Mind Games - Chapter 42

“Dude... you sure you're okay?”

I hummed, staring listlessly into the camera and sipping an energy drink colored like toxic sludge through a crazy straw. Why did we have crazy straws? I didn't know. But it was a crazy straw kind of day.

“Random topic, chat.” My statement drew a blink from Buster. “Literally anything but how my day went, please.”

“Okay, uh... that's not good. Let's see... got a subscriber here who wants to know if we think aliens are real?”

I reached up and scratched at my mask. Even drawing upon the experience from my past lives, wearing the face guard for half the day and now putting the cloth one on for another hour or two was wearing on me. “Yep.”

“Well, I was always, wait-what?” Kirishima, in his Buster garb, asked. What one could see of his expression was obvious surprise. “Uhh... okay. Second question, how about ghosts?”

“Yep,” I nodded in a monotone.

There was a moment of silence as the chat lingered... before exploding in a frenzy of madness.

“I feel like I'm getting a peek into the Deep Lore surrounding Bootstrap and I'm not sure if I'm ready,” Buster stated, rubbing at his chin and looking off to the side. “Aliens, ghosts... how about alternate universes? Cryptids?”

“Yep and yep,” I affirmed casually, then popped my neck. “To save you the trouble of asking... I'm also an advocate for the whole theory around Humarise actually being a secret evil cult, there being a shadowy criminal overlord ruling all of Japan's underworld, and that the moon is an alien satellite. Probably, at least, not sure about that last one, but I feel it's likely.”

“...chat, I think Bootstrap's had one of those days. So maybe don't take anything he says too seriously. Dude, you really okay?” Buster pressed, staring at me. “Do I need to come over? Or call your girlfriend and tell her to come over?”

The straw ran dry, the hollow noise of a small puddle of liquid not being able to hold pressure rolling out before I casually pulled the instrument out of the can with my mouth. One hand grabbed a new can of acid-flavored citrus caffeine and the other dropped the old can in the trash. I popped it and put the straw in, drawing another deep pull through the clear plastic twisty shape.

“Buster, buddy, no offense, but I am just done with today,” I replied belatedly. “Things started off with my homeroom teacher deciding to expel three-quarters of my class and went downhill from there.”

Kirishima blinked rapidly, staring blankly. “Dude...”

“Dude,” I replied eloquently, nodding.

“I guess hero school is something else,” Buster concluded, “I'm gonna' have to step it up at my internship next week. Gotta be extra manly!”

I chuckled, slowly sipping at my drink. “Alright, my brain's rebooting now that I've downed a full can. Let's see... what's up with the chat? No, I was totally serious about the whole aliens and ghosts thing. Yeah, you'll get to see that when we do the test of courage thing. My classmates...”

“Oh, hey! That's cool! What's up with your classmates?” Kirishima asked, leaning forward.

I let the straw slip out of the hole in my mask and leaned back thoughtfully.

“Well...”

…

“Man, this whole thing blows,” the pink-haired rabbit boy sighed, rubbing at his head.

“With that kind of attitude, you can join the rest of the class I'm formally expelling after this assessment is over,” Aizawa drawled.

“Nah, nah... I gotcha, teach,” he yawned. “It's just... my quirk is kinda' all or nothing. And when I get it going, it really harshes my cool, you know?”

“No, I don't,” Aizawa stated, his eyes slightly bloodshot. “And I don't particularly care, either. Now, your choices are the fifty-meter dash or the heading home. Choose.”

“Right...” The tall boy nodded, rubbing at his face. “I guess we're doing this, then.”

He bounced in place, once-

-twice-

-three-

“Go,” Aizawa stated, clicking the stopwatch.

The ground underneath the boy cratered from his takeoff, a series of pits at regular intervals slamming into the ground from invisible force as something swept by so quickly it left a breeze in its wake. The rippling current of wind was accompanied by a stream-flash of pink, the color flowing along the path like a bolt of lightning.

Then the pink bunny boy materialized on the other end, heaving deep breaths.

“Usagiyama Sakura,” Eraserhead intoned. “Two-point-seven seconds.”

“WHOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOYA!” Sakura yelled out, his head turned skyward and his back arching as he stretched his arms out to either side. “LET'S FUCKING GO, BITCHES!”

The small collection of students around me jerked at the sudden cry, all going wide-eyed as they stared at the previously-chill heteromorph.

“What the fuck is his deal?” The silver-haired asked, her nose crinkled in distaste.

I reached up and scratched my cheek. “I'm guessing his quirk has a psychological component. Off the top of my head? Enhanced strength, but he gets really angry when he uses it. Probably something like that, though I wouldn't rule out more general enhancements like speed and endurance as well.”

“O-oh,” the... impressively-endowed blond with horns winced. “That must be so difficult for him.”

“-C'MON, TEACH! LEMME DO IT AGAIN! I BET I CAN GET A FASTER TIME! I WANNA PLUS ULTRA THIS SHIT!” Sakura was ranting at Aizawa.

The man twitched, and I felt a spiritual bond between us as we both simultaneously attempted to decide which of the boy's personalities would become more irritating in the coming months.

Eraserhead's hair bloomed out and his eyes glowed.

Sakura fell to his knees like a puppet with his strings cut, his eyes wide.

Huh, so there's backlash? Is it from the quirk directly or a secondary element like adrenaline flush?

“You turned off Hopping Mad,” Sakura blinked, staring at Aizawa like he'd just found god.

“Back in the line,” Eraserhead commanded stoically, his voice that of a commander brokering no argument. “Next up-”

…

“So, yeah...” I sighed, “I don't know his relationship with Mirko, but I assume there's one. Family name and everything. He becomes really high-energy when he activates his quirk, but he's pretty chill once it turns off.”

“Sounds Manly,” Kirishima nodded firmly. “Still can't believe your teacher failed out over half your class because they didn't do what he said, though. Mega harsh.”

I hummed and skimmed the chat, which was about as divisively argumentative as any discussion of Aizawa's quirk assessment test I'd seen back in my previously life. “One minute. I see a few people who need to get kicked. Yep, you-you-and you all gone. I've archived your usernames and, if I have to do this again, that's a month-long ban. Third strike and that's perma-ban.”

“Totally dude,” Buster shook his head in sage disapproval. “That language was nasty, miss me with that stuff.”

“So, back on topic...” I rolled my hand lazily as I kept sipping from my crazy straw. “Eraserhead is a hardass, no joke, and if he's listening he'll probably take that as a compliment. But his whole deal is that being a hero, the profession, is one that fundamentally asks you to put your life on the line. Even just 'Office Heroes,' like me, go to work day in and day out in a building that's housing villains in detainment cells to hold them for questioning and has a lot of famous crime fighters that villains would love to target for revenge.”

I paused for effect. “That's one of the reasons the insurance premiums the Endeavor Agency pays to keep me on staff are just appalling. Seriously, I saw the numbers. They've gone down since I got properly enrolled in UA, but even what they're paying now would bankrupt most smaller agencies.”

“Oooh, yeah, when you put it like that, being a hero is no joke. You could be caught in the crossfire even if you weren't on active duty or whatever.” Kirishima nodded, showing off an exaggerated grimace with his body language. “Ah... got some people calling BS on you having your license in chat again.”

“Keep it civil or I start handing down bans again,” I warned the camera with a glare. “I don't care if you don't believe me, but personal insults cross a line and poison the well for the entire chat. I'm not letting anyone start a flame war.”

Kirishima nodded firmly. “Totally unmanly behavior. So, anyway, you were talking about Eraserhead?”

“Yeah, so beyond anything else, his red line is when students think there's no consequences for not giving things your all. Not taking the profession seriously. Say what you will about his methods, but he's got a point there,” I explained. “And the people who didn't listen to him thought that they could ignore an order from a senior hero, walk away to do their own thing, and it wouldn't seriously affect them. That's a mistake that can cost you not only your life, but the lives of civilians that you're supposed to be protecting.”

“Truth,” Kirishima hummed, reaching up to rub at his chin. “So what about the rest of your class? And are they okay with being mentioned on here?”

“Sakura was, save for some personal stuff that I'm going to keep to myself,” I waved the concern away. The aforementioned 'personal stuff' being the exact details of his quirk, which I'd left vague. “He said he was a fan, so he might even be listening in right now. As far as the others, I can't do names right now, but that might change after the Sports Festival. But, let's see...”

…

“Hey... um... could I ask you for advice?” The short, dark-haired teen asked, his words awkward and hesitant.

I frowned, catching the accent now that he'd spoken to me directly.

"Enfacher mit Deutsch?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

The slighter student slumped and replied in the same language. “Yes, please! It's such a relief to find someone who speaks German! But, um... the thing that I wanted to ask about... during the exam, I used my computer-”

They waved at the device strapped to their arm.

“-to hack one of the robots that they told us to destroy and used it to kill some others,” they continued to explain, hesitating again. “I still have the data for them and since you seem to have the best handle of the teacher...”

“Ah,” I nodded slowly. “Do it.”

They blinked, toying with the long mane of black hair trailing behind them. “R-really? I was just wondering if I should ask...”

I shook my head. “Just do it. He'll give you points for having the balls to go that far. Besides, if you can still get into their system, it's the school's fault, not yours. I'll have your back if they decide to throw a fit over it.”

With that nudge, they nodded. “Thanks! And, um... thank you, again, for back in the classroom. I'm only here because you said we could look up UA's faculty online. I really bought into Gumi's story.”

“You're welcome, but it was you that did the actual lookup,” I pointed out. “So it's you that gets some of the credit. But, nice to meet you. Name's Bootstrap.”

I held out my hand.

“Oh, ah...” They compulsively wiped their hand on their pants. “Sakae. Sakae J. Durchdenwald. Ah, Sakae is my personal name. I don't mind if you use that instead. My family name is a bit of a mouthful for some people. And I don't have a hero name picked out yet.”

“Cool,” I nodded, shaking their hand firmly and resisting the temptation to ask about pronouns. Judging by their gait, the teen had female hip alignment, but was making allowances for male genitalia... so, until further notice, I'd just use 'they/them.'

When the robot from the general entrance exam carried the otherwise unathletic kid to a four-second run of the fifty-meter dash, Aizawa smiled.

It was just as disturbing to see in real life as it had been on television.

…

“Whoa... that's crazy to believe that a teacher would be okay with that,” Kirishima admitted, chuckling over the story.

“I haven't even gotten to the part where they hacked the recording devices to change the score that was displayed,” I chuckled.

“Okay, now I know you're screwing with me! No way a teacher would let you do that!” Buster argued, his tone joking more than argumentative.

“In a lot of ways, UA is kind of the opposite of the traditional Japanese educational environment,” I explained thoughtfully. “Or it could be how Eraserhead runs his classes in particular, but... the feeling I got from day one is more than that. Being a hero puts a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility and action. If there's a problem, you're expected to solve it personally, not wait for someone else or find an authority who can take over the situation. So – as far as my limited experience goes – out of the box thinking and creativity is rewarded.”

“Yeah, I guess I get it. A lot of school is memorization now that I think about it, huh? Man, it's kind of a bummer that we don't get prepped for hero school.” Buster sighed and shook his head.

“Keep in mind that less than one percent of people in Japan claim 'hero' as an occupation,” I pointed out, then poked the chat. “Yes, it's true. These are public statistics, you can look them up. But my point is that the education system isn't really meant to cater to heroes specifically. In fact, that's one of the big reasons why we start training formally at fifteen. You've got enough education to master the basics, but not enough to be too set in your ways to react to crisis circumstances in ways that a hero would find... counterproductive, let's say.”

If I weren’t on blast to nearly half a million viewers/listeners, I'd have had a few more harsh words for the Japanese education system. Memorization had its place in education and don't let anyone tell you differently, but critical thinking and problem solving were just as necessary components of any good schooling experience.

And Japan seriously lacked those.

“But, yeah, that student sounds cool. What'd they say their quirk was?” Kirishima asked curiously.

“They weren't specific, but it seemed to be something that allowed them to interface with technology. I think there might be more to it, but all I know for now is that it let them remotely control the robot they'd manipulated during the exam,” I explained with a shrug.

Which was what Sakae had cleared me to talk about. Their quirk actually needed some kind of digital 'portal' to boost the signal they gave off, but no one else needed to know that right now. Besides, the arm-mounted computer was legitimate hardened support gear registered to them, so it wasn't like they were ever going to be without it in a crisis situation.

On a more personal note... I'd felt something trying to worm its way into my mind while talking to him. Not in an active or intentional way, but almost like what my own quirk did as it passively connected to someone I was speaking with.

I suspected the vague way he'd referred to his ability as 'an interface quirk' did, indeed, leave something out.

“Okay, now you said there were two girls in your class?” Kirishima asked, propping his chin up. “I know Pinkie is listening in tonight and she'll really let me have it if I don't get the details on them.”

“Well, fair warning, I'm only green lit to share a little bit,” I replied.

“That's cool, dude. It's manly to respect peoples' wishes.”

…

Aizawa blinked at the results on his digital device. “One thousand, five hundred, and thirty four.”

I have to admit, I joined the rest of the class in staring at the silver-haired girl as she wiped sweat from her brow and popped her neck. Casually, she threw up a middle finger to Eraserhead as she walked off and Sakura groaned as he stepped up to the side-step testing area.

“Impressive,” I complimented her as she approached.

“It's whatever,” she scoffed, then turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “I don't know whether or not I should be pissed at you.”

“Oh?” I hummed with a shrug.

“If you hadn't walked out on that loudmouth like you were the hottest shit to ever drop out of someone's asshole,” she replied, “I would've probably ended up trailing that dick instead. But between him and that bitch he had hanging on his every word, I figured the easier way out of this hell hole was to see how badly you were fucking things up.”

I stared at her for a long moment. “You could just walk out the front gates if you legitimately don't want to be here, you know?”

She scoffed again and rolled her eyes as she threw her arms over her head. “Not likely. My fucking grand-dad pulled some strings to get me into the school. Senile old man, ugh... anyway, it's either this or juvenile detention, so I'm stuck here until I fail out.”

I read between the lines and nodded slowly.

In all likelihood, whatever agreement she'd been offered stipulated that she had to legitimately attempt to pass the classes and get her hero license. That was a common enough clause to such things, anyway. 'Demonstrate reasonable effort,' or some such thing. Which likely meant that if she just so happened to fail because of literally any other reason, she'd wouldn't have to go to juvie and she'd be free from the responsibilities of UA.

Until she got picked up again, at least.

I pondered on her attitude for a moment, then decided to give her a little push.

“Waiting for someone else to fuck up your life is even more of a coward's way out than just admitting you can't do something and walking away,” I stated bluntly.

Oh, that one struck a chord, didn't it?

I could see her bristle like a pissed off cat, but unlike my Himiko she couldn't find an immediate comeback and wasn't willing to outright attack me. Though the way every muscle on every limb tensed and strained suggested that she was fighting the urge to do so with every bit of self-control she had.

“I'm going to take what you just said and make you eat it, you chunni little fuck,” she stated, her red eyes burning.

“I'll believe it when I see it,” I nodded at her, turning towards where Aizawa had just called my name. “I'm Bootstrap, by the way, but you probably already knew that.”

The way I'd said it – as I'd intended it – rubbed her like sandpaper as her lips pulled back from her teeth. “Neiko. The name's Neiko, and you better remember it, shit-heel.”

I actually chuckled at that one.

It was pretty good.

Which, of course, only seemed to piss her off more.

But I took solace in the fact that she'd almost instantly gone from, 'I'm here against my will,' to 'I'm going to fuck up anyone who stands in the way of my success.'

Himiko, at least, would be entertained by how easy she was to manipulate.

Also, it was good to know that I'd had a momentary fuck up and hadn't actually lost my edge at wrapping people around my little finger. Seriously, coming at the class the entirely wrong way earlier had really injured my pride and I was still kicking myself over not doing a tarot reading or something beforehand.

Still, I'd have fun seeing just how far basic reverse psychology would get me with Little Miss Delinquent.

…

“-so, yeah, I asked her how much it would be cool to talk about her on the stream and she basically told me to keep her name out of my mouth,” I shrugged apologetically, deciding to leave out the profanity she'd injected into the statement.

“Mega harsh, but she sounds like she has a really cool quirk, at least,” Kirishima offered with a shrug of his own.

I nodded, deciding to leave out my suspicions again.

Such as the reason why she'd used her apparent super speed on the side-step test, but only on one small leg of the fifty-meter dash. Honestly, I wasn't entirely sure it was even super speed by the classical definition of the power.

But that was neither here nor there.

Neiko... well, even if she had a potential criminal record, my read on her wasn't that of a hardened criminal.

I didn't want to run into a UA traitor situation, so I'd do my diligence on all of my classmates, but my first take on her character was that she was being honest. She'd fucked around, gotten in trouble, and had a relative with connections broker a deal for her to have a chance at UA.

I'd want to see who that relative was, of course, but unless that set off red flags, I'd likely just leave it at that.

“Anyway, the last girl in my class... she seemed pretty shy,” I stated thoughtfully.

“Ah, so probably not much on her, either, huh?” Buster asked, then changed his posture suddenly as he folded his arms. “Oi, oi! None of that now! Bootstrap ain't the only one who can ban people if you decide to throw around words like that, guys! You do not get to talk about hero course students like that on this stream.”

“I concur, for the record,” I stated bluntly, affecting a more predatory posture. “Keep in mind, too, that I'm a fully-fledged employee of the Endeavor Agency. I am legally-obligated to report threats like the ones you're dangerously close to making. Not to mention I'd do it anyway. None of that internet tough guy, 'teach them a lesson' stuff. Final warning.”

I raised an eyebrow at what I saw pop up next.

“Okay, that's it-” Kirishima started, actually sounding pissed off now.

“I got it,” I replied, bringing up one of the programs I'd pulled off a freeware forum, modified, and then had Himiko steal from me and completely revamp to perform ten times better than I'd gotten it to. “Okay, yep. Got your IP scrapped – your VPN isn't rated against what I'm using to track you, FYI – and I'm sending this along with the death threats you've made to both my agency and the police. What happens next is your own fault.”

“Damn, I sometimes forget how scary Bootstrap really is,” Buster muttered, the fire going out of him. “Woof, I'd say I felt bad for whoever that was, but not with them saying that kind of stuff. Totally unmanly.”

“Agreed-” I paused, looking down at my phone as it vibrated. “-and I'm going to have to log off soon. Apparently someone at the agency wants to do a debrief about what just happened, so my night just got longer. Woo.”

Buster chuckled. “So, anything to tell us about that last girl before you sign off to deal with paperwork.”

I sighed and leaned back. “Her quirk's a transformation one, that's mostly it.  Otherwise, she’s nice - just shy.  But her quirk’s very strong, I’ll say that much.”

…

“EEEEEEEEE!” Yoake screamed, her hands going to her chest as the scales covering her upper half faded. “Don't look, don't look!”

I could still see Eraserhead out of the corner of my eye as he looked skyward and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Dammit, not another one.”

We probably weren't supposed to hear that.

“Ah, here...” Sakae muttered, picking up the blond girl's bag and rushing over. “I-I guess this is why you brought extra clothes, isn't it?”

“I thought I could keep it under control this time,” Yoake whined as she pulled out a jacket and tried to pull it on as quickly as she could without revealing more of herself than she already had.

“See the support department about something that can take the strain of your transformation,” Aizawa droned tiredly, sounding even more done with this entire mess than he already had been when it started.

Sakura nudged me as he lit up another blunt. “Nice rack on her, huh?”

I sighed, wondering if it was too late to get failed out of UA for the year. On the one hand, Aizwa might just see through the attempt and drag me back to help deal with this building shitshow. On the other hand, if I ditched on this, I'd have to go back to middle school, leave Himiko at UA, and sign up for the utter madness that was the canon class of 1-A.

Dammit, guess I'm stuck.

“Can you at least smoke downwind of me?” I sighed and, to his credit, Sakura chuckled and blushed before sidestepping me and moving to where the smoke wouldn't cloud me. And, thankfully, he did so without even trying to catch a look at the wardrobe malfunction off to our side.

Even if I could tell he wanted to.

Meanwhile, I revved myself up for what was going to happen next. Aizawa had used me as the 'human baseline' test for his speech about how illogical the physical education system was in regards to quirk use, so I still hadn't thrown my 'real' ball.

Which was good, because I was prepared to show off a little.

See, one of my many reasons I'd wanted to go ahead and pick up a full house for my pocket dimension was because it let me have the facilities and the space to do a little testing. Or, really, a lot of testing. Exhaustive testing, in fact.

To find out exactly which techniques in my arsenal leaked and to what degree.

“Bootstrap,” Aizawa called out and chucked a ball my way. “You're up.”

“Roger,” I replied casually as I caught the ball and tested the heft. In the back of my mind, Ranma's instincts rose up as they tasted a competition, River's mind crunched raw calculations for weight and windspeed, and Cass pictured the perfect technique to maximize distance.

The sidereal yawned and rolled her eyes, uninterested in such trifles.

She did think Aizawa was hot, though, in that weird disheveled way of his.

Which I thoroughly ignored.

“Overclock, level three,” I stated aloud, drawing the teacher's attention as he narrowed his eyes, “safeties, disabled. Five second burst.”

Tightly controlled ki flowed through me, just the barest sliver of the energy enhancing me as I pulled back my arm and took up a pitcher's stance.

Then I chucked the damn thing as hard as I fucking could.

“Over a thousand meters,” Aizawa drawled as he looked at his readout, his gaze piercing me when he lifted it from the screen. “Your quirk is a psychic emitter, isn't it? There's nothing in your file about telekinesis.”

The real question wasn't asked, but I nodded anyway and elaborated. “My quirk works on myself. If I push too hard or too long I'll break something, but I'm good for short bursts as long as I'm careful.”

There was the faintest hint of approval in the man's stance, his capture weapon sliding to cover up a grin I wasn't supposed to see. “Creative, good. I'll raise my expectations commensurately, I hope you're ready to meet them.”

I snorted, but nodded. “I wouldn't be here if I wasn't.”

~~~

Been a while since we had some good Kirishima content, so this is a good way to both tie up the quirk assessment test AND get some screen time for our most manly character.

This chapter is mostly a peek into the potential interactions Hitoshi will have with his five-strong class of weirdos and delinquents.

Hope everyone enjoys this. I'll have... something out over the weekend. Might be Entrepreneurial Spirit, might be some Marvel Industrious. Something like that.

Have a great Friday and the weekend's almost here!