One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch
Things at Shiketsu had changed. Clubs had been canceled, students had to group together to walk home, and a litany of other "safety precautions" made to make everything as difficult as possible. For many students, it was an oppressive time. But to one student in particular, it was... an opportunity.
Enter Mio Katsuragi, class representative of Shiketsu's senior class of 3-D as well as older sister of one Ashleigh Katsuragi. Mio was sitting in the empty classroom of 3-D, staring out the window. With A/V Club temporarily closed, she had plenty of time to sit around and think to herself once her duties as class rep were taken care of.
The attack of the Night Parade on the city had sowed a seed of doubt in so many of the students. Doubts about whether they'll be good enough. Doubts about whether they'll be safe. Shiketsu putting up new safety measures has only solidified in their heads the idea that they could be next. There was a dark atmosphere over the entire student body, one she wanted to take advantage of. Out the window, she sees one of the people she's been waiting for. The absurdly tall American freshman Bobby Samson had just arrived through the school's gates, just barely able to squeeze through the mob of reporters and concerned bystanders thanks to the guards' assistance.
"A delinquent trying to turn good again. How disgustingly sweet. But during dark times like these, people tended to do... strange things."
Mio's smile widens slightly and her eyes narrow as she starts to rifle through Bobby's mind to twist around the perfect spot in his memories to insert something fun and put her little game into motion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jsrXHQ6w2s
It was time to shake things up.
The florescent bulbs of the school bathroom flickered lightly, with a dull hum spreading throughout as white noise. Hifumi was all alone in the white room, washing his hands in the sink, when the sound of the door opening nearby made his ears perk. This wasn't anything abnormal, so he didn't even turn to look at who it was.
"Are you Hifumi?"
The sound of his name from an unfamiliar voice made his head shoot back with a curious gaze plastered on it. The person who asked the question was someone Hifumi hadn't talked to before, but he had a vague familiar feeling that he might have seen him. Whether it was him walking through the halls or in the cafeteria, he couldn't put his finger on it. Given the student's stance, it was likely he was in General Studies. Maybe a second year?
"Uh, yeah, that's me. What's good?"
His emotions were a mix of curiosity, pride, and caution. On the one hand, the other student recognized him, which was always a nice feeling. On the other hand, what he wanted and why he chose to speak in the privacy of the bathroom. The boy's expression turning dour only made any kind of positive feelings start to fade.
"Hey... I'm sorry to tell you this, man, but..."
His words were drawn out, like he was physically forcing himself to speak the next part of his sentence.
"...I think your girlfriend is cheating on you."
Not even a second passed before the boy regretted his words. A vein had appeared on Hifumi's forehead, and it looked like he was ready to burst in anger.
"What the HELL did you just say to me? There's no goddamn way Hailey would ever do something like that!"
He looked like he was holding himself back from socking the other student in the jaw. The still unnamed student stammered and quickly tried to pull out his phone.
"I-I-I'm not making stuff up, I promise! Here, look!"
He flipped the phone around and clenched his eyes in preparation for a punch or something. Hifumi spat onto the floor before his eyes drifted downward towards the device and his blood went cold.
"W... What?"
The sight on the screen was a video taken by a shaky camera peeking through a cracked doorway. It was Hailey and Bobby sitting together on the school's roof with their arms around each other, smacking lips. The two of them were saying things to each other, but the sounds weren't processed by Hifumi's brain because of the shock of the video being played in front of him.
"No... This has gotta be fake. It's gotta... when did you take this?"
"M-Monday! I swear!"
Hifumi couldn't help but think back to a few days ago. He was hanging out with Hailey and Bobby on the roof when he got a text from Inigo and had to leave early. But... there was no way...
"No... I can't..."
Hifumi tore his eyes away from the phone and looked everywhere but there. Almost every negative emotion under the sun shifted onto his face one by one as he tried to think of some way to explain what he just saw. With his heart in turmoil, he looked the kid in the eyes and spoke up once more.
"C-Can... you send that to me?"
"Hey, can we talk?"
One of the kids in the Support Course speed walked quickly to catch up with Yui. She earned herself a glare and nearly a growl for being approached so suddenly.
"The hell do you want?"
Her prickly nature seemed to run off the other girl like water, completely unfazed by it.
"I think it was really messed up what those girls did to you, so I wanted to see if you were okay!"
Yui eyed her suspiciously and with a great deal of caution.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
This made the other girl gasp and put a hand to her mouth in surprise.
"Wait, you don't know? Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Uh, here, I got it on video!"
Before Yui could even say anything, the girl's phone was up in her face. Much too close for Yui's liking, so she backed up and started to holler.
"Get the hell away from me before... I..."
She cut herself off, the contents of the video finally getting her full attention. Fury was building within her every second she looked at the phone. On screen was a video of the quintet group all standing together behind the school, chattering with each other and laughing obnoxiously. The kicker was what they were doing. Yui watched as the knitted gifts she had been working on in secret were lit on fire and thrown onto the ground. She quickly opened her bag to check the contents, but the bracelets were nowhere to be found.
"Those FUCKING WHORES! I knew they were trying to get my guard down! I'M GOING TO TEAR THEM APART!"
Her fist flew into the nearby wall, sending reverberations down the hallway, before she started to sprint away. Steam was just about to blow out of her ears, and her blood was like magma.
"Hey there! You're Kaylee, right? From 1-D?"
Kaylee turned around quickly, looking for whoever said her name. However, what she saw was an empty space. What was going on? Someone with an invisibility quirk?
"Down here, silly."
Her head tilted down, only now seeing the girl in front of her. A blonde girl was smiling up at her, shorter than probably anybody else in school. She gave Kaylee a small wave.
"Hyooo~ It's nice to meet you; I'm Mio Katsuragi, Ashleigh's older sister!"
Kaylee quirked an eyebrow. It was hard for her to gauge how tall shorter people are because of her height, but she was pretty sure this girl was even shorter than Ashleigh. It was hard to believe this cheery girl was related to one of the wallflowers in her classroom, but that's when she noticed the same kind of cross-shaped pupils Ashleigh had.
"Uh, hey?"
"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here. You see, I've heard you've been having some trouble dealing with some of your other classmates. Minerva, Hailey, Faith, Maxine, and Edith?"
Kaylee frowned simply at the mention of their names. She spat out her next words, already in a bad mood.
"...What about them?"
"Well... I wanted to help you out! As 3-D's class representative, and more importantly, Ashleigh's sister, I can't stand by and watch one of my cute little kouhai get messed around with like that!"
Mio swung her bag to her front and started digging through it. From her position, Kaylee could see a veritable smorgasbord of tech and different trinkets neatly stuffed away in the (supposedly) senior's bag.
"You want to help me? How?"
"Now, I know you can't throw a punch at them. That'd get you in trouble and maybe even thrown out of school with how much you'd mess them up. That's why I did a little work myself and got you a peaceful solution!"
She pulls out a white envelope from her bag and places it quickly in Kaylee's hand.
"As long as you have those, they won't want to mess with you anymore. Pinky promise!"
The blonde girl's smile had something in it that was hard to place for Kaylee, but she put that thought aside. She slowly started to open up the envelope and examine the contents within. It was several photographs and spreadsheets that she couldn't make heads or tails of.
"This is going to make them leave me alone?"
Doubt was dripping from her voice, but it didn't set Mio back one bit.
"Yep! Just don't go showing those things to everyone, or else they'd have no reason to not go back to being mean to you. If you really want to scare them straight, tell them this."
Mio motioned for Kaylee to get close, which the other girl did. It took her crouching deeply to get on the same level as Mio, but once she did, the senior whispered something into her ear that made her eyes shine and a wide smile break onto her face.
"Wait... really!?"
"Mhm! If, for some reason, you lose those things, let me know and I can get you more copies. Think of it as a favor from your senpai, okay?"
"Y-Yeah, I... wait, isn't this... blackmail?"
Mio's expression faltered a little in a practiced manner. She shook her head with a denial.
"Blackmail... No, that'd be evil, right? This is simply a way to defend yourself! They're the ones who have been hounding you since school started, right?"
Kaylee looked between the envelope and Mio, and she slowly started to nod.
"Yeah... Yeah, that makes sense. It's like self defense."
Kaylee stood up to full height once again. She looked at the envelope in her hand in a new light, and it felt like a weight was being taken off her back.
"T-Thank you! Thank you, Mio-senpai! I really appreciate this! I-I gotta get to class!"
"Bye-bye! Have fun!"
Kaylee took off towards homeroom as a bundle of energy and excitement. Meanwhile, Mio's smile grew by the second. That was her part done.
"Umm... e-excuse me, are you Maxine Nguyen?"
"Hey, you're the guy from 1-E, right? Johnny Walker?"
"Orochi, right? From the Atsushi family?"
"Hey, Sen-san, wait up!"
"Hey, hold on a second."
"We need to speak in private."
"Trust me, you're going to want to hear this."
Ashleigh had been feeling weird all day, but she couldn't quite figure out why. It wasn't just the intense mood everyone in the school seemed to be going through, or the crowd of people trying to get some kind of scoop or word from Shiketsu about the recent attack. There was something else, like a drop of poison that slipped into the heart of the school.
As she continued to walk towards 1-D, that feeling only seemed to get stronger and stronger. By the time she was near the doors, she could hear shouting from within. It's not that the classroom hadn't gotten into shouting matches before; the class representative elections showed that, but this felt different. That difference made itself well known once she opened the door and looked inside.
Her eyes are instinctively drawn to the loudest noise in the class. Yelling was coming from the backside of the room, where Hifumi and Minerva were standing over Billy and Hailey.
"How could you do this, dude!? Hailey is my girl! What were you two even thinking!?"
Hailey was fully in tears, trying her best to sob out apologies, and Bobby looked like his confidence was shattered. His usual glowing smile was nowhere to be seen and he was unable to meet anybody's eyes. Before she could focus on that too hard, her attention was drawn to the front of the room. Imai was in his seat, with Maxine glowering down at him in a cold, yet quiet voice. Imai had his head tucked down, pale as a ghost, and was not responding.
Ashleigh had expected to see Faith and Edith backing up one of their friends. However, in a sight she never would have imagined, the two of them had been backed into a corner by a smug Kaylee of all people. They had been utterly cowed by something, and both could only look to each other for support, of which there was none.
If that wasn't enough, some random other guy was in the back of the room started yelling at Orochi. He was only kind of familiar. Wasn't he in 1-E?
"I could have been here with everyone if it weren't for YOUR family pushing you into MY spot! The nepotism of it all!"
Of course, Orochi hadn't taken it lying down, yelling back at him for daring to imply her family would buy her a spot in 1-D. However, even with that, some of the poorer kids in class couldn't help but look at her with suspicion.
Meanwhile, Inigo and Noah were bouncing between all of the arguments and screaming going on, trying to sooth everyone's anger and figure out what was happening. They couldn't really stay in one place for long before more screaming across the room or another incident demanded their attention.
In the back corner of the room where Hoge usually sat, Ashleigh felt some kind of negative energy directed towards Noah and Sandatsu.
Ashleigh was frozen in place in the doorway. All of the arguments had shocked her into inactivity. Then, she was forcefully moved by Yui, who had effectively shoulder checked her to get into the classroom, knocking her to the side and onto the ground. Yui then beelined towards the closest group of the Korean girls, Faith and Edith.
"You little bitches! You stole from my bag and burned my stuff! I ought to kick your asses here and now!"
The two girls were desperate for some kind of opportunity to get away from Kaylee, and Yui provided just that. Trying not to look at Kaylee, they stepped out and started to badmouth Yui.
"So what? They were ugly as sin, so we got rid of them for you! You should be thankful!"
Yui gritted her teeth so hard that it looked like they would shatter. She clenched her fists and raised one up, as if ready to take a swing at them. Inigo and Noah were on the case immediately, trying to run interference and mediate between them. The stress and high energy of the entire situation got to one student in particular: Edith. In a panic, she lashed out with her quirk and transported Yui away, along with Noah and Inigo who were right behind her.
For a moment, you could've heard a pin drop in the classroom. At the very next moment, it was like a switch had been flipped. Everyone's yelling had increased in volume. Sen was yelling at Chihiro and Christopher now, with the former trying to ignore him by shoving his face into his book and the latter unable to think of any kind of response. Orochi had turned to start yelling at both Johnny and Hiro next to her. Genma Go walked into the class and started yelling at Tame about stealing his seat. Sora was yelling at Jugo, who was unsure why that was even happening.
The one who had raised the most hell, however, was Sally McCathy. She had leaped out of her seat in a single moment and got into Edith's face about using her quirk on Noah.
"You get Noah out of there this instant before I whoop your ass, you damn gook!"
Naturally, Edith wasn't going to let Sally talk to her like that and started yelling right back. Right when she did, however, a much louder voice cut right through everyone's arguments.
"THAT IS ENOUGH!"
From the doorway, Rosethorn slammed her prepared paperwork against the door, getting everyone's attention. She was very clearly not enthused about the warzone she had stepped into.
"Everyone, get to your seats now! Johnny Walker, Genma Go, get to your classrooms NOW!"
With varying levels of begrudgement, the students of 1-D moved to their assigned seats, including Ashleigh. The two 1-E students had to be forced out of the room, kicking and screaming. Everyone's eyes were shifting between one another. It was like a black cloud was hanging over the whole classroom, a sour aura thick enough to taste. Rosethorn looked at the empty seats and spoke in her authoritative tone.
"Where are Yui, Noah, and Inigo?"
Edith averted her eyes and released the three from her Danger Zone, each with a different reaction to suddenly being back. They were unable to fully get a handle on everything that happened, as Rosethorn practically commanded them all to get to their seats now. Noah and Inigo looked around the room with a heavy amount of concern for the state of their classmates, but Yui needed to be glared at before she was able to bite the heads off of one of the hivemind.
"Now, will someone please tell me what happened?"
Almost everyone started talking, getting louder by the second to be able to talk over the others. This wasn't working. Rosethorn got them to shut up once again before looking at the clock.
"We'll talk about this later! For now, open your books and pay attention!"
They all did as they were told, but it did nothing to stop the grumbling and the continued straining of emotions. Ashleigh gave the classroom one last look, unsure of what just went down. It seemed like most of the class had become good friends since they started coming to Shiketsu, but now it was like everyone was back to step one, or even worse in many cases. She grimaces and looks back at the teacher, that weird feeling having only gotten stronger.
Ashleigh's attention snapped into focus, her body shivering. She was sitting at the dining room table in her home, not at her desk in school. It was a sensation she was much too familiar with, the kind she gets when an artificial memory is implanted into her head all at once instead of slowly and subtly. She looked up from the table and towards the short, blonde girl standing a few meters away: her sister. Mio's smile had widened since the start of their conversation in response to the sight of her sister's trembling. She enjoyed it for a few more moments before speaking up.
"You get it, right?"
Ashleigh couldn't bring herself to say anything, so she just nodded quickly and looked down once again in a manner very familiar to her.
"Good! So just remember, Ash, don't go blabbering about my quirk to your little friends or... well, you know. That little daydream you just had will become more real than you can handle. "I can't have my little sister ruining my fun before I've had my chance to play!"
Her voice was chipper, happy that she was getting her way once again. She turned around and grabbed her bag before heading towards the door with a skip in her step. Because of her responsibilities as class representative, she always left earlier than Ashleigh. Once Mio placed her hand on the doorknob, she stopped and considered something. She looked back at Ashleigh and spoke up again.
"Consider this a lesson from your big sister, Ash. Friendships and relationships can snap just like that if pushed the wrong way. If you try to use other people as a crutch, you're only going to get yourself hurt. If you want to be strong, then you have to do it yourself. Okay, bye-bye!"
As if she hadn't just finished terrorizing her sister, Mio opened the door and left with a bright smile. For a long time, the house was in utter silence. Nobody but Ashleigh was left inside, and she could only think about everything that happened without saying a word. Finally, when the time arrived, she too left for school, feeling more isolated than ever.