KK gets up with a broad smile when her name is called and jogs up to the front of the room. She turns to face everybody, flicks the brim of her Shiketsu cap to cause it to tilt back higher on her head, and spins away to begin writing on the board. She's leaning forward to do so, popping one foot up behind her to keep balance. She makes the first two characters of her name big and bold, with swift and handsome calligraphy for such a hyperactively excitable girl.
In the blink of an eye, a second copy of her is standing there and writing the characters of her other name in the same style, standing closer to the board and up on her tip-toes. The two KKs pause after a simultaneous stroke and slip passed each other, easily continuing exactly where the other left off as if it was the natural way everybody writes. They pose on either side of the name, the right one spinning the marker pen dexterously through the gaps in her fingers, the other tossing the swiftly-capped and time-copied marker directly to Smokin' Sexy, who catches it with a clap of his hands.
The girl on the right sharply taps beside the characters 渦状 written up on the smartboard. "First name, Kajō!"
The girl on the left underlines the characters 頃間 with two fingers held stiffly in salute. "Last name, Koroma!"
With a toothy grin and a downward-creasing brow, the girl on the right swiftly swipes through the characters, and the board erases them away in an instant. She writes two Roman letters, done far before the other finishes explaining. "But that takes too long! Everyone calls me KK. So you do, too, ok?"
They begin seamlessly trading lines back and forth, naturally more in-sync than the closest of twins.
"In a way, I guess you could say I've got a--" "--precognition quirk, just like my Mama. But obviously--" "--there's a twist to it!" They grin together at their audience, a genuine one that goes all the way to their eyes. This is definitely a performance that KK has done before, but not one she's gotten bored of or one in which she's polished out the spontaneity.
"Like most of you, I've already gotten my persona all picked out." "I'm the Girl from the Future, the Time-Loop Hero:--"
「「Reset!」」
After announcing herself in stereo, the looped KK on the left shoots the students a wink. "See you two minutes ago~"
She reaches out in a theatrical pose and shoots the middle of the room with a finger gun, and the moment after she pantomimes it cocking back with recoil, she's disappeared. There's no sound, no lights, no distortion of the air or wobble in the fabric of space-time. It's simply as if she never was. Smokin' Sexy looks down at his now-empty hands. KK finishes up her introduction.
"Talk to me any time! I've got my back, so it'll be easy to have yours, too."
What is a hero to you? What drives you to be a hero? Are there any heroes that you look up to? If not, what are your criticisms of the world of heroes?
Most of the time, most people let life slide by them at its own brisk pace. Nothing much new or scary is happening, so the seconds don't matter and aren't noticed. Then there's those times where those people feel every moment, clutching each one with all their might and wringing everything they can out of it. If they don't, they might get broken in a way they'll never recover from. They might run out of time entirely. They stretch out the present because the past and the future are closing in around them like jaws.
A hero is someone who reaches between those jaws and pulls those people out before the teeth can close together. All the other stuff is fun, and I want to know what that's like too. I think it will make life more enjoyable and maybe give me more of that time when the moments stretch around me and I feel more alive. But you can trick yourself into being like that in all kinds of different ways.
I want to be a hero.
The commission? The fame? The ranking game? It's all just been added on top. If it all went away, it wouldn't change what I want and what it's called. Simple things should be kept simple. I think I can reach out my hand, and so I should.
How do you feel about certain homeroom teachers taking five minute smoke breaks?
Am I your boss now, sensei? Is this a survey for the Teacher's Union?
Will the Public Morals Committee drag you to a secret lair?
It's clear that she did not take the question seriously and instead spent class time drawing a doodle.
Which of your fellow classmates do you think you'll get along with the best, and which do you think the worst? Don't forget why! This will not change your seating arrangement.
Let's see... I haven't really spent time with anybody, so who can say! Probably, I think, it will be easier to get along with the girls. But I'm not counting the boys out entirely, I'm just sharing my expectations. As long as nobody is cruel on purpose and they'll play along from time to time, it'll be easy to get along, right? Some of the introductions were funny! And I want to spend more time with the other genki people, because it's easier. However, getting balanced out and kept on the ground can be important and relaxing, too. I should try to meet and play with everyone and not let appearances fool me!
I'm keeping it all open, sensei! Oh, actually, I do have something specific I thought of just now. Isn't it cool how Kamiya-kun is trying so earnestly? He's really got the spirit! It gives me that "yeah, let's go!" kind of feeling. If I were a little kid and he were a Pro in the news, I'd buy his action figure.
How do you feel about your quirk? Do you enjoy using it? Do you dislike it? Is there anything about it you would change? What about fighting? How do you feel about fighting? With or without your quirk? How does it make you feel to engage in fisticuffs with another being?
Question four is more like question seven through eighty! Let's see, let's see...
My Quirk is the best there's ever been! Underline that, put it in a safe, have it copied by cloistered monks for a thousand years! I use it all the time, and why not? It gives me more of it. Okay, this part is actually kind of a secret between you and me, sensei, so I hope these are going in your secret records, and don't let the monks see this part: I might not be able to stop using it, even? I mean, from one way of looking at it, it kind of uses itself, right? It's not me-me doing it and I'm not doing it now-now and a couple times that-me wasn't even
I don't remember ever being hit by somebody else, not for real. And it would probably be pretty hard to do much without using my ~amazing~ Quirk. But! I'm willing and eager to try! It's one of the big things I'm looking forward to. So go ahead and throw us in the forge, because I'm ready to be transformed! I've got the speed and I've got the will, so just show me what to do!
[[Fighting!]]
The last is written in evenly spaced English characters, like the slang slogan that's been shouted for more than a century.
If you were to schedule your perfect day tomorrow, what would it look like?
Don't spare any details, huh? I'll do my best.
So first thing's first. I'm going to need at least thirty hours- No! More like forty. I'll use a pulley system, a hot water bottle, and a synthesizer to fool my beloved mother into thinking I'm sick in bed, not for any real reason but because I think it will be fun to set up. Then, before I do anything else, I'll call up my dear friend Cameron who appears sick but it's actually because of boredom and depression. I'll be like, "You’re not dying. You just can’t think of anything good to do." And then Cameron will be like
The story goes on for page after page. More paper has been messily attached to the back of the questionnaire, in increasingly smaller and sloppier handwriting, as KK got more and more enthusiastic about her Big Day Off. It includes a space battle alongside a hairy giant, befriending a psychic savant and teaching them the true meaning of human connection, a poem about trees written in an impenetrable conlang, and a surprisingly tasty recipe for microwave brownies. It stops suddenly with a splatter of ink when she had to turn in the wild, disjointed narrative at the changing of the period, having talked to nobody else.
What is your most cherished memory? Did you share it with others? Or was it in a moment of quiet introspection? How did it affect you as a person? Is it painful to look back on now?
KK did not respond to this question, as she became absorbed in the previous one.