Dead End Salvation 1 (Yamata)
Orochi resisted the urge to stretch out, and the hydras struggled to hold still. They were not used to standing still, her connection to the hydras made the action of not doing anything harder than it used to be.
Many needles poked her arms and hydras, heated and burning needles to not allow her skin to heal, to collect the body and check the status of her blood. Electromyography equipment monitored her whole body, registering every twitch and reaction from her muscles.
It was kind of funny in a way she failed to put into words. It was just funny to her. ‘Well, at least they are doing that to map my quirk’s working or something like that?’
Orochi looked over the room. They were not medics and researchers from the government, and they did not look like they had a connection to that famous quirk doctor. ‘Saragi? Sagaki? Whatever.’
On the other hand, those people wore uniforms similar to the workers of Umi’s parents. She pursed her lips. ‘I knew my family had a connection to hers, but how deep does it go?’
Was it fate that they became friends? Orochi would kill to know… “Strange thing.” A man whined. He wore a white coat, and sat on a table before a monitor, staring at religiously. He looked at the screen of a monitor attentively, his purple eyebags made him look far older than he was.
It made a man in his mid-twenties look like he was in his thirties. “Girl. Do you know how cells divide? And how hot the human body is?”
Orochi snarled, the hydras mimicked her action. “Duh. Cells divide to make new cells and replace the old ones when they die. What is there more to know? And what about temperature? I’m not with a fever.”
The man snarled back at her. “No, you simpleton. Cells have a limited time they can divide. Each time they replicate is not perfect, this is what makes us age. Your cells are cloning themselves in real time here in the monitor.”
The man spun on his chair, turning the monitor to Orochi. She saw what she assumed to be cells dividing rapidly, before dying out quickly, or so it looked. “Those little f… things are replicating without imperfection. The only thing stopping them from going out of control is that they burn out of calories, and fuel before they can achieve it.”
“What does it have to do with my temperature?”
The man facepalmed. “Your body is rocking at 98° degrees Celsius. This is far, far beyond what the human body should be able to withstand internally. Your body is more than twice as hot than it should be, yet it shows no ill effects for you and your cells.”
The gears inside Orochi’s head clicked. “Oh.”
“Oh indeed.”
Orochi saw that as no big deal, but maybe she was just used to her body being stranger on the inside than on the outside, even if her outside was strange too.
‘Wait ‘til he learns my body can enter self-combustion too.’ The middle hydra purred, doing its best to mimic a giggle.
“Can you please grow your scales?” Another doctor asked, holding Orochi’s left hand. The mow redhead girl nodded. Her scales increased in charge as she thought about it, their shape-changing.
One grew to be like a spear tip, while others branched, twisting as if it was a feather’s sheath rather than a scale.
“This is marvelous. Such a growth and deviation from the baseline quirk!” The doctor holding her hand gasped, a wide smile on her lips as if she made the discovery of the century.
(...)
Nabiki stared at her daughter in the lower room, a battery of tests ran on her. It left a bitter taste in Nabiki’s mouth to see others touch her daughter in such an intrusive manner.
A few days prior her daughter asked for a combat, a quarrel. Nabiki gave it to Orochi— a fight to test the limits of her daughter.
Orochi lasted for quite a while, but she was no match for her mother, not yet anyway. Yet, what Orochi set out to know how to trigger her flames was not achieved.
It led to Orochi wanting to know her quirk better like a small childhood first using theirs. Nabiki wanted those experiments to take their own pace, and not be rushed like that.
“Worried about your daughter? Do not worry. Our children are made of sterner stuff than most.” Nabiki glanced away from her daughter, her golden eyes filled with venom.
A woman stood before her, a solid foot shorter than Nabiki, but with an oppressive presence that made her equal to the Atsushi’s household matriarch. She wore black social pants, and a brown shirt with a neatly tied necktie.
“Katya. What do you want? I think your personnel were enough to watch over my daughter?”
“For the same reason as you, Nabiki, to watch over Orochi. My daughter has shown great concern for her childhood friend, and I as her mother have a duty to watch over her friend wherever possible.”
The woman spoke with such a heavy foreign accent that made Nabik sick to her stomach. She was taken from the frozen hell she called home, and given a high position in a Japanese company by virtue of her marriage, and yet that gaijin refused to adapt and accept the traditions of the country that accepted her.
She frowned. “Good to see your concern, Katya. It is in no way or form connected to Tanaka, is it?” Nabiki had to deal with enough shady deals and actions from her husband’s family already.
“No, it is not. Time is slowly shifting, and moving us away from his deals. Do not worry, that Atsushi Elder is not happy with that development. At least, not his faction.” Katya chirped, moving closer to the glass. She stared down at Orochi and picked up a cigar from her pocket.
Nabiki arched an eyebrow. “A cigar? In a hospital’s corridor?”
Seeing the way Nabiki eyed her cigar, Katya smiled and spoke in English to taunt the Atsushi’s matriarch with a language she barely understood. “Everyone here is on our payroll. We own the building. I want to see who will stop me.”
The woman changed from heavily accented Japanese to perfect and fluent English, throwing Nabiki’s understanding of Katya’s words off balance. Having taunted the Atsushi Matriarch, Katya felt it was right to return to normal business. “What are the other elder’s opinions of the girl?”
With a laugh, Katya returned to Japanese. Nabiki deepened her frown. “She is the first Atsushi to ever awaken her quirk. They don’t want the government, and that doctor Saraki to touch their golden goose. Sadly, they are wrong if they think they will control my daughter, or if Orochi will ever hear them. She is not a “role” model like Yuusei.”
Katya scratched her neck. “Ah, so that’s why they want to keep her under wraps? To have privileged information? Make sense.” Katya spoke with a sliver of pity.
Nabiki felt nauseous.‘As if your people do not benefit from studying my daughter.’ At least Orochi was not bothered.