B-Story, Yare Yare Investigation Team Assembles! (Vaccine, Smokin’ Sexy, Red Hat, Reibai, Mirror Devil, Hasayaka Takahiro, the Hospital Killer)
The Sexy Dojo
Breathing slowly in, and then out, a man in a heavy hazmat suit glides his foot from one position to the other. The heavy weight of the thin sword in his hand, tangible and weighty where to the others it would be feathery and light, moves in contemplative and practiced motions. A thrust in slow motion, timed with his exhale, then a pull back timed with his inhale. Though his body lacks much of the spatial awareness it once had from sense of touch, the roiling acidic burn inside of his belly tells him his directions. His stomach is unusually sensitive to the sloshing of its acid, due to the lining of ulcers.
Beneath his insensate skin, Vaccine can feel his insides crawling, like a banana about to erupt into a swarm of spiderlings. He never quite erupts, always held at the edge of collapse. Leprosy has stolen the feeling of pain from Vaccine’s outer tissues, but the deeper nerves have been safeguarded by their own microcosms of invaders holding the territory. Bone cancer aches within his marrow, a once-agony that has dimmed to a dull pulse like a second heartbeat. Herpes virions hunt and murder the colonies of cancerous cells that grow too large and begin to overrun other sectors. The cancer and other skin conditions seem to get along well enough, however, leading to bulging pockets of cracked, black, crocodile-like spare flesh on his body. Mucus runs down from his nose, dribbling into his mouth, where the taste has lost all meaning. Tiny parasites living inside of his eyes dribble spittle-water into the insides of his dry eyelids, lubricating them. His tear ducts no longer function.
Sometimes it feels like when he should have died from his injuries after losing a fight, something is keeping him alive against all mercy. Readjusting the equilibrium of his body, this tired, sagging shell, to keep it going. After Vaccine took up Tai Chi meditation and various martial art and religious philosophies, he gradually come to find peace within this balance. Like the Earth beneath them, crawling with humans equally intent on destroying and preserving it, Juro Watanabe is a planetary body rife with an inner universe. Bacteria, parasites, viruses. All manner of life... and debatably life, depending on how you see the viruses. He has come to love them all, in his own way, as he loves himself. Every time his loa loas wet his painful eyes for him, he thinks to himself that maybe some of them even love him back.
There’s an audible hiss of air as a refrigerator is opened, and then a crack of metal from an aluminum can doing the same. Worn out couch-springs creak as Vaccine’s gracious host sits down on his sofa with a stack of papers. Anko, the resident attempt at a guard dog, flops onto his master’s feet with his tongue lolling out, begging for scratches. “I’m surprised you’re still here. You been hanging around all day?” Vaccine opens his eyes when Smokin’ Sexy addresses him while indulging the canine. Vaccine had been coming around for a few weeks now, after finding the defunct Sexy Dojo in his search for somewhere nice and quiet he could practice his exercises without bothering anyone. Vaccine’s fellow hero had been accommodating, and eventually Vaccine had received his own key. He regularly stops by during his patrols to feed and water the dog while Smokin’ Sexy is at school teaching. The place has also become modestly cleaner and in better repair.
Sucking in wet breaths and answering in a voice both drowned and raspy, Vaccine struggles to say, “The… pipes had a leak in the…” he stops and hacks several wet coughs, leaning his practice sword up on a rack. “In the back. Must’ve been… costing you a for…” forced to stop and catch his breath, Vaccine closes his eyes and breathes meditatively for a moment before he continues. “Fortune. I went to get a… a patch. Fixed it up.”
“I’ll have to pay ya back sometime, man. Agh, yare yare… Mind if it’s not right away? I have all these surveys to read and,” looking at one of the papers in his hand, the new teacher curls back his jaw in despair. “Thankfully not grade much.” Reaching into his sofa cushions for a pen, he pulls out a few coins of change instead. “Oh, sweet. That’s my jelly donut tomorrow.”
“Hh…” Vaccine tries to make a friendly laugh, but it comes out as an amicable wheeze. “No problem… I owe you, yeah? Letting… me… hang around.”
“Hey, yeah, it’s,” avoiding looking up at what faint silhouette is visible of Vaccine’s pustule and tumor riddled face through the window of his hazmat suit, Smokin’ Sexy struggles to get out, “It’s nice to have you around. You do a better job keeping the place going than I do. Want a beer?”
“Makes my… liver worms upset,” Vaccine’s sluggish tongue slurps the words, and he makes his way towards the kitchen. Using a tiny airlock chamber in the front of his bulky and cumbersome costume, he takes a bottled water from the fridge and cycles it through to where he can fish it up to his mouth. After finishing the bottle in one go, he cycles it back out through the airlock, which spritzes some disinfectant hopefully into the chamber. Opening a yellow-green hazmat labeled garbage bin in the back corner of the dojo, Vaccine deposits the empty bottle inside and shuts the lid.
Taking one of his spears from the rack, Vaccine resumes his exercises. Hours pass the world by, while Smokin’ Sexy assesses his papers. A thought kindles during that time, starting down at the bottom of Vaccine’s brainstem and then creeping up into his frontal lobe like the tendrils of a cordyceps infection. That old compulsion, an itch to right something wrong. The killer is still out there, somewhere. The Hospital Killer.
It began with one of Juro’s earliest cure cases, Miyamoto Yoshio, from whom Vaccine had taken his leprosy. The young boy had contracted it from a pet armadillo. Not long after being cured, the night before he was discharged from the hospital, the boy was taken from them. Vaccine’s shattered, virus-encrusted nerves shudder at the memory of the boy’s face, before, smiling. And after, gone.
“Smokin’,” the mangled hero slows his exercises and brings the spear up next to him, using it to steady himself on his feet. Dizzier than he thought, must be getting hungry. “Sexy,” he finishes, distorted voice mangling the word into something that is anything but. “I have a… request.”
Setting down his stack of papers, the other hero looks up. “Yeah? We run outta water bottles or something? I can go grab some more from the konbini.”
“Rr, n…no. I want to…” Vaccine sucks in a wet breath and clears his throat, if only for a moment. “Do you mind if I… set up a board? Here. To… investigate… him.”
There’s a thoughtful look on Ryusei’s face. Then, it shifts into a more thoughtful frown as he tracks some of Vaccine’s words. “Have you been staying here?”
Embarrassment rushes up to Vaccine’s face, causing the feverish heat that swelters his insides like jungle air to reach enough of a pitch that it fogs the inside of his suit window. Sensing the shift in the man’s biorhythm, Anko whines in concern. “I…” he swallows, “I did not… I hoped you would not… Find out.”
Leaning down to rub Anko under the chin, Smokin’ Sexy sounds confused, “I thought you were doing alright financially? Sounded like you were pretty set.”
“Money’s… fine. The neighbors of my apartment… complained,” Juro explains. His unwitting landlord sighs.
“Alright. Well, if you keep fixing the place up, consider that your rent I guess. Squatter’s rights or something,” leaning back on his sofa, Ryusei spreads his arms out. “You said him. You mean him?” Vaccine nods his head, crinkling the thick material of his suit. Built to protect the world from him as much as protect him from the world. Juro’s long and failed history of chasing the Hospital Killer is one of the most well-known facets of his story. “I’ve been thinking of hunting that asshat down myself.” Taking out a cigarette, the man lights it up. His new roommate is incapable of minding the smell, and Anko’s nose has long since adjusted to it. “Do you have a plan?”
“He has been… active in this area,” Vaccine points out. “And… but… no. No plan.”
“Tell you what, I know a guy. Come with me to school tomorrow, I’ll hook you up. Maybe we can even get you an… educational assistant job or something, for money? I kindof know some ins there.”
“I said money… is not a problem,” though he insists it, Vaccine doesn’t immediately hate the idea. He would need a better tinted window to hide his mentally scarring appearance from the students. It’s a painful flicker of hope that he might be able to do something meaningful again. “… I… I’ll think about it?”
“Right. No promises either, I’m not the boss,” taking a long drag from his cigarette, Ryusei watches Vaccine trudge towards the door. “Headed somewhere?”
“Food…” is the gurgled response.
Classroom 1-D, Evacuation Class
Standing at the front of the classroom, back to the gaggle of oddball students his foray into teaching has foisted upon him, Takahiro draws out a diagram on the chalkboard, an array of blocky shapes arranged in the shape of a city block in their ward. “When establishing the threat radius of an active hero engagement, the four most important variables you must account for are range, sight lines, lines of fire, and destruction factor,” he lectures. Students have notebooks open, the more attentive among them taking down notes for the first exam which has already been announced for the end of the week. The less attentive are doodling, pretending to listen, or napping.
“Range is how far away the quirks in play at the site of the engagement can affect. Sight lines are where the villains can see, and where you can see. Fire lines are where incidental fire from weapons or quirks is likely to hit. Destruction factor is how much damage the crossfire will cause to the surrounding infrastructure. You use these four variables to determine the safest locations to evacuate civilians, and where to station yourself on the perimeter. If you do not always have a sight line to all civilians under your care, ensure that the police officers on scene are communicated with. Use them as extensions of your own eyes and ears.”
There is a knock at the door, interrupting the lecture. Looking over with annoyance in his furrowed brow. Sugiyama stands on the other side of the door’s window, waving at him. Behind the man is a bulky figure in a hazmat suit. It’s not the first time the old detective has seen the latter, though only through the newspapers. Takahiro takes the piece of chalk with him. “Continue reading ahead on page 48 of your textbook. When I return, I will be picking volunteers to read each paragraph,” he gruffly informs the students. There are a couple of groans that begin, until his glare flicks immediately to their faces. Iwata and Kawano immediately shut up.
Sliding the door open, Takahiro steps outside. “Sugiyama-san, Watanabe-san. Do you need something?”
“Sorry, won’t disrupt your class for long,” Sugiyama consoles, leaning on one hip towards Watanabe. “Guy here wanted to open a new investigation on the Hospital Killer, since he’s started being active in the area again. Thought we could pull in a few students to help gather leads, make it a… Hospital Killer club or something? Educational. Right?”
Folding his hands behind his back and standing up straightly, the former detective assesses both men. Watanabe’s track record for this particular vendetta is anything but impressive. The same could be said of every other investigator that tackled the case, including a personal investigation Takahiro conducted once. He’d been too self-conscious to admit to anyone that he, too, had failed. Not to mention besmirching his excellent record.
Maybe some experienced eyes taking another look at the case together could spot something the others missed. “I have no objections,” Takahiro states. “You bring one student in, I will bring one student in. We will run it by Nishima-sama at the end of the class day. Too many heads butting on an investigation only hurts matters, five is a good number.”
“Thank you… Hayasaka-san,” Watanabe rasps out.
“Hm,” with a short nod, the old detective turns and resumes his lesson immediately after crossing the threshold. “We will now read through pages 48 through 50, and answer the questions on page 51 as a class. Kawano! You will meet me after class.”
“Aww man, what’d I do now?!” the boy groans.
“This is not a punishment. Now, you will read first!”
South Building: General Studies, Classroom 3-B: The Haunted Classroom
A student works with Ryusei to haul in a cork bulletin board to the empty general studies classroom they’d been given permission to use by Karaburan, Vaccine directs them with his hands and finds a place for it on the side opposite the dusty windows. The chalkboards are covered in graffiti from students who’ve snuck in over however long since it was cleaned last, leaving their mark with faces of demons and ghosts.
“Hear they tell stories about this room being haunted,” Ryusei leans against one of the desks stacked against the rear wall, admiring the artwork. “Kids get dared to come in and close their eyes until they see one of the demons, then they have to put it up on the chalkboard or (it’ll eat their souls),” the last few words he speaks in English, imitating the tone of voice from one of his favorite songs.
“Hs… sounds… lively,” Vaccine mumbles, stepping back from the corkboard. “How did it… get that rep… reputation?”
“Hell if I know, I don’t gossip with the gen studies staff much,” shrugging off the topic, Smokin’ Sexy opens up one of the creaky windows to live up to his name.
It’s the student Ryusei brought, his intern Christopher Cain, who speaks up. “Apparently this is where stressed out, depressed seniors would to go to, uh, end it all,” he delivers the morbid news.
Smokin’ Sexy hisses between his teeth and lets out a thin trail of smoke like a teapot hitting boil, “Figured it was something like that.” It’s a grim fact that their high-stress education system often fails its students that way, pushing them until they break. The hero courses and even support courses get it easier. The golden children, they receive a lot of special treatment. Meanwhile, the general studies students face the same struggles as any other elite Japanese school.
About fifteen minutes after arranging chairs in front of the board and unpacking Vaccine’s fresh package of murder board materials, the three of them are joined by ex-detective Hayasaka and his student of choice, a short-haired boy with his hands in his pockets. “Kawano,” the boy jumps to attention when the grey-haired old man addresses him. “This is your sensei, Sugiyama-san. You know him. And this is your senpai, Cain-kun, and the Hypodermic Hero, Vaccine. Greet them properly.“
Wearing a new, darker tinted visor on his suit, Vaccine returns the boy’s hurried bow. “It is… good to meet you…”
Leaning closer to Hayasaka, Ryusei asks, “You picked Kawano-kun?” Perhaps a little louder than he’d intended to. Years of blasting heavy metal into your eardrums can have that effect on a person.
“I’m an old coot,” the grizzled detective states frankly. “We need someone to handle the technological angle of the investigation. Always had someone for that back on the force, the tech-forensic analysts. Kawano-kun,” spinning on his heel, the old man fixes his student with that firm teacherly gaze. “This is an extracurricular forensics club dedicated to tracking down the Hospital Killer. I would like you to join as our tech analyst, under my recommendation.”
“No problem! I got this,” immediately summoning a surge of confidence, Kawano pounds his chest. He turns to Vaccine, “You can call me the Cyber Punk Hero, Red Hat! I’m the supreme hacker for justice!”
“Nn… nice to meet you,” Vaccine repeats his earlier sentiment.
Hayasaka looks up before anyone else notices, drawing attention to the door. Another set of soft footsteps follow them to the room, a grim-faced girl standing on the other side, her features obscured by the layer of dust on the glass. When Red Hat turns and looks at her, he jumps back. “G-g-ghost! The stories are real?!”
The door slides open. “I am not a ghost,” the girl’s calm voice claims as she steps inside. Her eyes trail around the room. “Though many linger in this place. I come to quell their disquiet when I can find the time.”
“Oh. Nowaru-chan, you-” Red Hat starts to calm down, then his eyes bug out and the hairs on the back of his head stand up. He jumps when a sudden, long, rumbling gurgle fills the room. “They’re real?! The stories are real?!”
“That was my…” Vaccine begins to say his stomach, but it could have been any number of bloated, sloshing organs in his body, including several of his quirk factors. “… stomach,” he ultimately concludes for the mental wellness of all involved. Best not to overshare.
“I am Nowaru Kimi,” the girl bows to Vaccine, and he returns the gesture again, his stiff spinal spurs creaking. “Also going by Reibai. I am a medium to the beyond. Curiosity took me when I saw someone besides myself entering this room.”
Hayasaka scoffs. “A postcognitive,” the rationalizes. “She believes that the visions she has are of the departed.“
“Well, whatever it is,” Smokin’ Sexy steps in and holds up his hands to stop any impending arguments between the old detective and the young Reibai. “We’re here preparing an investigation team for the Hospital Killer. A… person with a quirk like hers’ could be a useful asset, right? Maybe it’s meant to be that you ran into us here, hey, Nowaro-kun?”
“I suppose,” Hayasaka grumbles. “Six is still within my comfort zone for a team.”
“Intriguing,” the girl says, smiling serenely. “Your quest will bring peace to many troubled souls. You may count me among your allies.”
“Quite the kohei you’re looking after this year, sensei,” Chris comments, pulling out another desk to accommodate their new member. He sets out a pile of newspaper articles and pulls up a list of website links to online news outlets on his phone, showing it to Red Hat. “Why don’t we get started?”
Fitting his bulky hazmat gloves into a specially large pair of scissors, Vaccine grabs one of the newspapers, and a spool of thread. “Hnh… Let’s… yes.”
The crawling chaos within churns, as if to echo Vaccine’s thoughts. Let’s bring you peace, Yoshio-kun.