Exam no Jutsu
Part Three: Shūban (終盤)
The Labyrinth of NQA
Sally McCathy lowers her arm, leaving a trail of gunsmoke from the barrel in her palm. It doesn't seem to her like the high-caliber rifle bullets her Quirk slugged into the shutter blocking her path down the hallway did anything. Nevertheless, she can clearly hear the movement of hidden machinery, both around and beneath her. The subtle vibrations in the ground stop sharp. The unmarred shutter drops back into its niche. The niche disappears once it closes. Sally scrunches her nose when she frowns.
She looks back behind her to see if that way is still blocked, too. Surprise takes her as she notices that not only is it open, but that it leads to a messy chamber that wasn't there previously. No longer is it another anonymous bend in the maze, but a room with a display pedestal, scuff marks, broken glass, and - because of her past, Sally is tuned into this sort of thing - scattered spots of fresh, red blood. But most surprising of all is that a person is leaving that room, headed right towards her.
The figure is taller than her, but not overly so. Its shoulders are squared back, but with the body tilted forward like a predator before the chase. The hallway must be further than it seems, because there's a haze of distance over them, and a dim gloom obscures their features. They're trying to hide it, but Sally is wary enough to be able to tell the figure is marching forward with a limp.
Sally doesn't retract her barrel. She dangles her arm down to hide it, ready to snap it up at a moment's notice into a hip fire. Rubber bullet, rubber bullet, rubber bullet, she reminds herself in her head. The hairs on the back of her neck begin to lift. Her eyes snap open fully when the figure releases a cloud of steam from their mouth, shadowed by the peaked hat they're wearing.
The steam carries the haze and the gloom with it, as her classmate Nyoro Hoge fades into focus. Sally blinks twice as her mind quickly copes with the idea that the silhouette of a person is not only much closer than it looked, but someone familiar to her. Familiar in an acquaintance sort of way, at least. Hoge is her standoffish class representative in 1-D, at the hero academy Shiketsu High proctoring her rehabilitation discharged by America back home. Hoge has something going on with her neighbor Chris' annoying friend Inigo, and some kind of stiff relationship with one or two other people in the class. Mostly she's a nag who always seems to be staring at something or writing stuff down.
Not the worse person in class. Maybe a little silly and way overeager. But not a threat.
The barrel retracts as Sally finally relaxes her hand.
Before Sally can say anything, Hoge pipes up. She's speaking too loudly, like she's afraid she won't be heard.
"McCathy-san. It is a surprise to see you here."
Sally narrows her eyes. What's that supposed to mean?
Hoge stops several meters away from Sally, giving physical distance in accord with the emotional distance she feels towards the American transfer student. The third one, right?, Hoge queries herself. She tries to stand up straight, but she's tired. Her quirk Wasuremono takes its toll when it rises, and it's been spiking up and down, on and off, and has pushed further than its ever gone before. Hoge feels ready for a good cry and a long nap, and maybe a hot bath. She can feel the stress hormones and body aches sloshing around inside her, and the day isn't even close to over. After the brawl she just walked away from, she's leaning more on one leg just because it's less scratched up, not to mention it lets her keep her bruised rib unstretched.
She doesn't want to talk to (almost) anyone right now, but especially not one of the Americans. And if it had to be one of them, then especially not this one. Not this shady, loud, rah-rah parody of fake-smiling bible-thumping Americans. But this is the burden of the class rep; Hoge must be polite, cordial, and attentive to the needs of her peers. It is her duty to go through the little circle of Hell that is small talk with Sally. So when she stops in place, she pushes the words out of her, making double sure that her aromatherapy-suppressed Quirk won't mute out her words like it did in the last chamber. Once the words are out, she can hear the sharpness of pain behind them, a gift snuck along her voice by her ribs. Hoge can only hope that Sally's Japanese is so bad that she doesn't pick up on it.
"Is it? I earned the entrance just like everyone else. We were on the train together."
"Mm. I meant that it's a big maze and we're deep in."
"Wasn't so hard."
"...Guess not."
"And you got this far, huh?"
Hoge tilts the cicada-like helmet of her Marumaru costume. It's about the only part of her right now without visible battle damage. What's that supposed to mean?
There is a brief silence, but no less awkward for its brevity.
"I'm glad to see you're still wearing the uniform."
Sally rolls her eyes. "And you'll have to get a new one, huh?"
She might not have meant it that way, but Sally's comment is a bullseye strike on Hoge's pride. She doesn't want to think about the disappointed look she'll get from a faculty member for how roughed up her coat has gotten. And the poor glass-pecked hat... it was a rental! Hoge flexes her jaw as she bites down on a bitter word or two, hidden behind her full mask.
"Not caused any trouble, have you?" Oh. A little bitterness escaped anyway.
Sally averts her eyes from the unblinking insectile stare of Marumaru. She half-mutters in English, "{Less than you, at least. Clearly.}"
Hoge snaps, "{If you say so,}" in a distinctly Japanese accent. This earns a quick glare from Sally.
"{Look, I haven't done anything wrong. I'm doing everything I need to in order to get that license, so stop acting high and mighty. We're in the same class. You're not better than me.}"
"{Tch. Slow down. I can't hear your words passed your thick corn land accent. They only teach us real English, you know.}"
"Ugh!" Sally's expression crinkles in anger. By reflex, her hand opens and the gun barrel unseals.
Hoge, who has lost the internal mantra to stay polite and professional, takes two quick strides closer to Sally. "{Do you have a key yet?}"
Sally goes stiff and her head leans back a bit, away from Hoge's approach. "{No. Do you?}"
Thought not, preens Hoge. "{Maybe I do and maybe I do not.}"
Sally chuckles darkly. She knew Hoge wouldn't admit to anything less than perfection in an exam. The girl's got so many screws loose that you can almost hear her rattle when she thinks. "{If you ask nicely, I'll help you find one. It's my christly duty to help the needy.}" Sally, dressed in her modified nun outfit, smirks at Maru.
Hoge tries to control her breathing. She can feel the telltale buzz across her body that is Wasuremono building. From outside, her features literally begin to darken.
"There's something that's been on my mind," Hoge says with measured syllables, back in her native Japanese. "You know, they didn't share all the safety response measures with the class until after the transfers. Do you remember? Loca-sensei lectured us on all the procedures for emergencies at the school."
With each of her next words, Hoge steps closer. "Fires. Earthquakes. Superstorms."
She's getting uncomfortably near, by Sally's reckoning. And she realizes that the class rep is unsafely close inside her circle of engagement. Sally starts to circle to one side to get a wall behind her.
Hoge turns in place to keep their gazes locked. "And I got curious, so I checked older manuals in the library. This year there was a new one. Active shooters."
The glint of lights disappears from metal or lenses on Maru's costume. "It stood out to me. Unlike some bad parts of the world, Japan doesn't have many problems with gun violence."
Hoge looms. She's studied how to do it. "Why do you suppose that might have been added? Hm?"
Hoge lets the next words slide out of her teeth like the drawing of a sword. "{Last Rite}." The ghost vowels of her accent rattle the blade.
Sally starts to shiver from her budding rage. It glows in her eyes as embers. As sparks on black powder. "{They must have known about your winning personality. Bitch.}"
A long whistle streaks through the air. Both girls break their stare-down as their heads snap towards the intrusive sound.
Down the hallway, away from the looted key chamber, and at the newly aligned T-intersection, stands a man in a professional Hero costume. With the bright coloring and plastic armor panels, he looks like the Saturday Morning action cartoon version of a walking crash test dummy. Most of his face is covered in either the helmet or the visor of his distinctive headpiece, but his jaw remains exposed. That's how Hoge and Sally can see his pursed lips pull into a confident smile, pressed into a thin line.
The highly ranked professional Hero, Impakt, is leaning his shoulder casually against the wall by the corner of the intersection. His arms are folded over his chest, and he has an ankle kicked out lackadaisically across his other firmly planted leg. He tuts, then follows up in Japanese with lightly German lilting. "Now, now, is that what Heroes do?"
He lifts a hand off his other elbow and waggles an index finger. "So aggressive! And such strong language! Aren't you wearing the same uniform? Teammates, maybe?" With a burst of speed, he bounces himself off the wall and smoothly transitions into an erect stance, legs shoulder-width apart, fists on his hips. He gives the bright white toothy smile that all the cameras love.
"Even if you were doing it properly, this is no time to argue! Don't you know? When a hero's on the job, danger's around every corner!"
His grin bends at one corner towards a smirk. Then Impakt lowers his shoulders, drops his hips, and holds his fists in front of him in an expert fighting stance. He flicks his chin up to indicate the room on the opposite side. Still in a kind of shock, Hoge and Sally look in that direction, at the key chamber. They hurry in unison to look back at Impakt when he speaks again.
"Sorry, but I can't let you off with a warning. Hand over the key nicely, and we can all take a nice walk together and send you back to start."
"I never even went in there!" Sally says indigninantly.
Hoge stays quiet. Her chest rises and falls in quick, deep breaths. Huh? Isn't this the guy Ini talked up? She feels like she's watching everything happen from just behind her own shoulder.
As the silence stretches out, Sally's furrowed expression turns into raised eyebrows. She looks sideways at Maru as they stand beside one another and face down Impakt. Huh? So she has one after all? She feels the gun barrel of her armory quirk slip through her palm.
"No? Not going to give up so easily? I'm not going to go easy on you, understand?" The girls, still wary of each other, instinctively shift into a silent truce. Impakt is the obvious priority. The man gives a firm nod and a genuine smile. "Good. That kind of bravery is just what real heroes need." And he breaks into a run directly at the Shiketsu classmates.
Sally brings her arm up swiftly and years of habit lock it steady into perfect firing form. She braces against recoil with a shift of a back foot, and uses the V between her thumb and index to aim. A rattle of rubber-tipped small-caliber rounds blast from the gun barrel made by her body, causing flashes of light and barks of noise. The smell of gunsmoke fills her nose. It brings her a measure of comfort.
The rounds flatten themselves against Impakt's chest, each one landing in a precise ring on his left pectoral. A sizzle of friction-melted rubber hisses against Impakt's chestplate, but neither the heat nor the hammering of the bullets make it through. He doesn't stumble. He doesn't even twist with the blow. Impakt completely no-sells the bullets, and continues his charge in unbroken stride. Sally grits her teeth.
Meanwhile, Maru also springs into action. She darts sideways towards the wall, pulling the roughed up Shiketsu jacket from its place tucked into her utility belt. Even as she springs up and plants a foot against the maze hallway wall, she uses the wind made by her speed to help tug the dress uniform blazer from her shoulders. As she kicks off the wall on an intercept towards Impakt's side, Maru whips the jacket off and thrown into Impakt's path. As the garment goes free of her body, the navy blue of the fabric saturates into bright color again, and all its edges redefine themselves crisply. Suddenly, the sound of flapping cotton fills the relative silence. After all, Wasuremono only effects what is in contact with Marumaru.
Hoge's swift mind performed the distraction with perfect timing. The rapid shift in light and sound pulls Impakt's attention all the more because of his battle focus. A lesser Hero would have even blundered head first into the billowing jacket and been totally blinded when it wrapped around his head; but Impakt was a top European hero before immigrating to Japan. He's faced down greater and quicker dangers than a flung coat. His hand rushes up in front of his face and grabs at the flaring blazer as it fills his field of vision. Impakt snatches it down and, using the natural gait of his run, allows his arm to fling it away behind him.
In just that brief window of time, Sally runs herself backward to gain a little more distance and begins selecting stronger ammunition from her internal stores. Hoge, too, makes her landing, and slides passed Impakt's legs with one of her boots kicked forward. She ends up behind him, her bent knee sore, as he runs directly away from her. But Impakt catches the blur of movement and haze in the corner of his vision, and plants his forward foot so he can twist and go for the grab.
If not for Wasuremono disguising Marumaru's edges, Impakt would have done more than graze her with his fingertips. His powerful grip snatches only air and the thin strip of mirage that outlines 1-D's taciturn ninja. His head turned to follow her movement. Hoge shoved off the ground with both arms so she could spin her legs away from him and off the floor. And Sally found her optimal firing path again.
Blunted rubber-tipped rifle rounds line themselves up inside Sally's arm. Blam! Blam! Blam! After each thundering shot, the gun nun Last Rite has to wrench her hand down against the recoil. Though her accuracy remains expertly high, the spread widens from the effort. The rifle bullets make chunky sounds of blooming metal and cracking armor as they slam themselves against Impakt's side, shoulder, and the broadest part of his back. It's a great shot for rapid aiming and Impakt's narrower profile. And still, it's not enough. The rifle rounds leave Impakt unharmed.
But they do get his attention. He turns away from the retreating Maru and towards the reloading Last Rite. Impakt's quirk has been stealing the kinetic energy of each powerful bullet impact and transforming it into pure potential inside him. He decides now is the time to transform some of it back. He leans forward as if in a running stance again, but when he begins the mid-air stride of his forward foot, he suddenly hops up with his back leg. An instant later, the same leg kicks the ground again. Like one of Sally's bullets, a powerful kinetic force bursts through that kick, and launches Impakt mightily through the air in a high, fast arc. He is aimed right at the young Shiketsu student in a nun's habit.
Sally scrambles to get out of the way. But Impakt is flying forward too fast. All she can do is turn it into a near miss as Impakt tucks into a forward spin and brings a strong heel down in a kinetic-boosted axe kick. When his foot strikes the ground, it gives off a thunderclap equal to any of the sounds that Sally's internal firearm boomed out. The air itself seems to carry the unbalanced McCathy off her feet and tumbling away out of control.
Left further up the hall, Hoge lands silently back on her feet. Her ribcase screams in outrage at her for the acrobatics. Her arms grumble along in agreement, and quickly she realizes there might not be a single part of her that is without complaint. Pain throbs, tingles, races, stabs, and gnaws at her from within and without. Her breathing is ragged. Behind the mask, one of her eyes is winced shut. If she doesn't get water and some quick calories in her soon, Wasuremono might genuinely knock her out. As she struggles to stretch back up into her combat-ready natural posture, she watches as Impakt's powerful blow sends Last Rite rolling across the floor.
The pro hero is focused on the priority threat. He doesn't know the extent of what Hoge can do. Her hand hovers towards the tight pocket containing her shuriken. Surely if bullets don't hurt him, the blades won't either. But they could be enough of a split attention to give Sally the chance to recover.
{...winning personality. Bitch.}
Hoge, in supernatural quiet, turns and walks away towards the part of the maze where Impakt first appeared. The last thing she does in this passageaway is stoop down in passing to scoop her crumpled blazer off the ground.
Sally kicks out with her feet while on her back to scramble herself away from Impakt. With a set jaw and firm frown, he watches the gunslinging girl as he walks closer. His body is tense. Sally's light brown hair spills from her black veil and fans beneath her. A misplaced hand pins it down and causes her to stop with a jerk of her head. Impakt takes a last moment to impart a lesson on the young hero in training.
"A gun quirk. Powerful, and also dangerous. I know how bad things get with a slip of control, kiddo." He puts his feet to either side of Sally's legs, blocking most of her paths for escape.
"That wasn't smart. I can take it, but not everyone can. You could have shot your friend. You could have missed."
Sally grimaces up at him, wrestling with her own thoughts. Through her teeth, she spits, "{I don't miss.}"
In an instant, her hand is up in front of her chest. A powerful explosion of noise, full of low bass, rips the air. A naked .50 cal round screams the short gap between her arm and Impakt's left shoulder. She knows that for a different man, this could have taken his arm. But she's seen him treat live rounds like fly bites. This live round, though, is among the highest in her Arsenal. It crashes into his shoulder, wrenching his torso to the side in its path. The bullet catches on to him, shreds and folds itself against Impakt's body, leaving the stink and burnt costume and black powder. Impakt silently snarls in pain as one of the girl's attacks breaks his threshhold, and possibly his collarbone. Ever the professional, he forces his left hand into a tight fist, swallows the surge of energy from the self-destructing bullet, and pours it into his blistering left arm. With a surge of his abdominals, drop to his knees, and driving of his back, Impakt kneels over the prone Sally McCathy and catches her across the skull with a left-handed haymaker.
Sally falls into blackness.
True to his ethos, Impakt put just enough energy into it to cancel the rotation of his body and line himself up for the punch. It is his natural strength and martial arts prowess that knock Sally unconscious. When she wakes up seconds later, Impakt already has her wrists in one hand and her ankles in the other, her whole body slung across his shoulders like a gym towel. Even through her dizziness and the lightning in her skull, she can see the .50 cal round splattered on the front of his shoulder like a paintball. The slag of it fails to catch a gleam in the passing overhead lights.
"Where's Maru," Sally manages to ask Impakt, even as every movement of her jaw makes her right temple demand her to stop.
Impakt, suddenly remembering the easily-overlooked Hoge, raises his eyebrows and swings his body around mid-stride to look behind himself. He notices an empty hallway. Even the jacket's gone. "Guess she disappeared, Sister." Then he turns the whole way back again and enters into the key chamber.
Sally, looking at the world with only one eye open, takes in Maru's last battleground. She remembers the various traps she had to avoid to get this far, and forces herself to speak once more.
"Gonna dump me?"
Impakt simply says, "Nope," as he steps up to the pedestal within. It holds only the hologram of a polished brass key, just one more trap in the labyrinth.
"I'm going with you back to the start before I patrol the maze again." He does a quick, partial bow over the pedestal so his shadow activates it.
"I have to make sure you're okay, Sister." A blue ellipses of teleportal light opens above his head, then slams down through him. Both he and Sally resonate with the same luminescent color.
"Because that's what Heroes do." And they vanish.
Many minutes later, Hoge drags herself into the final chamber. She had to navigate twisting turns and moving walls; mechanical and electronic traps of not just teleporters but cages, nets, catch-ropes, and paralytic electric bolts; gangs of kids; and patrolling pro Heroes who would have gladly ruined all her progress. Every time, her exhausted limbs and racing thoughts carried her past. Or, even more commonly, her obscuring Quirk let her squat in a corner or in a shaft of shade or a side path until the threat went by none the wiser. Each and every time took its toll. In this very last stretch, across the open space, is a reinforced heavy metal door and a high tech card reader.
Oh, and an all-out melee of key-carrying kids and the opportunistic fighters ambushing them at the finish line. In every direction, fantastical Quirks summon ribbons of light, surreal distortions of everyday objects and materials, eruptions of power, bizarre mutations of human form, noise and motion and chaos. In the dream-like waters where Hoge's thoughts now swim, everything has a tint of the uncanny and the inconsequential. To her, it could be a dozen schools battling it out, full of betrayals and unconventional allies, drama and romance and brutality and triumph and tragedy. A green dragon spits a bull at a clump of unidentifiable students, knocking them down like bowling pins. Who even knows if that's real? Not Hoge. She's in the deep ocean watching the moon.
One foot in front of the other. Step. Step. She teeters this way and that, enough to sway and not enough to fall. She is a mote in vision. In this smokescreen of activity, she is a passing thought. To each and every other person, she is the least important thing in the room. Even to herself. Step. Step. Her eyes are locked like magnets to the key reader. Around her, conflict flows passed. Yet, whenever she's about to blunder into a battle, pure chance creates a gap, again and again. Step by step. Pain shoots up from the soles of her feet and pulses through her gently and completely like light in an optical cable. Fatigue smothers all her higher thoughts in a downy comforter. When she finally, finally stands before the access to the door, it takes her a second or two to remember why she's there.
She fumbles with the neck clasp of the Marumaru helmet. When she takes it off, cool air kisses her flushed, overheated skin. Tears are starting to sting her eyes and she can't figure out why. Which makes her want to cry all the more, because the frustration of not understanding fills her with shame. With effortful slowness that belies the sprawling brawl behind her, she peels the keycard from where moisture clings it to the inside curve of her helmet, and she slides it into place. With a quiet whir, a tiny motor plucks the keycard from her fingertips and disappears it into the machine. Lights flash and a tinny victory tune emits from the panel by the door. When they open, many heads turn to look in distracted shock and a cacophony of celebration and complaint follows Hoge through the darkened doorway. It swiftly seals behind her.
Hoge finds herself in a dimly lit waiting space. There is no furniture or decoration, though the area is large enough to fit more than a hundred people. The safety lights are not strong enough to illuminate the chamber, and going into here from the brightly lit previous room is blinding. Still, Hoge can see other shapes in the low light, humanoid ones. People are in here with her, clustered about.
She shuffles to find an isolated space against one of the walls. She slides down into a slumped sit on the ground. Hoge is bent forward with her knees guarding her and the Maru helm between her lap and her belly. It is turned to look up at her.
Hoge broods on her actions during the test. Her mentality at the pit. The indulgence in the duel. Using a classmate. The broken reflection she saw in the man running the exam, and the feeling that the heavens were chastising her path. Tears fall from above onto the protective lenses of the Maru helmet looking up expressionlessly at her. She remembers her months-ago promises to herself and her friends. (Her friends! Friends, that she somehow gained!) She remembers her thoughts just before the maze. The structure of the test could be to weed out those not ready. The way they echo in her head bends her judgemental impulse back at herself. Not ready.
Hoge's forehead presses against Maru's forehead. Wasuremono drains away with her ugly sobbing. She is exposed more fully than she's been in years.
The other winners of first selection politely ignore her.
Nyoro Hoge falls asleep.