" Onee-chan, you must go to my birthday party. Don't sleep over at Izuku nii-san or else you will be grounded! "
" Fine fine... I will come. Don't worry that his sister of yours will miss out your once-in-a-year occassion. And did mom ask you to add in that last part?"
" ...No!"
Akai could only look to his right shoulder, afraid of confronting at Ina's red gazes. Twitching at the uncomfortable silence following his very bad lie, Akai wished time would be ticking faster. Sure she was his sister and all but he was still afraid of looking at her too much as in his mind, she was almost too perfect. Beautiful, talented, and many more gorgeous words describing human's exterior and interiro could be used to describe his sister. Facing her was like a psychological punishment, he could hear their parents' nagging him over his less-than-desirable scores and extracurriculum activities. From full disapproval of his imperfect results to remarks comparing him and his sister, Akai had listened through all of that. The only time his parents even talked negatively about Ina was always about hoe she often escaped at night to do her own things and her lazy altitude toward studying ( Akai found that idea ridiculous as despite how Ina often acted passively and lethargically at home and school, she still got things done with flying outcomes).
" So it is mom's order then. Fine, I will play with Momo-chan and our group of friends will kill our time till your party started. I will dress appropriately, don't worry. What do you want me to buy? An Allmight something?"
" C-Can you buy me a phone case with him?"
" Yeah. i will get you one."
The toll of the school bell signaled that classes were about to be in sessions. Ina was confident she could run back and got inside bu her brother was another thing.
" Now you must return to your coass and leave this old and weak lady to her own demise."
" Hmm, stop talking like thaf! And bye onee-chan, I will get to class!"
" Bye bye...Momo, snooping around every time I set foot into the school is a bit excessive, don't you think?"
Seeing that her little brother had disappeared after a turn, Ina finally addressed her friend hiding in the corner. The girl then walked out confidently following the inquiry.
" Ina-chan! Are you really going to join us at the cafe!? It has been such a long time since the last time all four of us did something together and we have not been seeing you around at school. I have thought that you have forgotten us!"
Momo said, her eyes teary and her noses sniffing. Ina had to admit that yes, she had not been showing her face at school all that much since she had already jumped enough classes to the point of being required to remain a student with an almost free schedule until she was 'mentally, socially, and physically developed' as the school counselor often said. Most of the time she went to school was for the swimming team and for playing around with Momo and their friend group, joining them in after-school excursions to a milk tea shop, dessert stores or shopping malls.
"If you are here, Ina-chan, just enter the class with me! You will be spending the day with your friends, isn't it fun?"
"Yes, let's get to the class."
" Stop it... "
All eyes were on them when they entered. One reason was that the class president Momo was the class center, another was that the ghost of the class really showed up. Ina's reputation among classmates was akin to a school's seven mysteries ( despite how often she appeared at the pools and competed with seniors), elusive and somewhat forbidden in discussion ( of course children made up the latter part, saying she was ill or something along the line). Ignore the commotion, Ina strided toward her seat and made herself comfortable. Momo's two other friends did greet her and she returned with simple nods.
" Oh, so you are here. Will you be going to the swimming pools?"
" Not today, I am just attending normally. Swimming is for next week as there is a competition coming up."
" Fine, your sudden attendence is a bit troublesome but just wait for a moment."
The teacher quickly greet the class, told Momo to distribute the score of the last exam and then bolted away. The man returned after 6 minutes to the display of various emotions among the students with the knowledge of their latest academic endeavor. He threw Ina a stack of papers, classical literature to be exact, and told her to do it while he was providing the answers and explaining the problems in details.
In the following thirty minutes, she completed the final question and then looked up at the board. Sure the graduate-level paper on her desk was one thing but explaining each problems with care and attention so that even the dimmest bulb in the class could understand was another thing. Taking a glance at the blank test the teacher had snucked inside, Ina had to admit that he had been truly devious. 7 questions demanding full essays, 400 words each, to dig into various topics with one particularly standing out being:
" Heroes and their impacts on society. Provide a conclusion whether or not they are beneficial."
The school's board seemed to be testing water but then Ina did not care much about the subject matter. She drove out the noises after pushing her completed work to the right corner of her desk. Still keeping a somewhat superficial attention to the surrounding. She began to spread out her psychic energy in a small cone from her eyes, her senses attuning to the metaphysical material. If time was spare so how about utilizing it to the best capacity?
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Training ( Post UA meddling)
" How is your psychic power? Aside from aquakinesis, I mean."
Izuku inquired a frustrated Ina. The two after being released from UA were now under a semi house arrest. Of course Nezu had not outright ban the activity but vigilantism had to be postponed to give the rat some face. Both sides knew the other was fooling but they were willing to bury the hatchet. So after boring herself out of observing Izuku's working, Ina decided to start getting used to the psychic energy she had received from the whole event.
While other psychic quirks used the energy instinctually most of the time, Ina had to learn everything from scratch. Identifying the energy was easy, manipulating it would be the hard part. There had been documentation of researchs and experiments into the nature of psychic quirks like elemental controls, future scrying and intuition.
Sitting calmly on the sofa in the position for meditation in a comfy wear, Ina tried to empty her senses. Only in the absence of physical noise could one notice the supernatural. After multiple attempts, she had been able to shut her eyes and ears from outside world. The remaining three senses were too much of a hassel to remove and her senses were dimmed enough for her mind to do its job. She could 'see' a purple gas bounded to her via wisps of smokes connecting her to the main volume just above her head. It was not the state she had first sensed it. Breathing steadily, she brought the cloud and closer into her brain. Ignoring the smoke phasing through her skull, she pulled the psychic power toward her center of mass.
The fight at UA had provided her with realistic example of her usage of psychic power. In the face of danger, her senses had flared up to warn her. Aside from the Beast's intuition, she had been using the power to guesstimate the incoming attacks. When reviewing the fight, courtersy of camera logs from Nezu, she had been dodging even before some of the attacks were launched. Intuition could explain that but if so, the frequency of predodge would still be too significant to ignore.
" Spread the sphere. Maintain and snap."
Keeping herself steady, Ina forced the collected psychic power into a sphere taking her mass center as the radial center. The density of the smoke had indeed dropped since the covered space was much larger. She could 'see' the vibration from Izuku's desk around 5 meters away, a mosquito flying over her head and the heart beating in real life. Now would be the part that pushed her brain. Letting the psychic power fall to controlled chaos and take over the characteristics of the objects in her range, Ina suddenly imploded the cloud, pulling everything back. The information package bombed her brain as it tried to make sense of smaller details ot had previously missed. Fucking around and finding out was today's lesson as a sliver of blood seeped out from her noses.
" Fifteen minutes before some bodily harm happened. A new record for you. Here, a paper towel."
"Thanks ...You done with tinkering? And only fifteen minutes?! I thought at least an hour has passed."
" Almost, and yes, only thirty minutes. Have you been checking out the reports on mind-influencing quirks? Good starting point but you have not found a particular usage of your control for touching others' thoughts. The information bomb that you were trying to create is something that has been tried in a Mexican mall. Exceptionally good at crowd control, the hero responsible used it to cause everybody to shut down from sudden stress. The amount of data follows a cubic growth so good luck increasing the damage. I recommend changing it to crow control while keeping the sphere of recognition."
"Was it that obvious? "
" Not really for most people. I have something called Aura and that shares some characteristics with psychic power. I noticed your attempt of expansion and implosion. Let me take out my notebooks."
From a hung backpack did Izuku pull out the 33th notebook in his series of analysis. He enjoyed some entertaining hours of annalysing notable figures combat-wise after relentless hours of training. Tip-toeing due to the widened height difference, Ina took a peek at what was being written and found tips for her training with psychic power. Izuku torn off the page and gave it to her when he realized where she was reading.
" Thank you, so this is your latest project completed. No wonder I have been seeing you loitering around quirk research papers... "
Ina decided to reward Izuku with a small gesture. With his hunched back facing her front, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his torso midsection. Smiling to herself, she gave him another thank you before letting him go back to his job. She then returned to the sofa and continued her training, ignoring the two tomatoes hanging by Izuku's head.
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Present
" Mental influence ... no concrete foundation and only mere speculations..."
Reading through the stack of papers inside her backpack was something she much appreciated. With basic understanding of the papers, she could make out the various experiments and the knowledge of collected data. Shutting her eyes while maintaining a staring contest at a random tree outside, she went through various hypothesises for the mechanism behind mental influence.
" The shared detail is the knowledge of the influenced target. Almost every mental quirks require maintaining knowledge of the target through bodily senses with some rare cases only require the bare minimum of memories. But then from that ground how can a connection be made? With the minds being practically opened but with different level of difficulties in breaking in, how can I use my psychic energy to establish a link? But even if a link is formed, how should it be maintained, for how long and what is its limits?..."
Keeping herself occupied with the line of thinking about the human's minds, Ina barely missed the teacher standing nearby, in his hand was her work. Her field notified her of his presence, tearing her away from the the theory of temporary beliefs constricting one's thinking so that she could have an easier time tempering. But enough about her thought, the teacher was the priority now.
" Perfect score again, how can I give you a proper challenge now?! "
" You know the situation ages ago, sensei. Why are you looking so hurt when you saw my score?"
" It's just... my responsibility as a teacher to you is not fulfilled. Teaching intelligent enough kids is fun but teaching overly intelligent ones like you is another thing. So now, my greatest enemy, spend your free time at your own accord."
So much flair for telling her that she could do her own things, Ina thought. Glancing at others let she know that they were still doing the normal thing: studying. Ina decided to drift hack into her mind. She continued reading, proposing, reaching an unsatisfying conclusion: she needed live subjects and someone with better understanding of psychology to guide her.
" Should I ask him to look for one? I have the money ..."
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Somewhere familiar
" Mastermind-san, aiming a loaded gun at me is not the best course of action."
" You should not be here. Don't you have your heroic brothers to take care of. I am surprised someone from (Flying High) would be sent and that person would be you. And besides, the one holding the majority should be counting their money, not appearing in front of customers to deal with them. What is it that you want?"
" Simple, a temporary contract. The details will be provided if you join but I can ensure that the pay is lucrative. Aside from the pay you will be given, this will be provided to you."
An envelope, its paper brownish as the years had not been gentle with the thing, was put into Izuku's remaining hand. The weight was not anything significant yet he knew there would be something life-changing in here. Still aiming the gun, he used his mouth to rip open the envelope. Ambushing him with the pleasant smell of aged paper, two letters came out. The first one was a research report of an ancient underground city with a map doted with scribbling notes and unknow names. The second one started with ... 'Inko'?!
Putting the pistol back into its holster, Izuku began to read it.
" Dear Inko,
If you are reading this then I feared that I have gone on an eternal journey without you. I am sorry for not being there when our little angel is born into this beautiful world.
My team has discovered the ground-zero of the world's anamolous change, the originated location of the gift we called Quirks. We are diving into a very dangerous location so this may be the final letter I am sending you. I just hope that I can still return to his birthday this year, I have missed the last one and only with your effort can I see him like that.
There has always been problems on my part but you have put up with it. I am grateful that you remain patient and understanding.
From your husband,
Midoroya."
Hmmm.... This is awkward and burdensome, thought Izuku as the space became eerily silence.
" Did you know?"
" Of course not. We found this thing buried inside a lead box with the surname Midoriya etched onto it. The location will be hidden for now since we are not yet fully cooperating. Finding information about you is a bit difficult but not impossible. "
" The national registry?"
A smiling girl was not something he found to be comfortable now. The only lead to him was before he had been here. Before he had assumed this role in the world. It was surprising to hear that your missing father had been involved in something very ... esoteric. And from the content, the man had died while Izuku was still a toddler, leaving behind the monthly child support and some obscure connections to a group of very intelligent people. Rubbing his nose bridge in annoyance, he could only take the letters as 'encouragement'.
" ... Is it dangerous?"
" So you will take the offer! I almost thought I have to bring out the technologies!"
" I will demand the techs you just mentioned ans the offered money."
" Deal. You will be informed later through my network. And just for precaution, prepare some winter clothes. "
Then she ran away so fast that Izuku almost missed a Cheshire grin plastered onto her face, the sound of roaring engines suffered from drastic Doppler effect. That left him with a mess to clean up and preparations to be made. Oh, and also how to convince his mother, that too.