The World She Saw

A galaxy of iridescent dots swirled around Hitomi. Some moved so fast that the little girl had no hope of following them. Others stubbornly spun in place like bits of dirt trapped in milk. Still others floated lazily along, like dandelion seeds riding the breeze.

Hitomi shuddered. She was scared. She always was when she activated her quirk.

“Focus on the apple.” A voice behind her demanded.

“I—” Hitomi’s breath caught. She tried to remember where the apple was. Amid this chaos, it was hard to do. It was somewhere in front of her. She knew that, somewhere in that ocean of dots. She focused on a clump, about where the apple should be. She quivered. “I don’t know where it is.”

“So nothing’s changed? Damn. Well go ahead and give it a shot. Lift the apple.”

Hitomi’s heart pounded. She didn’t want to. “I don’t--”

“Please try.”

Hitomi tried to focus on each of the little dots in front of her. She tried to limit herself to what she hoped was the apple. She wanted to make them all go in the same direction.

She failed.

The dots flew off towards the ceiling in different directions. The sickening pop of an apple being ripped apart filled her ears. Hitomi’s heart sank. Nothing had changed.

The voice sighed. “Release your quirk.”

Hitomi let out a breath. The world of spinning dots slowly dissolved into a small white room. In front of her was a quarter of an apple upon a brown stool. The pulpy remains of her experiment dripped from the ceiling. Behind her stood a funny bald man with an unshaved face. He was Dr. Saraki. Hitomi trusted him. His quirk was scary too.

Dr. Saraki studied Hitomi carefully. “Perhaps it’s time for a break?”

Hitomi flinched. Part of her wanted to stop here. She didn’t like looking into that world, but she’d never get better if she stopped whenever she got the chance. She met his gaze defiantly. “I can do more.”

Saraki shrugged. He was always happy to let her try. He replaced the destroyed fruit with a fresh one from his pocket. He walked behind her.

“Proceed.”

Hitomi focused on the apple. ‘It’s an apple.’ She chanted. She envisioned its dimensions. She studied every curve. Every bead of condensation. She stared at the apple until she could draw a picture from memory. She devoted everything she had to that visualization.

‘It’s an apple.’ She’d do anything to get better. Without blinking, she activated her quirk...

---

Dr. Saraki stepped out of the examination room. Hitomi hadn’t made much progress since she’d learned how to activate her quirk without ripping something in half. He stroked his thin stubble as he walked down the hall. He pondered her issues.

Hitomi’s quirk’s base effect was like psychokinesis, rare enough to be noteworthy but not dangerous. However, her quirk came with two ancillary effects that he couldn’t explain. The first effect was electrostatic discharge, which she produced whenever she activated her quirk. The second was a sensory boost that seemed to grant her molecular vision.

The electrostatic discharge was annoying, but hardly worth his time to fix.

The molecular vision, however…

Hitomi’s quirk allowed her to psychokinetically affect anything she saw. The molecular vision allowed her to see an object’s (or person’s) composite molecules. She seemed unable to turn off this vision enhancement AND use her quirk. That was… exceptionally dangerous. If only he knew the cause.

Her parents’ quirks offered no illumination.

Hitomi’s mother had true psychokinesis, plainly inherited, uninteresting.

Hitomi’s father was a small-time pro hero who called himself Miracle. Perhaps his quirk would provide the answer, but unfortunately, no one knew what his quirk had been. The bastard had done Saraki the discourtesy of dying.

Saraki had tried to dig into Miracle’s career, in the hopes of uncovering his quirk, but there was scant information. He was 20 years older than his wife. He’d gotten his start during the ‘bad old days,’ when the line between hero and vigilante was a piece of paper. Also, more relevant to Saraki’s predicament, the Quirk Registration Service hadn't been founded yet. As such, there was no official record of her father’s quirk. There were even rumors he was quirkless.

“Dr. Saraki.” A voice sounded behind him. Saraki turned. He saw Dr. Monosuke. He was a broad man of Ainu ancestry. The two of them were almost friends. This friendship only bloomed because Monosuke’s quirk was one of the few that countered Saraki’s.

Monosuke’s flat face was twisted in something like concern. He held a folder.

“What is it?” Saraki asked. He was on edge, his treatment of Hitomi was behind schedule and he NEEDED to start showing results or the higher-ups would pull the rug out from under him and put Hitomi down.

“Hideyoshi’s full body scan came back.” He handed the folder to Saraki.

Saraki didn’t open the file. “Anything interesting?”

“Unfortunately no. The scan came up clean aside from a mass in the small of her back and right shoulder. They’re likely cysts.”

Dr. Saraki frowned. He’d known it was unlikely, but he’d hoped there was some physical irregularity. SOMETHING that could explain her quirk’s ancillary effects. Not that he had an idea of what they’d be looking for. No cyst could cause someone to see molecules. It was a waste of time. He’d been grasping at straws. He'd been trying to buy time. He couldn’t stand the thought of putting Hitomi down.

He couldn’t stand the thought of a quirk beating him.

…

A quirk?

…

Was there any way he wasn’t dealing with one quirk? Something was nagging at the back of his mind. Something about the cysts. What could ancillary effects have to do with cysts? Cysts were cysts, unless….

“… Surgery.” Saraki began to walk towards the OR to prep. Monosuke followed him on instinct.

“What? Why?”

“I need to look at one of those cysts.”

“What on earth do you hope to find in a cyst?”

Saraki restrained a grin. He had no reason to believe it. The occurrence had only ever been confirmed a few times in human history. It was far more likely that the cyst was just a sac of pus. But rarely, a cyst wasn’t just pus--

“Teeth.”

--it was the remains of a failed twin.

---

“… what the Hell do you mean?” Christopher challenged. Saraki blinked. He’d gotten himself lost in a memory. It was an extraordinarily happy one. The boy didn’t give him time to reorient. “What do you mean her quirk wasn’t the problem?!”

“Exactly what I said.” Dr. Saraki answered, returning to the present.

“That’s not an answer!”

“If you want answers, I’ll require your cooperation.” Dr. Saraki pulled a file out of his coat. It was a file he had trouble getting rid of these past few weeks. It was Hitomi’s file. Saraki laid the file on the table. “This has everything you’d ever want to know about your mother, her quirk, everything.”

Christopher stared at the file.

“I’m not giving it away.” Saraki drummed his fingers atop the file. Christopher didn’t take his eyes off it.

Saraki waited. He wouldn’t give a demand unprompted. The victim had to ask for it.

“What do you want for it?”

“I want to treat you.”

Christopher shook his head, confused. “I want to be--”

“Depending on your issue, my treatments can be… difficult. Some would say torturous.” Saraki admitted. “98% of my patients are inpatients because they won’t come in of their own will. Normally I wouldn’t give you a choice, but you have a personal connection with a top 10 hero--”

‘--AND a villain whose actions regarding children I cannot reliably predict.’ Saraki added silently.

“You can’t keep me here.” Christopher challenged. Saraki didn’t think the boy was thinking of overpowering him. He was thinking about the legal grounds. The boy’s father was a lawyer. Unfortunately, he was dealing with someone who’d spent the last 40 years of his life chipping away at the regulatory bodies surrounding the QRS. They were little more than nuisances now.

“I can,” Saraki answered without hesitation. That caught Christopher off guard. It was the truth, his dragon was annoying, but not insurmountable. Saraki's real problem was Rosethorn’s influence coupled with her natural resistance to his quirk and the X-factor that was Desolator’s pointless code. “However, I’d like to avoid the conflict that’d arise from putting you under lock and key. I want access to you. To get that, I need incentive to keep you coming back.” He placed his palm flat on the file. “This is that incentive.”

Christopher’s attention returned to the file. His eyes went from outrage to hunger. Saraki smiled. He knew obsession when he saw it. “… when will you give this to me?”

“A page a day.” Saraki answered. “That’s my price.”

“How many pages are in the file?” Christopher asked. The question surprised Saraki. Usually, he’d get an outright concession or refusal. He’d expected concession, but this sounded like the preamble to a negotiation. Saraki bristled.

“The file’s hundreds of pages, but the relevant notes are about twenty-four.”

“One today,” Christopher demanded.

“I don’t want to reduce the number of days I can test you, boy. Today’s free.”

“No. I need to know you aren’t jerking me around. One today.” He insisted.

Saraki’s eye twitched. “I--”

“If not, maybe I need to take a few weeks to consider your offer.”

Saraki felt his blood run cold. A few weeks?! He didn’t know if he could wait that long. He needed to test this boy and he was playing games?! Negotiating?! INFURIATING! It was better to make him! “Pl--”

Riku...

A chill ran down Saraki’s spine. He glanced down.

He saw that damn black watch on Christopher’s wrist. A single red eye formed in place of the watch’s face. It stared at him. Saraki could feel its grin. It was waiting for him to say ‘please,’ just like that day in the courthouse. Damned thing.

“--One page.” Saraki agreed.

Christopher nodded. Saraki glared at the black watch. The dragon’s eye had dissolved back into the watch’s face. The dragon was aware of Saraki’s quirk. That awareness gave the boy more leverage than he realized. How did it know? Perhaps it incurred the benefits of the boy’s other quirk? Something new to test, but once that was done, he’d find a way to make Christopher drop her.

Christopher offered his hand to shake. Saraki placed the promised sheet of paper into Christopher’s hand. He was already standing. He was frustrated that the meeting had gone out of his complete control. That the concession was, in all, minor, didn’t dawn on Saraki. It wasn’t what he wanted. That made it unacceptable.

“You’ll see yourself out,” Saraki growled, clutching the file to his chest. “Be here next Sunday by 9 am.”

Christopher nodded wordlessly as he began to look over the sheet of paper so rudely placed in his hand.

---

Christopher sat at his desk. He was in his room. His hands trembled. He held the piece of paper Saraki had given him. On his desk was his mother’s diary. It was the diary he’d found in a small cardboard box given to him by his father. Out of respect for his mother, Christopher hadn’t been able to read the journal… so far. But, that could change depending on the information within.

He read the sheet of paper Saraki had given him. It was a meaningless mess of charts from a random day, but he’d half expected as much. He’d never intended to waste time figuring out what the Hell QFα and QFβ meant. Instead, he scanned the note until he found what he was looking for in its left margin. He saw the date. March 17, 21X5.

Christopher put the sheet of paper down and looked at his mother’s journal. He opened it to the last page. He looked for the date. April 4th, 21X7. Careful not to read any of the entries yet, he closed the book and then opened the first page. He looked for the date. November 19, 21X3.

Christopher froze. It was, of course, mere coincidence that the day his mother made her first journal entry would be the birth date of her son a little more than a decade later. That didn’t cause him to freeze. What caused him to freeze was the confirmation that this journal was kept during her treatment.

Christopher closed his eyes. He silently apologized to his long-dead mother and then, he read.

---

Hitomi Hideyoshi fiddled with the collar around her neck. It was a black nylon strap with a heavy metal device set against her throat. She was still woozy from the surgery. A patch of white gauze hid the stitches in her right shoulder. The remains of an apple were scattered throughout the room. The doctor had insisted she try as soon as she woke up. Then… he put this collar on. She raised an eyebrow at Saraki. “What gives?”

Saraki didn’t answer as he put an apple on the stool. “Try to move it,” Saraki commanded. He stepped beside the apple.

Hitomi motioned him away from the apple. Saraki shook his head. “Just try.”

Hitomi hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt him. “Please try,” Saraki commanded. Hitomi activated her quirk. The collar burned. Her vision… didn’t alter. The world didn’t become a swarm of dots. Hitomi blinked. She looked at the apple.

‘The apple will be repelled from the stool.’ She whispered in her mind. The apple slowly rose. It was intact. Hitomi leaped from her chair. Her legs trembled. She fell back in her chair. Her eyes widened as the apple continued to rise. She touched the collar at her neck. It burned to the touch. She didn’t care.

“How?”

“You have a passenger,” Saraki answered cryptically. Hitomi looked at Saraki without comprehension. He held up a sheet of paper, a test result. It showed her DNA stain at the top of the sheet and another, incomprehensibly similar stain at the bottom.

“Your twin brother. He didn’t survive the womb, but he’s stuck around as a mass of cells throughout your body. What’s more!” Saraki began to grow excited. “His quirk factor survived!”

“… I don’t understand,” Hitomi whispered. The apple tapped the ceiling.

“You shouldn’t!” Saraki exclaimed. “It’s never happened before! Chimerism is rare enough! But to--”

“Chimerism?” Hitomi echoed dumbly. Her eyes followed the apple.

“It’s what you have girl, don’t interrupt. Admittedly, Chimerism might not be that rare, it’s usually benign, so there’s no real reason to check for it.” Saraki stopped himself before he ranted. He took a deep breath, tampering down his excitement. “Regardless your situation is rather unique. You’re a bit of a miracle if you’ll excuse the religious phrasing. You are a chimera, Your twin’s quirk factor somehow survived, and your brother had a quirk that affected others. These three unlikely factors combined resulted in you.”

Hitomi didn’t respond. She didn’t understand. Her eyes were transfixed by the apple continuing to tap gently against the ceiling. It was an apple she could still see. Tears welled in her eyes. It was a miracle! She leaped up. She ran towards Saraki!

“After confirming another person’s quirk factor I-- GAH!” Saraki rocked as a 40kg blubbering frame slammed into him.

“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!” The girl screamed. Her snot-covered face was buried in Saraki’s lab coat. Mucus dribbled down her face onto the pristine white coat. Saraki shuddered.

“Yes, yes.” He patted the girl’s head. Palm only. “Now, let go.”

She didn’t.

“Please let go.” She did, reluctantly. She wiped her eyes. Snot and tears trailed in clear webs from her sleeves.

“sank bu.” She blubbered one final time. Tears streamed down her face and into her mouth, strangling her voice as she tried to speak.

Saraki edged away. “You’re welcome.” He managed, unable to take his eyes off her horrifying display of emotion. Uncomfortable eternities ticked away, punctuated by the apple knocking gently against the ceiling.

Eventually, Hitomi tugged at her collar, “So I just have to wear this and I’m good?”

“Erm, no,” Saraki managed, his shoulders finally relaxing. “that’s a quirk nullification collar with a QF filter. It’d take the nation of Japan three weeks of unpaid labor to pay for one of those.”

“… eh?”

“It’s expensive, you can’t keep it.”

Hitomi’s heart sank. “So I…” All of that, to tell her she wasn’t cured. It was cruel. It was cruel to show her how her quirk was supposed to work and then tell her she wasn’t going to be able to use it like this ever again. She couldn’t believe Saraki would do that to her. Even if he’d never admit it, he knew what it was like to be scared of your quirk.

“We’ll be using the collar for training purposes. Your twin’s quirk has been piggybacking off your own quirk’s activation. After we train your quirk to activate without its passenger, you shouldn’t need the collar. It’s a long road of treatment ahead young lady, but I think there’s a way forward.”

Hitomi fingered the metal against her throat. It still burned. She didn’t mind. She was going to get better! She smiled wide. “Alright!”

---

Christopher put down the diary. He couldn’t comprehend what he’d just read. His mother had had multiple quirks. Only the most blindingly ignorant fools had ever claimed such a thing was possible. Was his mother lied to? Or was she writing a strange adolescent fantasy? Yet… he looked at the paper he’d gotten from Saraki, the meaningless lab results Saraki had thrust into his hands.

Within the margins of the lab results were written QFα and QFβ. He could interpret those previously meaningless strings of characters as Quirk Factors Alpha and Beta.

Christopher leaned back in his chair. Two quirks. It made sense now, what Saraki said: ‘Her quirk wasn’t the problem.’ It wasn’t his mother’s quirk that was dangerous, it was the combination of her quirk and her failed twin’s. The ability to declare rules of attraction on anything you see coupled with the ability to see molecules. That was impressively dangerous. Christopher couldn’t think of a counter to being ripped apart at the molecular level. Maybe there wasn’t one. But…his mother didn’t seem thankful for it.

He flipped back through the diary. There were tear-stained pages when she talked about her quirk. She talked about it like it was a curse. She hated it. She feared it. Every day, Hitomi lived with the power to rip apart anyone she saw. It was a weapon any villain would’ve killed to obtain in the hands of a gentle girl who could never put it down.

Christopher wiped his eyes. He didn’t want to add stains to the pages of his mother’s diary. He closed her book. He walked away from his desk. Something horrible gnawed at his stomach. It was a feeling of loss and sympathy. He knew what it was like to fear his quirk.

She knew it.

He clenched his teeth as he thought of something he’d never seriously considered.

‘Did I tell her?’

She would’ve known the look of fear that Christopher saw in his own eyes when he dropped a quirk. Did she ever confront him? Did she ever coax an explanation? Did she ever say she knew what it was like? Was that feeling of loneliness he’d had at the beginning of the year just a lie?

Did she die knowing she’d be forgotten?

Christopher lay on his bed. He didn’t cry. He didn’t sob. Nor did he sleep. He stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. No one was here to disturb his thoughts. Not even a little black dragon, whose absence he’d not noticed yet.