff's wounds were the first to draw attention. Her left arm bent in places it should not have been able to, only held in place by the barrier surrounding it, and a fresh gush of blood steadily leaked from the corner of her mouth. No doubt more grievous injuries were hidden behind the sheen of pulsating energy that obscured her body.
Regardless of her own constitution though, the hero bent forward and gently cradled the victim in her embrace. Heavy breaths racked her chest, yet she still managed to carry the strange girl in her unmistakably broken arms. With nary a glance in the direction of her downed opponents she took off and flew out of range of the camera.
For the next minute nothing happened before the feed cut unexpectedly off.
Alone in her bedroom the static of her speakers was deafening for Toru.
[Holy shit]
Toru jumped in surprise as the ping of a new message alerted her to the group chat.
[uihriffewhfgkdds]
[What the hell]
[This can't be real]
[WTF]
[I don't know what to say]
[It's on TV!!!!!]
A torrent of similar expressions was shared by every online member of her class. Numbness was spreading through her chest as she realized that what he had seen was not some weird dream, but reality.
[Guys at the end... Was that a new quirk?]
[Wow]
[As if]
[Maybe?]
[No I think it was a Quirk Awakening]
That was from Midoriya, their resident quirk expert and the biggest hero nerd she ever met. If anyone in 1-A knew what was going on then it would probably be him.
Shaking herself out of her stupor Toru hesitantly typed: [What is that?]
[Yeah never heard of it] added Kaminari.
[I also only read about it in textbooks, but under extraordinary concentrations of emotional stress, quirks can evolve into more powerful versions of themselves. It is very rare and I have never seen it happening, but that is how it looks to me.]
Man, how could he type so fast?
[Cool]
[I am more interested in who that girl was] wrote Mina.
[Shigaraki seemed to know her which means she is a villain]
[Is that the name of that guy?]
[What]
[Why was she together with Ms. Degurechaff then?]
[Have you forgotten that she was disguised]
[You think a villain impersonated Argent's girlfriend????]
[OMG]
[No way]
[Are you all ignoring that our teacher nearly died just now?] posted Todoroki in a rare fit of talkativeness.
[Yes]
[No, but what are we supposed to do?]
[It's not like this is something new]
[
]
[She survived and we should be happy for that]
[I will buy her a bunch of flowers]
[Yeah let's!]
Toru put her smartphone down and sank deep into thought. Becoming a hero meant that she could end up in a spot like that. No, she would definitely experience something similar to this attack someday. Would her family, her friends also get drawn into the crossfire?
Would she, the invisible girl, the forgotten one, be able to stand such perils?
Especially without super-strength or speed to rival a sports car?
Did she even want that?
