Kapitel 22: Episode 7. Part VI.

Musical Accompaniment (not sure how it will work on this platform, but I actually really like adding some music to the story, sometimes even my own): https://soundcloud.com/the-left-hand-of-creation/distortion-of-reality

While Setsuna was quickly catching up to us and improving in every way, Yui and I, of course, didn't wait around and kept evolving ourselves.

I felt a well-founded paternal pride for Yui's progress. Besides honing her combat skills, mastering staff fighting, and, to my surprise, taking up kendo, Kodai also started practicing athletic pole vaulting and, for good measure, parkour. Where does she even find the time?..

There was logic in her actions, no doubt, because these activities should blend quite well with her ability to manipulate her surroundings and create platforms and elevators. But... honestly, I doubt I could handle such a workload and such a multifaceted preparation.

She also came up with a new move—in addition to preparing special projectiles in advance and using her quirk on the environment, her own weapons, and even her opponent's clothing, Kodai began attempting to create holes under her opponents' feet! How? With a quick touch during a fight, Yui can rip out a substantial chunk of ground, concrete, tiles, asphalt, and, with rare exceptions, almost any other surface, by instantly shrinking a meter-by-meter section.

And then she can throw that piece at her opponent... using a slingshot built into her costume...

I'm surrounded by monsters!

At this point, I literally teared up.

I created this monster, I did! Yui, I'm so proud of you!

However, it will still be a while before this move is fully integrated into Yui's fighting style because she still can't manipulate objects with anything other than her hands. Ideally, she should be able to do it with her foot, and then she would become a truly terrifying opponent in close combat.

Speaking of adjusting her quirk: Kodai finally learned to deactivate her quirk silently and with just one hand movement. On the one hand, this confirmed my belief that such gestures and words are just psychological anchors and limitations. But on the other hand, it was very hard for her to master this, and as she later confessed to me, Yui believes she will never be able to do it without any movements.

And lastly, a complex but highly promising direction for developing Yui's quirk was its application to liquids. As we saw back with the trash can at the dawn of time, the conditions for a given object's susceptibility to her quirk are quite vague. The object can be composite—it just needs to be perceived as a whole, like a bicycle, a pot, or a jacket. But she can change a separate part of it if needed, like a bicycle wheel or a jacket button. Meanwhile, an object, say, a bottle of water, can contain liquid. If Yui wants to enlarge the plastic container itself, only that will grow. However, if she focuses on enlarging the entire "complex"...

Such feats were quite challenging for Kodai, despite our several attempts to change the size of devices like an old scooter with a fuel tank filled with fuel or a drinking water machine (which was unstable and unguarded, hehe). To my personal paranoia-fueled relief, the rescaling of gasoline (or water) didn't cause any explosions or fires.

So, when Yui isn't thinking about the liquid in a composite object, the object expands smoothly with an equivalent increase in the liquid's volume, retaining most of its properties, and in the case of water, remaining harmless. However, if the liquid is one of the main and obvious components, the enlargement either only affects the object or doesn't work well at all. In other words, it's direct proof of my hypothesis that this is another psychological barrier that can be overcome, not a strict conceptual limitation.

After several trips to the research center and a few books on physics, molecular chemistry, and quirk theory, we made some progress, and our idea of enlarging rubber balls filled with liquid turned out to be feasible—a clever researcher handed Yui one, claiming it was solid. But there was still a lot of work to be done, especially considering we needed the rubber shell of the ball to be thin enough to burst upon impact...

As for me, I... simply stopped obsessively chasing the laurels of a genius fighter.

There were several reasons for that.

Firstly, the knot of tension that had been growing in my chest over the years—the fear of the future, the doubt in my abilities to change it—had somewhat loosened. It didn't disappear entirely, but the tension lessened.

Before Setsuna barged into our biome with Yui, I often woke up at night in a cold sweat, and generally, according to my parents, I rarely smiled and walked around gloomy.

I hadn't really noticed it myself—I had gotten used to this tension and the difficulty of the upcoming task since childhood. Maybe back then, my nervous system was still at its most flexible, and I somehow managed.

But when a person appeared next to me—a cheerful, optimistic person who could make you laugh in an instant, someone who was upbeat and carefree in life... and also capable of not just being a burden in battle, but truly holding their own...

Well, let's say a small stone was lifted from my chest. It got a bit easier... a little.

Secondly, I stopped obsessively practicing techniques because my kung fu simply became stronger than Mashirao's.

Don't get me wrong, the guy was much more skilled in martial arts than I was, or at least he knew more.

However, I became simply stronger and faster due to my quirk. Much faster and stronger. And the fact that I was already half a head taller than his meter sixty with a tail didn't help either.

I remember, after the tenth sparring session that ended in my dry victory, our shared sensei called me out for a private chat.

I followed him out onto the dojo porch. It was a rather chilly evening.

A lighter clicked.

"Oh. I didn't know you smoked."

"Rarely," grumbled the tall, mustachioed blond man. However, he wasn't as towering over me as he had been a couple of years ago. "Picked it up in the army."

Akira Ojiro gave me an unreadable look from under his bushy eyebrows.

"Do you disapprove?"

"Hm... no," I hesitated before shaking my head. "I think everyone in this world needs their own... oasis of calm. I just recently realized that myself. And smoking isn't the worst of those oases. Especially since you've been so careful to avoid passive smokers that I'm seeing this for the first time in three years."

Sensei smirked into his mustache.

To be honest, Akira, with all the facial hair, always reminded me more of a walrus than a lion.

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he reluctantly said:

"No matter how I feel about it, no matter how we both feel about it, I don't see much point in your sparring matches anymore, kid. You're not even showing everything you're capable of, right?"

I frowned slightly but kept silent.

"Mashirao, he... my son isn't afraid of difficulties, and he won't give up on his... our dream of becoming a hero. But the world isn't always fair, and quirks are different for everyone. I'm not saying you're lucky with yours—I, of all people, understand how much you've worked on it—but Mashirao himself has a ceiling he can't surpass purely due to the nature of his mutation."

He paused for a drag.

"But because of your sparring and his falling behind, he's starting to wear himself out. He doesn't say anything, doesn't complain, but I can see it... And because of that, he's losing sight of his goal!" Mashirao's father snarled, gripping the railing. "His goal isn't to kick your ass, Niren, but to become a good hero! So, genius, you're just getting in his way now! Mashi can't spread his wings. And as long as you're here..."

He trailed off, waved his hand, and reached for another cigarette.

Apparently, I'm not talking to my master here, but to a concerned father.

And in that case...

"Well… I've already found a replacement for me," I smiled calmly, trying to show that the walrus-sensei hadn't offended me. "Though you won't get rid of me that easily!"

Akira frowned at first, then shook his head and chuckled.

"I never thought... Well, who am I preaching to here, you see everything yourself. Genius..."

He straightened up, flicked away the unused cigarette, and shook his hands as if regaining strength and composure.

"Alright, then, who's he, this... recommended replacement of yours?"

I grinned wider.

"Not 'he.' 'She!'"

***

It wasn't too difficult to arrange training sessions for Mashirao and Setsuna, though it took some time. In the end, we trained Setsuna almost as a quartet, crosswise—each of us was happy to share some of our techniques with this fountain of positivity and talent named Tokage.

The results were not long in coming!

Based on Mashirao's "super techniques"—the pompous "Whirlwind Roll" and the even more pompous "Dance of the Spinning Heavenly Tail" (as far as I understood, the second differed from the first only by spinning in the air, but every time I heard these names, I tried my best to keep a serious expression)—Setsuna quickly came up with her own moves. Or rather, two.

The first was a sort of defensive whirlwind on the spot, where she would start spinning some parts of her body around herself while standing still.

The primitive concept turned out to be unexpectedly effective because Setsuna, who didn't suffer from the limitations of a normal human's vestibular apparatus, could spin her parts in opposite directions without risking them colliding. The resulting vortex looked like a berserk sentient meat grinder.

The second move was a similar whirlwind around the opponent. An opponent surrounded and cornered found themselves literally hogtied by Setsuna's fast-spinning "little Tsunies," which threatened to slice the fighter into sashimi.

I could have joked about making a cutlet, but this is Japan, cultural code, and all that.

Thank Kami-sama, Setsuna was sufficiently corrupted by my influence, so despite the enthusiastic reaction to Mashirao's exclamations, she named her techniques pragmatically—just "Whirlwind" and "Reverse Whirlwind."

To avoid offending Mashi, and not least for my convenience, I continued training at the Ojiro family dojo, though not as fanatically.

Sometimes, I arranged sparring matches against their duo or even against all of them, in which I inevitably got beaten up.

And despite the fact that Akira-sensei had clearly demonstrated his knowledge that I wasn't showing all my capabilities, I stubbornly continued to cling to my ace. Whether this was a mistake or not... time will tell. As long as I didn't know who the traitor was (if there was one at all), who could be trusted, and who couldn't, I had to keep as many advantages as possible.

***

When I entered the locker room of our gym (which was shared, as one might guess, given the small size of the gym), wiping the back of my neck with a towel, I found... despair! Pain! Suffering! Kawaii! Cuteness!

In short, Setsundere, partially undressed, had been defeated in an unequal battle with her pants and lay bottom up on the bench, groaning softly, making no attempt to crawl, at least, to the shower.

I glanced indifferently at this undoubtedly erotic scene.

Self-control, folks.

What do you think a person's self-control should be like if they've been hiding both their fully developed personality for over fifteen years and the remote use of their quirk for over twelve years while practicing martial arts longer than their biological body's age?

I think it should be okay.

"Tsuna, are you alive?" I yawned as I began to gather my things.

"Nooo..."

"I wanted to suggest something. Can you process information?"

"Y-yea-a-a..."

"Try combining double and triple attacks. Start with a series of strikes in one plane, then from all sides and from different positions, at different distances, at different levels. You're the queen..." I glanced sideways at the bench where I was being listened to attentively, smiling, "of the battlefield; you can feel and control the space, and you can and WILL defeat any opponent one-on-one."

I turned to her.

"Someday, at least. Right now, all I see is fish jelly."

"Hey! Hey... wait, I'm gonna beat you up right now..."

"Slime."

Tsuna finally managed to sit up and started glaring at me.

"Wow, an upright slime!"

"Enough teasing... Niren, I'm tired," she leaned back, lightly bumping her head against the lockers, and stared at the ceiling. She did indeed look worn out. "I'm really tired. I... I knew it would be hard, but damn... I've only been at this for a few months, and you've been... how long, your whole life? How do you keep up this pace..."

Having been her senior companion for half a year, I knew exactly when to push and encourage and when not to.

Sighing, I sat on the same bench half a meter from her.

"Do you know that you're very, truly talented?"

"Of course! You're talking about the great me, aren't you..."

"I'm serious."

She lowered the arms she'd raised in a burst of self-praise and stared at me, quite puzzled.

"Uh... seriously, serious? I mean, well... I know I have a cool quirk; I was recommended, after all, but... I'm not... damn, Setsuna, focus!" She closed her eyes, which were suspiciously glistening. "I'm glad to hear that, but coming from you, of all people... it's just funny, Niren. I spent most of my life thinking I was just better than everyone else. But after meeting you, and Yui, and Mashirao too, I realized that... oh, whatever. Even some of Mashirao's brothers and sisters could beat me up, and they're not even applying to be heroes! A-a-ah!" She covered her face with her hands at this point.

I needed to support the girl. But how do you do that when you're tongue-tied, and all my speaking skills went into my muscles?

I took a breath, exhaled, and started speaking, slowly choosing my words:

"I'm probably the last person who should say this, but... you're too hard on yourself, Setsuna. Firstly, Mashirao's brothers and sisters have been practicing martial arts since practically the cradle. And you've been seriously learning to fight for less than half a year. Secondly, you're training under almost four senseis, breaking down techniques from completely different styles, trying to combine them—and succeeding! Even I can envy your diligence," her fingers still covered her face, but I already noticed she was looking at me from a completely different angle, "You're far more talented than, at least, I am. And this isn't about your quirk, Tsuna. It's about diligence. You know, people often say that talent determines a person's future, that it's the defining factor in success."

I turned my head and looked her straight in the eye, well, one eye—the green, cute one floating in the air in front of me.

"But I don't believe in that, honestly. I believe that talent is nothing more than a platform, a starting capital that allows you to jump a little higher, start earlier, learn faster. But it doesn't matter in the long run because that's when diligence begins. Hard work starts. Talent is just a bonus, a sort of cherry on top of the cake of hard work. Do you understand? And it's the ability to work like that, tirelessly, without compromise, to become the best, to fully realize your potential, so you don't have any regrets later—that's the real, the only talent that ultimately matters. The talent for hard work. And you're, damn, some kind of monster in terms of diligence, not just a cute girl like I thought."

The eye blinked away a tear of gratitude.

Then it returned to its rightful place (I got used to it over six months).

There was a rustling to my left, and then I felt the girl lean on me, resting her head on my shoulder. Though I couldn't see, she might have done it separately, knowing her.

"You talk just like a hero from a shounen manga..." Setsuna dreamily drawled. I turned my head slightly in her direction, and she took the opportunity to slyly glance at me:

"So, you think I'm cute...?"

How easy and simple it is with her... all right, the moment of weakness is over; Setsuna is back to being human.

Luckily, I know her well enough to understand that she heard all my words, remembered them, and most likely took them to heart.

"You might be cute..." I drawled, "But you're also sweaty."

The girl, blushing like a tomato, squeaked, recoiled from me, and dashed to the shower.

I sighed.

Well, whatever.

I could probably show some interest in her in about... ten years, I guess?

Maybe?

Gloomily, I shifted my gaze from the doorway where the failed temptress-heart thief had disappeared to my distorted reflection in the dark window, beyond which the lights of the night city were visible.

Yeah.

As soon as I save the world...

***

By the way, Yui also trained with Setsuna one-on-one and gave her advice, albeit less actively than I did. A funny example of their conversation that stuck with me began with the following phrase from Kodai:

"Try sometimes giving up binocular vision."

"What do you mean?" The green-haired girl didn't understand at first, but I, with some effort, gave Kodai a thumbs-up, trying not to burst out laughing.

Because the context of the situation was unique: Yui, in her emotionless manner, gave this statement to our smiling, biting genki girl without any lead-up or introduction. No wonder the genki girl got a bit confused...

"Since you're good at multitasking, you could try observing the enemy from two different viewpoints at once. You did watch us when you were spying…"

"Hey!"

"...using just one eye, not both?"

"Hm. Well, yeah… but I've tried looking with both eyes at the same time before. Doesn't work, it's hard. I can't gauge distance properly."

"Practice," shrugged the bob-haired brunette, twirling a matryoshka keychain (she's got a thing for them, no idea why). "There are a lot of things I can't do right away either. Even Niren..."

"Oh, come on," the other brunette waved her off casually. "That guy knows and can do everything. He doesn't even show half of what he's capable of."

"You think so?.."

The two girls gave me a scrutinizing look. I was just doing pull-ups on the wall bars, so doing the exercise, holding the position, and keeping a straight face—a brick-like one—was a bit tense.

Setsuna mused aloud:

"Yeah, he gives off this vibe, you know… like a big wolfhound that acts like, well, a fluffy pillow. But you're not fooled by it because you know it's a fearsome, mighty beast. Just a gentle one with his own."

Me, a wolfhound? That's suspicious. Not good.

In response to their looks, I yawned, finished my set of pull-ups, and lazily corrected:

"I'm not gentle, Tsuna. You're done with your striking drills, I see? So a hundred reps per set isn't enough anymore? Fine, we'll increase the load."

The girl wasn't embarrassed at all and, instead of answering, challenged me to a duel again, which she lost with a particularly crushing score. She pouted and sat down on a stack of mats.

Spoiler: Tsuna's sulking lasted about three minutes. Tsuna-fish is quite healthy, you know.

… by the way, I came up with another nickname specifically for our playful banter—Setsundere.

Tokage would huff, blush, and try to come up with something fitting for me, to throw back a retort, but nothing clever came out...

"I got it! I got it! Niren OHShoda!"

Kodai giggled somewhere on the periphery.

***

Of course, there were other things in our lives besides joint training. For instance, other training sessions... ahem.

If someone asked me to describe my life during that period, I'd just scratch my head and shrug silently. School... boring in its conservatism and the imperative nature of its lessons. The technology in this world has advanced far beyond my past, but schoolchildren here are still forced to attend concrete boxes, recite homework, take tests, write notes by hand, and so on. Where are the online conferences and computer-based testing, I ask you?! So much time wasted, ugh...

Shortly after meeting Setsuna, I asked her about interesting people—anyone she or maybe her mom had heard of.

Actually, only a few people caught the girl's attention: first, a very strong guy who controls the air (I have no idea who she meant), and second, the owner of a quirk with a literal zombie virus that infects everyone in its path, making them stronger.

It's frightening to think about what such a person could do if he were a fool or insane. And it's also terrifying to think about how the government would regulate his quirk if he became a hero.

There was also some round honor student who could turn into a huge beast… and another one who was just as much a martial arts enthusiast as Mashirao, but with some other body mutation.

Two of them were also recommended to U.A. High, just like her, by the way.

I also met her mom, speaking of which. A hot - I mean it - office lady with a thick ponytail of dark green hair, wearing a skirt and high heels. If the daughter turns out like that, then—oh...

But alas, whether fortunately or unfortunately, Setsuna studied in another district, so she didn't have many opportunities to please my eyes or brighten my leisure time with her antics.

And generally, it was hard for us to meet anywhere other than training sessions—flying more than half a kilometer was difficult for Tokage on daily basis, getting up early and running like Yui and I did was very hard for her, and flying along, dangling behind us like a bunch of balloons was even harder… Despite all her talent, I'd say she lacked discipline. Plus, she was a morning sleepyhead, that's for sure.

But the main reason was simply that she didn't have enough time to recover due to the enormous loads, even despite her frightening regenerative abilities. Also, running and flying didn't quite fit into her schedule, since unlike us, she also had tutors—after all, the entrance exams at U.A. High are no joke.

It was enough that I convinced her to float stealthily back and forth to class, a few dozen centimeters off the ground, so the police enforcing the "No Quirks in Public Places" law wouldn't nitpick.

And in general, the expression "getting oneself together to go to school." in Setsuna's case takes on a whole new meaning.

A literal one.

However, occasionally the three of us managed to carve out a few hours for ourselves—to drop by a cafe and discuss a good book or catch a movie at the theater. Oh, right.

A funny—for me—story came out of our trips to the movies. We went to a few blockbusters in the evening. Yui yawned and tried to fall asleep, I was lost in my thoughts, watching for any hypothetical surveillance, and entertaining myself with thoughts about how to evacuate civilians in case of a fire, while Setsuna watched the movie, laughed, screamed, and got scared enough for the three of us.

In general, everything as usual.

And then, one time, the four of us went with Akari to see a horror film. A typical horror (with a sixteen-plus rating) about all things paranormal, specifically something like "The Ring" from my old world, but based on popular Japanese urban legends about Kuchisake-Onna. A ghost.

Specifically, a vengeful evil spirit of a beautiful black-haired woman, disfigured and brutally murdered by a jealous husband. Her distinguishing feature is that she covers her face with a surgical mask or scarf, on which a "smile" from ear to ear is carved with a knife (hello, Nolan's Joker!). And she asks everyone she meets if she is beautiful, and if she doesn't like the answer, she decapitates the victim with large scissors.

Japanese people have strange imaginations.

Anyway, our cool, in every sense, cat girl Akari and our Setsuna hit it off instantly, and the result was explosive... you know, like the tail of a rattlesnake.

The one that rattles.

And they rattled nonstop.

Yes, Setsuna infected me with bad puns, but that's not the point.

The point is, after that not-so-scary horror movie, Setsuna… got inspired.

As you might guess, she's an impulsive and easily carried-away girl, and it suddenly dawned on her that her quirk was practically made for creating special effects for horror movies—and for pranks in real life.

So, for the next few months, this little devil didn't let anyone live in peace.

First of all, in light of this new enthusiasm, Setsuna stopped dyeing her hair and returned to being a brunette—how else could she cosplay "The Ring" with that creepy image of a woman with hair over her face?

"Don't even start, Tsuna, women with mustaches are an acquired taste," I replied back then.

Second, levitation allowed her to move in the most unnatural ways, whether it was crawling up walls, across the ceiling, or even along the floor—back down.

Attaching her arms and legs backward, that's third.

And fourth, the ability to control her "puzzles" from different places simultaneously... Here you had hands suddenly scratching at the window, a face falling apart before your eyes, eyes in a jar blinking sadly at you, a headless corpse quartered and generously covered in ketchup, and finally, some ghost in the corridor, with almost nothing under the sheet.

You look indignantly at Setsuna at that moment, and she only looks back in mock horror, like, "Not me, I swear!" And then her goofy head starts turning all three hundred and sixty degrees.

There was a lot of screaming, in short...

In other words, life took on a whole new palette of colors.

Yui rolled her eyes in exasperation and hid behind a book, my acquaintances, and especially Setsuna's, would howl and climb the walls, while I... I was as happy as a clam. I always loved horror and always loved pranks.

They keep you on your toes, you know.