Not the Same Anymore
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CosmicBigfoot
Not too sore, are you?
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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.
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!"
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.
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!"
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