MHA: Dark Matter (EvilPen)

[ThierryScott]

Chapter 58: Bonds

Getting off the plane, I could finally exhale with relief. The last two days on I-Island had been pretty annoying. On one hand, waiting for a suitable flight due to the general congestion of the airport: they needed to bring in a lot of medical equipment, specialists, and heavy machinery for the debris removal.

On the other hand, there was the investigative committee set up to look into the terrorist attack. And as an honorary member of the "Suicide Squad Saves Everyone," I had to answer endless, repetitive questions.

This was where I used all my acting talent, my experience in bamboozling people, and my verbal sparring practice with Ayame. And the hardest part was doing it all without actually lying. It was tedious and irritating. But what really made me want to kill them was the look on Melissa's face after their "interrogations."

David Shield had quickly become unpopular over those days. He was still a famous scientist, but his popularity came with a huge negative sign. Countries needed scapegoats for the catastrophe that claimed hundreds of lives and led to billions of dollars in losses, not to mention the reputational damage.

Telling the public about Engel Wolfram, the leader of the "Iron Swords" mercenary group, who managed to capture "the most secure island in the world"? That's one thing. But revealing the incredible "betrayal" of the famous, respected scientist David Shield, who led the villains onto the island? That's another. I don't think I need to explain which angle the news would emphasize for the public, especially since it was true.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I respect Shield as a great scientist, whose inventions could be called the pinnacle of modern scientific thought, but his naivety and gullibility completely ruined him. And he could drag his daughter down with him. All Might could help him, but despite his status as the number one hero, his options were limited by politics and laws.

The only thing that cheered me up was Japan's intervention through the HPSC and U.A. High to quickly bring their students back. Not only the members of our "Suicide Squad" got hurt, but also other hero course students. Those who'd come to the I-Expo and were in hotels that night suffered injuries of varying severity, and one student from Class B died. The yellow press had already dubbed this incident the "Bloody Morning on I-Island."

"Ken!"

A smile spread across my face. A pink-haired girl slammed into me and tried to strangle me in her embrace. I couldn't help myself; I spun around with the girl in my arms as she squealed in surprise. I inhaled the scent of her hair and laughed happily.

"Good to see you, Mei!"

Mei stared at my face in surprise, then grinned widely. We stood frozen, looking at each other.

"Big bro!"

Already, a second person decided to ram me. Was this some kind of tradition I didn't know about? I stroked the black hair of the girl who pressed herself even tighter against me. Mei looked at us curiously.

"Hana missed you, Ken-kun."

Ayame said, approaching with an elegant gait and looking at Mei with a strange expression. The older Yoshioka was dressed impeccably and strictly. A gray skirt and jacket with a white blouse clearly followed European business fashion trends but highlighted the girl's figure beautifully. So well that some passing men couldn't take their eyes off her... eyes. I looked at them impassively, feeling Dark Matter move inside me, then spoke to Yoshioka with a smile.

"Some unexpected trouble came up. By the way, is this your first meeting? Mei, I'd like you to meet this business lady whose professionalism is only matched by the sharpness of her tongue. Her name is Ayame Yoshioka. The girl currently using me as a dakimakura is named Hana Yoshioka. And for you, ladies, let me introduce the brilliant inventor who's been threatening to blow me up for years now – Mei Hatsume!"

"Ken!"

I tried to ignore the punch from Mei and Ayame's sarcastic smile with narrowed eyes, fully enjoying the blush spreading across Mei's entire body. Breaking through her social "thick skin" doesn't happen every day. The Yoshioka family took my incredibly "tactful" introduction more calmly. Hana just ignored everything, not planning to let me go anytime soon. Ayame, though...

"Nice to meet you, Hatsume-san. Ken has talked quite a bit about you. Which is surprising, considering he doesn't often talk about his friends and acquaintances. I think we, as girls, will have something to discuss."

...quickly took my girlfriend by the arm. And judging by the sly smile, someone wanted to get some blackmail material on poor me. Okay, man, don't cower at the premonition of future teasing, you're a cool and epic S-class villain who knows no fear!

"Big bro..."

A quiet voice said into my stomach while the other two girls were getting acquainted.

"What is it, Hana-chan?"

I said, looking into her expressive gray eyes.

"You're forbidden from dying."

"Ha-ha. You don't have to worry. On I-Island, I hardly ever got into life-threatening situations."

"You're lying."

I just smiled awkwardly. I sometimes forgot how perceptive she was, fooled by the girl's cute appearance and general silence. Ayame's voice broke the awkward pause.

"Shall we go? You can be a dakimakura in the taxi too. Although why am I even asking the hugging pillow? Hana-chan, grab your dakimakura, we need to go."

The little girl nodded and pulled me after her older relative, who was already leading a somewhat flustered Mei.

Wait, I just got compared to a pillow?

I shook my head and smiled, watching them. It reminded me of what I had to do.

"Eliminate all threats to our bonds."

---

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[POV Hana Yoshioka]

The black-haired girl sadly watched her big brother leave with that insolent floozy. The fact that she'd only gotten to hug her brother for four hours after he'd arrived from the airport to their house seemed far too short to Hana. She actually wanted to force him to live with them, but she knew she couldn't convince him right now. Blackmail might only upset her brother.

What the girl regretted was that her stupid older sister had been slow, letting some floozy take her brother. And even now, her sister was slow, focused on her new job that big brother had recommended, not even realizing she'd only gotten it thanks to big brother's quiet help.

The younger Yoshioka was very upset that she would have to take many things into her own hands. Especially because of her sister's slowness and her brother's recklessness, who still naively believed she didn't know most of his secrets.

She'd never told anyone about all the features of her Quirk. Although she hadn't lied when she said she could see the lines people left behind. She liked it when people figured out the rest themselves. That way, it wasn't her deceiving them, but them deceiving themselves.

"Nee-san, I'm going to sleep."

"Okay, Hana-chan. Don't forget to brush your teeth."

The black-haired girl sitting on the couch with a thoughtful expression answered absently, remaining lost in her thoughts.

At exactly two in the morning, a little girl left the Yoshioka house. Once outside, Hana concentrated on the sensation she'd had since she was four. Before her glowing gray eyes, a new world seemed to open up. The empty streets of the city's outskirts, lit by streetlights, filled with horizontal lines of various colors hanging in the air. Hana looked curiously at a passing green line level with her chest.

Tatsumi looked indignantly at the bag of groceries his mother was carrying. He couldn't help but resent that she still hadn't bought that pretty cake.

Losing interest in the line, Hana focused on today's goal. The glow in her eyes intensified. The surrounding world began to lose its colors, and the previously motionless lines started moving. One after another, they streamed toward the little girl. Soon, thousands of lines spiraled up into the sky around Hana's figure. She looked and sorted. Soon she stopped on a pale yellow line. All the other lines vanished instantly, leaving a pale yellow line stretching into the distance. Hana followed it.

The younger Yoshioka hadn't told anyone about all the features of her Quirk for another reason besides not wanting to. She didn't know all the features of her Quirk herself. She used to think she could only see small snippets of the past of the people the lines belonged to. But that was before. Before she met him. Her big brother. After that, she could determine their value. When a few days ago, her brother's line almost snapped...

"Heh heh heh. Well, aren't I lucky. Little girl, are you lost? Come on, Uncle Masato will walk you home."

A Mistake began to approach her with a smirk, the pale yellow line leading to its chest. Hana determined its value as extremely low.

...she'd been filled with terror. All-consuming terror at the possibility that her big brother might not exist in the world. She'd tried to pull the lines of those around her brother toward herself and snap them. But she couldn't. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do it. Only later, remembering what her brother did to some Mistakes, Hana realized what she could do with the lines of others...

Radiance filled the little girl's eye sockets, hiding her gray eyes.

"Hey, little girl, no surprises."

The Mistake stopped a couple of meters away from her, alert. But that distance was enough. Hana pulled the pale yellow line toward herself. The Mistake grabbed its chest and began to wheeze. Yoshioka felt warmth filling her body. She subconsciously felt the value of her line growing. And looking into the glazing eyes of the Mistake, she only wanted to hug her big brother. To see his red line again, no, the red thread that bound them. Because that was their fate. Hers, Nee-san's, and big brother's. They didn't need the other lines. And her Quirk, "unmei no rain" - line of fate, would help her with that.

---

[End POV Hana Yoshioka]

 

[ThierryScott]

Chapter 59: Pleasure

Sitting in my workshop, which doubled as a hideout and a makeshift chemistry lab, I swirled a test tube filled with black liquid. My own blood. My thoughts were a jumbled mess, and my overall mood was sliding toward "screw it all" and "I'm going to go hug Mei." The black liquid sloshed carelessly inside the tube, and its mere existence sent my brain into a tailspin.

"I don't understand anything anymore!"

I shifted my irritated gaze to the analyzer I'd shamelessly... liberated from a private Tokyo research lab. A pretty convenient device, not too demanding in terms of user knowledge. A real black box. Pour blood in here, press a few buttons there, and a few hours later you can read the output on the screen: blood composition and a sample analysis based on template comparisons. Of course, the device wasn't infallible. Errors could happen. Especially when Quirks had been treating fields like physics and biology with near-total disregard for decades. And judging by my blood test results, my Quirk had basically told my biology to go screw itself.

So what is blood, anyway? It's a potent mixture of three different cell types suspended in a "broth" scientifically known as plasma. For the vast majority of people, it's absolutely essential for life. People whose mutations run as deep as, say, Kurogiri's, who essentially has no blood, are rare. So when the color of my blood decided to go full "gothic" for some reason, I started feeling a little off. During my years in the back alleys, I'd run into more than a few freaks who just died from their own Quirks. Usually, it was related to excessive Trigger use - the Quirk-enhancing drug - leading to physical exhaustion or the Quirk itself mutating and the user wasting away. But there were plenty of unlucky ones whose Quirks decided to pull a stunt at the expense of the user's life.

Naturally, I got worried. Even basic school biology teaches that our blood is red because of hemoglobin, a chemical that transports oxygen throughout the body. So if my blood changes color, the logical conclusion is that something's wrong with the hemoglobin in my blood. And, heaven help me, I was right.

There's no hemoglobin in my black blood!

But that wasn't even the craziest thing happening to me. In my normal state, my blood is red and contains hemoglobin. In my state with gray skin, it's black and has no hemoglobin. Instead, it has some weird black cell. When I took samples from my two states, the "switch" between them took less than a minute. I took three samples: before activating my "overdrive" mode, while it was active, and after. The first and third samples were identical. The second was still pure "gothic darkness." And I still have no idea where the hemoglobin disappears to or where it comes back from. As for the weird black cell, I'm sure Dark Matter is involved. Because honestly, what else could it be?

So now I'm stewing in this dualistic state, feeling like a blindfolded tightrope walker who doesn't know if the ground is one meter away or a hundred. For example, will my organs fail from oxygen deprivation when I use my Quirk at full power? Or how does this new black cell interact with all the chemical reactions in my body? Does it perform the same functions as hemoglobin? Does it somehow affect my hormonal state?

Sigh.

I put the test tube back in its rack and walked over to the mirror. It reflected my smug, tired face. I whispered quietly, recreating the necessary sensation in my mind.

"In one moment, the flame will turn to ash within him."

The Dark Matter flowing smoothly through my body stopped. I carefully grasped the entire volume of Dark Matter with my consciousness. And I let go of control. Conscious and subconscious. Ever since that Dream, which was really the awakening of my Quirk, I'd been maintaining subconscious control over it. Control born from fear. Fear of fully immersing myself in the pleasure of a game where there was only me and those delicious, bright, human-shaped blobs. Dark-violet lightning crackled across my body.

Throb.

A tremor ran through my body from the chaotic movement of the Dark Matter inside me. Chaotic. Free. Unrestricted. I watched as my skin slowly turned gray.

Throb.

An invigorating lightness enveloped my drowsy, irritated consciousness. No need to hold back, restrain myself, force myself to play by others' rules, or fake the right emotions. There was no difference between normal sight and my Gaze, because I could see the entire surrounding world from all sides at once.

Throb.

Why bother choosing? Why adapt to the world when I can just accept it all? And if I don't like it, I can reject it. 'Hardening' and 'Absorption' are just two sides of the same coin.

With a crack, stigmata opened on my forehead.

I have no limits except those I create for myself. And if any appear, I'll sweep them away with my power.

Because that is true freedom.

---

I stared at my reflection's eyes. Crimson coals in lakes of darkness. Just like my father's. Too bad. I'd rather have my mother's blue eyes. I don't want to be like my father at all. I clenched my fists and looked closely at the stigmata on my forehead. A wry smile appeared on my lips.

"As you name the ship, so shall it sail?"

That proverb now took on a new, ironic meaning for me. I'd taken the name of an antagonist from an old pre-Quirk manga mostly as a joke, a private laugh because of how similar our powers looked. I was joking. And now here I stand in the "Form of Noah." Only my eyes don't fit the image. Amber irises would be a perfect fit. Then I could expect the arrival of the Millennium Earl, alias Noah, who'd start telling me about the war against the wielders of Pure Light and that my name is Joyed, Noah's Pleasure.

Ha. Ha.

I covered my face with my palm at the absurd mental image. The lightness in my consciousness didn't go away. There was no tension or pressure like I'd felt when I killed Subject 41. Fine. I could test the maximum time I can stay in, heh, the "Form of Noah" later. For now, I wanted to experience some pleasure, so to speak, to match the theme.

With my skin back to normal, I used Choice, becoming permeable to most of the surrounding world. A weak Rejection under my feet. I hovered in the air. I quickly oriented myself and flew on.

Fifteen minutes later, I silently approached a pink-haired girl staring at her tablet.

"Eep, Ken!"

I wrapped my arms around the blushing girl from behind, and she squeaked in surprise.

"I missed you, Mei."

"But we already... tonight..."

Her voice trembled slightly, affecting me like an aphrodisiac. God, she was so cute when she got shy and I took the initiative.

"I really missed you while I was on I-Island."

My hands were already caressing her beautiful body. My girl's body. I pressed myself closer to her, inhaling her scent with pleasure.

"W-well, if you want to..."

Her breathing grew heavier. I whispered in her reddening ear.

"I really want to."

My hand was already sliding under her shirt toward her magnificent chest. My thoughts began to blur with rising excitement.

Don't forget the condoms. Sure, I don't like limits.... But becoming a father this early isn't really appealing either..