High School Reunion

When Mochi and Mythopoesis had talked about what the villain summit was going to look like- and how disappointed Mythopoesis was that he was not going- this was not quite the picture they’d crafted. They had imagined a cabal of dark figures plotting how to bring about the end of the current order. A meeting of great minds, creating the blueprint of what would come after. After all, doesn’t every villainous overlord dream of ruling the world?

The reality is far more dry. Like a meeting of businesspeople or politicians, but with far more aggression held beneath every word, every breath. Rivals, competitors, contemporaries. They discuss trade deals and settle disputes over territory. Offers of alliances or employment are handed out alongside shady business cards.

Some of them are more like what Mochi imagined. Midas himself sits above the atrium, looming in everyone’s periphery, or over their shoulder. There is no doubt in Mochi’s mind that plots fester behind those eyes, and that he’s laid out blueprints of his future empire. It’s just not something he aims to discuss with the others here, not openly. Instead, Tomi and Karma skulk through the crowds, whispering and listening. Tatarimokke and Greenfinger make their presence felt, looming and preening. When Midas quietly adds more names to the Night Parade, that’s when he unveils his plots- that’s who will see the blueprints.

Seated next to the towering Red-Eyes Oni, Mochi watches the room. Sandatsu, the Reaper, doing his rounds. Mochi takes a drink of the tea he poured himself, to steady his nerves. It wouldn’t do for any of them to see him trembling. “Your schoolmate is here,” Imamu’s voice, heavy with gravitas even in a murmur, speaks beside him.

“I know.”

“No,” his lord and mentor nudges him with an elbow, drawing Mochi’s eyes elsewhere. A girl in a red and white dress, with long pale hair. All around her are strange, older men, but she looks younger than Mochi. “The Singularity Society,” the Oni recites their name. “They push quirks to the brink, until they break or ‘evolve’ into something stronger.” Hearing the word ‘quirk’ from Imamu’s lips is strange. Mochi understands quickly, though. It doesn’t take much thought. Calling them blessings here would give too much away to anyone eavesdropping.

“Do we… like them?” Mochi asks uncertainly. The bowl in Imamu’s hand tilts from side to side, swirling the alcohol within.

“They are difficult.” It’s not a yes, but not a no. The problem is on their end. Somehow, the temple has offended them.

Looking closer, Mochi can see the resemblance. Though the girl’s name escapes him, he remembers a girl so much like her in the new freshman hero course. Pale hair, pale skin, so… tired looking. “Push them to the brink…” that must be what they’re doing to her. Yet, the way she’s guarded signifies something special. Like a princess- or a goddess of their own. Right now she and her group are speaking with a crowd off strange men, one of them dressed in a lab coat. Scientists. Quirk researchers, probably.

Something about the conversation leaves the girl’s entourage fuming. It makes them hyperfocused on their next target, moving with blinders on through the crowd. In that moment, the girl takes the chance to quietly slip away. Nowhere in particular- just to a snack table. “Go,” Imamu says, a single word command. Nervousness clenches around Mochi’s heart, but he obeys. His legs whirr and he walks towards the table. When he glances over his shoulder, Imamu has also left the table. Desolator is alone, at last, for a moment. Frowning and biting his lip, Mochi approaches the girl.

“You,” he says, with all the raw charisma of a sack of hammers. Tensing up as if she’d been caught doing something wrong, the girl spins around to face him, eyes wide. A deer caught in the headlights, behind her masquerade mask. There is only one eye upon her mask, and from the other side thorny leaves curl around the material, poising like angry serpents in Mochi’s direction. He stops a respectful distance away and glances after the girl’s entourage. Still too engrossed in their business. “Should we talk somewhere else?”

“I only wanted something to eat,” she says. Her voice carries the same tone as someone forced to speak at gunpoint. “I should return before I am missed.”

“I…” hesitation grasps Mochi’s words and reins them in. Would she lash out? “I know you.” As he feared, a glint appears in her one eye. The prey drive tenses her muscles, ready now to spring. Fight or flight. “I’m not here to blow your cover, just,” why did he come here? What did Imamu mean to send him to do? Sway her away from the Society? He looks back, but Imamu is still gone. Suddenly something grabs him and pulls him forward, forcing him to look into the girl’s one eye, glaring into his with manic fury. Her hand, and several viny growths from behind her mask, grip him by the neck.

“You should stay away,” she warns him.

“Are you okay?” the question slips weakly out of Mochi’s mouth, the weak expression on his face betraying the image his dark mask is supposed to create.

Suddenly she lets go her expression changing. A smile, as joyful as it is smug and- dangerous. “Senpai. It’s so good to see you.” The sudden shift has Mochi look at her in confusion, but her eyes are looking past him. Then a rolling shudder runs through every nerve in Mochi’s body, as if a ghost had passed through him. Everywhere but his dull, lifeless legs.

“My kohai and my senpai,” a voice Mochi had only heard a few times, and which now carries with it a ghastly chill, speaks behind him. With a hesitant, mechanical step back, Mochi turns to see a pair of white eyes looking down at him. “What a surprise,” Sandatsu says. His words are jovial, but his mouth bears no expression and his voice carries no signs of joy. The uncanny valley strikes deep, like a mannequin speaking in a human voice.

Mochi stares up at the Reaper, frozen in place. How did Sandatsu recognize him? How does Sandatsu even know who he is? He’s nobody. He’s always been nobody. The thought of having this attention fixated on him is paralyzing. No such unease plagues the flower-girl, who smiles up at him underneath her mask. “I understand now. We’re all…” she lowers her voice, fixing Mochi with that same intense, one-eyed glare, drawing out each word, “Students from the same school.”

“A little high school reunion,” Sandatsu concurs blandly. Leaning closer, the younger boy’s somehow abnormally large shape looms over Mochi. Sandatsu only stops when their eyes are inches apart, leaving only broad white discs burning holes into the back of Mochi’s skull. “Boo,” says the Reaper, with all the gravitas of a bored retail clerk. Mochi’s fingers twitch and his eyes flinch away, but his numb feet and creaking cybernetics refuse to run. Some deep-rooted instinct leaves him trapped, with the same wide-eyed deer stare that the girl gave him. “You have a smart body,” Sandatsu states, as if it were the most normal piece of conversation to make, standing again to his full height and moving his face away from Mochi’s. “If you’d run, you might have set off a chase instinct.” The absence of expression cracks, then, into a smile. The smile of someone who was once taught how to smile, and remembers the lessons, but never quite got it right.

Heavy footfalls announce an end to their meeting. The entourage that had accompanied the girl are striding to them now, faces stern. “You should not wander away from us, little Petal,” one in a suit says, in a too-sweet voice, as if chiding a small child.

“You honor us again with your presence, Reaper,” the one in the cloak bows his head. Sandatsu looks away, like a disinterested cat. “Are you here to exchange knowledge with others who study quirk science, as we are?”

“Sure,” as vague and non-committal an answer as could be mustered. Sandatsu fixes Mochi with one last stare, then turns away. He looks at where Imamu and Desolator are speaking, and begins walking in that direction. Mochi feels another chill of worry come over him, but his legs still refuse to move.

One of the bodyguards places a hand on his shoulder. “Move along,” the man says, not a request. Finally stirring his cybernetics back into functioning, Mochi steps away from the snack table and tries to walk against an invisible wall of psychological force to rejoin Imamu. Every step towards the Reaper’s back is like walking against a hurricane.