CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
The whirring sound of the projector had come to a close. The session had ended without fanfare.
Dr. Hibiki stood, heels clicking softly as she stretched her arms. "That will be all for today. Toga, please help share these with the rest of the class; it will be your extended reading material for these sessions."
Toga lazily got up from her chair and took the small pile of books from Dr. Hibiki's hands. She went from seat to seat, sharing the books as the kids gently received them.
Rio stretched out his hand and had the book placed in his palms. The short contact between his and Himiko's fingers brushing against each other felt like a zap of electricity.
Rio carefully inspected the book and had an immediate urge to facepalm. It was a children's picture book titled Quirks and Us, published by Shoowaysha. It was compulsory reading material for all elementary schools in Japan. Everyone here should have read it already, but they obediently slotted it into their backpacks.
"Well then, have a wonderful day everyone, you're dismissed," Dr. Hibiki said brightly, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
She walked out softly, heels clicking in her wake as she departed the room.
Immediately she walked out, it was like a switch had been flipped. Instantly, the atmosphere changed back to the one he had been familiarized with when he first walked in—the unmistakably chaotic scene of a bunch of delinquents squabbling.
They all filed out slowly in a pack, mutters filling the air. Rio followed behind, his eyes flicking to Kenji's bouncing tail, wondering—Should I?
He needed answers. Something was terribly wrong with this place, and no one seemed to notice. He needed information—on this place, and on the doctor. There was no one better to ask than the predecessors who had been here before him.
At the entrance of the building, a black car waited. The engine hummed, low and ominous. A woman in a white blouse and a rigid smile stood by the back door. As soon as Toga stepped out, the woman grabbed her wrist, forcing her toward the car with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Mom, I can walk," Toga muttered in pain as she tried to move her hand out of the vice grip.
"Don't make a scene," the woman said, still smiling, dragging the child forward.
The man in the driver's seat didn't get out. Didn't look at his daughter or his wife. Instead, he stared straight at the other kids in the center, his eyes filled with disgust and unmistakable disdain.
As soon as the door was shut, he floored the pedal and the car peeled off.
Rio just turned to Kenji, curious. "What was that all about?"
Kenji shrugged. "Toga's old man. He's always like that. You get used to it." Woof.
Sae snorted. "Bro deadass acts like we're demons from the underworld or sumn. Like be fr, your fav lil princess is rotting right here with us." She ended with a sigh and all the exaggerated swagger of a Japanese teenager.
Rio just looked back at the Juvenile Quirk Rehabilitation Center and saw a janitor pulling out a bunch of keys to lock up the building.
"Why are we the only ones coming out of the building?" Rio asked, interested.
Daiki raised an eyebrow. "Because most don't get this far. Rehab's not a thing people talk about—or an option given to everyone. You usually get labeled as a villain and are thrown somewhere way worse."
Sae smirked. "The hero who vouched for me? Dumbass move. I'd run it back in a heartbeat. Just biding my time till the heat cools off."
Rio took a second to process that very interesting information. "So… what now?" he asked. "Everyone heading home?"
The long-haired boy walked past them—Haruki Ren, silent as always, eyes glued to a Game Boy.
"I'm gone," he muttered. The others waved enthusiastically as he disappeared into the alley.
Sae glanced at Rio and then the others. "Let's roll, newbie. We're about to show you something really cool."
They stood at a construction site—an abandoned one. Broken scaffolding and steel rods half-buried in dust. Rio looked around, frowning.
"What are we doing here?"
Sae turned to him, eyes gleaming. "It's a test, babe. Don't flop."
Rio didn't respond. He looked at the rest of the group and noticed that they had him surrounded. Even the rock kid, Daiki, was grinning menacingly, and Kiba stared greedily at Rio, drooling.
Kenji slapped Kiba across the head, though, as he whimpered pitifully. The menacing atmosphere they had just tried to create disappeared in the wind with that gesture.
"Jesus, Kiba, what did I tell you? People aren't food." Hayato groaned in exasperation, his flaming hair burning wildly with his frustration.
Kiba just sat in a corner, whimpering. "But I thought you said we were going to intimidate him…"
"And I was hungry," Kiba said pitifully as he twiddled his thumbs.
Rio just swallowed his urge to sigh and addressed Sae since she seemed to be the ringleader of the group.
"What's this about?" Rio didn't think he had given them cause to be so wary of him; he had been friendly so far.
"You're being sus," she said, stepping forward with a look that could freeze you in your tracks. "We gotta know if you're someone we can actually vibe with."
"I'm not lying," he said carefully.
"Good. 'Cause if you are, I'll know."
"Woof," Kenji cut in as he stared down Rio.
She stepped in close, eyes sharp. "Be for real rn, what's your take on the whole 'no quirk for use' BS? You cool with bein' put on a leash like that?"
Rio hesitated. "Rules exist to keep people safe. Quirks are dangerous. It's like everyone in society is equipped with a loaded gun. If everyone used them freely—"
"Nah, don't hit me with that social studies NPC script," Sae growled, yanking him forward by the collar. "I said what YOU think, not the textbook."
He stared at her enigmatically for a moment, his thoughts known only to himself.
He sighed one more time; he found that he had been doing that a lot today.
"Fine. Logically, yeah, it checks out. The government wants stability. A stable world keeps things from falling apart. But…" He looked past her, voice low. "If quirks were allowed to flourish—if the right people were given the right training—we could go further, faster. People with quirks tailored for medicine, for agriculture, for tech… we're sitting on untapped potential here."
"It's been over two hundred years already since the first quirk was born. That excuse should have died long ago. Look at how far we advanced before the age of quirks and look at where we are now. We're stronger, faster, smarter. Better… I'm better."
…
"And there's little to no progress because everyone is so focused on internal conflicts. The upsurge of crime from quirks alone has seen that there hasn't been any global conflict ever since then. Imagine—the closest we've been to world peace as a species… all because we've been too busy to hate on each other.
You ask what I think about the Quirk Use Act. I think it's stupid, but then again, it's a global consensus. We just have to learn to live with it."
The others just blinked in confusion, their minds crashing at the unexpected profundity.
Daiki mouthed, 'That was a yes or no question.'
Sae let go, scowling. "Huh. Didn't think of all that. Kinda pissed me off, not gonna lie."
She turned away with a sharp flick of her fingers. "People used to beg the gods for power like this. Now we get it, and it's all 'be quiet, be normal, don't get too loud.' Lame."
Rio folded his arms in thought. They were delinquents, so them being so unsatisfied with the rules was expected, but to think that he was not the only one who thought the government's stance on Quirks was bullshit was kind of relieving. Rio wondered how many others thought like he did but just stayed quiet about it.
"Heroes are allowed to use their quirks," Daiki said suddenly. That was something that Rio also found strange. Not the fact that heroes were allowed to use their quirks, but the way they did it seemed like a loophole in the system.
Heroes like Cementos used his quirk in architecture and had a real estate company specializing in providing cheap homes for the underprivileged and reconstruction in times of natural disaster. No traditional company could possibly beat the sheer efficiency of a man who could generate and control cement.
Power Loader had a really big tech support company, arguably one of the biggest in Japan. These were only some examples of heroes who did hero work, yes, but their major source of income was from using their quirks in their respective industries.
Kiba scoffed. "I don't want to be a hero."
Child, at this rate you'll soon be put on a serial killer watchlist. No one doubted you didn't want to be a hero.
Sae looked at Rio again. "Do you?"
There was a collective silence as all of them watched him, waiting patiently for his opinion.
Rio thought of Takeru. He wanted to become a hero; he teasingly said that when he gets his own agency, I would be the first hire. Rio doubted that would happen. Takeru was so unaccustomed to failure that he never even thought of it—
The fact that he may never become a hero.
…
Takeru forgot that he was quirkless.
There wasn't a precedent for a quirkless hero. They weren't just so cruel as to dash his hopes.
Rio wondered if that was even more cruel—fueling the delusions of a young man with a dream.
Then there was his mum, who didn't state explicitly what she wanted him to be. All she wanted was for him to grow healthy and happy; for that, he was completely grateful. Most didn't get to have such a chill parent. Grandma Yukina had already told him long ago not to worry about the future, as she had enough money to support him till old age.
So he had never really asked himself the question—did he, only for the permission to explore his quirk, want to head into a profession as dangerous as heroism? For people who wouldn't even appreciate it and treated it as a matter of course.
"I don't know."
Rio hadn't sounded so unsure of something in a long time; it had him feeling somber.
Sae grinned. "Okay, philosopher king, I see you. Still chained up but slay, I guess. You're on thin ice tho—don't fumble."
Then, without warning, she stepped back—and leapt.
Rio's hand shot out. "Wait—!"
She tumbled over the edge, and Rio shot forward, arms stretched out to hold her.
She lightly evaded as she swayed gracefully in the air, as elegant as a fairy. She laughed boisterously, her purple hair gleaming in the sunlight and sashaying with the wind. It was a sight worthy of a painting.
Rio stared at her in wonder—in her, he saw a goddess.
Sae grinned like she had just pulled off the most devious prank ever. "Brooo, your face?? Looked like you saw god himself. Be so fr—come on, keep up, bub."
Kenji barked as he followed immediately after, leaping off a broken beam. Daiki followed immediately after, his body sinking into the concrete. Hayato grinned and then… walked towards the stairs.
Kiba followed after Kenji, howling loudly as he leaped off the beam as well.
Rio hesitated—then ran after them.
He didn't know where they were going.
But somehow, it didn't matter.