The New Abnormal (My Hero Academia/Celestial Mutation)

CosmicBigfoot · Apr 16, 2026

???

If someone asked him, hypothetically speaking, what he thought might happen if his head ever had a three way love affair between a spinning truck tire and hot asphalt, his answer would've probably began and ended at "Die messily."

Waking up in another country halfway across the planet two centuries and a month after the fact probably wouldn't have made it on the list even if he thought it over for more than half a second. If anything he would've just assumed he'd end up in the same place his brother went.

God, what would his brother have even said if he found out he got himself killed from pure clumsiness not even a month after he passed? Probably just laugh at him and pat himself on the back for keeping him alive this long.

You'd think the worst thing about having your head roleplay as a watermelon in a Gallagher skit would be that entire sentence, but it turns out the actual worst thing about dying horribly was the color palette swap.

What's that? You think having your head violently explode sounds a bit worse? Yeah, well you try going from "warm Autumn" to "Prozac commercial" in color palette and see if that opinion sticks around.

Point blank, he now looked like a Tokyo Ghoul reject. Between the pale skin and the white hair all he was missing were a pair of glowing red eyes and a gimp mask. Instead of glowing red eyes he got glowing mint green eyes (he'll roll back to that), which weren't as cool but were probably less likely to make pedestrians call him a vampire and pelt him with garlic so… he'd take it?

Who was he fooling? Waking up and looking like a ghost was doing his mental health zero favors. He had to keep reminding himself that sharing a color wheel with a wet newspaper was a small price to pay in exchange for not looking like a spilled paint can in a haunted house.

Another change was his name, but at least that one was self inflicted. When he woke up a few doctors accidentally called him Taro Yamada for some reason, and then when they eventually asked him what his actual name was he said they might as well call him John Doe as a joke and might've forgotten the fact that a bunch of Japanese people probably wouldn't immediately know what that American name meant.

They figured it out around the same time he figured out what Taro Yamada meant, and wasn't that one of the interactions of all time. Apparently nurses and doctors don't have a whole lot of black humor. Or maybe a young teen calling himself "unknown corpse" was just generally upsetting to people. Who knows?

Since this was his second life and his first name was secondhand garbage that got him nothing but bad luck he decided he was probably better off just rolling with the joke until he settled on an actual name later on.

Another change he was going through (and probably should've been considered the most important one) were his eyes. There was something a little… off about them. And "John" didn't just think that because they now glowed like shamrock flavored nuclear waste.

Nah, the real problem was he apparently now had fucking super powers. He wasn't exactly thrilled to find that out. He hated capeshit in his first life, so finding out his entire second life was just pure unfiltered capeshit wasn't exactly thrilling him. Having super powers was cool when it was just a thought, but it kinda became sour when it turned into reality.

Everyone always liked to imagine they were the next Superman, but nobody ever liked to think about what would happen if they just got shit like "TMI"-vision that gave people he directly looked at seizures. Or convulsions. Or just a general feeling of overwhelming dread and dissection. His only solace was he didn't get something actually debilitating like "drug sweat" or "bone spurs."

Or, in less vague terms, His new "quirk" (he didn't decide on the term) was called Diagnosis, and it let him see everything about anyone's body that he so much as glanced at. Even worse, he couldn't forget almost any of the information he learned even if he tried.

How did he know this? Easy. His power fucking told him while he was sleeping right before he first woke up.

One moment, he was experiencing absolutely nothing, not even a blank void. If he was an Atheist that'd be about what he'd expect after getting skull-fucked by the Michelin man on a warm Autumn evening.

And then suddenly he was standing in a black void with a single burning green star in the center of it, and all of sudden his peaceful ego-death was being interrupted with the possibility that the Mormons were the religion that got it right.

Meh, it could've been worse. At least he wasn't fighting in the soul wars against Lord Xenu in revenge for bombing ancient Hawaii with hydrogen bombs.

That small mercy still didn't help him get over the fact that he died from a rental van. There's something extra insulting about dying from a vehicle that nobody even owns. It's like a dark parallel for getting conceived in a rental.

If anyone ever asked him how long he shuffled in place in his own purgatory before he "interacted" with the burning green sun, he'd say… about three minutes? Maybe less? It wasn't like he had anything else to do. What's the worst thing that could've happened? He dies again?

Eventually he just shoved his entire arm elbow-deep into the shamrock sun, and uh...

Diagnosis

This Quirk can be used to give the user incredible amounts of varied and specific knowledge on the body of those visually observed. With this power, the user is able to get precise measurements of all kinds, age, medical conditions, broken bones, birth marks and more. The longer the user continues to observe a target, the more details they are able to learn, almost endlessly. Useful for locating enemy weaknesses or applying medical treatment in equal parts. The user must continue observing for additional details and observe a target in person. Collected details through this Quirk can be remembered incredibly well.

He had no fucking clue what that stream of information that just forcefully injected itself into his frontal lobe even meant. And he wouldn't know what any of it meant until he eventually woke up in an unfamiliar room, slowly cranked his head to the right of himself, and locked eyes with a shell-shocked purple nurse in clown-vomit scrubs.

She screamed, he screamed, they all screamed… for severe sleep inertia, that is. You ever wake up and immediately get flashbanged by bright light? Yeah, well try bright colors. That shit was seizure inducing.

Almost as seizure inducing as his eyes must've been, because the nurse could barely tolerate him staring at her for two seconds before she tore out of the room screaming for the other nurses.

Yeah, those first thirty seconds he was awake in this new world basically set the tone for how the rest of his life was probably gonna play out…

The next few days after that moment were pretty much one big conga line of medical professionals that studied words he couldn't pronounce asking him questions that slowly devolved from "Do you know your full legal name" to "Do you even know what a human is???"

Considering the fact that some humans are now anthropomorphic gardening tools, the answer to that was a surprisingly firm "No." Apparently he didn't know a goddamn thing about this world anymore. At this point his bed could ask him to turn off the lights when he went to sleep and he wouldn't bat an eye.

...Alright, that's a lie. He'd shriek so loud he'd be able to flee the room by flying out the window on a cloud of bats that heard his cry for help and answered the call.

After about three days of questions with some medical professionals that were so qualified they lost the need to brag about it, and the diagnosis was in. John Doe didn't know JACK from SHIT. His knowledge was so eclectic that they couldn't even come up with a diagnosis for it.

Probably because "isekai victim" wasn't something that could be found in the DSM-5. No, wait. This was two hundred years in the future. They were probably way past the DSM-5 by now.

It was probably because "isekai victim" wasn't something that could be found in the DSM-6.

He quickly realized that he was probably better off just riding off the stolen valor of whatever the medical professionals cooked up and decided to just be brutally honest with them, not say more than the bare minimum if they asked him personal questions, and let them connect their own dots.

None of the medical professionals ever directly stated what they thought happened to him or how he ended up in Japan instead of North America, but he wasn't braindead. Nurses and doctors could only verbally coddle him so many times in a day before he realized it was something generically tragic and miserable.

He was probably better off with the government assuming he was a braindead kid that was human trafficked instead of a braindead kid from 200 years in the past. He would rather not spend the rest of his life explaining pre-quirk history to these people.

If they wanted to know how many wonders of the world there originally were maybe they shouldn't have fucking blown half of them up with Dodon Rays!

The new world was certainly a nightmare. How much of a nightmare? Well the crime rate in America was now 20%, so uh… about that much of a nightmare.

Don't ask him how it was even possible for a continent sized country to even have numbers that absurd and still be able to function. His two best guesses were villains all just openly worked day jobs and would rob their coworkers the second they clocked out for the day, or there were entire secret cities full of super-villains hidden in the mountains.

The latter sounded like nonsensical bullshit that would be literally impossible to pull off due to satellite imagery, so he immediately assumed it was that one and tried not to think too hard about it. He failed, but he tried.

That's basically how the first week of the rest of his life passed since he woke up. Doctors asked him questions, he occasionally answered them, and the nurses would interact with him and try to pressure him into leaving his room for longer than the time it took the staff to tidy it up. Apparently you could do things at hospitals besides just lay on a bed?

Not that he would ever know. If they didn't want him claiming that room, they shouldn't have given him his own room complete with a television, a remote, and infinite free time. There was only one way that was going to go.

Doomscrolling. So. Much. Doomscrolling. Or whatever the TV boomer version of it was called. The more he watched and learned, the more he wished that Uhaul put it in reverse and went back for round two. At first he thought he was watching the villain version of shark week, and then he found out it was just the live news.

Imagine if every time you turned on the news there was a 50/50 shot you either witnessed a generational hostage crisis or a generational domestic terrorist attack. And it happened every. Single. Day. And it was always the same exact shit.

Back in his day, they named bombings after the city they happened in. Nowadays they got named after the street!

Someone tries committing a class 4 felony, they get caught because they skipped leg day, and their solution to being caught committing a minor crime that would probably be a year in prison and a fine is to upgrade to a class 0 felony by vaporizing an entire street as the Super Cops stand fifty feet back and yell at them to stop and surrender… while doing absolutely nothing.

He didn't want to admit that of all things gave him an inordinate amount of nostalgia. Very short-lived nostalgia though, since Captain Superlander would always show up in the nick of time and deck the scizoid of the hour into next week with a gigawatt smile.

Considering the fact that half the time Superlander showed up he would just be wearing cargo pants and a white shirt, he felt that it was safe to say that the guy was objectively the world's greatest Super Cop.

The same statistics that said America had a 20% crime rate also said Japan "only" had a 6% rate, and it was entirely because of All Might. Unless this world was just 1984 and literally everything on the tv was fake, he could believe that. In fact he should probably put some respect on the guy's name for making it so he could lounge in a hospital watching tv instead of having to brawl with the other braindead orphans in the sewers for first rights to the rat-grounds to hunt.

He'd need to thank All Might if he ever somehow stumbled into him. Only if it wasn't a public spectacle though. The last thing he needed was to turn himself into an /r/heckinwholesome clip farm.

Normally he'd feel like a bit of a boot-licker for thanking a Super Cop for packing up and shipping out first offenders to a prison named after an ancient hell pit, but when the first offenders are all Osama Bin Bundy… meh. He could stomach the taste of leather in his mouth.

Hearing several short knocks on the door to his room, he finally quit his ~~dissociative episode~~ short jog down memory lane and turned to stare at the purple skinned nurse walking in. Unlike the first time they clapped eyes, this time she at least met his gaze with a bright smile.

Apparently his crucio-vision was a first-time only thing. Ode to fuckin' joy. The hospital gave him a pair of those big clunky sunglasses you only see on blind people and snowboarders so he wouldn't seizure-bang an entire crowd if he looked outside his window, but he almost never bothered wearing them besides when he left his room.

There's not really a point in it if he already knows everything there is to know about all the staff and he never goes outside. Also, he couldn't see shit with them on.

Nodding at the nurse, he slowly slouched upwards and sat on the center of his bed before lazily waving at her, not even bothering to lift more than two fingers and a thumb. How is it possible to fuck up a hand wave? Don't ask him, he was still stuck on "how is it possible to fuck up dying?"

"Hey, Nurse Ashido. You're here early. Was there something wrong with the tests yesterday, or…?" He honestly wasn't sure what the "or" could've even been. It wasn't like the staff ever swung by for anything besides food, tests, and more tests.

Holding a purple hand up to her mouth, the nurse just giggled at his now-baffled response before she began to speak. "Ara ara, has Snowball already forgotten what day it is?" Why yes, yes he did.

Instead of admitting his brain was smooth enough to get fired out of a musket, he instead chose to focus on a more pressing fact that just popped up…

"There's no way you just said "ara ara." That's not something real people actually say." The nurse just puffed her cheeks out at him like a pufferfish and blew a raspberry at that. Ahh, now that's the healthcare quality he had grown up with.

"Someone's been watching too much anime. I'll have you know that it's a totally normal thing for older women to say." Staring up at the smiling nurse, he was suddenly glad that Japan didn't actually respect double jeopardy, because he had to call her out twice on that.

"Lady, you look like you're not even through college yet. Pull the other rope, it'll ring a bell." That just made the woman look even happier for some God forsaken reason.

"Aww, aren't you a charmer. You know, some people do say that mutants age gracefully. A dog never gets wrinkles, or however that saying goes." He did not know. In fact, he didn't really know what to say to any of that.

Was Mutant even an official term? Was it slang? A slur? Did this madwoman just drop a hard M in the middle of her day job? Was she, dare he say it, based?

Before he could ask any of that she already had her phone in her hand and was blitzing through an entire photo album to show her pics of… her younger sister?

"This is Mina! Or as I like to call her, my little pinkie!" Nevermind, he suddenly believed she was a middle aged woman. Showing a complete stranger pictures of your teenage daughter just so you can brag about your kids at work was peak midlife behavior.

Mistaking his look of secondhand horror for poor Mina as curiosity, Nurse Ashido just kept chattering on about her kid. "She's our little trooper! And our little dancer. I still remember the first time she tried break-dancing with her quirk and melted half our backyard. If our landlord didn't also have a kid with a destructive emitter quirk he probably would've been less underst-"

It was around this point that he completely mentally checked out of the conversation and just let the nurse freely brag to him about how her kid was the best one in the whole world. If he could survive dog owners calling their pets their furbabies then he could survive a mom gushing over her literal baby.

Not that she was wrong to gush about her kid. If he was a dad he'd probably brag about the fact that his kid could shoot acid out of their hands, break dance, and was going to university at 15 years old.

Talk about being an overachiever.

Everything else was typical horse girl shit. "My daughter can run six miles before breakfast. My daughter can powderize concrete with her kicks. My daughter wants to be a Super Cop!" He was a decade too young for this PTA-coded conversation.

He had to admit though, if this Mina chick was born a few centuries earlier she probably would've been able to conquer a country all by herself. Maybe even become a mid-tier deity in whatever religion she injected herself into. Too bad she was born in the era where toddlers were reality manipulators.

Talk about being born in the wrong generation. All she needs now was a pair of bell bottoms and a Beatles vinyl.

And then Nurse Ashido said something that tripped a wire in his brain, and before he knew it he was already getting dragged out of his own head and back to Ashido's TED talk about the Mongolian warlord she called a daughter. Damn, was Disney still a thing? If they were he needed to sell that idea to them. That was the exact kind of shit they loved to make into a sitcom.

He'd call it "Good Luck Genghis". He'd make millions. Wait, shit. He was zoning out again. He needed to focus on Nurse Ashido and whatever the hell she just said.

"What do you mean my mom is swinging by today to see me?" The first and last thing he ever heard about his mom was she died giving birth to him and his brother before the feds DNA tracked their dad to the states, and he doubted she got run over by the same truck that hauled his ass to the future.

Closing her yapping mouth with an audible click of teeth clanking together, the nurse blinked at him in confusion for a moment before letting out an awkward laugh. "Woops, my bad. What I meant to say is that Ms. Kayama is finally coming by today for a first time visit with you, to uh… make sure you mesh well! We wouldn't want you getting adopted by someone you hated, am I right?"

He just continued to stare at her. "Ashido… what the hell are you talking about?"

Nurse Ashido started to look a bit… frazzled at that. "O-oh. You were being serious earlier, huh? That's… hmm." Quickly typing away on a thin tablet that was hooked to the edge of his bed, the nurse slotted it back into place and flashed him a nervous smile.

"You shouldn't have any memory lapses after today, but I should still run this by your head doctor." He had a what? "I'll be back in just a moment, Snowball. It's probably best if I get this checked over sooner rather than later."

Yeah, he needed to get a new name ASAP. If he knew the staff were just gonna name him like a stray cat and troll him on the daily he wouldn't have run with the joke.

...At least he isn't neutered?

Pausing in the doorway as she zipped out, Ashido grabbed onto the side of the door and poked her head back in. "Also, are you still feeling open to meeting Ms. Kayama? If not then I can reschedule the visit while I'm meeting with the head."

He tilted his head as he thought it over, and then shrugged. "Might as well continue if it's already scheduled for today. I'm not dumb enough to pass up on a day one adoption."

Honestly, this sounded like some Disney special shit. Who would turn that fairy tale ending down just because the vibes were off?

Nurse Ashido's lips just thinned a little at that for a brief moment before she slapped a big smile on her face and nodded at him. "Alright, but just remember that this day is for you, not for her. If you start feeling uncomfortable, upset, or even just don't want to keep socializing then you can cancel the visit at any point. Before, during, or even after."

One half of that he didn't pay attention to, and the other half he didn't believe. Either way, he limply nodded at her before flopping back down into his bed. "Don't worry, I'm sure it'll go well."

Letting another small frown slip onto her face, the nurse just nodded at him a second time as he continued to stare at her. She tried throwing in a spare smile. He didn't give it back. After a few moments Nurse Mina briskly walked out of the room and off to his "head doctor", whatever that meant. Did hospitals function like bee hives?

What a terrifying thought. Turning the television suspended from the far wall on, he shuffled himself deeper into the pillows as he began to listen to the latest broadcast.

"A gruesome story leads off our afternoon news cast today. The body of Kyoto hero, Codec, has been found deceased by local police. An official statement has not been given by police as of this moment, but it is suspected that this is yet again the work of the villainous hero killer, Stain. We at Jackal News wish to give our condolences to the fam-"

Zoning out as the newscaster on the screen rambled on about the serial-killer of the year, he tried very hard not to fall asleep as a cool breeze drifted in from his window and washed over him.

It was so hard to get worked up over any of the awful shit he heard on the tv at this point. He had kind of resigned himself to the fact that he was living in a perpetual apocalypse now. It was also kind of hard to care about some psycho running around and maiming people by the dozen when there was at least one kaiju a month that maimed people by the hundreds.

He had eventually asked a nurse how old All Might was after it fully clicked in his head that this entire country's crime rate hinged on a single guy that's been doing it for decades. After getting several variations of "too old for you", he got an actual number.

The guy was 53 years old in an industry where people usually got crippled and retired by 35. As far as he could tell, nobody else seemed to notice or care about this fact. The majority opinion seemed to be that he was All Might! And All Might could beat anyone!

Yeah, he could beat a hundred S-class villains a day, every day, for a decade straight. But who was he supposed to throw hands with when his bones start clicking like a Geiger counter and his hair turned gray? Father Time?

The way he saw it, he basically had a decade or less to blitz his education, get enough cash built up to build a cabin in the wilderness, and immediately flee civilization to go hide a hundred miles away from the ticking time bombs that cities now were. Maybe he'd get eaten by a drugged up vagabond with a wendigo quirk. Maybe he'd get blown up by a villain that really hated forests.

Nobody ever accused Hell of lacking in creativity.

The fact that those were both now things that could happen made his skin crawl like he replaced his tendons with fire ants. Dear Christ, what an actual nightmare to think about. He guessed he just needed to think less.

If he deluded himself into thinking the empty glass was half full of air he could at least look at the silver lining and say that those two things were probably way less likely than getting blown up by a purse snatcher, which was basically guaranteed if he stuck around the city for longer than a decade.

He wouldn't be surprised if people bragged about getting caught up in a terrorist attack the same way people in L.A bragged about having police chases blow through their neighborhoods.

Letting out another yawn, he tried not to fall asleep and went back to doomscrolling the channels. It wasn't like there was any point in watching entertainment media in this universe. It was literally all just capeshit. All video games, all movies, all music… made about capes, by capes, for cape fans.

Honestly, it was actually kinda easy to just take a few moments and pretend the world is exactly the same as his old one if he just stared at the ceiling and treated the tv like a radio playing some hammy "War of The Worlds" doomsday station. Just about everything out his window at least looked the same as what he remembered if he only looked from the corner of his eyes.

Same old brick buildings. Same old tech. Same old laws. As long as he didn't look under the hood, at least. Brand new crime statistics though, but they're out of sight so he tried to keep them out of mind. He failed horribly, but he tried.

If everything still tripped the same "this is fake bullshit" wire in his brain, then he might as well treat the real footage as pulp fiction. At least the effects were better.

Nemuri Kayama

Pacing back and forth beside her car with her phone clenched in her hand, Nemuri tried to get her quirk under control well enough to actually drive to the hospital and see the kid in person for the first time without getting pulled over by a cop that assumed she was smoking literal purple hash.

The hospital had just called her to let her know some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that the meds the kid had to be put on to help his body recover from the whole "was in a coma for a month" thing had caused a memory lapse and he had forgotten she was visiting that day. And possibly also about being adopted.

She had been expecting at least a few curve balls today, but getting "hey your maybe-kid got one-time dementia" wasn't on that list of expectations. It was enough of a monkey wrench to make her need to get out of the car before her quirk filled the entire car with smoke..

But hey! The good news was that it was probably the "last" time it'd happen! Honest! The fact that they kept saying last time and never said "first time" made her wonder how many other things the kid had just… deleted from their brain in the week they had woken up.

The kid could remember every single character from some old cartoon called Loony Toons but apparently his full legal name wasn't good enough for his brain to bother saving.

She was in agreement with the staff at the hospital. There was no way in hell she was calling the kid "John Doe", so the kid better cook up a good fast if he didn't want her calling him Snowball in public. White hair, big green eyes, and a stray in need of a home? The nickname was inevitable. The best Snowball could do was accept it.

If someone told Nemuri three months ago she was going to be a mom... heh, she probably would have believed it.

If they told her it was going to be because she adopted a buck wild bonkers trafficking victim because the alternative was letting them get gobbled up and absorbed into the public system… she probably would've still believed it.

Hey, she's a hero. You don't reach a decade in the industry without experiencing a few things. And the few things she's seen from the alternative kids that go through public works made her start moving to adopt the brat before she even finished mulling it over.

Yeah the doctors didn't have an actual diagnosis on the kid yet, but just from the few secondhand stories the nurses have told her about the kid… he probably qualified for a few things. Not that she cared. Half the heroes in the industry could "qualify" for more than a license.

You kinda had to have your head screwed on a bit loosely to make it in an industry where you needed to decide before you were even in high school that spending a majority of your time doing repetitive tasks until you passed out while also studying dry as dirt legal books in your free time was a good use of your life.

She had already been thinking about getting a kid one way or another in a year or so even before she found the kid, so as far as she was concerned this was as good a chance as any. Hell, she was already registered as both a case worker and as liable to adopt. Basically every staff member at UA had the latter, and basically every hero had the former.

Being able to adopt wasn't mandatory to work at U.A, they were all just self-aware bleeding hearts. She gave it two years or less before Aizawa adopts a kid himself.

Luckily for both her and the kid, she was the one that found him, which meant she got first dibs on taking him in. And that wasn't just her being snarky. That was some bona fide legitimate legality.

She had found him during a human trafficking bust, and he was kind of just laying on a steel table in the corner of the traffickers "med-bay", out of sight and probably out of mind. It took the detectives about half an hour to even find one of the traffickers that knew where the kid came from.

What did they have to say for the kid's origins? Apparently, they just found the completely addled kid passed out on the side of the road while they were driving back to their hideout and said "screw it, the more the merrier!"

Nemuri didn't buy that, and neither did the cops. One round with the police force's very own lie detector and it turned out that they should've bought it, because it was the genuine article.

The kid's case kind of went cold after that. He wasn't in any systems, had zero records, and apparently even had the extra toe joint that signaled quirklessness. That informal test wasn't exactly foolproof or anything, but between the toe joint and the kid only remembering history and pop culture from before the dawn of quirks… the case was one of those odd ones that'd probably spawn off a hundred conspiracy theories if it ever became public knowledge.

Here's hoping that the kid could at least move on from whatever happened to him and didn't get dragged face first into more bad drama. Heroes had a bit of a ~~bad~~ habit of sticking their noses into messy disasters, so the chance of him getting completely left alone by the industry was… slim.

Very slim. Meh, oh well. She was already planning on trying to send the kid to U.A anyways. There was about a Snowball's chance in Hell that the kid would last one school day before getting glomped by at least one hero hopeful.

Good luck avoiding heroes when your neutral face triggered the same reaction people got from seeing a wet puppy lost in a blizzard. That's a pretty bad look to be rocking while attending the most marvelous hive of nobility and heroics this side of the planet.

At least, she hoped that he'd end up attending U.A. If Snowball couldn't manage the coursework then she'd figure something out. She was a highly certified teacher at one of the top universities in the country and was also a highly rated pro. Money wasn't an issue, and she had options.

If both private schooling and home schooling didn't work out then she'd just settle on reminding Nezu that he owes her a dozen times over for doing some undercover work for him and get her kid a diploma ye olde style. And by that she meant "flagrant nepotism."

Public schooling was completely out of the question from the get-go. Nemuri was sadistic, not sociopathic.

Nemuri was pretty sure the kid could manage U.A's course if he went plus ultra. She had heard enough about the kid to know that just because his head was on sideways didn't mean it was empty. The lights were on, and the house was well lit.

Unfortunately, the lights were all just Christmas bulbs.

Meh. Oh well. If Nemuri had anything to say about it then her kid was gonna get a diploma, even if she has to tie him to a desk and bring out the yardstick.

...She definitely needed to tone down her Hero Persona before she went off to meet the kid for the first time. It's one thing to bust out that kinda talk when handling villains, "fans", or hero hopefuls that are already knee deep in the industry. It's a bit of another thing to act like that with a trafficking victim.

Right. All Nemuri had to do was keep her cool, not freak out the kid that probably had a half-dozen hair triggers, figure out exactly how to accommodate a probably traumatized teenager that most likely had communication issues, and then figure out the proper education setup for an American that's mentally stuck two centuries in the past that is now living in modern Japan.

Hmm. When Nemuri put it like that, she realized that she might be a bit fucked.

AN:

This is a rewrite of a (very brief) story I wrote a few months back called Everlong. I didn't like how flippantly I handled it and decided to restart it and write it properly. This one will probably diverge from Everlong's content pretty quickly. This first chapter felt a bit clunky, but then I remembered the first chapter of the OG was in first person (the only part of the story that was) and over half the chapter was the MC just wildly swearing at himself as I set-up a bunch of plots that went nowhere, so… it's probably not any worse than the original version.

Some things got dropped, some things stayed, and a few things got switched around. I'll say it right now that the Celestial Mutagen is basically just here as my go-to vending machine for plot beats to play with and that I'm not going to add that many powers to this fic. This version isn't going to be a "new power a day keeps the opps at bay." He'll probably get two-three quirks quickly, have those get fleshed out for a bit, and then I'll go from there.

CosmicBigfoot · Apr 19, 2026

Nemuri Kayama

Nemuri knew that Snowball was staying in one of the ritzier hospitals in the Shizuoka prefecture. She knew this because she had stayed in the same exact hospital after getting her own ass beat seven ways to Sunday a dozen times over since she graduated UA.

No healing kisses from Recovery Girl when school isn't in session! The most a rough girl can hope for on a warm August night are scrapes and bruises.

Nemuri slapped her face-cheeks several times with both hands and shook her face like a wet dog, almost sending her glasses flying off her face as she focused on the goal of the day: don't be weird!

She'd need to remember to keep it PG-13. No R-Rated heroine today! That's probably the last thing the kid wants to hear after the roller coaster he's been through. Nemuri just had to remember to stay calm and keep a good poker face.

Teens were like dogs. They could feel your emotions and would immediately freak out and start biting objects if they noticed the mood was off. Yup. Nemuri just had to stay calm, and not explode like a puffshroom the moment the kid got a doe-eyed look on his face.

Taking another short breath, Nemuri adjusted her blue sweater for the half-dozenth time as she fidgeted in the elevator she had all but claimed for herself. Not that anyone else could've even used it, since her qurik was now escaping her often enough that the elevator's filtration fans were now audible.

Nemuri hadn't had control this sloppy since she was a student in UA. She was almost embarrassed at how much this was getting to her. Her quirk was absolutely amazing and she would never trade it for anything, but having a quirk that starts 'leaking' if she gets too nervous or angry was always a pain.

Nothing ruins a mood quite like some accidental disc-

Shaking her head like a feral dog, Nemuri just gave up, caught her glasses mid-air before they could fly into a wall from her shaking head, and blindly slapped the elevator buttons before she could distract herself a dozenth time in a row. She'd probably get his floor eventually.

*Ding*

*Ding*

*Ding*

*Ding*

Eventually Nemuri just gave up and took the stairs. No, she was not steaming mad. That was just her quirk leaking from emotional overflow.

Yes, she knows that's even worse!

Five flights of stairs while wearing civvie heels later and she got to the kid's floor just in time to watch her elevator open with a cherry *Ding!* and she suddenly understood why so many villains wasted their lives destroying skyscrapers. It wasn't because they were mentally ill, maladjusted, and all had psychosis and sociopathy with a sprinkle of PTSD all from negative environmental factors experienced during their formative years.

They destroyed buildings because they were full of elevators! Nemuri sure was glad she solved that puzzle. Did Nezu know? Probably.

That'd explain his obsession with wrecking balls.

She prayed that the kid wanted some new clothes, because the first place Nemuri wanted to go was a clothes store so she could buy some flats and throw her civvie heels in the nearest dumpster.

Hell, if Nemuri wanted some good heels she'll just ask Power Loader for some. He already did some divine work on her hero costume's heels. The man should've honestly been a cobbler instead of a hero. He would've probably done more good for the world if he went that route.

Everyone talked about the men that marched off to war, but nobody ever thought about who made their boots.

Ugh. She's been a hero for over a decade and being a single mother for two seconds was all it took for her to be done with fashion. Who's ever heard of a sadist getting taken down by a pair of shitty heels? Usually it's the other end of that horseshoe getting the kick.

She hoped the kid was feeling up for stretching his legs, because it'd probably be better for the both of them if they interacted in an area with high airflow and not, say, an enclosed hospital room. She'd rather not introduce herself by knocking the kid unconscious.

...Eh, she'd find a way to recover from a bad first impression if she fumbled it. Smooth first impressions were good, but want to know what's even better? The second impression when she gives the kid a bunch of expensive shit, pro bono.

Yay consumerism.

Taking a look around the upper level of the hospital meant for the longer term patients, Nemuri had to admit that it was pretty swanky. Dark wooden walls, dark faux-granite flooring that looked two digits more expensive than it probably was. Why, it even had the best clown-vomit scrubs on some very pretty nurses pretending not to laugh at her as she stumbled out of the stairwell.

Nemuri could accept that. You don't become a nudist that starts off fights with a high-kick without getting used to laughter.

Strutting up to the nurse's island station, Nemuri spotted two nurses that were sitting inside of it, not even pretending to be busy in their downtime. They must've been medtechs. Quickly glancing at nurse Ashido's chest (she was just checking the nametag, honest!), Nemuri slowly crossed her arms and leaned towards her with a bright grin as she looked right into the purple gal's black eyes.

She knew better than to flirt with nurses. None of them ever wore their wedding rings while at work. It was like playing minesweeper with Greek numerals! That didn't mean she couldn't at least make an impression.

"Why hello, nurse Ashido. My name is Ms. Kayama. I'm here for the visitation with… Snowball." She was really gonna have to talk to the kid about getting a new name sooner rather than later, because as much as the nickname fit him, it was probably gonna get old in a week or less of consistent use and the alternative wasn't an alternative.

The nurse just beamed up at her and nodded to her coworker before standing up from her chair and beginning to walk out of the booth. "Right on time, Ms. Kayama. Not that it would've been wrong to be late, considering the recent conversation over the phone."

Nodding at the nurse with a now strained smile, Nemuri let the nurse lead a few steps ahead and made sure to watch- walk behind her. Wouldn't want to get lost now, would she? "I gotta admit, it was a bit of a shock to hear that of all things over the phone. Is this… regular?"

Ashido just hummed to herself for a moment at that as they walked down the halls. "I'm not sure if regular is the correct word here. Just about everything about the poor dear's case is antonym to that word."

Nemuri tried not to roll her eyes at that "water beats thirst" level analysis. Yeah lady, she knows. She was the one that high-keyed a smuggler through a cement ceiling and left him dangling by the neck like a pinata.

Nurse Ashido just continued to talk and trample over Nemuri's internal thoughts. "The doctors believe the short term memory loss was tied to occasional bouts of hypnagogia that were caused by the medication he was previously on. He hasn't forgotten anything new he's experienced since he was taken off of it and woke up today, and the medication is fully out of his system now, so he should be in the clear."

It was Nemuri's turn to hum at that. "So basically, the kid should at least remember I visited him today, and if he doesn't then he'll remember the visit after this?" Nurse Ashido reluctantly nodded at that, and Nemuri decided that she could take that.

Worst case scenario just meant the kid would need to be awed twice in a row, and she could just take everything that worked about the first attempt, discard all the awkward bits, and go for gold the second time. Silver linings, and all that.

The conversation died out at that for the next few minutes until they reached a random door in an equally random hallway. Nemuri still had no clue why hospitals were designed like they were meant to hold a siege.

Stopping in front of the doorway so her back blocked the door, nurse Ashido turned to her with a firm look on her face and stood up a little straighter as she looked Nemuri in the eyes. "Right, a few things before you first meet with Snowball. The most important one is this meeting is for him. He gets first and only say on what you do with the visit. If he wants to stay in the room, then you'll stay in the room. If he wants to go outside, then you go outside. If he wants you to leave, then you leave."

Nemuri just nodded at that, agreed out loud, and tried not to let the nurse's tone get to her. That was already her plan even if the nurse never said it. She wasn't going to let her first impression for the kid be her pressuring them.

Looking her up and down with a critical eye, Nurse Ashido simply nodded at her and continued. "Good. The other thing to keep in mind is that the kid doesn't have any known triggers despite… everything involving his case. That doesn't mean they don't exist, just that they haven't been noticed. Keep an eye on him when you go outside and don't be afraid to cancel the visit to bring him back if anything crops up. We suggest keeping an eye on how he handles being around vehicles."

She just nodded and agreed a second time at that. Once again, it was already her plan even if the nurse never said it. The bit about vehicles was new, though.

"And finally," Nurse Ashido continued onwards. "We highly suggest keeping his sunglasses on at all times in public. I know you've already been informed about his scanner quirk in the paperwork, but it needs to be repeated. That quirk is as powerful as it is invasive. Highly invasive. I doubt any cops would press the issue if he slips considering his circumstances, but still. Don't let him eye-sweep a crowd."

Alright, that one was a bit out of left field. Nemuri had heard about how his unrestricted vision was basically one giant privacy violation, but the insistence on keeping it under wraps felt like it was a bit more than just that. "Does the quirk do anything besides just give biometric data on people like the paperwork said?"

The nurse's lips just thinned at that. "The quirk seems to have an unfortunate tendency to momentarily feel like a non-painful full-body urticant when experienced for the first time."

Nemuri just continued to stare at the nurse. "So are you saying he shoots poison ivy from his eyes, or…?"

Ashido just rolled her eyes at Nemuri. "In less official words, I'm saying the first time he stares at you will feel like someone just peeled your soul off of your body with wax paper, stuck it to the third rail, and hit it three times with a bullet train."

...What?! "And you're saying that doesn't hurt?"

She just got a shrug at that. "Besides being wildly uncomfortable? Not really. If the feeling wasn't so all-encompassing I'd compare it to a hypnotic jerk. They even share the same "falling into the void" feeling-phenomenon."

Oh wow. How neat. Was this God's way of punking her? What's that, she don't want to give birth? Well here's two seconds of full body electrocution the moment she locks eyes with (hopefully) her new kid.

Nemuri just put on a stiff upper lip, smiled, and pretended she wasn't baffled and spooked by that chunk of information. "Don't worry nurse, my skin might feel like velvet but there's nothing but cold steel underneath. I'm sure I can handle it."

The nurse just giggled at that. "Well considering the fact that you'd be living together if the adoption does go through, I'd hope that you can handle it. You're gonna have to. Welcome to possible parenthood, Ms. Kayama. Would you like to meet him without his glasses on now, or would you like to pull that bandaid off later?"

Well considering the fact that she was still letting out small tufts of purple haze every time she so much as shuffled her hips, it was probably for the best if she put off getting her soul electrocuted until after they went outside.

"Later. I'd rather not mess this up immediately after meeting him." Nurse Ashido just smiled softly at that and patted her arm before turning to squeeze herself through the doorway.

"Aww, I'm sure it'll go well. Snowball can be a little ornery and a bit vintage, but that just means he's extra genuine. Once the conversation starts to roll I doubt you'll even remember you were worried in the first place."

Nemuri was starting to feel like she was just adopting a feral cat.

The nurse slipped into the room to let the kid know she was here to visit, and Nemuri took the spare moment she had been given to uselessly fidget with her sweater, as if it being any straighter would improve the chances of the visit going well.

This was new territory for her, and she didn't really know how to approach this. A burning building? No problem. An entire gang wearing gas masks? No sweat. Meeting a kid she didn't even really know?

She was gonna need a breather. Too bad nurse Ashido was already back to collect her for the show-down.

Walking into the well lit room, Nemuri's eyes were immediately drawn to the ghostly looking kid sitting cross legged on the bed directly opposite her, one of his elbows propped against his knee as he leaned forward towards her.

The nickname Snowball was dangerously accurate, because absolutely everything about the kid's appearance screamed "lanky kitten hanging from a branch." She was pretty sure she could give her entire third year art class an assignment to create the most pitiful looking creature imaginable, and none of them would have come even a quarter as close as this kid's bio-mom did.

If she had to compare his resting face to anything, it'd be a border collie that just saw a draft horse for the first time. And that was with a bulky pair of sunglasses covering his big round eyes that made the staff triple down on the Snowball name. Add in the baggy ruffled clothes and the shoulder length bed head, and you could have convinced her that the kid's quirk was called "post-modern porcelain doll".

Nemuri sure was glad Snowball hung in there, because this was one hell of a glowup compared to how he looked when she first found him. It's probably a good thing the kid already looked like a dirty wreck when those villains picked him up.

She was going to immediately box that thought up and never unpack it again.

Ashido just carried on with the introductions with a beaming smile, completely oblivious to the whirlwind going through Nemuri's own head. "Snowy, this is Nemuri Kayama. I know you might've forgotten this since we went over it yesterday, but she's also the pro hero Midnight! Isn't that exciting." Nurse Ashido cooed out at the kid sprawled out across his bed like a spilled jar of criss-crossed applesauce.

The kid just slowly blinked up at Ashido before turning to look at her, his expression barely changing as he took her appearance in. "This woman's a Super Cop? She looks like she'd get lost in a washing machine."

SayThatAgain???

Ashido just nodded like a bobblehead at that, her dark purple hair flowly back and forth through the air as she completely ignored the second half of that sentence and just flashed an even wider grin at the kid. "Yup, she's a Pro Hero. She was even a part of the team that rescued you from those disgusting villains. Isn't that awesome?!"

The kid just absorbed her energy like a black hole of cheer. And just like a black hole, he gave none of it back. She watched as Snowball's eyebrows did the wave across before he just tilted his head to the side and continued to stare up at Nemuri. "Huh. No shit?"

Nemuri was joking earlier, but she was starting to think she was actually adopting a big cat. One of those perpetually sad ones that'd you see in an animal shelter commercial.

She's seen a lot of resting bitch faces in her time, but this might've been the first time she's been a resting nap face.

Taking a step past Ashido, Nemuri leaned down slightly and smiled softly at the kid sitting right in front of her. "I'm glad to finally meet you, kiddo. I've been looking forward to getting a visit with you since before you woke up. Is there anything you want to do today? The only limit is distance. The hospital wants you back within a few hours, so no running off to TDR."

Well, no running off to Disney today at least. There was no way she wasn't dragging this kid to an amusement park before the winter actually hit. She hoped the kid was

The kid just ran a hand through his hair and let out a little laugh at that. "Mooooom, can we get McDonald's? Heheh… I always wanted to say that."

Please ignore that muffled shattering sound, that was just her heart imploding into a million bite sized pieces.

Instead of wrapping the kid in about fifty layers of bubble wrap like she wanted to she instead just continued to smile down at him and tried very hard not to let his words get to her right off the bat. If this sad little American wanted to swing by WcDonald's, then they could swing by Wcdonald's.

They ended up walking to WcDonald's instead of taking her car. Partially because she didn't want to test how Snowball handled vehicles on day zero of meeting him, partially because she wanted to actually focus on the kid while she was talking to him.

Walking beside her as he basked in the sun, the constant underlying thought of "this kid is secretly just a big cat" only grew the longer she watched him exist. The fact that his footsteps were almost completely inaudible didn't really help that vibe fade away.

"You know," Snowball began to speak as they walked down the sidewalk, his eyes locked onto the bright blue sky instead of the dull concrete sidewalk. "I'm surprised you were able to just drag me out of the hospital on a first visit like that. I would've thought one on one interactions are a third meeting kinda thing."

Nemuri just quirked an eyebrow at that. Were the States stricter with adoption or something? "I don't know why they wouldn't trust me to keep you safe. U.A licenses aren't gotten from cereal boxes."

Snowball just laughed at that. "Oh man, that joke is still around? Some things never change. Eh, if McDonald's could survive the apocalypse then so could boomer humor. How did McDonald's survive the quirkpocalypse anyways? That chain could barely survive inflation."

Should she tell this kid about the pre-vigilante era brand wars? Ehhh… no, probably not. That's probably a history lesson best reserved for literally any time besides a first time visit with a new kid while halfway to an old brand's front doorstep.

Instead of dropping that WcBomb on him Nemuri instead just chittered out a nervous giggle and side swept that whole can of worms. "Life, uh, finds a way I suppose. Speaking of life and finding things… we need to talk about your name."

The kid just nodded at that, still looking up at the sky. "Yeah, I know. I probably should've at least chosen a Japanese name if I'm gonna live in Japan now. Just because I didn't stop by Ellis Island doesn't mean I can skip the name process."

That reference was about an ocean and two centuries too far for her to comprehend.

Instead Nemuri just ruffled the kid's hair and tried not to laugh at his nonsense. "You know you don't need a Japanese name just because you live in Japan, yeah? I'm more concerned about what the name means than the name itself."

Snowball just hummed at that. "I dunno, I think it fits the naming theme of this world pretty well. I bet there's at least three people with zombie quirks running around with the exact same punchline."

Uh… what? "The naming theme? I'm not really sure if I understand that reference, kiddo. Mind filling me in on the joke?"

"You know, it's like My Little Pony. Everyone has a name that's directly tied to their special talent, and after a few years they go through a magic baby puberty that reveals their special talent to the whole world, and then they spend the rest of their life being a one note stereotype. And if they have no special talent they're banished to Loserville."

This kid would never make it as a deliveryman, because he just dropped half a dozen boxes full of fabergé eggs right on her feet.

Stopping in place on the sidewalk, Nemuri couldn't help but cover her eyes and let out a groan at the kid's words. "Snowy. Please. You're killing me here. That isn't how naming children works."

The kid just smiled at that and put his hands on his hips, looking overtly smug in the way only a wrong person could effortlessly manage to be. "Alright then, what's your surname mean?"

If playing the name game with the brat got him to drop the whole John Doe thing, then she'd play ball. "It depends on the kanji, but mine basically translates into fragrance." She's still pretty sure it was half the reason her perfume sponsorships did so well…

The kid just nodded at that. "Alright, and now what's your first name mean?"

Her sixth sense for bad times started to act up around that moment, but she was in too deep to back out now. "Well Nemuri also has a few alternate meanings, but mine directly translates into sleep…"

Snowball's smile grew a little at that. "So your name means sleep gas. I don't need to take my glasses off to know what your quirk is gonna be." Nemuri zoned out as the kid tapped the side of his shades and began to actually seriously consider what the kid was saying.

The longer she tried to come up with a name that disproved what the kid was saying, the less examples she could come up with to prove he was anything but right. The closest defense she could come up with was Hizashi Yamada. Who she knows for a fact was named after a famous radio personality from the pre-quirk era known for his distinct voice…

"Oh God..." Nemuri muttered out as she stared off into the distance. "It's actually like My Little Pony..."

The kiddo just hugged her at that, as if she had just come to terms with the fact that Japan was about to get nuked for a fourth time and they didn't have enough time to escape the blast radius.

"Hey, look on the bright side. At least the only thing this place borrowed was the naming trope and not the plot."

Jumping on the chance to hug the kid, Nemuri quickly returned the hug plus interest and continued the conversation before it ended. "What's the plot of My Little Pony? Anything else similar besides the naming thing?"

She could feel Snowball's entire frame vibrate as he laughed into her shoulder. "Well the show's about an all powerful super pony that everyone relies on to keep the Country from immediately devolving into an ancap dystopia deciding to retire by picking a random neurotic freak to be take their place, so probably not."

Nemuri just took the distraction as an excuse to ruffle the kid's fluffy bed head. "Any villains the ponies fight?"

Snowy just hummed at that. "I honestly don't know, I never actually watched the show. I've only ever read fanfiction for it." Fair enough. "I think the big bad of the show was a power absorbing demon lord that was locked up in a prison called Tartarus?"

Well, there weren't any power absorbing demons currently trapped in Tartarus so they should be good.

Breaking away from the hug, the brat just let out a wide yawn and went back to following after her like a lost duckling on their way to the Wcdonald's near the Tatooin shopping district. "What were we even talking about again?"

Nemuri just facepalmed at that. "Your name, kid. Even if this world works off of My Little Pony logic," And what a nightmare that realization was. "It doesn't mean I can just go around calling you a joke name like that. It makes you the punchline, and that's not something I'm comfortable with."

Snowball just hummed at that. "Well, I guess that explains why the nurses all refuse to call me anything besides pet names like Snowball. Eh… yeah, I should probably get a new name. It isn't like I was actually attached to the name."

This… was good! This was very good! Way better than she was even expecting! "I'm glad you're willing to actually change the name. You deserve a better one than a gag. Any names that resonate with you?"

Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Snowy just meandered down the sidewalk for several moments lost in thought before he suddenly snapped his fingers and grew a grin. "I know. Between the white hair and my edgy eye powers, I should call myself… Itachi Gojo!"

… What the fuck kind of name was Weasel Fifth Street?! Nuh-uh! No way! That was terrible! Waaaay worse than she was expecting!

Planting her feet on the concrete sidewalk, Nemuri crossed her arms to make a giant X before letting out a loud buzz from her mouth.

"BZZZZZZT! Wrong! No way am I letting you call yourself that. There are way too many good names in life to settle on Itachi Gojo of all things." That was not a name she could brag about at the PTA meetings.

No-tachi No-jo just stared at her in mild confusion, as if she was the one that just said something out of pocket and weird. "Are you sure? Gojo's a pretty based surname. I can't think of any better ones."

First off, based off of what? Kyoto maps? Second off, she could think of many better ones. For example, "If you're having a hard time thinking of a good surname to use, there's going to be a free one available in the near future..." Hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge. Take the friggin' hint.

The kid just stared at her for a moment before he rapped his knuckles against his own head and stuck his tongue out. "Doi. I forgot you're gonna be my mom… hopefully." Holy shit, she was killing this adoption process! "Are you sure you're fine with me using your surname this early?"

Nemuri just pulled the kid in for a sideways hug as they continued to walk down the street and gave the brat a light noogie. "Kiddo, I'm the one going through the process to adopt you. You having my surname is the entire end goal of this. I'm happy that you're this comfortable with me this early on."

Lightly slapping her arm away from his skull, the kid couldn't even pretend to be anything but happy as he smiled straight ahead. "Hey, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. If you're fine with me calling myself Kayama from day one then how about….hmm. How does Itachi Kayama sound?"

Chuckling out loud at his question, Nemuri broke off the hug and continued to walk alongside him. "Listen, you're objectively adorable and could probably get away with calling yourself something straight up villainous like Daimon Graves. Please don't test that probably by naming yourself Smelly Weasel."

He just let out a surprised laugh at that. "Shit, alright. I guess Itachi Kayama is kind of a car salesman coded name. Hmm… give me a moment to think on it."

Staring back up into the cloudless sky as he trailed off, the two of them let the silence move back in as he started to focus on his own thoughts. Watching him trace the rim of his sunglasses with his thumb before running his hand across his forehead and through his hair, Nemuri opened her mouth to tell him this wasn't something that needed to be figured out today.

He began to speak just a moment before she could. "How about Toji? That'd work as a name, right? Toji Kayama." Huh?

The kid just continued to stare up at the bright blue sky for another moment, his hand still resting on his forehead before he turned to stare at her with a light grin. "What? It can't be worse than weasel, can it?"

Well, he's got her there. But still, Toji Kayama would be… not bad? Toji isn't really a common name, but she's preeeetty sure it's main use was for winter solstice? Or more directly, winter's darkest night. Which would mean his full name now translates into "The dark slumbering mountain."

…. What the hell?! Her kid looks as cute and helpless as a bag of kittens. Should she really let this adorable brat go full chuunibyou and name himself like an xianxia villain? That's not the name of someone that talks about My Little Pony in public.

But on the other hand, Itachi Gojo……

Pulling the kid in for another hug, Nemuri enveloped him in a bear hug and cooed at her cute little xianxia monster. "Aww, how can I say no way to that cute little face? Toji Kayama is an adorable name. Kinda fitting, too!"

"How is Toji fitting? I thought it just meant second person?" Toji asked her chest, unable to pull away from her even if he wanted to. And she'd be offended if he did, because she knew for a fact that most men would commit crimes just to end up in his spot.

"Toji means winter solstice, which means your name basically means sleepy winter mountain. Or if I wanted to pester you, I could also say it means snowy winter mountain." She didn't need to see the kid's eyes to know they were wider than they were a moment ago.

Snowy Mountain shook his head at her as he realized what he just confined himself to. "No..."

Nemuri just nodded and tried not to cackle at the muted look of despair on his face. "Yup! The moment I sign that paperwork, you will officially be sleepy snowy mountain. Like I said, the name fits you. You even have the snowy summit." Nemuri said with a broad smile as she began to ruffle his white hair.

"Oi! Watch the glasses! You almost made me muzzle flash a taxi driver." Snowy grouched at her as he ineffectively fought off both her hand and a smile while pressing his glasses back into his face.

It didn't escape her notice that he never actually told her to stop pestering him, so she considered it another win.

WcDonald's was the same as always. Toji's words, not hers. If they were her words she wouldn't have said them with even a fraction of the disgusted awe that Snowy managed to wedge into his own voice. Was WcDonald's supposed to taste different in Japan? Nemuri just assumed this was some Americanism of his and didn't acknowledge it.

He also seemed really confused at the fact that restaurant was named WcDonald's instead of McDonald's, which just rolled back into that whole brand war thing she was trying very hard to not acknowledge… anyways!

After they ate they moved on to shopping, and Nemuri didn't hesitate to absolutely load the kid with gifts. The first thing she got him was a phone. She was honestly amazed he even managed to go this long without begging for one.

After that she got him a laptop that was worth about one more zero than the one he actually asked for. No, she didn't care that he was probably just going to use it to watch YoTube. Also, it's called YoTube now. Where did the U go?

Snowy knew how to ask the hard hitting questions, she'd give him that. Unfortunately for him, she was a master at dodging the question.

They both got new shoes after that, since he was in hospital crocs and she wanted to throw her heels into a burning dumpster where they belonged. She instead settled on the nearest garbage can.

She prayed to whatever deity that could hear her to not let them end up on a bidding site.

"Holy shit." Toji muttered out in shocked awe as he stared at the designer jeans in front of them. "Thirty thousand dollars for a pair of jeans?! The future's an even bigger nightmare than I thought…"

Nemuri just rolled her eyes at the kid and ruffled his hair. "Thirty thousand yen, kiddo. Not Dollars. That's honestly a steal for a pair of Onigashima Jeans." Toji still side eyed the price even after she said that, and Nemuri was suddenly very glad he didn't see the price tag on those Air Might Alaskas he was wearing.

Eventually he went off to try them on, and what a surprise, the 30k designer jeans looked good on him. What a shocker, she knows. She got a couple more pairs in different shades and then dragged her kiddo off to get some better shirts than those cheap rags the hospital had left him with.

He went along with most of the dress-up, and he looked absolutely adorable in all of it, from the casual wear to the more expensive threads. She eventually had to call it quits when she got into the more name-brand clothing and he started to get a little… fidgety.

"Ain't no way. I don't know how much yen is worth in the 23rd century, but 60k for a dirty shirt has to be a scam." Toji said, slapping the back of his hand against the Valenciago shirt in his hands. "I mean yeah the fabric feels nice, but this shirt just looks like Mr. Clean fist fought the Splatoon crew."

Nemuri just let out a nervous laugh as she turned him around and lightly pressed him towards the dressing rooms. "Aww, come on. I'm sure you'll look adorable in it. You're like a fresh piece of paper, you're basically begging for a few splotches of color on ya."

Toji just puffed his cheeks up at that for a moment as if he had just swallowed a frog and refused to let it leave his mouth until it's wife paid the ransom. "God, why is Neo Japan so weird…?" Watching Toji wander back to the dressing room, Nemuri smiled to herself at how well this had been going so far.

After hearing nothing but horror stories about first time meetings and adoptions she had kinda been expecting the kid to be fully locked up for the first few visits, so having him so receptive to interaction was honestly an absolute blessing for her.

She honestly felt like she was pushing it a few times today, but the kid didn't push back once and seemed to roll with whatever tone she set so… she was pretty sure she was doing good? The kid was way better off than he was before and didn't seem weirded out by her, so she assumed she hadn't flubbed it yet.

Hmm… those shades Toji was wearing looked really flimsy. And she could see him constantly trying to squint through them while they were inside. He would probably appreciate a proper pair of shades. Ooh, she bet a pair of round Natsumos would look cute on him! And they were only 80k yen!

Walking back to the changing rooms with the blue and platinum shades in her hand, Nemuri spotted Toji as he walked out of the changing isle, and he looked absolutely adorable. As expected.

"Okay, I gotta admit that the shirt feels like a cloud. If it is a scam then I guess I'm a sucker. How much was this again? 60K yen? Isn't that like… sixty bucks? Nemuri just let out a nervous laugh at that and held out the sunglasses towards him.

"Aww, don't worry about the price. I have enough money that it might as well be sixty bucks." Toji just shrugged at that and took the sunglasses from her hands and tilted them around to take their design in.

"Damn, maybe I should've named myself Satoru after all. These glasses look just like his…"

Well she understood that about as much as every other reference the kid's made since she met him. Watching him reach up to pull his plastic shades off, Nemuri didn't remember why being in his line of sight was a bad idea until they were already off his face.

GRRRRRK! Ḧ̶̞́o̶̦̐l̸̟̕ÿ̷̡́ ̵̱͝ŝ̷̹h̵̗͝ĩ̸̳t̶̞̑ ̵̹̂t̴̮͒h̴̠̚a̶̙̐ṫ̷̪ ̶̭́k̷̛̼i̴͈͠c̸̯̄ķ̶̀s̶̥̆ ̶͎̃ĺ̴͍i̴̙̓k̵̪͊e̸͇͆ ̷̺͗ã̵̝ ̷̤̅m̵̞̌u̴͓͝ḷ̸̆e̵̲̾!̵̣̕F̷̨͍͕͈̹͐̊͛#̶͇͙͚̏̂ͅ@̸͕̠͎̣̈́̏̒͝K̸͙̟͎̬̙͛̅̈̇̾!̸̘̑̄̎͠

Feeling every single muscle in her body tense up, Nemuri felt herself tilt backwards slightly before her body reflexively relaxed and she stumbled back upright with a heavy breath. Woah! That felt… unique. Invasive indeed! Nemuri felt like her entire nervous system was now two centimeters to the left.

Smiling at her as he adjusted the glasses on his face, Nemuri just shakily returned a grin and tried to shrug off that weird electric feeling. It didn't actually hurt her or anything, it just felt… weird. Very, very weird.

"So I'm super thankful for all the stuff today, but are you sure we should keep shopping? We've been at it for a while and we already have about half a dozen bags between us." Looking at their current loot spread, Nemuri realized that she might've bottlenecked herself into an early ending to their first day out together.

They couldn't really go out to the park while carrying an entire boutique on their backs.

"Aww, are you sure you don't want anything else? We still have an entire shopping district to explore." Toji just let out a breathless laugh as he stared down at all of the packages between them.

"I'm sure. Today's already been a blast. We can always check out the other shops next time you visit." Nemuri always knew she had great self-control, and not fist pumping at that proved it to herself.

Leaving the department store with Toji, they got about forty feet out of it before he suddenly froze in place and did a double take back towards the store.

"Wait… did we just shoplift in broad daylight? Uh..."

Pfft, what? "Kiddo, I already paid for everything on my phone. Why do you think I kept scanning the price tags with it?"

Snowball just looked awed at that, as if her paying for stuff over the phone was anything special. "You can just auto-buy stuff and walk out of the story without having to talk to a single worker? The future… rules!"

Nemuri just smiled at that and kept walking back to the hospital with the kid so they could put most of his stuff away in her car before a dumb villain mistook the two of them for walking loot crates when something caught Toji's eye from a nearby department store.

He was already pivoting on his heel and walking power walking through the front doors of the store before she could even ask him what was up, and by the time she caught up with him he was already standing still in front of a rack of… plushies?

Please for the love of the lord do not ask her what a plushie is. She didn't want to be caught crying in the middle of a toy store.

That would either be the worst thing to ever happen to her persona, or the best thing to ever happen to it, and she'd rather not have either of those things happening to her "R-rated hero" persona involve her adopted son…

Peeling off his sunglasses so he could stare up at the giant plushies suspended from the upper racks in unmasked awe, Nemuri took this as a rare chance to actually get an unobstructed look at the kids eyes without any glasses or convulsions getting in the way.

The pictures she had seen of the kid did not do his eyes justice. It was like staring at two uranium dinner plates backlit with UV lamps. She had to wonder if they actually glowed in the dark, or if they were just that bright.

"Holy shit…" Toji muttered out, his eyes locked onto the center-top row. "The hungry caterpillar is still real?!"

… what?! THAT'S what got him drawn in like a moth to a volcano? That big derpy plushie in the center of the rack? How did he even manage to spot that while walking outside?

And why'd he have to say it like it was an ancient yokai?

Cranking his head towards her so quickly she was surprised it didn't snap, Toji stared up at her with his big old plate eyes, a look of absolute need across his face. "Any chance we can get the plushie? Look at the size of this lad!"

Was this kid seriously begging her for a 6k yen plushie while wearing a 300k yen wardrobe he accepted without a second thought? Nemuri felt herself begin to chortle at him in spite of herself.

"Yeah kiddo, you can get the plushie." Letting out a little fist pump at that, the kid quickly slipped his glasses back on his head and pulled the seventy two inch long hungry caterpillar plushie off of the rack before wrapping it around his neck like a boa constrictor.

Scanning the price tag dangling off of one of it's antenna, Nemuri slid her phone back into her pocket before ruffling Toji's snowy hair on their way back out the doors and towards the hospital.

Putting the last of the bags away in the trunk of her car, Nemuri turned back to smile at Toji as he fiddled with his new phone beside the one bag of clothes he had sat on the ground beside them.

Nemuri honestly didn't know if the hospital would do laundry for street clothes and she honestly didn't want strangers getting within a hundred yards of this wardrobe, so the plan was to just keep most of his new clothes at her home and she'd bring him a few new sets every time she came to visit.

"Thanks for bringing me out shopping today. I know you didn't actually have to get me anything, so thanks for being so chill for the first time.…"

Nemuri just ruffled the kids hair at that and pulled him in for a side hug. "I wouldn't be trying to take you in if I didn't want to take care of ya, Snowy. I'm not gonna withhold small comforts from you just because I've only known you a day instead of a week."

Returning her hug with a startled laugh, Toji suddenly draped the giant caterpillar plushie he had already taken to calling "Wormie" over the both of their shoulders before pulling her in closer and holding his phone up and at an angle.

"Do people still say "cheese!" while taking pics? Ah well, I guess if I already said it…" Quickly smiling up at his phone, Nemuri heard the shutter click go off before Toji pulled away a few moments later.

Looking down at his phone with a grin, Nemuri could already feel her own phone buzz from him texting it to her number before he slid his phone back into his back pocket and took the Wor- the plushie from her shoulders and re-draped it over his own.

"There we go. That's one for the scrap book. Once again, thanks for today. I'm actually really happy with how it turned out. There was a fifty/fifty shot I'd end the day either on that Matilda grind or smoking that Potter Pack, and from the look of things my chances of getting black lung are slim…"

Despite not understanding a single word Toji just said Nemuri felt herself freely laugh at that. "Well I'm happy to hear that you had a blast. I'll be sure to schedule another one with nurse Ashido when I head back inside to go over the day with her."

She watched Snowy visibly roll over something in his head for a brief moment before finally turning back to her. "So, I know it's really dumb to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I gotta ask… why go all in on me? You seem pretty ritzy. Why not just buy some designer baby from China?"

Well first off, designer babies got banned about two generations before quirk marriages did. Second off, the kid still gave off photogenic kitten energy in spite of his personality. Thirdly, if this kid fell into the public system with a scanner quirk as useful as that she couldn't help but assume the worst would happen to the poor kid. But fourth and most importantly…

"Well, I was already considering adoption before I found you, and it's kind of an unofficial fact at this point that heroes have a whole thing for adoption…" It was usually considered a miracle by the U.A faculty if an entire class of third year hero-hopefuls got through school without at least one of them picking up a kid along the way.

Hell, she's pretty sure the only reason Aizawa hadn't taken in a kid yet like an ostrich finding a really round rock left unattended is because he mainly did underground work at night. There's not exactly an excess of sad orphans getting mugged in alleyways.

Or at least, there isn't an excess of sad orphans getting mugged in alleyways that aren't either already adopted or gone…

Toji just let out a little "huh" at that and patted the caterpillar plushie on the head as if it were a sentient dog. "Guess I got lucky then. You still gotta go over the visit with nurse Ashido, yeah? Mind taking my bag back to the room for me? I might as well break these shoes in and walk around a little."

Grabbing his bag from his hand, Nemuri just ruffled his inhumanly fluffy hair one last time before watching him wander back into the hospital. Considering the fact that he forgot to hand over the giant hungry caterpillar plushie still wrapped around his shoulders she doubted he'd be gone for long.

Right. That still gave her twenty minutes to figure out if nurse Ashido was a Mrs. Ashido. But first!

Ripping her phone out of her purse, Nemuri went to her newest contact and opened up the newest image that was sent to her. God, her smile looked so awkward in the picture. At least Toji and the plushie were wearing their best face.

Should she send this pic to the group chat asap, or should she save it and brag about it in person? Decisions, decisions...

Toru Hagakure

Toru loved her quirk. It was useful. It was... amazing! It was definitely a top-tier quirk that'd let her get into U.A, no problem! But sometimes… sometimes her quirk kinda sucked!

Oh, it was certainly useful for her biggest hobby. Toru would never admit it, but she was a bit of a voyeur. Yeah haha, the invisible girl uses her powers to stare at people, better lock your windows and put salt lines around your bathrooms!

Not that kind of voyeur! Nah, Toru loved watching people in natural environments… like parks! Or malls! Or even hospitals!

People always act super interesting when they think nobody's looking, and since she's invisible she could just wear a tank top (and shorts), plop down on a bench, and rubber neck as much as she wanted. And the best part was she could even gaslight herself into thinking it was useful!

Toru was planning on being a hero! This wasn't "a gross invasion of privacy", this was... a lifestyle! She was simply "building a footpath", so to speak. Getting her patrol routes down. Familiarizing herself with the lay of the land. Every ranger needed to know where the berry bushes were, after all.

And as a hero, the people were her berry bushes!

And it sure was a good thing Toru liked people watching without consent in hospitals so much, because sometimes she got little reminders that her quirk was a bit of a trouble magnet, despite being super-pro material.

What kind of reminders? Well there were people bumping into her, people treating public furniture like a free parkour setup and not noticing the invisible gal sitting in one of the chairs, people littering as they drove past and not noticing her on the sidewalk.

But most importantly there were the people that skipped the littering and decided to drive on the sidewalk! Why did people drive on the sidewalk? Toru didn't know, and her entire lower torso would still like to know.

Car bumpers might look like chrome, but they tasted an awful lot like copper. Guess she should've known better than to wear drab colors. Should've worn neon pink again to stay visible! Haha...

Sometimes Toru wished she could just ditch the invisibility and keep the supernatural proprioception that the invisibility came pre-packaged with so she wouldn't accidentally trip on her own feet and javelin toss herself down the stairs.

Honestly though, she should probably thank the truck driver that clipped her. This was just… spontaneous body conditioning! Yeah, that's it! And all that pain was just weakness leaving the body! By the time she finished U.A the cars will be bouncing off of her ass!

But that was then and here was now, so unfortunately for Toru she was still stuck overnight in the hospital while she walked off the unsolicited endurance training…

Adjusting herself on the garden bench she was sprawled across the center of, Toru looked around for the fifth time in as many minutes before going back to mindlessly scrolling her socials. There wasn't much of a point in loitering in public if there was no public around. Should she just give up her hobby for the day and wander back inside?

Hmm… cute nurses in ugly scrubs were definitely a juxtaposition that deserved to be studied thoroughly…

Listening to the sound of slightly scuffed footsteps, Toru cranked her head and immediately dropped the favor of being three negative stereotypes in a dirty trench coat in favor of staring at the teen her age that had walked through the side doors and into view.

He looked… cute? Absolutely not her type (maybe if the sentence started with an S in front of the H…) but they definitely had that scrungly cat vibe to em! It was honestly impressive how someone could look lost and helpless by calmly standing in a peaceful garden that they purposefully walked into.

Maybe the giant hungry caterpillar plushie was doing the heavy lifting? Mmm… nah. He could've been covered in blood and wearing nothing but a wife beater and a pair of jorts and he'd still look like a victim.

This guy would make a killing as a crisis actor!

Walking through the garden with one arm dangling at his side and the other one pressed against the back of the giant stuffed caterpillar against his shoulders, Toru shamelessly began to theorycraft a backstory for this complete and utter stranger.

Was his hair natural? Why did he have a six foot long worm? How were his Air Might Alaskas so fresh? These were just some of the hard-hitting questions Toru cooked up to distract from the after-effects of the hard-hitting object that thought going 39km while in a school zone was a good usage of their free will…

And then he looked right at the park bench she sat on, saw her floating clothes, and just froze mid-step. Huh. That was a new reaction. Usually people just hit her with a quick "Neato!" (or a bumper) and moved on with their day.

Toru initiated a conversation before he could. Social interactions were like chess. Whoever gets to go first wins a majority of the time! Uh… how were you supposed to talk to people at the hospital? Was it like prison rules?

Well, if the food followed prison rules then she saw no reason conversations wouldn't as well! "Heyo! Nice worm you got there. So… what're you in for?" Huh, well there's two sentence she never thought she'd say to a guy. Anyways!

Not only did he not graciously accept the once in a lifetime compliment, but he didn't even answer her question! And she knew it wasn't invasive, because they were at the hospital; the natural environment for all things clinical!

"You're... invisible?" She asked what he was in for, not what SHE was in for! Is he stupid?

Reaching up and grabbing his glasses with both hands, the guy moved to tear them off his face, froze, and then just let them fall back to his sides like a puppet with their strings cut. Alrightie then.

"Yup! I actually look like the love child between Yang Guifei and Francis Xavier, but don't tell anyone!" That's a lie, she doesn't know what she looks like in the slightest. Yeah she can get the outline of herself if she wraps herself head to toe in something tight, but the actual fine features and details are a bit of a lost cause…

The guy just tilted his head like an owl at that. "Hey, this is gonna be a bit of a big ask, but can I rip my glasses off and try looking at you? I wanna see if your invisibility beats out my... see-able-ness?"

The police found a body last Wednesday, lying facedown in a culvert. The coroner says they must've been rotting there for at least a week. The name of the deceased? William Shakespeare.

"Sure, try your best. But I gotta warn ya; I have fifteen years experience not being seen!" He just nodded at that and reached up to his glasses a second time before pausing yet again. "Oh. Wait. If I look at you, I'll end up knowing all of your biometric data. Like… all of it."

Toru agreed to that bit of info without a second thought. Everyone knew voyeurs were the most self-aware and philosophical of all degenerates. Because through isolation and observation, blossoms comprehension.

At least, that's what her doomscroll socials told her. "Also, you miiiight feel like your nervous system is getting assaulted by three leprechauns with hedge clippers."

Well alrightie then. If that was a pickup line from the guy, it was an awesome one. Why? Because it fulfilled a line's only purpose. It got her attention!

"Tall people say the most fearsome opponent is the one that practiced one kick a thousand times. Leprechauns say "Oh shit, she chose the low kick!". What I'm trying to say is bring. It. On!"

The guy flashed her a quick thumbs up, reached both hands up to his shades, and TheLeprechaunsWereWearingSpikedHelmets!

aaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA̴̱͝͝A̵̙̩̕A̶̠̐Â̷͜A̷̫͌̎͝A̵̗̼̹͊A̷͍͊A̴̘̞͙͛̍͝A̶̺̼̰̅̂̈H̷̤̋̽̇H̷̛̝̊͠H̷͔̟͂͘H̸̪̺̞͌̽͛Ḩ̵̪̹̩̱͈̣̌̊̿̇̌̚͘͜͝H̵̡̨̢͙͉̺̳͗̿͜H̶̦͙̦͎̉̈̆H̸̢͈̱̟͉̫̳̍̌̑̓͋̀Ḧ̸̢̋̄̌͘!̵͙̯͋̑̌̎̚͠͠!̵̧̼̙̠̫̤̃ͅ!̵̛̙̩̪̆̆̆̋̔̀͐ͅ!̷̛͓͍͍̣͛̕͝

…. Holy shit! Was that what bath bombs feel when you drop them in the tub?! She felt like she just ate a fistful of radioactive pennies. Jeez… that was awesome!

"Can you do that again?" The guy just fluttered his big green eyes at her as he looked at her from top to bottom before immediately locking eyes with her. Wait…?

"Nah, it's apparently just a first time only thing." Could he actually…?

Toru made a stupid face, and he looked confused. Toru made a rude hand gesture, and he volleyed two right back at her with a polite nod. He could!

Aaaaaaah! He could see her?! For real?! Whaaaaat?! She'd gone tearing through a clown fiesta's worth of quirk consultants in Tokyo while this guy was just loafing around her area?!

Toru was going to cry. She was going to scream. And she was even going to do a triple backflip and eat some drywall. Breakfast of champions, meet the brunch of conquerors Toru quickly scampered up to the guy and lifted him into the air like the holy grail that he was, which was actually super hard to do since she was five foot nothing, but she made it work!

Laughing with glee, Toru spun around in place several times while lugging the complete stranger around like a championship trophy.

"You! Yoooooooou! How can you see me?! Nobody can see me! You just cracked my fifteen year streak!" Her big dumb savant just lazily shrugged at her, seemingly more concerned with keeping his stuffie around his neck than with her flying him like a kite.

"Quirks are technically a body part, so I can see your quirk interact with the light, and at first I just see it going like uh…" Gesturing for her to put him down, Toru reluctantly dropped her golden goose back to the earth so he could take a step back and uh… start pretending to toss an invisible salad?

"So at first your quirk starts off doing this wishy-woshy thing, and then after a moment it starts to uh… foom-foosh! And then suddenly a bit of it drifts off of the folded light around you, but it's still a part of you, so I just gotta look at those little shedded bits, which let me see the tendril bits, which let me see all the bobs!"

Listening to this guy's explanation kinda made Toru feel like she was still at the scene of that hit and run and the next time she blinked she was gonna be right back on the concrete.

That was a spooky thought to have, because she was starting to like this version of reality a lot more than the one from about twelve hours ago.

Toru felt herself jolt as the bright green caterpillar stuffie that had been wrapped around the guy's neck suddenly wound itself around her own shoulders, and within moments all of her shoulders and enough of her neck was wrapped that she could barely see over the surprised caterpillar staring her in the eyes.

"Here, hold this for a moment." Wrapping her arms around the dangling bits of the plushie so they wouldn't fall off and hit the dirt, Toru stared at the guy in confusion as he continued to stand there after handing it off to her.

"Uhhhhhh… why am I holding this?" Not that she was complaining. It was actually wild how soft this thing was. And it smelled an awful lot like Midnight Fragrance, of all things. Did this guy seriously slather his plushies in Midnight's brand-perfume? And walk around in-public with them?! That was… unfathomably fucking based!

Yeah, Toru needed this guy as a friend. She could probably walk the Earth for another century and she'd never find another sapient being on this kind of wavelength again. She had just kicked all the leprechauns into extinction. She would never be this lucky again.

The guy just shrugged at her as he shuffled around her and planted his ass on the bench she had just been sitting on. "You were looking a bit out of it. I'm guessing you aren't usually visible?"

Toru just laughed like a dolphin at that as she mushed the hungry caterpillar into the side of her face. "Pfft! Nope! You're basically the singularity of exceptions. Hell, you're not the singularity, you're the event horizon!"

The guy just roughly chuckled at that. "Oh man, you have no idea. My name's Toji, by the way. Toji… Kayama?" Did this guy- did Toji seriously forget his own name??? Mood.

Planting herself right on the bench beside Toji, Toru flopped half of the worm back onto his own shoulders and leaned in with a wide smile that he tentatively returned. Ahhhh! He can see her emote. How awesome is that?

"And I'm Toru Hagakure. Call me Toru! Alrightie! Introductions are over. Now time for the personal questions; specifically about me! What color is my hair? What color are my eyes? Skin? Any freckles, how about-"

Raising his hands up in the air in surrender, Toji slipped his sunglasses back onto his face and leaned a little away from her. "Chill, chill! I'm not going anywhere, and from all those bruises on your lower torso I doubt you are either."

Damn, she had actually forgotten his quirk was a broad scanner quirk and not just a quirk-radar. That was actually super impressive. She'd need to ask him some questions about it… after she got through the laundry list of questions burning a hole in her brain!

Tapping the side of his face, Toji tilted his glasses down slightly to look at her before he let out a hum. "Well first off, you're completely wrapped in this funky iridescent aura that's kinda flowing around you like water. That's your quirk."

Alright, her quirk was secretly a magic gasoline bubble. She didn't really know what to do with that.

"What about my hair?" Toji tilted his head back and forth like a metronome, before giving the verdict.

"Lemon-lime." Toru reeled back in furious disgust at that.

"No…." Toji just nodded solemnly as he patted her on the back.

"If it makes you feel better, it's about an eighty to twenty ratio on the lemon to lime coloration so you look more like a parakeet than anything else. And a few strands are the same color as your quirk." That actually did make her feel better.

He just continued to speak as she focused on the mental image he was building. "You have really fluffy eyelashes, and they're basically an entire ring around your eyes. They're the same yellowish green color as your hair, so they go well with your eyes."

Letting out a jaw-cracking yawn, Toru slumped back against the bench, using the hungry plushie as a pillow. "And what color are they? Lemon-lime as well, or funky iridescent like the quirk?"

Toji just opened both palms and pretended to throw confetti at her. "Plot twist, it's none of the above. They're actually dark blue, like the kind you see on sonar. They even have a few electric green rings in them that are a similar color to my own eyes, actually."

Damn, she had nuclear waste peepers? No wonder people could feel her eyes burning holes in the back of their heads if she stared too long!

Tucking his half of the hungry caterpillar beside her head in shameless imitation of her genius, Toji leaned back with his own yawn before looking at her over the rim of his shades. "Hey, sorry if this is a bad question but uh… how'd you end up in the hospital? Those bruises on your stomach look rough."

Eh, they barely even hurt at this point. Hooray for opiates. "Oh, same old, same old. I just got bumper bumped by a shithead driver that thought the curb was the next frontier. What about you?"

"Oh man, you are not going to believe this!" Letting out a little hyena cackle to himself, Toji leaned in closer and began to tell Toru about the worst. Month. EVER!!!

Comments are appreciated. I enjoy hearing what people have to say about this new version of the story.

Half the time the nurse talked about Toji I was actively writing it like a fake pet listing. Why did he choose the name Toji? Well, partially because it got grandfathered in from the original version where it was just a total shitpost and I actually grew attached to the name. Partially because the version of "Toji" from JJK that he decided to rip as a name actually means "second person" which is really funny considering Yoichi's name. Also for a few reasons I won't say.

Satoru as a name would've fit him really well btw. Kayama Satoru would roughly translate into Unconscious Enlightenment, which both goes hard as hell and works well with both his current power and a few he'll get in the future. And yet, him choosing a name that has nothing to do with his powers somehow fits him a bit more…

I purposefully dressed Toji like an absolute poser fuckboy because I thought Nemuri would absolutely dress him up like an overtly expensive doll if he didn't fight back, and since Toji is easily led along by the nose the chances of him fighting back were slim to none. If Toji ever figures out how much his wardrobe actually costs his brain will explode. Just for clarity's sake 100 yen = $1. If anything the yen should be worth way more than the USD in this timeline since America is a wasteland behind the scenes, but whatever.

Shout out to Mgunh1 for making me realize how funny the name Toji Kayama is after I settled on it in the original fic. Shout out to Fried Lilium for the wormie plushie. It was a good idea for both a cute moment and a homage to the og fanfic, and it was literally effortless to slide into this chapter so I had no reason not to.

CosmicBigfoot · Tuesday at 9:33 AM

Toji Kayama

It had been about a week since he went out for the afternoon with Nemuri, and he was still surprised at how normal everything involving the visit with her had been. Nobody got mugged, or bombed, or turned into pumpkins, or any other horrific fate that could've only been crafted by a magical crackhead that just ate a salad made entirely out of datura leaves.

Even Nemuri herself had been normal the entire visit. Toji was kinda surprised at how much he had started to hope that the adoption went through, even in spite of the after-visit revelation about what exactly her career was.

One of the first things he did after Toru's parents eventually swung by to pick her up from the hospital was go back to his room and google Nemuri's super cop name online. Apparently google was now called moogle, and he was never going to give that word headspace ever again.

With a name like "Midnight" he had been expecting something… different than what he got when he googled it and clicked on the images. What did he expect to find? Probably pictures of her heroically posing over villains, saving kids from burning buildings, and just all around being a positive member of society.

And to be fair, that was what he got…. for maybe thirty seconds. And then Toji noticed that the safe search was on.

This was also around the exact moment that he forgot a very important rule to live by. One so fundamental to humanity's collective consciousness that most people don't even realize they already knew and agreed with the rule.

If you google your mom's name and the safe search option pops up, don't click that shit.

He had to admit, it was a bit jarring to find out via google images that the nice woman in business casual that took him out for clothes shopping was secretly a three way Pokemon gooner fusion between a Salazzle, a Tsareena, and a Hex Maniac.

Toji was willing to look past it. Was. So his adoptive mother daylighted as a sadistic dominatrix that got the order of "beat them unconscious" mixed around? That still managed to fly above his expectations. Japan was known to be a little weird even in his first life. Why would he expect them to be any less freaked up now that catgirls were a natural phenomenon?

Besides that little google misstep, his week had gone about as normally as it could have considering the new genre it had taken on. Him and Toru talked constantly on some weird mega app called LANE that was basically the dumpster baby between WhatsApp and Paypal, and Nemuri had even stopped by for a stay-in visit a few days ago.

His life was finally starting to fall into a bit of a comfortable rhythm… and then he went to sleep one night and wound right back up in the liminal zone. Again.

It looked like just as much of an empty voice as the last time he was in it, except this time there were now two suns in it instead of one. Staring at the new purple sun, Toji slowly reached out and tapped his finger against it.

One touch was apparently all it took to pass the power along, and unlike the first power he got Toji actually recognized this one. That probably wasn't a good thing, considering what it was.

Somnambulist

The quirk user is able to produce a highly potent, sleep-inducing aroma from their body on command that can quickly propagate through an area. Even highly aggressive individuals may soon lose consciousness upon getting a wiff of it. The sleep inducing aroma does have the weakness of enemies needing to actually breath it in for it to work, meaning those who can avoid doing so will remain unaffected. The aroma is more effective against the opposite gender compared to the same gender of the quirk user.

He honestly didn't even know where to begin with the cluster bomb of revelations this dropped on his forehead. In fact, one of the only things Toji didn't bat an eye at was the reveal that people could have multiple powers. That was basically the most expected thing ever in a capeshit universe.

Toji was a bit more concerned with the fact that this was the second creepy power in a row that he's gotten. Between the eyes that let him scan peoples entire anatomy and the roofie gas that explicitly works better on women, he was starting to feel a bit typecasted.

The real question was whether or not his literal state-assigned dommy-mom give him a smallpox plushie. If that was the case then… oh well. The thing cost, like, $60 at the minimum. The plague plushie was here to stay.

Just like a monkey with it's hand stuck in a jar, Toji would sooner die than release what he held onto. Hey, at least it'd be good for his immune system.

…. What a minute. Why was Toji even worrying about this? He was literally already at the hospital. Why sweat over what could be when he could just let the doctors figure out what-definitely-is? There was probably a 50/50 shot that this is all completely normal and people just passed along their quirks during familial transfers and adoptions… like vampires.

Now the real question is, how does he wake up? The last time he was in here he kinda just woke up naturally after a while because he was a bit shell shocked about the whole "not living" situation he just got over, so maybe if he focuses he can just-

Snapping his eyes wide open, Toji stared up at the ceiling and took a deep, shallow breath as he held his hand above his face to block out some light from the morning sun before looking through it with his quirk.

...Huh. He had new exocrine glands now. He guessed it wasn't a dream after all. Toji had to admit, going to bed and waking up with completely new body parts was a bit of a mundane nightmare. He'd make a "lmao puberty" joke but… nah, this was actually kinda creepy. What if he got some sort of fucked up wendigo power? Would he just wake up and really want to be a cannibal?

Dropping his arms back to his side, Toji took another moment to just stare straight upwards before he gave up on the existential crisis and belted out the least terrible Evangelion reference he could make while in a hospital room and just tapped the call nurse button on the side of his bed. He might as well get this new power situation over with sooner rather than later.

It took less than two minutes before nurse Ashido was knocking on his door to announce an intent to breach and clear. He was honestly a little impressed by the response time.

Nurse Ashido didn't even bother to do her usual knock on the door as she barged into the room, her eyes immediately darting to him sitting cross legged in his bed. "Is everything alright Snowball? You've never rung the call button before."

Lifting his hands into the air, Toji just expelled a short burst of sleep gas into the open air like a violated puffshroom before hitting Ashido with a serious case of the jazz hands. "So, uh... I got a second quirk?"

Thumping his head against the glass tube he had been unceremoniously plopped into about an hour ago, Toji let out his dozenth sigh for the day as he and Nemuri made eye contact through the blue tinted glass.

If Toji knew the doctors were going to lob him into an empty bacta tank to rush some tests the moment he spoke up Toji probably would've… still told them immediately? He was pretty sure tests were supposed to be done on an empty stomach, so this was probably still the best case scenario… somehow.

Nemuri just smiled at him through the tinted glass and ignored the doctor reminding her about fish tank etiquette as she repeatedly rapped her long nails against the glass. "Huh, I guess I'm having a test tube baby after all."

Listening to Nemuri laugh at her own mid ass joke through the built-in speakers for the tank just made Toji fume even harder in the gay baby jail of his own creation. "How much longer do I need to stand in here and make the roofie gas?"

Nemuri just laughed nervously at that. "Right! I'll need to give you the quirk talk later if this is actually permanent. For now, just uh… think about optics! You don't have roofie gas quirk. You have a sleeping fragrance quirk. You think you can keep that in mind, Snowie?"

Toji just nodded at her through the glass. "Yeah, I get what you're trying to say. Connotation and consensus is one and the same when it comes to public perception."

For some reason that sentence just made Nemuri eye him like he just quoted Don Quixote at the bus stop. "Huh. That wasn't really something I was expecting to come out of your mouth."

"Well I just straight up ripped the words from someone else's mouth, so…" Trailing off, Toji just settled for shrugging his shoulders at her and trying not to think about his shithead of a twin.

Stepping forward and clearing his throat, the head doctor that Toji still hadn't bothered to learn the name of stepped forward. "You can stop using your quirk now, Toji. I believe we've gotten as much information as we're going to get from it. You can exit the machine as soon as the fans finish clearing out your new quirk."

Nemuri gave the doctor her undivided attention at that. "So? What's the current verdict, doc? Is the quirk temporary, or is this one of this holiday special stories?"

Toji had no idea what kind of orphan tropes have been cropping up since he took a multi-century dirtnap, and now he was too afraid to go check around for a 23rd century tropes page.

The doctor lightly rapped his fingers against the tablet he held in his hands. "I suppose the best news we have have is that there is no bad news. Unfortunately, that doesn't actually say much at all. Currently, the tests are leaning towards the quirk being a permanent addition instead of a temporary mimicry… as impossible as that is."

Toji tapped on the glass to get the doctor's attention. "Isn't multiple powers kind of a genre staple? I mean I watched that Endeavor guy get tossed through three buildings the other day by a magical methhead, and I'm pretty sure his quirk is just pyrokinesis."

Something about that sentence just made Nemuri stare at him like he said something silly. "Do… do you mean body conditioning? Kiddo, that's health class 101."

The doctor just shook his head at Nemuri as he continued to type away on the tablet. "It's understandable for Sno- Toji to not know just how far the effects of body conditioning can reach. I'm fairly certain it's not directly brought up in health classes until children enter high school for certain reasons."

Holy shit. "I can survive car crashes by doing deadlifts?!" This. Changes. Everything!

The doctor just sighed at the thousand yard stare that was probably spread across his face at that moment.

"And that is why the health industry tries not to let children that are still in early development know about body conditioning. They have a bad habit of attempting professional workouts too early in their development and stunting their growth."

Toji flashed the doctor two thumbs up. "Yeah but I'm entering high school now, so I assume it's safe for me to begin the grind? By the time I graduate I'll be able to survive a small nuke… maybe even a medium one!"

Nemuri just clicked her tongue at that. "Right. I think I get it now. So… what? The kid just had a random quirk awakening while he was taking a peaceful nap? I'm pretty sure that's not how those work."

Toji just shrugged at that and rapped his knuckles against the glass again. "Eh, from what I'm hearing I just double dipped from the well. As long as this isn't super-smallpox from a tainted plushie then I'll consider it a win."

Nemuri just ignored that and kept talking to the doctor. "Is there anything else we should do for the kid? I don't really keep up with medical news but I'm pretty sure someone just growing new quirks on a whim would be considered a teeny bit of an absolutely massive deal."

Something about that painted an odd expression across the doctor's face. "Well, we could transfer him to Jaku General, in the Kyoto prefecture. They're the closest facility that specializes in studying quirk factors. While they would have a higher chance of getting more concrete information, I cannot in good conscious recommend a transfer at this time."

Nemuri just cocked her head and squinted at that. "What's the problem with Jaku General? They're only an hour away by train, so it can't be the commute."

"The problem is that Toji is still floating through the system, so to speak… which means his care is fully left to the hospital that is hosting him. Within reason, of course."

That just made Nemuri let out a brand-annihilating gorilla certified groan as she rubbed her forehead in exasperation. "So it's basically a terrible idea to go through with it until I'm legally his mom and get the final say in the medical treatment?"

The doctor lightly tilted his head up at that. "It would be unprofessional to speak ill of a fellow hospital, especially one with many veterans in the field. But also… Jaku City is very big on quirk based communal care, and while I imagine Toji has a very prestigious career ahead of him in quirk counseling, I cannot recommend beginning it this early in life."

Nemuri's eyes almost bulged out of her head at that one. "Are you friggin' telling me they'd give Snowie the Victorian orphan treatment?!"

The doctor nodded a second time at that, more resolutely than the first. "I am unfamiliar with the metaphor, so I cannot say. What I can say is that many people would find a hands on mentorship program under specialists to be a very noteworthy accomplishment… especially so soon after waking up from a coma."

That just made Nemuri look a little ill for some reason beyond his comprehension. Toji thought Japanese parents lived for that extra credit sauce?

Knocking on the glass a second time, Toji just jerked his head at the inert fans above him. "Having a three-way conversation about myself through a glass wall is actually fever dream material. Mind letting me out now?"

Judging by the looks on the both of their faces, they kinda just forgot he existed for a few seconds there. Awesome. Several button presses and a lever later, and Toji's final takeaway was that whoever designed a medical tube to function like a FNAF security door was an absolute psychopath.

"Right, thanks. So can someone catch me up to speed on why having multiple quirks is a bad thing? I swear I've seen at least have a dozen people that bundle their powers."

The doctor just continued to type away at that tablet of his as he nodded at Toji's question. "Those types of quirks tend to have a variety of colloquial names, such as dual quirks or compound quirks. To put it simply, they're all just singular quirks that can be used in a variety of separate applications. Like a thermal manipulation quirk that can control both ice and fire."

Toji was a bit confused at that. "Are you guys sure I don't just have one of those super flexible quirks?"

He was starting to believe his actual power was just waking up with new powers, but he'd probably be better off not admitting that to a room full of people that just turned him into a temporary homunculus. He'd rather not get crushed with a bible.

"The reason we believe it to be multiple separate quirks is because of the cross references right… here." Finally done smacking his fingers against the tablet, the doctor turned it towards both himself and Nemuri and showed… absolute fucking gibberish. "You have two congruent Plus Alpha elements in your body."

His look of absolute bafflement at that sci-fi nonsense must've reminded the doctor that Toji still doesn't know jack from shit, because he just chuckled a bit to himself and continued to explain, this time in common instead of abyssal.

"It seems I got a bit too clinical with my wording. What I meant to say is that you have multiple organic Quirk Factors. If this was merely a power copying or mimicry quirk it would have just been a singular Quirk Factor expressing itself through multiple vectors."

… This was still absolute fucking gibberish to Toji. At least Nemuri looked like she was picking up what the doc was putting down? "So does this actually mean anything or is this just a semantics thing?"

That question finally got the doctor to break his composure as he let out a short bark of laughter. "Now that is the question of the decade. One that probably won't be answered until either other people begin to exhibit similar symptoms or your own children begin to show signs of the same phenomenon."

Toji immediately gestured a time-out symbol towards the doctor as if it'd send that thought packing like a vampire getting bitch-slapped with crucifix made out of garlic bread. "The longer this conversation goes on the more it sounds like I'm patient zero of the quirkpocalypse two: electric boogaloo."

Even Nemuri was starting to look a bit shaken up at where the conversation was heading. "I uh… I gotta admit doc, this wasn't really what I had in mind when the hospital called me over Snowie's quirk acting up. I'm surprised you aren't making a bigger deal about this WcNuke you just dropped on us."

The doctor started to talk before Toji could ask Nemuri about what the hell she just said. "I can assure you, the lab techs that helped gather these readings are, quite literally, having the times of their lives with them. As for myself, I simply try not to break decorum in front of patients."

Toji just nodded at that while Nemuri pursed her lips as she thought that over. "Right, so basically everyone is either getting drunk or writing science papers and the second we leave you're gonna go join em."

The doctor nodded yet again. "While I wouldn't put it quite like that, young Toji seems to have the general idea of things. It certainly helps that this new development happened to someone we had almost daily updated scans and test results for."

Wasn't the glowing baby that kicked off the first quirkpocalypse born in a hospital? Toji's not really sure how his situation is any luckier than that one was. "So uh… is testing done for the day?"

Nodding at the two of them one final time, the doctor slotted the tablet back into the machine connected to the glass tube Toji was just standing in.

"With how fresh your previous medical work was and how much we've already gleamed from the current batch of tests, I'd say you've already given the lab techs enough work for the whole week, let alone the day."

Nemuri cut into the conversation at that. "Is Snowie cleared to go outside? Since he's got my quirk now I should probably give him the talk, so to speak."

...Toji was pretty sure anything referred to as the talk probably shouldn't be had outside.

Nemuri Kayama

She had given the villainous quirk talk to a few kids over the years. It was inevitable when she was both a pro hero and a school teacher, and had a quirk that would've been considered pretty villainous if she herself wasn't both a pro hero and an absolute bombshell.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being self-aware in her own head. Just because she always assumed the best in people didn't mean she wasn't realistic enough to know growing up with sleep gas for a quirk would've been way rougher if she was a fat ugly guy.

Nemuri ended up taking Toji to a peaceful park with a few food carts nearby for the talk, and it went… surprisingly well? Usually trying to tell a kid "People are disgusted and terrified by an intrinsic part of you" (in much less terrible words than that) usually got a minimum of two stages of grief for a reaction, but Snowie just skipped straight to acceptance on that one.

Snowie at least seemed to take her advice to heart for how to handle it if people ever react badly to it, which just boiled down to "compare it to his pro hero mom as much as possible and then say how useful it'll be in the medical industry".

The kiddo seemed a bit leery at that first half for some reason, but at least he agreed that it was good advice and promised to stick with it. Somehow, having a kid instantly accept that a decent chunk of the world would just be disgusted with his existence on principle alone was more depressing than if he burst into tears.

If Nemuri wasn't trying to keep the kid out of enclosed space she would've dragged him into another store and dumped another Christmas' worth of gifts on his sad little noggin. Since that option was out she just settled for continuing the domestic conversations, but in a much less depressing tone.

"You know, now that you have my quirk I wouldn't be surprised if the adoption gets even more streamlined… assuming the hospital actually figures out a way to squeeze it into your quirk registry in a way that sounds reasonable."

Toji looked a bit confused at that. "Why would me having your quirk make the process go any faster?"

Uh… what? "The government tries to pair kids up with parents that have similar quirks. It's a pretty big thing in custody disputes."

The kiddo looked absolutely baffled at that. "… Moms don't just get first dibs?"

And then it was suddenly Nemuri's turn to look baffled. "Why would the gender matter more than the quirk? It's important for the kid to have someone they can relate to on a fundamental level, you know?"

The kiddos face kinda went blank at that. "Uh… no, not really?" Well now Nemuri felt like a bit of a tool, and the kiddo was already back to talking before she could think of anyway else to say.

"You know, about the whole… quirk situation." Toji began to speak, looking around in the most blatantly suspicious and least inconspicuous way possible before leaning towards her. "Is me getting two scoops really that big of a deal? I mean, crazy eyes and sleep gas are useful but it isn't like they're any weirder than shit like a sentient event horizon."

Nemuri cracked a smile at that one. "Hey now, I'll have you know that the sapient event horizon is a wonderful person… even if they dress and act like they belong in a retirement home. As for your quirk situation… I'm not gonna lie kiddo, the only reason I'm not freaking out over it is because I still don't fully believe it."

He shrugged at that one. "Well, I assume there's something psychological to it since I got your quirk instead of any from the hospital staff… or Toru."

Well, now Nemuri felt a bit warm and fuzzy inside at the thought that the kid wanted to be a part of her family so badly that he budded off a clone of her quirk. That was some holiday special stuff right there. It even had the depressingly creepy undertones!

Leaning across the table, Nemuri quickly ruffled Snowie's hair before stealing several of his fries with a laugh. Sorry Toji, but if she's gonna be a mom then that means she gets to bust out the food tax policy, as is her parental right. She didn't make the rules, she just enforced them. Literally.

"Aww! You know you didn't need to bud off a Kayama family quirk to be a member… but I gotta admit, you picked a great one! Well, your subconscious did at the very least… assuming this wasn't just random chance."

She's pretty sure the only reason Toji didn't drag his hands down his face in abject horror was because they were covered in salt and grease. "Dear God I hope it's subconscious. I am begging God as my witness to not saddle me with Toru's nightmare of a quirk just because we rubbed shoulders too many times.."

Nemuri pursed her lips and blew a gust of air right into Toji's face and tried not to laugh as he scrunched his nose up at her. "Yeah, I'm gonna have to cut that thought off at the roots. I'm not really sure how quirk culture is in America, but in Japan quirks are… personal. It's a bad habit to get into insulting them, and an even worse habit to get into insulting your friends quirks."

Wiping his hands off with a napkin, Toji took a drink of his orange soda as he zoned out for a moment. "In my defense, they're her words, not mine."

That just made Nemuri roll her eyes and flick Snowie upside the forehead with her pointer finger before ticking it back and forth in front of his face. "Come on kiddo, I know for a fact that America has sympathy as a concept. If your friend is putting themselves down then you should…"

Trailing off, Nemuri left the ball in Toji's court as she waited for him to respond. "…I'm guessing the answer isn't to recommend them a therapist?"

Nemuri raised her hand with her index finger already pressed against her thumb just to swipe the kiddo's fries when he went to cover his forehead. "Alright, alright! I'm just being a snarky shithead. I know I should pick em up if they put themselves down. I know punching down is cringe, okay?"

Well Snowie sounded apologetic, so that was something at least. Taking several more fries from the basket, Nemuri slid it back across the table towards him with a nod and a smile.

"Glad to hear it. Just remember that I'm not asking you to coddle them. I'm a high school teacher and I used to be your age; I know that being a snarky shithead is the modus operandi for puberty. Just remember to keep the attitude pointed at choices and not chance."

Toji just rolled his eyes at her and immediately doubled down on finishing up lunch before she could pick away any more of his fries. "Aren't moms supposed to nag their kids to be polite and wholesome?"

She had to hold in a brand-annihilating snort at that one. "You're fifteen years old and I'm a high school teacher; I know the score. Wholesome is the last word I'd pin to one of you demented little gremlins."

Finishing off the last of his fries, Toji quickly licked the last of the salt off of his fingers before tossing the disposable basket like a frisbee into the nearest trash can. "Good. I'd be sweating bullets if I was getting adopted by a dolt. Uh... which direction is towards the nearest sink?"

Snowie got up to go wash the grease off his hands after that, and Nemuri took the free time to actually think about the day so far… and immediately lost control of her quirk as she pressed her face into her palms and let out a muffled groan that quickly shifted into a scream when she realized her fingers were also covered in grease and salt.

Everything about the current day was an absolute disaster just waiting to happen, and somehow Toji being either the next step in human evolution or an anomaly that violates quirk science as a concept wasn't even the most convoluted thing on the list.

No, that coveted award went to the insinuation that if the kid went to Jaku General he was gonna probably get shanghai'd into the industry in the name of quirk testing.

Nemuri knew she should probably just be happy that the worst thing she had to worry about for the kid was him being too successful at finding a career in the medical field, but she agreed with their doctor on that one. Fifteen and fresh from a coma was waaaaaaay too young to be dealing with that nonsense.

The way Nemuri saw it, she basically had three immediate options. Option one was going to Nezu and calmly explaining the situation and hoping the kid's… everything plucks on Nezu's cold calculating heartstrings. Option two was going to Nezu in a barely restrained panic and failing to explain anything properly before vomiting alphabet soup all over his desk. Option three was to tough it out and hope for the best.

So far, she was feeling pretty strong for option one… and was probably going to fumble her way into option two instead.

Nemuri knew snapping patient confidentiality over her knee by running off and talking to the guy that signs her paychecks on day zero of knowing it was probably considered a dick move to just about everyone involved, but also… her boss is Nezu. If she couldn't trust him, then she was already screwed along with the rest of the heroics industry.

She's pretty sure Nezu could sort out a filing cabinet's worth of cuneiform paperwork written with invisible ink, so she was pretty sure this situation would be light work for him. Probably.

… Hopefully?

Eh, she'd cross that bridge when she reached it. Here's hoping it didn't burst into flames until she was at least halfway across it.

Feeling a tap on her shoulder, Nemuri jolted in place and whipped herself around just to see Toji standing right behind her, two of his fingers still outstretched from bopping her. "Woah, chill. Just because I look like a ghost doesn't mean I am one."

Nemuri tried (and failed) to laugh off managing to zone out hard enough she got surprised by a kid with no stealth training. "Heh, sorry Snowie. I guess I zoned out a little while thinking about what we could do before I return you to the hospital."

She was pretty sure it was considered good parenting to pretend everything is fine and dandy, even if everything was actually on fire and crumbling to ash all around you. And since nothing was even singed yet, she'd still consider the current situation a success story in the making.

Snowie just tilted his head at that, sending his glasses sideways far enough for her to look into his big radioactive eyes. "Is there anything else to do outside? I looked up Musutafu online and this place seems mostly… commercial?"

Nemuri snorted at that as she got up and joined the kid in walking out of the park. "Someone forgot they're not living in a country the size of a continent anymore. We could hop on a bullet train and be all the way in Osaka in about an hour if we really felt like it."

The kiddo just let out a little "huh" at that. "Osaka's that food place with the cool castle and the amusement park, right?"

She didn't even notice she had stopped walking until Toji bounced off of her backside. Slowly turning around in abject horror, Nemuri reached over and pulled Snowie's glasses upwards so she could stare him right in the eyes. "Please tell me you didn't just boil down Osaka to a place with good food and an amusement park."

Toji just looked confused at her disgust and horror. "Am I wrong? That's all I see of it from Tiktok and Insta. Just people eating seafood at night and being childless adults at theme parks meant for kids."

Nemuri tried not to get offended by the latter half of that sentence and tried to focus only on the first half instead, which just made her want to throttle whoever or whatever "Tick Tock" was. And then the kid said one more thing that just sealed his fate for the rest of the day.

"Well we just ate, so there's probably no point in even visiting now." Yeah, no. Quickly grabbing Snowie's hand, Nemuri wasted absolutely zero time in pivoting directions from the hospital and towards Tatooin Station.

"Well Snowball, I guess we found what we're doing for the rest of the day! The hospital probably wants you back by six, so that means we can probably hit both the Kaiyukan and Minoh Park and make it back with some time to spare."

The kiddo just chuckled nervously as she dragged him along on her power walk towards the station. "Uh, are you sure dragging me onto a train is a good idea? I thought you were trying to keep me out of enclosed spaces?"

She just waved her hand at his concerns as she continued to walk. "Meh, I've been watching you like a hawk since we left the hospital and you haven't slipped once so far. Your control is honestly a bit amazing. You're doing a lot better than I would have done in your situation, at your age."

Toji just shrugged at that. "Well I can literally see when the quirk is activating and why it's activating, so it's not that hard to take a few steps back mentally whenever I see it getting tripped. Still though, is a two hour round trip to go to a park and an… aquarium?... A park and an aquarium really worth it?"

"… There's a jellyfish gallery in the Kaiyukan." The kid was already moving before she even finished the sentence, and Nemuri was suddenly the one getting dragged along as he lead the charge.

"Yeah, a two hour round trip ain't shit now that I think about it. Is there anything cool about the Minoh place or should we just skip it and double down on the Kaioken?"

Nemuri laughed at that one. "Kiddo, come on now, your Japanese is perfect. I know that slip was intentional. As for Minoh Park, I'm guessing "because it's a nature park in late Autumn" isn't enough for your lofty standards?"

Toji just shook his head at that, and Nemuri felt her smile widen. "The park is absolutely filled with Japanese macaques, and about three centuries of getting doted on by visitors has made em big, fat, and dopey."

"Right, so should we swing by the park before we go to the Kaiyukan, or after the fact?" Nemuri just laughed at that switch-up as she let Snowie drag her along.

"Well, there's one station about five minutes from the Kaiyukan, and another one about ten minutes from the park, but the one at the park is less busy so it'd probably be better to catch the train heading back there instead of having to wait for one heading towards the Osakako station…"

He just shook his head at that as they kept walking. "How the hell do you guys have a train station every ten miles around here?"

Reaching over, Nemuri ruffled his hair as he kept tugging her along, which was way more difficult than it had any right to be. "Aww, your American is showing again. Like I said earlier, Japan isn't the size of an entire continent. If we're gonna have railroads stretching across every corner of the country then we might as well put some down at a few interesting spots between the major destinations."

Snowie stared off into space and looked a little lost at that. "I gotta admit, it would've been awesome to be able to visit places like the grand canyon any time I wanted. It kinda sucks that I spent my whole life there and never got to see a single interesting thing while alive. I guess I know how peasants in high fantasy settings that never leave the starting village must feel..."

Nemuri tried not to d'aww at the kiddo's melodrama before reaching in to double dip on the head ruffles.

"I know moving countries can be rough, but there's no need to talk like you've been banished from the western hemisphere. We could always go there on vacation in the future, after the adoption is fully settled and life stops being so chaotic. It'll be like you never left."

That didn't get the reaction she was looking for. Instead of brightening up at the thought the kiddo just wilted right in front of her for a moment before suddenly springing back to life like a perennial. "How about instead of thinking about the future, we just talk about nothing important? Just for a little bit."

Nemuri thought about everything that had gotten unceremoniously dumped over the kid's head since he woke up that morning, and realized that… yeah, Snowie probably needed a little bit to unpack things in his own head just as much as she did.

"Sure thing, Snowball. So I know I already mentioned the jellyfish exhibit, but the otter exhibit? Most adorable thing you're gonna see all week, guaranteed. The last time I was here two of the breeding pairs gave birth, and I swear their cubs were just the cutest little-"

By the time Nemuri ran out of things to say about that exhibit Toji was already asking about the seal exhibit she mentioned in passing several minutes beforehand, and by the time she was done talking about that one they were already on a train to go see it.

Toji was right, she could think about the future later. For the moment, she had better things to focus on… like convincing Toji that baby seals were not "moe eyed footballs!"

The New Abnormal (My Hero Academia/Celestial Mutation)

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