Shiketsu Loser's Club
Hero course students weren't allowed to join clubs.
The official line was that their duties on the path to becoming heroes kept the kids so busy that anything more would place undue strain on them.
Off the record, everyone knew the policy was only there because UA did it first. That's all.
In true Shiketsu fashion, the student body took one look at such an inconvenient rule and elected to disregard it. The staff followed, turning a blind eye.
Myoga spent half his weekends helping the volunteer club clean beaches or whatever. Kang's clique had the robotics club wrapped around their little fingers, acting like private suppliers for her Quirk. And Hoge...
Well, who really knew what Hoge got up to?
Certainly not Sora Tanaka.
Sora didn't know what most of his classmates got up to. Whatever he did learn, it had always been against his will. Unwelcome information jettisoned into his parabolic orbit. Another temporary satellite.
How could he stop them?
Nothing so solid as a wall separated him. Even if it had, Sora had no doubt that 1-D would spend their infinite time and energy breaking it down. No, Sora was present, Sora was visible, Sora could be touched if only you stretched out your hand.
Sora was just behind a hood and a hundred kilometers of air. That's all.
Yet some how, some way, he'd been dragged a little closer to Earth. Today was a Friday, which could only mean one thing.
His abused desk rattled as the iron hand of Shinkan Sen, slamming down, left another dent in it. The train's face was smiling, grim and glad and wide.
Was he ever not smiling? Sora couldn't tell you.
"Sora! We still on for the DIY skatepark rally today? I've got some wicked ideas planned."
The grin was strained, a subject left unspoken. Victor won't be joining us.
"Can't. New game just came out. Gonna drown in it."
Sora didn't regret saying no, but neither did he even have to lie to get out of it. Why bother? It was easier to keep to the truth, easier to go along in the upwash.
Then again, there was only so much you could go with the flow until you were indistinguishable from a corpse in a river.
Besides, Shinkan should spend his free time studying instead of skating.
Not that he would.
His chair didn't so much as whisper when Sora pushed it back standing up. Like he wasn't even there. He slung his bag back over his shoulder.
"Maybe this weekend, Sen. Looking forward to whatever your deranged idea of a halfpipe looks like."
That got Shinkan back in fighting form.
Shiketsu's unofficial loser's club. That's what Sora always thought of them as. Shinkan Sen, Victor Sigurd, and Sora Tanaka.
No girlfriends, no fame, no future. It wasn't a cynical or self-deprecating name either. Just honest. Maybe being cast as a bullied victim appealed to some, but Sora wasn't a loser because of bullying.
They'd just... slipped through the cracks. That's all. Little shadows drowning in the sunlight of the rest of 1-D, killing time together.
Now the club was just two. Maybe one, if Sandatsu came back for another impromptu visit.
Or zero.
He waved Shinkan goodbye as he left him behind, stepping out of the classroom's six familiar floors.
Suited him just fine. Sora wasn't here for glory.
Sora was barely here at all. Shiketsu was temporary, he told himself. That's all.
... temporary or not, though, it was also crowded today. Anxious shoulders rubbed like herd animals, feet kept stepping on toes, and someone was shouting for the crowd to remain orderly, that the other hallway was being evacuated as a biohazard zone or something-or-other. The further he wove through, the tighter the squeeze became. Sora wasn't built for this kind of jostling.
He didn't have time for this. If you got it, flaunt it.
The warm mass of mostly-human bodies parted long enough for Sora to walk to the nearest wall.
When he reached it, he kept walking.
One foot at a time. A ninety degree lurch wasn't enough to even slow him down any more.
He made it look easy. It was. Micro-adjustments, changing the gentle slope of gravity one degree after another, second nature, reduce intensity, increase intensity, balance blooming like flower petals, does-she-love-me-does-she-not, until he'd strode calmly up to the ceiling.
Sora wasn't breaking any laws of gravity. If anything, it was everyone else who wouldn't listen.
The hanging crowd gawped down at him.
Up, actually.
He was above them all anyways. That's all.
Someone was shouting about Quirk use in the halls, but Sora's mind was long gone by this point, drifting away like a whispy cloud.
Sometimes Sora wondered how high he could go. He'd tried to calculate it once. Negative nine point eight meters per-second-per-second was for chumps. Reverse that, pump it.
Sink like a stone into the sky.
He had the velocity, had the duration. All he needed to do was plug and chug.
... in the end, something made Sora give up before he could finish the math.
Part of him was more familiar with these halls upside down than rightside up. Lost in his open mind, Sora left the crowd behind, hands in his pockets, as he found his way to the gym in record time. One scene melted into another before he could recognize the change.
He landed lightly. Like a cat. The lockers were a graveyard where a million inquiries about his hood rested, alongside their deflected answers. Maybe he should hold his breath.
"Careful. You take it off and you'll die from fright on the spot. That's all."
"Careful. I might die if you try that, I'm just the hood you know. That's all."
"Careful. One look at my maidenly face and you'll fall for me. That's all."
... yeah, right.
The hood didn't so much as flutter when Sora huffed a mirthless sigh out.
If there was one good thing about interning under Rosethorn, it was that he was used to changing in this locker room. He wasn't one to be constrained by systems, but years of avoiding peepers had forced one on him anyways.
The stall clicked shut behind him as the world went sideways. The door was probably cleaner than the ground, and without any visible feet no one would even know he was in here.
2.8 seconds was all it took to strip his uniform and replace it with his casual outfit anyhow. The hood stayed on the whole time.
Sora didn't bother fiddling with his domain as the stall opened beneath him like a trapdoor, landing on the opposite wall in a crouch.
Whump.
A kid from the general studies track gawped at him, frozen in the locker room entryway. Or maybe he was from the support track...? Or...
Well, it didn't matter. Sora didn't bother to memorize his face as he stuffed his uniform in a locker and passed by, ducking underneath him to squeeze out of there.
Except...
Sora was supposed to set an example or something, wasn't he?
It took longer for him to adjust to that fact than to adjust to a new center of gravity. One was as easy as letting the world pull you down. The other...
Orbit swaggered back into the locker room.
The kid gawped at him from the urinal, and the sound of streaming liquid came to an awkward halt.
"Have no fear, citizen! I'll be sure to stand guard!" Real ideal hero shit, regardless of the intrusiveness. Golden era golden boy, as long as you didn't rub off the luster.
The boy blanched.
"C-can you just let me pee in peace, asshole..."
Whatever.
Not like he hadn't tried.
Sora shrugged, and fell out of the room as gravity dragged him away.
His walk home was just like any other. Sora was just like anyone else, in truth, two feet on the ground at a time.
It's just sometimes that ground was the ceiling.
He swung his bag, watching as its contents floated gently within it at each arc.
He remembered something from before his quirk awakened, a science demonstration on TV. A man swinging a bucket full of water in a wide circle, little Sora open-mouthed with amazement as the man explained something about centripital force.
Another memory bubbled up like air in a syringe.
Resting just above the side of the wallroadfloorceiling was a puddle reflecting a slice of blue and fluffy white. Road, then. Floor.
Orbit looked down at the side of the building he was stood on, feet scuffing the window slightly. Oops. With a held-breath and modicum of effort, his domain lightened even further.
He felt the blood in his fingertips go sluggish.
"Keep up, Orbit!" Rosethorn's voice chided him, and he stepped lightly back to life.
"Of course, Rosethorn-sensei," Orbit chirped.
It was an uncommonly warm December afternoon, and for once the wind wouldn't steal away his voice.
They were on patrol, ostensibly to stop any crimes in progress, but more likely just to look good. It was business. Most things in life were, however hard he tried to escape it.
Sora hadn't been surprised when Rosethorn decided to pick him up for the internship, along with a couple others. However useful his quirk was, he hadn't had many chances to show it off.
An empty sky was something best enjoyed alone.
Hey, did you see that sunset?
Wow, that cloud looks just like a dinosaur!
Would you... like to watch the stars with me, Sora?
Beneath the hood, the thing that could charitably be described as a mouth turned sourly downwards.
They might not be able to see them, but his eyes still worked.
The sky spoke for itself.
Some things were self evident. That's all.
These days, though, the sky felt a little busier.
A little green drake darting between buildings, a winged boy blotting out the sun as he flew freely above Sora, even the friendly calls of those below drifting up, down, twisting sideways to find him however he maneuvered.
Were they trying to drag him back to earth?
"Tanaka, do you remember your first day of classes?" Rosethorn inquired, straining her neck to look up at him.
"Yep." About as talkative as he ever got, even in hero-mode.
"You and your classmates filled out a survey. Would you mind repeating why you wanted to become a hero?"
Sora faltered, stutter-stepping on air. Beneath the hood, his features creased. "Of course! I said that I wanted to use my quirk to help and protect those in need!"
Even to him, the answer rang generic.
Rosethorn hummed, nodding to passers-by on the sidewalk while Sora drifted overhead like a thundercloud shadowing her.
"It's an ideal answer," Rosethorn said. "But I'm not so certain it's your ideal."
Sora grimaced, feeling seen. His teacher halted in her tracks, staring directly up into the void of his hood.
"Give it a little more thought."
Someone else had escaped the class' orbit recently. Sandatsu Owari, ripped away from them all in an explosion of blood and bone.
Was that what true freedom really looked like? Complete, free-wheeling anarchy?
How badly did Sora want to be free? Was it worth all that struggle?
Sora hadn't felt much of anything all when he heard the news.
Maybe Sandatsu was just trying to rack up a high score.
That wasn't how Sora liked to game. He never got mad, never smashed his controller. So often, it felt like he was watching someone else play.
Even when he put down the game, that feeling didn't go away sometimes.
It was fine, though.
Nothing would happen.
Not to him.
Never to him.
Two feet hit the ground just before he reached the front door.
No domains inside the house. That was the rule.
Not that he followed it inside his own room. Maybe Shiketsu had been a bad influence on him.
Sora knew exactly how many steps it took to get to his room. Each was a reminder how much quicker it could've been if he just fell.
As soon as Sora was locked away, he booted up his PC. The stream went up shortly after, as he booted up a new RPG that had just released:
SHIKETSU HERO STUDENT REACTS TO VEILS OF DAWN
The viewercount, his only companion, remained at a steady 0.
He was in. The game wasn't hard in the slightest, of course, but Sora's mind was distracted. Elsewhere. Commentary, already quiet and infrequent, became nonexistent.
Why did you want to become a hero?
GAME OVER
Sora leaned back, and let his controller fall up to the ceiling.
He stared for a long while.
He thought about Orochi's face, bruised and bloody.
He thought about Victor coming to him after the 1-E transfer, expecting comfort when discussing the bullying and getting a blank stare in return.
He thought about the first time he flew.
Inconveniences. That's all they were, nuisances that pulled him down from the sky the more there were.
But he didn't hate that kind of nuisance.
Sora's hands reached up, adjusting his hood.
There was never any need to get a license.
At any moment, he could've left. Discarded all things and flown someplace he'd never be seen again. Escape velocity had never been beyond Sora's reach.
"I just..."
To a crowd of zero, Sora slowly slipped off his hood and mumbled a confession.
"Wanted to see if there was anything worth staying on the ground for."
He killed the stream.
That's all.