Chapter 18

Chapter 18

While Todoroki was defrosting the building, Kirisame took off her coat and draped it over Hagakure. The tip of the gohei lightly brushed the invisible girl's forehead, and Hagakure really felt a lightness throughout her body.

"Cleanse calamity, purify impurity."

The gohei vanished in her hand, and Kirisame touched the invisible girl's hand. "This way, you're less likely to catch a cold."

Remembering Hagakure's earlier words about "being hit by ice-type abilities many times," Hagakure patted the child's head.

Their match didn't even last a full fifteen minutes, yet the students watching from the monitor room felt tense and exhausted as if days had passed like years.

Of course, it was probably because they were freezing.

Midoriya was still at Recovery Girl's, and while listening to All Might's feedback, Kirisame subconsciously glanced at Bakugo's expression.

...Then quickly looked away.

Terrifying.

The MVP of the match unsurprisingly went to Shoto, followed by Shoji. Kirisame was ranked last due to her carelessness at the start leading to her exposure, and the pointlessly ripping off of two layers of the roof, which earned her heavy deductions from the teachers.

Both main participants wore expressionless faces, as if lost in thought. All Might looked worriedly at Kirisame and Shoto, then at Bakugo, who hadn't said a word since his own match. He felt like he was going to worry himself bald.

#Are these kids even listening to their teacher? #

Shoto was zoning out.

It wasn't because of any physical pain or his hairstyle, but rather—

For the first time, he'd been so dominated by a peer that he was driven into such a corner.

What's more terrifying was that he wasn't even sure if he could have won even if he used his fire power.

The boy recalled Endeavor's expression from that day, and clenched his slightly warm left hand.

Losing to her felt like losing to that man, losing to that expression that saw me as a tool.

...But going along with that man's wishes to compete with her and prove himself stronger than the person he (Endeavor) favored—that also felt like a loss.

He was a bit lost.

Kirisame was also zoning out.

Her battle with Shoto played over and over in her mind. This was her first sparring match of this nature with a peer, making her clearly feel the gap between herself and this world.

Their sense of restraint, way of thinking, and motivation for action were all completely different.

That ice-using boy, for some reason, seemed to harbor very complicated feelings toward her. It was as if he disliked her but had no real grudge, hated losing to her but also hated winning, harbored pent-up resentment but feared truly hurting her. All of this was clearly conveyed through every punch and every block of ice.

Complicated, conflicted, yet gentle.

Just like the vivid expressions that most of the time appeared on Bakugo's face—ones Kirisame couldn't replicate even after a hundred practice attempts—these were complex emotions she could barely understand but had never experienced.

She felt a bit envious.

It was still early. After asking Uraraka to relay a message to Midoriya that she wouldn't be going home with him today, Kirisame strolled around campus. There was still some time before sunset, and following Leo's suggestion from a few days ago, she decided to explore the school more.

U.A.'s campus was huge, divided by beautiful, tree-lined paths into areas for different training. There were labs and testing grounds for the Support Course, sparring training grounds exclusively for the Hero Course, and a library and auditorium open to all students.

The girl strolled absentmindedly along the clean brick path. The sunlight, a warm orange-yellow, filtered through the gaps in the leaves. Kirisame took out Imagin, jumped up and plucked a leaf from a tree, and held it in her hand. As Little Tengu had taught her, she tried to feel the beautiful veins of the leaf.

...It was, indeed, quite pretty.

It wasn't her first time touching a leaf, but it was the first time she had someone to observe it with. Kirisame, not thinking she had done anything wrong to the leaf, felt a little happy.

"Unauthorized destruction of campus flora is prohibited. Unauthorized destruction of campus flora is prohibited."

U.A.'s small multifunctional robots surrounded her.

"...I'm sorry, I was wrong."

The girl covered her face and obediently handed over the mangled leaf.

A school rooftop is the most storied place.

That's what Xiaobai had once told her.

Kirisame recalled the past—the girl with blonde twin-tails and emerald green eyes, smiling at her and Leo from a tombstone in the hospital cemetery under a hazy, smoky sky, hanging upside down.

Xiaobai, who was always in the hospital, seemed to know a lot and often teased Kirisame for being clueless, then told her many interesting things she knew.

...Among them, some particularly bizarre ones happened on high school rooftops.

Back then, Xiaobai narrated vividly, with intricate twists and turns and emotional complexity that once made Kirisame—a child whom Zapp had struggled to teach how to properly make expressions like "happy," "surprised," and "teary-eyed"—think that being alive was too much trouble.

Despite knowing so much, Xiaobai spent most of her time in the hospital. When she occasionally went out, it was usually Leo or Kirisame sneaking her out. Since HL didn't have the kind of "rooftop" Xiaobai approved of, they never went together.

Kirisame could no longer clearly recall the girl's animated expression. That day, Kirisame was taken away by a strange man with a half-metal mask, and when she returned to the hospital two months later, Xiaobai was gone.

She had vanished completely, as if she had never been there. If not for the tears of Leo and Xiao Hei, Kirisame would have doubted her memory, wondering if she had ever had such a friend at all.

Now, she stood on the legendary rooftop.

[I wonder if she would like this one.]

Standing alone by the railing, the girl stared blankly.

Kirisame rather liked this place. The wind at this height easily lifted her coat hem, and the sky felt low and close, as if she could reach out and brush some of the pretty sunset colors.

From here, she could see a full panorama of a third of the campus. The Support Course's testing ground looked like it had been plowed by a hundred angry Bakugos, full of craters and still emitting smoke that looked ominous. The little fish sculptures in the fountain cheerfully spat water. In the distance, near the school gate, Midoriya called out to his friend Bakugo, seeming to say something.

...That took guts.

The relationship between these two was as baffling as Xiaobai's rooftop stories. Kirisame found their interactions fascinating every time she saw them.

From this distance, she couldn't see their expressions. She stood by the railing, watching them chase after each other, run, then part, and finally walk out of the school gate one after the other.

She pursed her lips and sat down

All Might scratched his head. "Actually, I have a small job here. I happened to see you and came up."

The girl didn't press further.

The deflated No. 1 hero leaned back against the railing and sat down beside Kirisame, mimicking her posture.

"Did something happen at school?" he asked gently.

Kirisame thought about what he meant before speaking tentatively.

"Well... we had All Might's Hero Basic Training class today."

"... "

All Might was super nervous!

"W-well, how did you think he did?" he asked cautiously.

"Huh?" Kirisame was taken aback. "Hmm, probably alright? I've never taken a Hero Basic class anywhere else."

"Oh..." He sounded a little disappointed.

"But my classmates all seemed really happy."

The new teacher suddenly felt a bit happier himself.

"What about you, young lady? Weren't you happy?" he asked Kirisame.

Kirisame said nothing.

All Might was a bit troubled. As a new teacher this year, his "teaching" experience was minimal—honestly, he could only think of Midoriya boy.

But this child looked so different from Midoriya boy.

The blond man's troubled expression looked very gentle.

Maybe because Kirisame wasn't familiar with him, maybe because he wasn't her boss, or Leo, or Midoriya, or her swords—not anyone who held expectations for her—

"I don't know either," the girl said, looking troubled, "Suddenly I feel... like I'm different from everyone else."

Different from her classmates at UA, different from the swords.

...Even different from everyone at Libra.

Kirisame recalled the moment during the Quirk Apprehension Test when Mr. Aizawa erased her ability, and the fleeting surprise on his face that he couldn't disguise.

Although both used blood as a medium, her ability was fundamentally different from those of her boss and Leo—something she had realized since joining Libra. Upon closer inspection, this dimension-summoning-like ability didn't align with any documented PSI holder.

Completely untraceable.

When the Fallen King had sent her back, even though her boss said nothing, Kirisame could clearly sense that she was different from the worry in their expressions.

This vague, unpleasant feeling grew clearer day by day, only lessening slightly after the Quirk Apprehension Test, and resurfaced after a few days of school life, making it hard for her to breathe.

Mr. Klaus believed she should not stay in HL.

The girl, unable to guess her guardian's thoughts, was keenly aware of this.

[Then where should I stay?]

It seemed like she shouldn't stay here either.

"Haha," All Might laughed, his big hand patting Kirisame on the head.

"That's completely normal," the man said gently. "No two leaves in the world are exactly the same."

"But they can all come from the same tree," the girl countered seriously.

"The difference between humans and leaves is that humans can freely choose which tree they belong to."

"...Can I really?" Kirisame hesitated. "Even if I'm different from other leaves in body and thought, even if I don't know which tree I want to go to?"

All Might looked at the girl, recalling what Aizawa had told him about her, and sighed inwardly.

The child, still confused about most complex emotions, might not realize it herself, but right now, her face clearly showed a sorrowful expression.

All Might opened the bag in his hand, unwrapped a candy, and handed Kirisame a milk candy.

"You're a good, strong kid. You'll definitely make it." Though this man was so thin he seemed about to be blown away by the wind, somehow, his words carried a reassuring dependability.

In the sweetness of the candy, anything seemed solvable.

"Goals are very important!" he said. "But if you can't find which tree you belong to yet, don't rush. People grow through confusion and loneliness."

"If you really don't know what to do, start by observing others more! One day, you'll find your own path."

The wind felt pleasant. Mr. Yagi's eyes were blue flames burning quietly.

"...Mm."

*You're already becoming what you envied...* All Might thought to himself. He recalled the emotionless look in Kirisame's eyes when they first met, and now seeing the black-haired girl's expression as she looked at the sky, overlapping with the image of the afro boy's clenched fists half an hour ago.

(It was really good that I asked Teacher Midnight for her snacks before coming out.)

Watching Kirisame's figure walk away, the teacher wiped sweat from his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief, then hung up the phone.

"That's good. Thank you for your trouble," Shota Aizawa said. He was still in the office, and he closed his phone and also sighed with relief.

Meanwhile, All For One also answered a call.

The cold light of the laboratory shone on the tubes connected to the man. The unexpected call from an old acquaintance he thought he'd never see again surprised him momentarily.

"You're saying that 'that one' from over a decade ago has grown up and developed a Quirk... huh?"

"Hmm—Wahhh!!!" The person on the other end of the phone exclaimed in surprise before he finished speaking, followed by a clatter.

All For One: "..."

As expected of that person.

After a while, the young doctor let out an embarrassed chuckle. "Sorry, sorry, I tripped while walking just now."

"Hmm," the doctor answered cheerfully, "I never thought I'd meet her again! What a stroke of luck!"